Who seem like
Israelites
to be,
Walking on foot through a green sea.
Walking on foot through a green sea.
Marvell - Poems
In the present edition, all the
* Poole's Index to Periodical Literature.
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NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. lili
more apparent errors have been corrected, and
some advance made toward a pure text. The
poems were never published, or at any rate, col-
lected, by the author himself.
The intellect of Marvell was a remarkably
compact and sincere one, and his habitual charac-
ter was that of prudence and upnghtness. But
whenever he surrendered himself to his tempera-
ment, his mind sought relief in wit, so sportful
and airy, yet at the same time so recondite, that
it is hard to find anywhere an instance in which
the Court, the Tavern, and the Scholar*s Study
are blended with such Ck)rinthian justness of
measure. Nowhere is there so happy an exam-
ple of the truth that wit and fancy are diflferent
operations of the same principle. The wit is
so spontaneous and so interfused with feeling,
that we can scarce distinguish it from fancy ;
and the fancy brings together analogies so remote
that they give us the pleasurable shock of wit.
Now and then, in his poems, he touches a deeper
vein, but shuns instinctively the labour of laying
it open, and escapes gleefully into the more con-
genial sunshine. His mind presents the rare
combination of wit with the moral sense, by which
the one is rescued from scepticism and the other
from prosing. His poems form the synthesis of
Donne and Butler.
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POEMS
SEVERAL OCCASIONS.
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POEMS.
UPON THE HILL AND GROVE AT BILL-
BOROW.
TO THE LORD FAIRFAX.
See how the arched earth does here
Rise in a perfect hemisphere !
The stifiest compass could not strike
A line more circular and like,
Nor softest pencil draw a brow
So equal as this hill does bow ;
It seems as for a model laid,
And that the world by it was made.
Here learn, ye mountains more unjust.
Which to abrupter greatness thrust.
Which do, with your hook-shoulder'd height^
The earth deform, and heaven fright,
For whose excrescence, ill designed.
Nature must a new centre find.
Learn here those humble steps to tread.
Which to securer glory lead.
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TnE POEMS.
See what a soft access, and wide,
Lies open to its grassy side,
Nor with the rugged path deters
The feet of breathless travellers ;
See then how courteous it ascends,
And all the way it rises, bends,
Nor for itself the height does gain.
But only strives to raise the plain.
Yet thus it all the field commands,
And in unenvyVl greatness stands,
Discerning farther than the cliff
Of heaven-daring Teneriff.
How glad i\ui w^eary seamen haste.
When they salute it from the mast I
By night, the northern star their way
Directs, and this no less by day.
Upon its crest, this mountain grave,
A plume of aged trees does wave.
No hostile hand does e*er invade.
With impious steel, the sacred shade ;
For something always did appear
Of the Great Master's terror there,
And men could hear his armour still,
Rattling through all the grove and hill.
Fear of the Master, and respect
Of the great nymph, did it protect.
Vera, the nymph, that him inspired.
To whom he often here retir'd.
And on these oaks engrav'd her name, —
Such wounds alone these woods became,—
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OF MARYELL. 9
But ere he well the barks could part,
Twas writ already in their heart ;
For they, 'tis credible, have sense^
As we, of love and reverence^
And underneath the coarser rind,
The genius of the house do bind.
Hence they successes seem to know.
And in their Lord's advancement grow,
But in no memory were seen.
As under this, so straight and green ;
Yet now no farther strive to shoot,
Contented, if they fix their root,
Nor to the wind's uncertain gust,
Their prudent heads too far intrust.
Only sometimes a flutt'ring breeze
Discourses with the breathing trees,
Which in their modest whispers name
Those acts which swell'd the cheeks of Fame.
" Much other groves," say they, " than these,
** And other hills, him once did please.
" Through groves of pikes he thunder'd then,
" And mountains rais'd of dying men.
" For all the civic garlands due
^ To him, our branches are but few ;
" Nor are our trunks enough to bear
" The trophies of one fertile year. "
*Ti8 true, ye trees, nor ever spoke
More certain oracles in oak ;
But peace, if you his favour prize !
That courage its own praises flies :
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THE POEMS
Therefore to your obscurer feats,
From his own brightness lie retreats ;
Nor he the hills, without the groves.
Nor height, but with retirement, loves.
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OP MARVELL.
APPLETON HOUSE. *
TO THE LORD FAIRFAX.
Within this sober frame expect
"Work of no foreign architect,
That unto caves the quarries drew.
And forests did to pastures hew ;
Who, of his great design in pain, >
Did for a model vault his brain ;
Whose columns should so high be rais'd,
To arch the brows which on them gaz'd.
Why should, of all things, man, unruFd,
Such unproportion*d dwellings build ? lo
The beasts are by their dens expressed,
And birds contrive an equal nest ;
The low-roof *d tortoises do dwell
In cases fit of tortoise-shell ;
No creature loves an empty space ; is
Their bodies measure out their place.
* A house of the Lord Fairfax, in Yorkshire, now called
Nun-^Appleton.
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8 THE POEMS
But he, superfluously spread,
Demands more room alive than dead ;
And in his hollow palace goes,
Where winds, as he, themselves may lose.
What need of all this marble crust.
To impark the wanton mole of dust.
That thinks by breadth the world to unite,
Though the first builders failed in height ?
But all things are composed here,
Like nature, orderly, and near ;
In which we the dimensions find
Of that more sober age and mind,
When larger-sized men did stoop
To enter at a narrow loop,
As practising, in doors so strait,
To strain themselves through heaven's gate.
And surely, when the after-age
Shall hither come in pilgrimage,
These sacred places to adore.
By Verb and Fairfax trod before,
Men will dispute how their extent
Within such dwarfish confines went.
And some will smile at this, as well
As Romulus's bee-like cell.
Humility alone designs
Those short but admirable lines.
By which, ungirt and unconstrained,
Things greater are in less contained.
Let others vainly strive to immure
The circle in the quadmture !
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OF MARYELL.
These holy mathematics can
In every figure equal man.
Yet thus tlie laden house does sweat,
And scarce endures the master great :
But, where he comes, the swelling hall
Stirs, and the square grows spherical ;
More by his magnitude distressed,
Than he is by its straitness pressed :
And too officiously it slights.
That in itself, which him delights^.
So honour better lowness bears.
Than that unwonted gi^eatness wears ;
Height with a certain grace does bend.
But low things clownishly ascend.
And yet what need there here excuse.
Where every thing does answer use ?
"Where neatness nothing can condemn,.
Nor pride invent what to contemn ?
A stately frontispiece of poor,.
Adorns without the open door ;
Daily new furniture of friends.
No less the rooms within commends*
The house was built upon the place.
Only as for a mark of grace.
And for an inn to entertain
Its Lord awhile, but not remain.
Him Bishop's-hill or Denton may,
Or Bilborow, better hold than they :
But nature here hath been so free,
As if she said, ' Leave this to me.
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10 THE POEMS .
Art would more neatly have defae'd
What she had laid so sweetly waste
In fragrant gardens, shady woods,
Deep meadows, and transparent floods.
While, with slow eyes, we these survey.
And on each pleasant footstep stay,
We opportunely may relate
The progress of this house's fate.
A nunnery first gave it birth,
(For virgin buildings oft brought forth,)
And all that neighbour-ruin shows
The quarries whence this dwelling rose.
Near to this gloomy cloister's gates.
There dwelt the blooming virgin Thwates,
Fair beyond measure, and an heir,
Which might deformity make fair ;
And oft she spent the summer's suns
Discoursing with the subtle Nuns,
Whence, in these words, one to her weav'd,
As 'twere by chance, thoughts long conceiv'd :
' Within this holy leisure, we
* Live innocently, as you see.
' These walls restrain the world without,
' But hedge our liberty about ;
* These bars inclose that wider den
' Of those wild creatures, called men ;
' The cloister outward shuts its gates,
* And, from us, locks on them the grates.
' Here we, in shining armour white,
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OF MARVELL. 11
* Like virgin amazons do fight,
* And our chaste lamps we hourly trim,
* Lest the great bridegroom find them dim.
* Our orient breaths perfumed are
* With incense of incessant prayV ; iw
* And holy-water of our tears
' Most strangely our complexion clears ;
* Not tears of grief, — but such as those
* With which calm pleasure overflows,
* Or pity, when we look on you n»
* That live without this happy vow.
* How should we grieve must we be seen,
^ (Each one a spouse, and each a queen,)
* Who can in heaven hence behold
* Our brighter robes and crowns of gold! i»
* When we have prayed all our beads,
* Some one the holy legend reads,
* While all the rest with needles paint
* The face and graces of the Saint,
* But what the linen can't receive, t»
* They in their lives do interweave.
* This work the Saints best represents
* That serves for altar's ornaments.
* But much it to our work would add,
* If here your hand, your face, we had : i3o
* By it we would our Lady touch ;
* Yet thus she you resembles much.
* Some of your features, as we sewed,
* Through every shrine should be bestow'd,
* And in one beauty we would take »»
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12 THE P0E3IS
^ Enough a thousand Saints to make.
* And (for I dare not quench the fire
* That me does for your good inspire)
* 'Twere sacrilege a man to admit
* To holy things, for heaven fit.
* I see the angels, in a crown,
* On you the lilies showering down ;
* And TOund about you, glory breaks,
* That something more than human speaks.
* All beauty, when at such a height,
* Is so already consecrate.
* Fairfax I know, and long ere this
* Have mark'd the youth, and what he is ;
* But can he such a rival seem,
* For whom you heaven should disesteem ?
* Ah, no! and 'twould more honour prove
* He your devoto were than Love.
' Here live beloved and obeyed^
' Each one your sister, each your maid,
* And, if our rule seem strictly penned,
* The rule itself to you shall bend.
* Our Abbess, too, now far in age,
* Doth your succession near presage.
* How soft the yoke on us would lie,
* Might such fair hands as yours it tie !
* Your voice, the sweetest of the choir,
* Shall draw heaven nearer, raise us higher,
* And your example, if our head,
* Will soon us to perfection lead.
* Those virtues to us all so dear,
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OF MARVBLL. 13
* Will straight grow sanctity when here ;
^ And that, once sprung, increase so fast,
* Till miracles it work at last.
* Nor is our order yet so nice,
* Delight to banish as a vice : iw
< Here Pleasure Piety doth meet,
* One perfecting the other sweet ;
* So through the mortal fruit we boil
*The sugar's uncoiTupting oil,
'^ And that which perished while we pull, m
* Is thus preserved clear and full.
^ For such indeed are all our arts,
^ Still handling Nature's finest parts :
* Flowers dress the altars ; for the clothes
* The sea-bom amber we compose ; im
^ Balms for the griev'd w« draw ; and pastes
^ We mould as baits for curioils tastes.
* What need is here of man, unless
* These as sweet sins we should confess ?
*' Each night among us to your side i»
* Appoint a fresh and virgin bride,
* Whom, if our Lord at midnight find,
* Yet neither should be left behind !
* Where you may lie as chaste in bed,
* As pearls together billeted, •»
* All night embracing, arm in arm,
* Like crystal pure, with cotton warm.
* But what is this to all the store
* Of joys you see, and may make more ?
* Try but awhile, if you be wise : i»
* The trial neither costs nor ties. "
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14 THE POEMS
Now, Fairfax, seek her promised faith ;
Keligion that dispensed hath
Which she henceforward does begin ;
The Nun's smooth tongue has sucked her in.
Oft, though he knew it was in vain,
Yet would he valiantly complain :
* Is this that sanctity so great,
* An art by which you finelier cheat ?
* Hypocrite witches, hence avaunt,
* Who, though in prison, yet enchant !
* Death only can such thieves make fast,
* As rob, though in the dungeon cast.
* Were there but, when this house was made,
* One stone that a just hand had laid,
* It must have fallen upon her head
* Who first thee from thy faith misled.
* And yet, how well soever meant,
' With them 'twould soon grow fraudulent ;
' For like themselves they alter all,
* And vice infects the very wall ;
* But sure those buildings last not long,
* Founded by folly, kept by wrong.
^ I know what fruit their gardens yield,
* When they it think by night concealed.
* Fly from their vices : 'tis thy state,
* Not thee, that they would consecrate.
* Fly fix)m their ruin : how I fear,
* Though guiltless, lest thou perish there I'
What should he do ? He would respect
Keligion, but not right neglect ;
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OF MARVELL. 15
For first, religion taught him right,
And dazzled not, but cleared his sight.
Sometimes, resolved, his sword he draws,
But reverenceth then the laws ; «»
For justice still that courage led.
First from a judge, then soldier bred.
Small honour would be in the storm ;
The Court him gmnts the lawful form.
Which licensed either peace or force, «»
To hinder the unjust divorce.
Yet still the Nuns his right debarr'd.
Standing upon their holy guard.
Ill-counselled women, do you know
Whom you resist, or what to do ? i4o
Is not this he, whose offspring fierce
Shall fight through all the universe ;
And with successive valour try
France, Poland, either Germany,
Till one, as long since prophesied, s«5
His horse through conquered Britain ride ?
Yet, against fate, his spouse they kept.
And the great race would intercept.
Some to the breach, against their foes,
Their wooden Saints in vain oppose ; »o.
Another bolder, stands at push.
With, their old holy-water brush.
While the disjointed Abbess threads
The jingling chain-shot of her beads ;
But their loud'st cannon were their lungs, 255=
And sharpest weapons were their tongues.
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16 THE POEMS
But, waving these aside like flies,
Young Faikfax through the wall does rise.
Then the unfrequented vault appeared,
And superstitions, vainly feared ; «o
The relicks false were set to view ;
Only the jewels there were true.
And truly bright and holy Thwates,
That weeping at the altar waits.
But the glad youth away her bears, s»
And to the Nuns bequeathes her tears.
Who guiltily their prize bemoan.
Like gypsies who a child have stoFa.
Thenceforth (as, when the enchantment ends.
The castle vanishes or rends) sw
The wasting cloister, with the rest,
Was, in one instant, dispossessed.
At the demolishing, this seat.
To Fairfax fell, as by escheat ;
And what both Nuns and Founders willed, sts
'Tis likely better thus fulfilled.
For if the virgin proved not theirs,
The cloister yet remained hers ;
Though many a Nun there made her voWy
'Twas no religious house till now. aso
From that blest bed the hero came
Whom France and Poland yet does fame.
Who, when retired here to peace.
His warlike studies could not cease.
But laid these gardens out in sport sss
In the just figure of a fort,
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OP MARVELL. 17
And with five bastions it did fence,
As aiming one for every sense.
When in the cast the morning ray
Hangs out the colours of the day, mo
The bee through these known alleys hums,
Beating the dian with its drums.
Then flowers their drowsy eyelids raise.
Their silken ensigns each displays,
And dries its pan yet dank with dew, aai*
And fills its flask with odours new.
These, as their Governor goes by.
In fragrant volleys they let fly,
And to salute their Governess
Again as great a charge they press :. aw
None for the virgin nymph ; for she
Seems with the flowers, a flower to \>e.
And think so still ! though not compare
With breath so sweet, or cheek so fair!
Well shot, ye firemen ! Oh how sweet «»
And round your equal fires do meet.
Whose shrill report no ear can tell,
But echoes to the eye and smell !
See how the flowers, as at parade.
Under their colours stand displayed ; sit
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink, and rose.
But when the vigilant patrol
Of stars walk round about the pole.
Their leaves, which to the stalks are curled, «'»•
Seem to their staves the ensigns furled.
2
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18 THE POLMS
Then in some flower's beloved hut,
Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
And sleeps so too, but, if once stu-red.
She runs you through, nor asks the word.
Oh thou, that dear and happy isle.
The garden of the world erewhile.
Thou Paradise of the four seas.
Which heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With watery, if not flaming sword, —
What luckless apple did we taste,
To make us mortal, and thee waste ?
Unhappy ! shall we never more
That sweet militia restore,
When gardens only had their towers,
And all the garrisons were flowers.
When roses only arms might bear.
And men did rosy garlands wear ?
Tulips, in several colours barred,
Were then the Switzers of our guard ;
The gardener had the soldier's place.
And his more gentle forts did trace ;
The nui-sery of all things green
Was then the only magazine ;
The winter quarters were the stoves,
Where he the tender plants removes.
But war all this doth overgrow :
We ordnance plant, and powder sow.
And yet there walks one on the sod.
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OF MARVELL. 15
Who, had it pleased him and God,
Might once have made our gardens spring,
Fresh as his own, and flourishing.
But he preferred to the Cinque Ports,
These ^vq imaginary forts, sm
And, in those half-dry trenches, spanned
Power which the ocean might command.
For he did, with his utmost skill.
Ambition weed, but conscience till, —
Conscience, that heaven-nursed plant, 333
Which most our earthly gardens want.
A prickling leaf it bears, and such
As that which shrinks at every touch,
But flowers eternal, and divine,
Which in the crowns of Saints do shine. 3»
The sight does from these bastions ply,
The invisible artillery.
And at proud Cawood Castle seems
To point the battery of its beams,
As if it quarrelled in the seat, xa
The ambition of his prelate great,
But o'er the meads below it plays,
Or innocently seems to gaze.
And now to the abyss I pass
Of that unfathomable grass, 370
Where men like grasshoppers appear,
But grasshoppers are giants there :
They, in their squeaking laugh, contemn
Us as we walk more low than them,
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20 THE POEMS
And from the precipices tall
Of the green spires to us do call.
To see men through this meadow dive,
We wonder how they rise alive ;
As under water, none does know
Whether he fall through it or go,
But, as the mariners who sound,
And show upon their lead the ground,
They bring up flowers so to be seen,
And prove they've at the bottom been.
No scene, that turns with engines strange,
Does oftener than these meadows change ;
For when the sun the gi-ass hath vexed.
The tawny mowers enter next.
Who seem like Israelites to be,
Walking on foot through a green sea.
To them the grassy deeps divide,
And crowd a lane to either side ;
With whistling scythe and elbow strong
These massacre the grass along,
While one, unknowing, carves the rail.
Whose yet unfeathered quills her fail ;
The edge all bloody from its breast
He draws, and does In's stroke detest.
Fearing the flesh, untimely mowed.
To him a fate as black forebode.
But bloody Thestylis, that waits
To bring the mowing camp their cates,
Greedy as kite, has trussed it up
And forthwith means on it to sup.
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OF MARVELL. 21
When on another quick she lights^ ^
And cries, " he calFd us Israelites ;
But now, to make his saying true^
Rails rain for quails, for manna dew. "
Unhappy biixls ! what docs it boot
To build below the grass's root ; <i»
When lowness is unsafe as height^
And chance overtakes Avhat 'scapeth spite ?
And now your orphan parent's call
Sounds your untimely funeral ;
Death-trumpets creak in such a note, 415
And 'tis the sourdine in their throat.
Or sooner hatch, or higher build ;
The mower now commands the field ;
In whose new traverse seemeth wrought
A camp of battle newly fought, <»
Where, as the meads with hay, the plain
Lies quilted o'er with bodies slain :
The women that with forks it fling.
Do represent the pillaging.
And now the careless victors play, *»
Dancing the triumphs of the hay,
Where every mower's wholesome heat
Smells like an Alexander's sweat,
Their females fragrant as the mead
Which they in fairy ciixiles tread : *»
When at their dance's end they kiss,
Their new-made hay not sweeter is ;
When, after this, 'tis piled in cocks.
Like a calm sea it shews the rocks ;
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22 THE POEMS.
We wondering in the river near «»
How l>oat8 among them safely steer ;
Or, like the desert Memphis' sand,
Short pyramids of hay do stand ;
And such the Roman camps do rise
In hills for soldiers' obsequies. *^
This scene, again withdrawing, brings
A new and empty face of things ;
A levelled space, as smooth and plain,
As cloths for Lilly * stretched to stain.
The world when first created sure «»
Was such a table rase and pure ;
Or rather such is the Toril,
Ere the bulls enter at Madril ;
For to this naked equal flat,
Which levellers take pattern at, 46o
The villagers in common chase
Their cattle, which it closer rase ;
And what below the scythe increased
Is pinched yet nearer by the beast.
Such, in the painted world, appeared 455
Davenant, with the universal herd.
They seem within the polished grass
A landscape drawn in looking-glass ;
And shrunk in the huge pasture, show
As spots, so shaped, on faces do ; 4(. o
Such fleas, ere they approach the eye,
In multiplying glasses lie.
• An eminent cloth dyer.
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OP MARVELL. 23
They feed so wide, so slowly move,
As constellations do above.
Then, to conclude these pleasant acts, *S6
Denton sets ope its cataracts ;
And makes the meadow truly be
(What it but seemed before) a sea ;
For, jealous of its Lord's long stay,
It tries to invite him thus away. *t
The river in itself is drowned.
And isles the astonished cattle round.
Let others tell the paradox.
How eels now bellow in the ox ;
How horses at their tails do kick, 47s
Turned, as they hang, to leeches quick ;.
How boats can over bridges sail,
And fishes to the stables scale ;
How salmons trespassing are found.
And pikes are taken in the pound ; ««
But I, retiring from the flood.
Take sanctuary in the wood ;
And, while it lastf! , myself embark
In this yet green, yet growing ark.
Where the first carpenter might best 48s
Fit timber for his keel have pressed,
And where all creatures might have shares.
Although in armies, not in pairs.
The double wood, of ancient stocks.
Linked in so thick an union locks, <»
It like two pedigrees appears,
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tJ4 THE POEMS.
On one hand Fairfax, t'other Veres :
Of whom though many fell in war,
Yet more to heaven shooting are :
And, as tliey Nature's cradle decked,
Will, in green age, her hearse expect
When first the eye this forest sees,
It seems indeed as wood, not trees ;
As if their neighbourhood so old
To one great trunk them all did mould.
There the huge bulk takes place, as meant
To thrust up a fifth element.
And stretches still so closely wedged,
As if the night within were hedged.
Dark all without it knits ; within
It opens passable and thin.
And in as loose an order gix)W8,
As the Corinthian porticos.
The arching boughs unite between
The columns of the temple green,
And underneath the winged quires
p]cho about their tuned fires.
TJie nightingale does here make choice
To sing the trials of her voice ;
Low shrubs she sits in, and adorns
With music high the squatted thorns ;
But highest oaks stoop down to hear,
And listening elders prick the ear ;
The thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws
Within the skin its shrunken claws.
But I have for my music found
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OF MARVELL. 25
A sadder, yet more pleasing sound ;
The stock-doves, whose fair necks are graced
With nuptial rings, their ensigns chaste,
Yet always, for some cause unknown, ««
Sad pair, unto the elms they moan.
why should such a couple mourn,
That in so equal flames do bui*n !
Then as I careless on the bed
Of gelid strawberries do tread, 5»
And through the hazels thick espy
The hatching throstle's shining eye,
The heron, from the ash's top,
The eldest of its young lets drop.
As if it stork-like did pretend mj
That tribute to its lord to send.
But most the heweFs wonders are,
Who here has the holtselster's care ;
He walks still upright from the root,
Measuring the timber with his foot, 540
And all the way, to keep it clean,
Doth from the bark the wood-moths glean ;
He, with his beak, examines well
Which fit to stand, and which to fell ;
The good he numbers up, and hacks 545
As if he marked them with an axe ;
But where he, tinkling with his beak.
Does find the hollow oak to speak,
That for his building he designs,
And through the tainted side he mines. sso
Who could have thought the tallest oak
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26 THE POEMS
Should fall by s;uch a feeble stroke ?
Nor would it, had the tree not fed
A traitor worm, within it bred,
(As first our flesh, corrupt within,
Tempts impotent and bashful sin,)
And yet that worm triumphs not long,
But serves to feed the hewel's young.
While the oak seems to fall content,
Viewing the treason's punishments
Thus, I, easy philosopher,
Among the birds and trees confer,
And little now to make me wants
Or of the fowls, or of the plants :
Give me but wings as they, and I
Straight floating on the air shall fly ;
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted tree.
Already 1 begin to call
In their most learned original,
And, where I language want, my signs
The bird upon the bough divines.
And more attentive there doth sit
Than if she were with lime-twigs knit. .
No leaf does tremble in the wind.
Which I returning cannot find ;
Out of these scattered Sibyl's leaves,
Strange prophecies my fancy weaves,
And in one history consumes.
Like Mexique paintings, all the plumes ;
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OF MARVELL. 27
What Rome, Greece, Palestine, e'er said,
I in this light Mosaic read.
Thrice happy he, who, not mistook.
Hath read in nature's mystic book I
And see how chance's better wit sss
Could with a mask my studies hit !
The oak-leaves me embroider all.
Between which caterpillars crawl ;
And ivy, with familiar trails.
Me licks and clasps, and curls and hales. &»
Under this Attic cope I move.
Like some great prelate of the grove ;
Then, languishing with ease, I toss
On pallets swoln of velvet moss.
While the wind, cooling through the boughs, s»
Flatters with air my panting brows.
Thanks for my rest, ye mossy banks,
And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks.
Who, as my hair, my thoughts too shed,
And winnow from the chaff my head ! ew
How safe, methinks, and strong behind
These trees, have I encamped my mind,
Where beauty, aiming at the heart,
Bends in some tree its useless dart.
And where the world no certain shot eos
Can make, or me it toucheth not,
But 1 on it securely play,
And gall its horsemen all the day.
Bind me, }e woodbines, in )*our twines,
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28 THE POEMS
Curl me about, ye gadding vines,
And oh so close your circles lace.
That I may never leave this place !
But, lest your fettei-s prove too weak,
Ere I your silken bondage break,
Do you, O brambles, chain me too,
And, courteous briars, nail me through !
Here in the morning tie my chain.
Where the two woods have made a lane,
While, like a guard on either side.
The trees before their Lord divide ;
This, like a long and equal thread,
BetAvixt two labyrinths does lead.
But, where the floods did lately drown,
There at the evening stake me down ;
For now the waves are fallen and dried,
And now the meadows fresher dyed,
Whose grass, with moister colour dashed.
Seems as green silks but newly washed.
No serpent new, nor crocodile,
Remains behind our little Nile,
Unless itself you will mistake,
Among these meads the only snake.
See in what wanton harmless folds.
It everywhere the meadow holds.
And its yet muddy back doth lick,
'Till as a crystal mirror slick.
Where all things gaze themselves, and doubt
If they be in it, or without.
And for his shade which therein shines.
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OF MARVELL. 2D
Narcissus-like, the sun too pines. •«>
Oh what a pleasure 'tis to hedge
My temples here with heavy sedge,
Abandoning my lazy side,
Stretched as a bank unto the tide,
Or to suspend my sliding foot «5
On the osier's undermined root,
And in its branches tough to hang.
While at my lines the fishes twang I
But now away my hooks, my quills.
And angles, idle utensils ! «3»
The young Maria walks to-night :
Hide, trifling youth, thy pleasures slight ;
'Twere shame that such judicious eyes
Should with such toys a man surprise ;
She that already is the law «»
Of all her sex, her age's awe.
See how loose nature, in respect
To her, itself doth recollect,
And every thing so washed and fine,
Starts forth with it to its bonne mine. •»
The sun himself of her aware.
Seems to descend with greater care.
And, lest she see him go to bed.
In blushing clouds conceals his head.
So when the shadows laid asleep, ms
From underneath these banks do creep,
And on the river, as it flows.
With ebon shuts begin to close.
The modest halcyon comes in sight,
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6{) THE POEMS
Fljring betwixt the day and night.
And such a horror calm and dumb,
Admiring nature does benumb ;
The viscous air, where'er she flj,
Follows and sucks her azure dye ;
The jellying stream compacts below,
If it might fix her shadow so ;
The stupid fishes hang, as plain
As flies in crystal overtaken.
And men the silent scene assist,
Charmed with the sapphire-winged mist;—
Maria, such, and so doth hush
The world, and through the evening rusk.
No new-born comet such a train
Draws through the sky, nor star new slain.
For straight those giddy rockets fail,
Which from the putrid earth exhale,
But by her flames, in heaven tried.
Nature is wholly vitrified.
'Tis she, that to these gardens gave
That wondrous beauty which they have ;
She straightness on the woods bestows ;
To her the meadow sweetness owes ;
Nothing could make the river be
So crystal pui*e, but only she.
She yet more pure, sweet, straight, and fair
Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.
Therefore what fii-st she on them spent.
They gratefully again present;
The meadow carpets where to tread,
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OP MARVELL. 31
The garden flowers to crown her head, "*>
And for a glass the limpid brook,
Where she may all her beauties look,
But, since she would not have them seen,
The wood about her draws a screen.
For she to higher beauties raised, 705
Disdains to be for lesser praised.
She counts her beauty to converse
In all the languages as hers ;
Nor yet in those herself employs,
But for the wisdom not the noise ; tio
Nor yet that wisdom would affect.
But as 'tis heaven's dialect.
Blest nymph ! that couldst so soon prevent
Those trains by youth against thee meant ;
Tears (wateiy shot that pierce the mind,) ^w
And sighs (love's cannon chai'ged with wind ;)
True praise (that breaks through all defence,)
And feigned complying innocence ;
But knowing where this ambush lay,
She 'scaped the safe, but roughest way. f^
This 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed.
Under the discipline severe
Of Fairfax, and the starry Verb,
Where not one object can come nigh tsb
But pure, and spotless as the eye.
And goodness doth itself entail
On females, if there want a male.
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32 THE POEMS
Go now, fond sex, that on your face
Do all your useless study place.
Nor once at vice your brows dare knit.
Lest the smooth forehead wrinkled sit :
Yet your own face shall at you grin.
Thorough the black bag of your skin.
When knowledge only could have filled,
And virtue all those furrows tilled.
Hence she with graces more divine
Supplies beyond her sex the line,
And, like a sprig of misletoe.
On the Fairfacian oak does grow.
Whence, for some universal good,
The priest shall cut the sacred bud.
While her glad parents most rejoice
And make their destiny their choice.
Meantime, ye fields, springs, bushes, flowers.
Where yet she leads her studious houi-s,
(Till Fate her worthily translates
And find a Fairfax for our Thwates,)
Employ the means you have by her.
And in your kind yourselves prefer.
That, as all virgins she precedes,
So you all woods, streams, gardens, meads.
For you, Thessalian Tempe's seat
Shall now be scorned as obsolete ;
Aranjuez, as less, disdained ;
The Bel-Retiro, as constrained ;
But name not the Idalian grove.
For 'twas the seat of wanton love ;
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OF MARVELL. 33
Nor e'en the dead's Eljsian fields,
Yet not to them your beauty yields.
Tis not, as once appeared the world,
A heap confused together hurled,
All negligently overgrown,
Gulfs, deserts, precipices, stone ;
Your lesser world contains the same.
But in more decent order tame.
You, Heaven's centre, Nature's lap ;
And Paradise's only map.
And now the salmon-fishers moist,
Their leathern boats begin to hoist ;
And, like Antipodes in shoes.
Have shod their heads in their canoes.
How tortoise-like, but not so slow.
These rational amphibii go !
Let's in ; for the dark hemisphere
Does now like one of them appear.
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34 THK POEMS
THE CORONET.
When with the thorns with which I long, too
long,
With many a piercing wound,
My Saviour's head have crowned,
I seek with garlands to redress that wrong, —
Through every garden, every mead,
I gather flowers (my fruits are only flowers)
Dismantling all the fragrant towers
That once adorned my shepherdess's head :
And now, when I have summed up all my store.
Thinking (so I myself deceive)
So rich a chaplet thence- to weave
As never yet the King of Glory wore,
Alas ! I And the Serpent old,
Twining in his speckled breast.
About the flowers disguised does fold,
With wreaths of fame and interest.
Ah foolish man, that would'st debase with them,
And mortal glory. Heaven's diadem !
But thou who only could'st the Serpcmt tame.
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OF MARVELL. 35
Either his slippery knots at once untie,
And disentangle all his winding snare,
Or shatter too with him my curious frame,
And let these wither so that he may die,
Though set with skill, and chosen out with care,
That they, while thou on both their spoils dost
tread,
May crown thy feet, that could not crown thy
bead.
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36 THE POEMS
EYES AND TEARS.
How wisely Nature did decree,
With the same eyes to weep and see,
That, having viewed the object vain,
They might be ready to complain !
And, since the self-deluding sight.
In a false angle takes each height.
These tears, which better measure all.
Like watery lines and plummets fall.
Two tears, which sorrow long did weigh.
Within the scales of either eye,
And then paid out in equal poise.
Are the true price of all my joys.
What in the world most fair appears.
Yea, even laughter, turns to tears.
And all the jewels which we prize.
Melt in these pendants of the eyes.
I have through every garden been,
Amongst the red, the white, the green,
And yet from all those flowers I saiv,
No honey, but these tears could draw.
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OF MAKVELL. 37
So the all-seeing sun each day,
Distils the world with chymic ray,
But finds the essence only showers,
Which straight in pity back he pours.
Yet happy they whom grief doth bless,
That weep the more, and see the less,
And, to preserve their sight more true.
Bathe still their eyes in their own dew.
So Magdalen in tears more wise
Dissolved those captivating eyes.
Whose liquid chains could flowing meet
To fetter her Redeemer's feet.
Not full sails hasting loaden home.
Nor the chaste lady's pregnant womb,
Nor Cynthia teeming shows so fair
As two eyes swollen with weeping are.
The sparkling glance that shoots desire.
Drenched in these waves, does lose its fire,
Yea oft the Thunderer pity takes.
And here the hissing lightning slakes.
The incense was to heaven dear,
Not as a perfume, but a tear.
And stars shew lovely in the night,
But as they seem the tears of light.
Ope then, mine eyes, your double sluice,
And practise so your noblest use ;
For others too can see, or sleep.
But only human eyes can weep.
Now, like two clouds dissolving, drop,
And at each tear, in distance stop ;
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38 THE POEMS
Now, like two fountains, trickle down ;
Now like two floods o*errun and drown :
Thus let your streams overflow your spring. ^,
Till eyes and tears be the same things,
And each the other's difference bears,
These weeping eyes, those seeing tears.
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OP MARVELL. 39
BERMUDAS.
Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In the ocean's bosom un espied,
From a small boat, that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.
" What should we do but sing his praise,
That led us through the watery maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown.
And yet far kinder than our own ?
Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks.
That lift the deep upon their backs.
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage.
He gave us this eternal spring,
Which here enamels every thing.
And sends the fowls to us in care.
On daily visits through the air ;
He hangs in shades the orange bright.
Like golden lamps in a green night.
And doc^ in the pomegranates close.
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows ;
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iO THE POEXS
He makes tbe figs oor moaths to meet.
And throws tbe melons at oor feet.
But apples plants cff such a price.
No tree could ever bear tbem twice ;
With cedars cbosen bj his hand.
* Poole's Index to Periodical Literature.
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NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. lili
more apparent errors have been corrected, and
some advance made toward a pure text. The
poems were never published, or at any rate, col-
lected, by the author himself.
The intellect of Marvell was a remarkably
compact and sincere one, and his habitual charac-
ter was that of prudence and upnghtness. But
whenever he surrendered himself to his tempera-
ment, his mind sought relief in wit, so sportful
and airy, yet at the same time so recondite, that
it is hard to find anywhere an instance in which
the Court, the Tavern, and the Scholar*s Study
are blended with such Ck)rinthian justness of
measure. Nowhere is there so happy an exam-
ple of the truth that wit and fancy are diflferent
operations of the same principle. The wit is
so spontaneous and so interfused with feeling,
that we can scarce distinguish it from fancy ;
and the fancy brings together analogies so remote
that they give us the pleasurable shock of wit.
Now and then, in his poems, he touches a deeper
vein, but shuns instinctively the labour of laying
it open, and escapes gleefully into the more con-
genial sunshine. His mind presents the rare
combination of wit with the moral sense, by which
the one is rescued from scepticism and the other
from prosing. His poems form the synthesis of
Donne and Butler.
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POEMS
SEVERAL OCCASIONS.
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POEMS.
UPON THE HILL AND GROVE AT BILL-
BOROW.
TO THE LORD FAIRFAX.
See how the arched earth does here
Rise in a perfect hemisphere !
The stifiest compass could not strike
A line more circular and like,
Nor softest pencil draw a brow
So equal as this hill does bow ;
It seems as for a model laid,
And that the world by it was made.
Here learn, ye mountains more unjust.
Which to abrupter greatness thrust.
Which do, with your hook-shoulder'd height^
The earth deform, and heaven fright,
For whose excrescence, ill designed.
Nature must a new centre find.
Learn here those humble steps to tread.
Which to securer glory lead.
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TnE POEMS.
See what a soft access, and wide,
Lies open to its grassy side,
Nor with the rugged path deters
The feet of breathless travellers ;
See then how courteous it ascends,
And all the way it rises, bends,
Nor for itself the height does gain.
But only strives to raise the plain.
Yet thus it all the field commands,
And in unenvyVl greatness stands,
Discerning farther than the cliff
Of heaven-daring Teneriff.
How glad i\ui w^eary seamen haste.
When they salute it from the mast I
By night, the northern star their way
Directs, and this no less by day.
Upon its crest, this mountain grave,
A plume of aged trees does wave.
No hostile hand does e*er invade.
With impious steel, the sacred shade ;
For something always did appear
Of the Great Master's terror there,
And men could hear his armour still,
Rattling through all the grove and hill.
Fear of the Master, and respect
Of the great nymph, did it protect.
Vera, the nymph, that him inspired.
To whom he often here retir'd.
And on these oaks engrav'd her name, —
Such wounds alone these woods became,—
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OF MARYELL. 9
But ere he well the barks could part,
Twas writ already in their heart ;
For they, 'tis credible, have sense^
As we, of love and reverence^
And underneath the coarser rind,
The genius of the house do bind.
Hence they successes seem to know.
And in their Lord's advancement grow,
But in no memory were seen.
As under this, so straight and green ;
Yet now no farther strive to shoot,
Contented, if they fix their root,
Nor to the wind's uncertain gust,
Their prudent heads too far intrust.
Only sometimes a flutt'ring breeze
Discourses with the breathing trees,
Which in their modest whispers name
Those acts which swell'd the cheeks of Fame.
" Much other groves," say they, " than these,
** And other hills, him once did please.
" Through groves of pikes he thunder'd then,
" And mountains rais'd of dying men.
" For all the civic garlands due
^ To him, our branches are but few ;
" Nor are our trunks enough to bear
" The trophies of one fertile year. "
*Ti8 true, ye trees, nor ever spoke
More certain oracles in oak ;
But peace, if you his favour prize !
That courage its own praises flies :
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THE POEMS
Therefore to your obscurer feats,
From his own brightness lie retreats ;
Nor he the hills, without the groves.
Nor height, but with retirement, loves.
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OP MARVELL.
APPLETON HOUSE. *
TO THE LORD FAIRFAX.
Within this sober frame expect
"Work of no foreign architect,
That unto caves the quarries drew.
And forests did to pastures hew ;
Who, of his great design in pain, >
Did for a model vault his brain ;
Whose columns should so high be rais'd,
To arch the brows which on them gaz'd.
Why should, of all things, man, unruFd,
Such unproportion*d dwellings build ? lo
The beasts are by their dens expressed,
And birds contrive an equal nest ;
The low-roof *d tortoises do dwell
In cases fit of tortoise-shell ;
No creature loves an empty space ; is
Their bodies measure out their place.
* A house of the Lord Fairfax, in Yorkshire, now called
Nun-^Appleton.
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8 THE POEMS
But he, superfluously spread,
Demands more room alive than dead ;
And in his hollow palace goes,
Where winds, as he, themselves may lose.
What need of all this marble crust.
To impark the wanton mole of dust.
That thinks by breadth the world to unite,
Though the first builders failed in height ?
But all things are composed here,
Like nature, orderly, and near ;
In which we the dimensions find
Of that more sober age and mind,
When larger-sized men did stoop
To enter at a narrow loop,
As practising, in doors so strait,
To strain themselves through heaven's gate.
And surely, when the after-age
Shall hither come in pilgrimage,
These sacred places to adore.
By Verb and Fairfax trod before,
Men will dispute how their extent
Within such dwarfish confines went.
And some will smile at this, as well
As Romulus's bee-like cell.
Humility alone designs
Those short but admirable lines.
By which, ungirt and unconstrained,
Things greater are in less contained.
Let others vainly strive to immure
The circle in the quadmture !
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OF MARYELL.
These holy mathematics can
In every figure equal man.
Yet thus tlie laden house does sweat,
And scarce endures the master great :
But, where he comes, the swelling hall
Stirs, and the square grows spherical ;
More by his magnitude distressed,
Than he is by its straitness pressed :
And too officiously it slights.
That in itself, which him delights^.
So honour better lowness bears.
Than that unwonted gi^eatness wears ;
Height with a certain grace does bend.
But low things clownishly ascend.
And yet what need there here excuse.
Where every thing does answer use ?
"Where neatness nothing can condemn,.
Nor pride invent what to contemn ?
A stately frontispiece of poor,.
Adorns without the open door ;
Daily new furniture of friends.
No less the rooms within commends*
The house was built upon the place.
Only as for a mark of grace.
And for an inn to entertain
Its Lord awhile, but not remain.
Him Bishop's-hill or Denton may,
Or Bilborow, better hold than they :
But nature here hath been so free,
As if she said, ' Leave this to me.
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10 THE POEMS .
Art would more neatly have defae'd
What she had laid so sweetly waste
In fragrant gardens, shady woods,
Deep meadows, and transparent floods.
While, with slow eyes, we these survey.
And on each pleasant footstep stay,
We opportunely may relate
The progress of this house's fate.
A nunnery first gave it birth,
(For virgin buildings oft brought forth,)
And all that neighbour-ruin shows
The quarries whence this dwelling rose.
Near to this gloomy cloister's gates.
There dwelt the blooming virgin Thwates,
Fair beyond measure, and an heir,
Which might deformity make fair ;
And oft she spent the summer's suns
Discoursing with the subtle Nuns,
Whence, in these words, one to her weav'd,
As 'twere by chance, thoughts long conceiv'd :
' Within this holy leisure, we
* Live innocently, as you see.
' These walls restrain the world without,
' But hedge our liberty about ;
* These bars inclose that wider den
' Of those wild creatures, called men ;
' The cloister outward shuts its gates,
* And, from us, locks on them the grates.
' Here we, in shining armour white,
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OF MARVELL. 11
* Like virgin amazons do fight,
* And our chaste lamps we hourly trim,
* Lest the great bridegroom find them dim.
* Our orient breaths perfumed are
* With incense of incessant prayV ; iw
* And holy-water of our tears
' Most strangely our complexion clears ;
* Not tears of grief, — but such as those
* With which calm pleasure overflows,
* Or pity, when we look on you n»
* That live without this happy vow.
* How should we grieve must we be seen,
^ (Each one a spouse, and each a queen,)
* Who can in heaven hence behold
* Our brighter robes and crowns of gold! i»
* When we have prayed all our beads,
* Some one the holy legend reads,
* While all the rest with needles paint
* The face and graces of the Saint,
* But what the linen can't receive, t»
* They in their lives do interweave.
* This work the Saints best represents
* That serves for altar's ornaments.
* But much it to our work would add,
* If here your hand, your face, we had : i3o
* By it we would our Lady touch ;
* Yet thus she you resembles much.
* Some of your features, as we sewed,
* Through every shrine should be bestow'd,
* And in one beauty we would take »»
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12 THE P0E3IS
^ Enough a thousand Saints to make.
* And (for I dare not quench the fire
* That me does for your good inspire)
* 'Twere sacrilege a man to admit
* To holy things, for heaven fit.
* I see the angels, in a crown,
* On you the lilies showering down ;
* And TOund about you, glory breaks,
* That something more than human speaks.
* All beauty, when at such a height,
* Is so already consecrate.
* Fairfax I know, and long ere this
* Have mark'd the youth, and what he is ;
* But can he such a rival seem,
* For whom you heaven should disesteem ?
* Ah, no! and 'twould more honour prove
* He your devoto were than Love.
' Here live beloved and obeyed^
' Each one your sister, each your maid,
* And, if our rule seem strictly penned,
* The rule itself to you shall bend.
* Our Abbess, too, now far in age,
* Doth your succession near presage.
* How soft the yoke on us would lie,
* Might such fair hands as yours it tie !
* Your voice, the sweetest of the choir,
* Shall draw heaven nearer, raise us higher,
* And your example, if our head,
* Will soon us to perfection lead.
* Those virtues to us all so dear,
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OF MARVBLL. 13
* Will straight grow sanctity when here ;
^ And that, once sprung, increase so fast,
* Till miracles it work at last.
* Nor is our order yet so nice,
* Delight to banish as a vice : iw
< Here Pleasure Piety doth meet,
* One perfecting the other sweet ;
* So through the mortal fruit we boil
*The sugar's uncoiTupting oil,
'^ And that which perished while we pull, m
* Is thus preserved clear and full.
^ For such indeed are all our arts,
^ Still handling Nature's finest parts :
* Flowers dress the altars ; for the clothes
* The sea-bom amber we compose ; im
^ Balms for the griev'd w« draw ; and pastes
^ We mould as baits for curioils tastes.
* What need is here of man, unless
* These as sweet sins we should confess ?
*' Each night among us to your side i»
* Appoint a fresh and virgin bride,
* Whom, if our Lord at midnight find,
* Yet neither should be left behind !
* Where you may lie as chaste in bed,
* As pearls together billeted, •»
* All night embracing, arm in arm,
* Like crystal pure, with cotton warm.
* But what is this to all the store
* Of joys you see, and may make more ?
* Try but awhile, if you be wise : i»
* The trial neither costs nor ties. "
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14 THE POEMS
Now, Fairfax, seek her promised faith ;
Keligion that dispensed hath
Which she henceforward does begin ;
The Nun's smooth tongue has sucked her in.
Oft, though he knew it was in vain,
Yet would he valiantly complain :
* Is this that sanctity so great,
* An art by which you finelier cheat ?
* Hypocrite witches, hence avaunt,
* Who, though in prison, yet enchant !
* Death only can such thieves make fast,
* As rob, though in the dungeon cast.
* Were there but, when this house was made,
* One stone that a just hand had laid,
* It must have fallen upon her head
* Who first thee from thy faith misled.
* And yet, how well soever meant,
' With them 'twould soon grow fraudulent ;
' For like themselves they alter all,
* And vice infects the very wall ;
* But sure those buildings last not long,
* Founded by folly, kept by wrong.
^ I know what fruit their gardens yield,
* When they it think by night concealed.
* Fly from their vices : 'tis thy state,
* Not thee, that they would consecrate.
* Fly fix)m their ruin : how I fear,
* Though guiltless, lest thou perish there I'
What should he do ? He would respect
Keligion, but not right neglect ;
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OF MARVELL. 15
For first, religion taught him right,
And dazzled not, but cleared his sight.
Sometimes, resolved, his sword he draws,
But reverenceth then the laws ; «»
For justice still that courage led.
First from a judge, then soldier bred.
Small honour would be in the storm ;
The Court him gmnts the lawful form.
Which licensed either peace or force, «»
To hinder the unjust divorce.
Yet still the Nuns his right debarr'd.
Standing upon their holy guard.
Ill-counselled women, do you know
Whom you resist, or what to do ? i4o
Is not this he, whose offspring fierce
Shall fight through all the universe ;
And with successive valour try
France, Poland, either Germany,
Till one, as long since prophesied, s«5
His horse through conquered Britain ride ?
Yet, against fate, his spouse they kept.
And the great race would intercept.
Some to the breach, against their foes,
Their wooden Saints in vain oppose ; »o.
Another bolder, stands at push.
With, their old holy-water brush.
While the disjointed Abbess threads
The jingling chain-shot of her beads ;
But their loud'st cannon were their lungs, 255=
And sharpest weapons were their tongues.
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16 THE POEMS
But, waving these aside like flies,
Young Faikfax through the wall does rise.
Then the unfrequented vault appeared,
And superstitions, vainly feared ; «o
The relicks false were set to view ;
Only the jewels there were true.
And truly bright and holy Thwates,
That weeping at the altar waits.
But the glad youth away her bears, s»
And to the Nuns bequeathes her tears.
Who guiltily their prize bemoan.
Like gypsies who a child have stoFa.
Thenceforth (as, when the enchantment ends.
The castle vanishes or rends) sw
The wasting cloister, with the rest,
Was, in one instant, dispossessed.
At the demolishing, this seat.
To Fairfax fell, as by escheat ;
And what both Nuns and Founders willed, sts
'Tis likely better thus fulfilled.
For if the virgin proved not theirs,
The cloister yet remained hers ;
Though many a Nun there made her voWy
'Twas no religious house till now. aso
From that blest bed the hero came
Whom France and Poland yet does fame.
Who, when retired here to peace.
His warlike studies could not cease.
But laid these gardens out in sport sss
In the just figure of a fort,
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OP MARVELL. 17
And with five bastions it did fence,
As aiming one for every sense.
When in the cast the morning ray
Hangs out the colours of the day, mo
The bee through these known alleys hums,
Beating the dian with its drums.
Then flowers their drowsy eyelids raise.
Their silken ensigns each displays,
And dries its pan yet dank with dew, aai*
And fills its flask with odours new.
These, as their Governor goes by.
In fragrant volleys they let fly,
And to salute their Governess
Again as great a charge they press :. aw
None for the virgin nymph ; for she
Seems with the flowers, a flower to \>e.
And think so still ! though not compare
With breath so sweet, or cheek so fair!
Well shot, ye firemen ! Oh how sweet «»
And round your equal fires do meet.
Whose shrill report no ear can tell,
But echoes to the eye and smell !
See how the flowers, as at parade.
Under their colours stand displayed ; sit
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink, and rose.
But when the vigilant patrol
Of stars walk round about the pole.
Their leaves, which to the stalks are curled, «'»•
Seem to their staves the ensigns furled.
2
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18 THE POLMS
Then in some flower's beloved hut,
Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
And sleeps so too, but, if once stu-red.
She runs you through, nor asks the word.
Oh thou, that dear and happy isle.
The garden of the world erewhile.
Thou Paradise of the four seas.
Which heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With watery, if not flaming sword, —
What luckless apple did we taste,
To make us mortal, and thee waste ?
Unhappy ! shall we never more
That sweet militia restore,
When gardens only had their towers,
And all the garrisons were flowers.
When roses only arms might bear.
And men did rosy garlands wear ?
Tulips, in several colours barred,
Were then the Switzers of our guard ;
The gardener had the soldier's place.
And his more gentle forts did trace ;
The nui-sery of all things green
Was then the only magazine ;
The winter quarters were the stoves,
Where he the tender plants removes.
But war all this doth overgrow :
We ordnance plant, and powder sow.
And yet there walks one on the sod.
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OF MARVELL. 15
Who, had it pleased him and God,
Might once have made our gardens spring,
Fresh as his own, and flourishing.
But he preferred to the Cinque Ports,
These ^vq imaginary forts, sm
And, in those half-dry trenches, spanned
Power which the ocean might command.
For he did, with his utmost skill.
Ambition weed, but conscience till, —
Conscience, that heaven-nursed plant, 333
Which most our earthly gardens want.
A prickling leaf it bears, and such
As that which shrinks at every touch,
But flowers eternal, and divine,
Which in the crowns of Saints do shine. 3»
The sight does from these bastions ply,
The invisible artillery.
And at proud Cawood Castle seems
To point the battery of its beams,
As if it quarrelled in the seat, xa
The ambition of his prelate great,
But o'er the meads below it plays,
Or innocently seems to gaze.
And now to the abyss I pass
Of that unfathomable grass, 370
Where men like grasshoppers appear,
But grasshoppers are giants there :
They, in their squeaking laugh, contemn
Us as we walk more low than them,
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20 THE POEMS
And from the precipices tall
Of the green spires to us do call.
To see men through this meadow dive,
We wonder how they rise alive ;
As under water, none does know
Whether he fall through it or go,
But, as the mariners who sound,
And show upon their lead the ground,
They bring up flowers so to be seen,
And prove they've at the bottom been.
No scene, that turns with engines strange,
Does oftener than these meadows change ;
For when the sun the gi-ass hath vexed.
The tawny mowers enter next.
Who seem like Israelites to be,
Walking on foot through a green sea.
To them the grassy deeps divide,
And crowd a lane to either side ;
With whistling scythe and elbow strong
These massacre the grass along,
While one, unknowing, carves the rail.
Whose yet unfeathered quills her fail ;
The edge all bloody from its breast
He draws, and does In's stroke detest.
Fearing the flesh, untimely mowed.
To him a fate as black forebode.
But bloody Thestylis, that waits
To bring the mowing camp their cates,
Greedy as kite, has trussed it up
And forthwith means on it to sup.
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OF MARVELL. 21
When on another quick she lights^ ^
And cries, " he calFd us Israelites ;
But now, to make his saying true^
Rails rain for quails, for manna dew. "
Unhappy biixls ! what docs it boot
To build below the grass's root ; <i»
When lowness is unsafe as height^
And chance overtakes Avhat 'scapeth spite ?
And now your orphan parent's call
Sounds your untimely funeral ;
Death-trumpets creak in such a note, 415
And 'tis the sourdine in their throat.
Or sooner hatch, or higher build ;
The mower now commands the field ;
In whose new traverse seemeth wrought
A camp of battle newly fought, <»
Where, as the meads with hay, the plain
Lies quilted o'er with bodies slain :
The women that with forks it fling.
Do represent the pillaging.
And now the careless victors play, *»
Dancing the triumphs of the hay,
Where every mower's wholesome heat
Smells like an Alexander's sweat,
Their females fragrant as the mead
Which they in fairy ciixiles tread : *»
When at their dance's end they kiss,
Their new-made hay not sweeter is ;
When, after this, 'tis piled in cocks.
Like a calm sea it shews the rocks ;
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22 THE POEMS.
We wondering in the river near «»
How l>oat8 among them safely steer ;
Or, like the desert Memphis' sand,
Short pyramids of hay do stand ;
And such the Roman camps do rise
In hills for soldiers' obsequies. *^
This scene, again withdrawing, brings
A new and empty face of things ;
A levelled space, as smooth and plain,
As cloths for Lilly * stretched to stain.
The world when first created sure «»
Was such a table rase and pure ;
Or rather such is the Toril,
Ere the bulls enter at Madril ;
For to this naked equal flat,
Which levellers take pattern at, 46o
The villagers in common chase
Their cattle, which it closer rase ;
And what below the scythe increased
Is pinched yet nearer by the beast.
Such, in the painted world, appeared 455
Davenant, with the universal herd.
They seem within the polished grass
A landscape drawn in looking-glass ;
And shrunk in the huge pasture, show
As spots, so shaped, on faces do ; 4(. o
Such fleas, ere they approach the eye,
In multiplying glasses lie.
• An eminent cloth dyer.
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OP MARVELL. 23
They feed so wide, so slowly move,
As constellations do above.
Then, to conclude these pleasant acts, *S6
Denton sets ope its cataracts ;
And makes the meadow truly be
(What it but seemed before) a sea ;
For, jealous of its Lord's long stay,
It tries to invite him thus away. *t
The river in itself is drowned.
And isles the astonished cattle round.
Let others tell the paradox.
How eels now bellow in the ox ;
How horses at their tails do kick, 47s
Turned, as they hang, to leeches quick ;.
How boats can over bridges sail,
And fishes to the stables scale ;
How salmons trespassing are found.
And pikes are taken in the pound ; ««
But I, retiring from the flood.
Take sanctuary in the wood ;
And, while it lastf! , myself embark
In this yet green, yet growing ark.
Where the first carpenter might best 48s
Fit timber for his keel have pressed,
And where all creatures might have shares.
Although in armies, not in pairs.
The double wood, of ancient stocks.
Linked in so thick an union locks, <»
It like two pedigrees appears,
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tJ4 THE POEMS.
On one hand Fairfax, t'other Veres :
Of whom though many fell in war,
Yet more to heaven shooting are :
And, as tliey Nature's cradle decked,
Will, in green age, her hearse expect
When first the eye this forest sees,
It seems indeed as wood, not trees ;
As if their neighbourhood so old
To one great trunk them all did mould.
There the huge bulk takes place, as meant
To thrust up a fifth element.
And stretches still so closely wedged,
As if the night within were hedged.
Dark all without it knits ; within
It opens passable and thin.
And in as loose an order gix)W8,
As the Corinthian porticos.
The arching boughs unite between
The columns of the temple green,
And underneath the winged quires
p]cho about their tuned fires.
TJie nightingale does here make choice
To sing the trials of her voice ;
Low shrubs she sits in, and adorns
With music high the squatted thorns ;
But highest oaks stoop down to hear,
And listening elders prick the ear ;
The thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws
Within the skin its shrunken claws.
But I have for my music found
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OF MARVELL. 25
A sadder, yet more pleasing sound ;
The stock-doves, whose fair necks are graced
With nuptial rings, their ensigns chaste,
Yet always, for some cause unknown, ««
Sad pair, unto the elms they moan.
why should such a couple mourn,
That in so equal flames do bui*n !
Then as I careless on the bed
Of gelid strawberries do tread, 5»
And through the hazels thick espy
The hatching throstle's shining eye,
The heron, from the ash's top,
The eldest of its young lets drop.
As if it stork-like did pretend mj
That tribute to its lord to send.
But most the heweFs wonders are,
Who here has the holtselster's care ;
He walks still upright from the root,
Measuring the timber with his foot, 540
And all the way, to keep it clean,
Doth from the bark the wood-moths glean ;
He, with his beak, examines well
Which fit to stand, and which to fell ;
The good he numbers up, and hacks 545
As if he marked them with an axe ;
But where he, tinkling with his beak.
Does find the hollow oak to speak,
That for his building he designs,
And through the tainted side he mines. sso
Who could have thought the tallest oak
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26 THE POEMS
Should fall by s;uch a feeble stroke ?
Nor would it, had the tree not fed
A traitor worm, within it bred,
(As first our flesh, corrupt within,
Tempts impotent and bashful sin,)
And yet that worm triumphs not long,
But serves to feed the hewel's young.
While the oak seems to fall content,
Viewing the treason's punishments
Thus, I, easy philosopher,
Among the birds and trees confer,
And little now to make me wants
Or of the fowls, or of the plants :
Give me but wings as they, and I
Straight floating on the air shall fly ;
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted tree.
Already 1 begin to call
In their most learned original,
And, where I language want, my signs
The bird upon the bough divines.
And more attentive there doth sit
Than if she were with lime-twigs knit. .
No leaf does tremble in the wind.
Which I returning cannot find ;
Out of these scattered Sibyl's leaves,
Strange prophecies my fancy weaves,
And in one history consumes.
Like Mexique paintings, all the plumes ;
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OF MARVELL. 27
What Rome, Greece, Palestine, e'er said,
I in this light Mosaic read.
Thrice happy he, who, not mistook.
Hath read in nature's mystic book I
And see how chance's better wit sss
Could with a mask my studies hit !
The oak-leaves me embroider all.
Between which caterpillars crawl ;
And ivy, with familiar trails.
Me licks and clasps, and curls and hales. &»
Under this Attic cope I move.
Like some great prelate of the grove ;
Then, languishing with ease, I toss
On pallets swoln of velvet moss.
While the wind, cooling through the boughs, s»
Flatters with air my panting brows.
Thanks for my rest, ye mossy banks,
And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks.
Who, as my hair, my thoughts too shed,
And winnow from the chaff my head ! ew
How safe, methinks, and strong behind
These trees, have I encamped my mind,
Where beauty, aiming at the heart,
Bends in some tree its useless dart.
And where the world no certain shot eos
Can make, or me it toucheth not,
But 1 on it securely play,
And gall its horsemen all the day.
Bind me, }e woodbines, in )*our twines,
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28 THE POEMS
Curl me about, ye gadding vines,
And oh so close your circles lace.
That I may never leave this place !
But, lest your fettei-s prove too weak,
Ere I your silken bondage break,
Do you, O brambles, chain me too,
And, courteous briars, nail me through !
Here in the morning tie my chain.
Where the two woods have made a lane,
While, like a guard on either side.
The trees before their Lord divide ;
This, like a long and equal thread,
BetAvixt two labyrinths does lead.
But, where the floods did lately drown,
There at the evening stake me down ;
For now the waves are fallen and dried,
And now the meadows fresher dyed,
Whose grass, with moister colour dashed.
Seems as green silks but newly washed.
No serpent new, nor crocodile,
Remains behind our little Nile,
Unless itself you will mistake,
Among these meads the only snake.
See in what wanton harmless folds.
It everywhere the meadow holds.
And its yet muddy back doth lick,
'Till as a crystal mirror slick.
Where all things gaze themselves, and doubt
If they be in it, or without.
And for his shade which therein shines.
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OF MARVELL. 2D
Narcissus-like, the sun too pines. •«>
Oh what a pleasure 'tis to hedge
My temples here with heavy sedge,
Abandoning my lazy side,
Stretched as a bank unto the tide,
Or to suspend my sliding foot «5
On the osier's undermined root,
And in its branches tough to hang.
While at my lines the fishes twang I
But now away my hooks, my quills.
And angles, idle utensils ! «3»
The young Maria walks to-night :
Hide, trifling youth, thy pleasures slight ;
'Twere shame that such judicious eyes
Should with such toys a man surprise ;
She that already is the law «»
Of all her sex, her age's awe.
See how loose nature, in respect
To her, itself doth recollect,
And every thing so washed and fine,
Starts forth with it to its bonne mine. •»
The sun himself of her aware.
Seems to descend with greater care.
And, lest she see him go to bed.
In blushing clouds conceals his head.
So when the shadows laid asleep, ms
From underneath these banks do creep,
And on the river, as it flows.
With ebon shuts begin to close.
The modest halcyon comes in sight,
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6{) THE POEMS
Fljring betwixt the day and night.
And such a horror calm and dumb,
Admiring nature does benumb ;
The viscous air, where'er she flj,
Follows and sucks her azure dye ;
The jellying stream compacts below,
If it might fix her shadow so ;
The stupid fishes hang, as plain
As flies in crystal overtaken.
And men the silent scene assist,
Charmed with the sapphire-winged mist;—
Maria, such, and so doth hush
The world, and through the evening rusk.
No new-born comet such a train
Draws through the sky, nor star new slain.
For straight those giddy rockets fail,
Which from the putrid earth exhale,
But by her flames, in heaven tried.
Nature is wholly vitrified.
'Tis she, that to these gardens gave
That wondrous beauty which they have ;
She straightness on the woods bestows ;
To her the meadow sweetness owes ;
Nothing could make the river be
So crystal pui*e, but only she.
She yet more pure, sweet, straight, and fair
Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.
Therefore what fii-st she on them spent.
They gratefully again present;
The meadow carpets where to tread,
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OP MARVELL. 31
The garden flowers to crown her head, "*>
And for a glass the limpid brook,
Where she may all her beauties look,
But, since she would not have them seen,
The wood about her draws a screen.
For she to higher beauties raised, 705
Disdains to be for lesser praised.
She counts her beauty to converse
In all the languages as hers ;
Nor yet in those herself employs,
But for the wisdom not the noise ; tio
Nor yet that wisdom would affect.
But as 'tis heaven's dialect.
Blest nymph ! that couldst so soon prevent
Those trains by youth against thee meant ;
Tears (wateiy shot that pierce the mind,) ^w
And sighs (love's cannon chai'ged with wind ;)
True praise (that breaks through all defence,)
And feigned complying innocence ;
But knowing where this ambush lay,
She 'scaped the safe, but roughest way. f^
This 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed.
Under the discipline severe
Of Fairfax, and the starry Verb,
Where not one object can come nigh tsb
But pure, and spotless as the eye.
And goodness doth itself entail
On females, if there want a male.
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32 THE POEMS
Go now, fond sex, that on your face
Do all your useless study place.
Nor once at vice your brows dare knit.
Lest the smooth forehead wrinkled sit :
Yet your own face shall at you grin.
Thorough the black bag of your skin.
When knowledge only could have filled,
And virtue all those furrows tilled.
Hence she with graces more divine
Supplies beyond her sex the line,
And, like a sprig of misletoe.
On the Fairfacian oak does grow.
Whence, for some universal good,
The priest shall cut the sacred bud.
While her glad parents most rejoice
And make their destiny their choice.
Meantime, ye fields, springs, bushes, flowers.
Where yet she leads her studious houi-s,
(Till Fate her worthily translates
And find a Fairfax for our Thwates,)
Employ the means you have by her.
And in your kind yourselves prefer.
That, as all virgins she precedes,
So you all woods, streams, gardens, meads.
For you, Thessalian Tempe's seat
Shall now be scorned as obsolete ;
Aranjuez, as less, disdained ;
The Bel-Retiro, as constrained ;
But name not the Idalian grove.
For 'twas the seat of wanton love ;
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OF MARVELL. 33
Nor e'en the dead's Eljsian fields,
Yet not to them your beauty yields.
Tis not, as once appeared the world,
A heap confused together hurled,
All negligently overgrown,
Gulfs, deserts, precipices, stone ;
Your lesser world contains the same.
But in more decent order tame.
You, Heaven's centre, Nature's lap ;
And Paradise's only map.
And now the salmon-fishers moist,
Their leathern boats begin to hoist ;
And, like Antipodes in shoes.
Have shod their heads in their canoes.
How tortoise-like, but not so slow.
These rational amphibii go !
Let's in ; for the dark hemisphere
Does now like one of them appear.
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34 THK POEMS
THE CORONET.
When with the thorns with which I long, too
long,
With many a piercing wound,
My Saviour's head have crowned,
I seek with garlands to redress that wrong, —
Through every garden, every mead,
I gather flowers (my fruits are only flowers)
Dismantling all the fragrant towers
That once adorned my shepherdess's head :
And now, when I have summed up all my store.
Thinking (so I myself deceive)
So rich a chaplet thence- to weave
As never yet the King of Glory wore,
Alas ! I And the Serpent old,
Twining in his speckled breast.
About the flowers disguised does fold,
With wreaths of fame and interest.
Ah foolish man, that would'st debase with them,
And mortal glory. Heaven's diadem !
But thou who only could'st the Serpcmt tame.
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OF MARVELL. 35
Either his slippery knots at once untie,
And disentangle all his winding snare,
Or shatter too with him my curious frame,
And let these wither so that he may die,
Though set with skill, and chosen out with care,
That they, while thou on both their spoils dost
tread,
May crown thy feet, that could not crown thy
bead.
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36 THE POEMS
EYES AND TEARS.
How wisely Nature did decree,
With the same eyes to weep and see,
That, having viewed the object vain,
They might be ready to complain !
And, since the self-deluding sight.
In a false angle takes each height.
These tears, which better measure all.
Like watery lines and plummets fall.
Two tears, which sorrow long did weigh.
Within the scales of either eye,
And then paid out in equal poise.
Are the true price of all my joys.
What in the world most fair appears.
Yea, even laughter, turns to tears.
And all the jewels which we prize.
Melt in these pendants of the eyes.
I have through every garden been,
Amongst the red, the white, the green,
And yet from all those flowers I saiv,
No honey, but these tears could draw.
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OF MAKVELL. 37
So the all-seeing sun each day,
Distils the world with chymic ray,
But finds the essence only showers,
Which straight in pity back he pours.
Yet happy they whom grief doth bless,
That weep the more, and see the less,
And, to preserve their sight more true.
Bathe still their eyes in their own dew.
So Magdalen in tears more wise
Dissolved those captivating eyes.
Whose liquid chains could flowing meet
To fetter her Redeemer's feet.
Not full sails hasting loaden home.
Nor the chaste lady's pregnant womb,
Nor Cynthia teeming shows so fair
As two eyes swollen with weeping are.
The sparkling glance that shoots desire.
Drenched in these waves, does lose its fire,
Yea oft the Thunderer pity takes.
And here the hissing lightning slakes.
The incense was to heaven dear,
Not as a perfume, but a tear.
And stars shew lovely in the night,
But as they seem the tears of light.
Ope then, mine eyes, your double sluice,
And practise so your noblest use ;
For others too can see, or sleep.
But only human eyes can weep.
Now, like two clouds dissolving, drop,
And at each tear, in distance stop ;
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38 THE POEMS
Now, like two fountains, trickle down ;
Now like two floods o*errun and drown :
Thus let your streams overflow your spring. ^,
Till eyes and tears be the same things,
And each the other's difference bears,
These weeping eyes, those seeing tears.
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OP MARVELL. 39
BERMUDAS.
Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In the ocean's bosom un espied,
From a small boat, that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.
" What should we do but sing his praise,
That led us through the watery maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown.
And yet far kinder than our own ?
Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks.
That lift the deep upon their backs.
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage.
He gave us this eternal spring,
Which here enamels every thing.
And sends the fowls to us in care.
On daily visits through the air ;
He hangs in shades the orange bright.
Like golden lamps in a green night.
And doc^ in the pomegranates close.
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows ;
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iO THE POEXS
He makes tbe figs oor moaths to meet.
And throws tbe melons at oor feet.
But apples plants cff such a price.
No tree could ever bear tbem twice ;
With cedars cbosen bj his hand.
