Andrew Marvell, The Complete Poems, Ed. Elizabeth Story Donno, Penguin Books, London, 1996.

Turn thine eye to yonder sky,

There the milky way doth lie;

’Tis a sure but rugged way,

That leads to everlasting day.

(A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda, 21)

Dorinda: But in Elysium how do they

Pass eternity away?

Thyrsis: Oh, there’s neither hope nor fear,

There’s no wolf, no fox, no bear.

No need of dog to fetch our stray,

Our Lightfoot we may give away;

No oat-pipe’s needful; there thy ears

May sleep with music of the spheres.

(A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda, 22)

I prithee let us spend our time to come

In talking of Elysium.

(A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda, 22; Cf. Eliot)

Think’st thou that this rope would twine

If we both should turn one way?

Where both parties so combine,

Neither love will twist nor hay.

(Ametas and Thestylis Making Hay-ropes, 24)

Courage, my Soul, now learn to wield

The weight of thine immortal shield.

Close on thy head thy helmet bright.

Balance thy sword against the fight.

See where an army, strong as fair,

With silken banners spreads the air.

Now, if thou be’st that thing divine,

In this day’s combat let it shine:

And show that Nature wants an art

To conquer one resolved heart.

(A Dialogue, between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure, 25)

A soul that knows not to presume

Is heaven’s and its own perfume.

(A Dialogue, between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure, 25)

If things of sight such heavens be,

What heavens are those we cannot see?

(A Dialogue, between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure, 25)

Wilt thou all the glory have

That war or peace commend?

Half the world shall be thy slave

The other half thy friend.

(A Dialogue, between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure, 25)

It had been easy fighting in some plain,

Where victory might hand in equal choice.

But all resistance against her is vain,

Who has the advantage both of eyes and voice,

(The Fair Singer, 39)

…although he bruised

All herbs, and them a thousand ways infused?

(Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings, 48)

My love is of a birth as rare

As ’tis for object strange and high:

It was begotten by Despair

Upon Impossibility.

(The Definition of Love, 49)

For Fate with jealous eye doe see

Two perfect loves, nor lets them close:

Their union would her ruin be,

And her tyrannic power depose.

(The Definition of Love, 50)

As lines (so loves) oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet:

But our so truly parallel,

Though infinite, can never meet.

(The Definition of Love, 50)

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, Lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood:

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow.

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.

Two hundred to adore each breast:

But thirty thousand to the rest.

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart:

For, Lady, you deserve this state;

Nor would I love at lower rate.

  But at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near:

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song: then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity:

And your quaint honour turn to dust;

And into ashes all my lust.

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

  Now, therefore, while the youthful glue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour,

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength, and all

Our sweetness, up into one ball:

And tear our pleasures with rough strife,

Thorough the iron grates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will  make him run.

(To His Coy Mistress, Complete, 52)

How wisely Nature did decree

With the same eyes to weep and see!

That, having viewed the object vain,

We might be ready to complain.

(Eyes and Tears, 52)

Yet happy they whom grief doth bless,

That weep the more, and see the less:

And, to preserve their sight more true,

Bathe still thine eyes their own dew.

(Eyes and Tears, 52)

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:

(The Coronet, 54)

So restless Cromwell could not cease

In the inglorious arts of peace,

(An Horation Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland, 55)

’Tis madness to resist or blame

The force of angry heaven’s flame:

And, if we would speak true,

Much to the man is due,

Who, from his private gardens, where

He lived reserved and austere,

As if his highest plot

To plant the bergamot,

Could by industrious valour climb

To ruin the great work of time,

And cast the kingdom’s old

Into another mould.

Though justice against fate complain,

And plead the ancient rights in vain:

But those do hold or break

As men are strong or weak.

(An Horation Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland, 55)

Foul architecht, that hadst not eye to see

How ill the measures of these states agree,

(Tom May’s Death, 59)

[translators…]

Others do strive with words and forced phrase

To add such lustre, and so many rays,

That, but to make the vessel shining, they

Much of the precious metal rub away.

(To His Worthy Friend Doctor Witty upon His Translation of the ‘Popular Errors’, 62)

I see the people hasting to thy book,

Liking themselves the worse the more they look,

And so disliking, that they nothing see

Now worth the liking, but thy book and thee.

(To His Worthy Friend Doctor Witty upon His Translation of the ‘Popular Errors’, 62)

But, O young beauty of the woods,

Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers,

Gather the flowers, but spare the buds;

Lest Flora angry at thy crime,

To kill her infants in their prime,

Do quickly make the example yours;

And, ere we see,

Nip in the blossom all our hopes and thee.

(The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers, 64)

I’m sure I never wished them ill;

Nor do I for all this; nor will:

(The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn, 67)

With sweetest milk, and sugar, first

I it at mine own finger nursed.

And as it grew, so every day

It waxed more white and sweet than they.

It had so sweet a breath! And oft

I blushed to see its foot more soft,

And white (shall I say than my hand?)

Nay, any lady’s of the land.

  It is a wondrous thing, how fleet

’Twas on those little silver feet.

With what a pretty skipping grace,

It oft would challenge me the race:

And when ’t had left me far away,

’Twould stay, and run again, and stay.

(The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn, 69)

…these woods…

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;

(Upon the Hill and Grove at Bilbrough, 72)

The beasts are by their dens expressed:

(Upon Appleton House, 75)

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 practicing, in doors so strait,

To strain themselves through heaven’s gate.

(Upon Appleton House, 76)

Yet thus the laden house do sweat,

And scarce endures the Master great:

But where he comes the swelling hall

Sirs, and the square grows spherical,

More by his magnitude distressed,

Then he is by its straitness pressed:

(Upon Appleton House, 77)

Height with a certain grace does bend,

But low things clownishly ascend.

(Upon Appleton House, 77)

‘And (for I dare not quench the fire

That me does for your good inspire)

’Twere sacrilege a man t’admit

To holy things, for heaven fit.

I see the angels in a crown

On you the lilies showering down:

And around about you glory breaks,

That something more than human speaks. (

(Upon Appleton House, 79)

‘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!

(Upon Appleton House, 80)

Sometimes resolved, his sword he draws,

But reverenceth then the laws:

(Upon Appleton House, 82)

These, as their Governor goes by,

In fragrant volleys they let fly;

(Upon Appleton House, 84)

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 that 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 grass 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 his stroke detest,

Fearing the flesh untimely mowed

To him a fate as black forbode.

(Upon Appleton House, 87)

Then, languishing with ease, I toss

On pallets swoll’n of velvet moss,

While the wind, cooling through the boughs,

Flatters with air my panting brows.

Thanks for my rest, yet mossy banks;

And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks,

Who, as my hair, my thoughts to shed [part],

And winnow from the chaff my head.

(Upon Appleton House, 94)

Therefore what first she on them spent,

They gratefully again present:

The meadow, carpets where to tread;

The garden, flow’rs 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,

Disdains to be for lesser praised.

(Upon Appleton House, 97)

How vainly men themselves amaze

To win the palm, the oak, or bays,

And their uncessant labours see

Crowned from some single herb or tree,

Whose short and narrow verged shade

Does prudently their toils upbraid,

While all flow’rs and all trees do close

To weave the garlands of repose.

(The Garden, 100)

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasures less,

Withdraws into its happiness:

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find,

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas,

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade.

(The Garden, 101)

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,

Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root,

Casting the body’s vest aside,

My soul into the boughs does glide:

There like a bird it sits, and sings,

Then whets, and combs its silver wings;

And, till prepared for longer flight,

Waves in its plumes the various light.

(The Garden, 101)

‘I am the Mower Damon, known

Through all the meadows I have mown.

On me the morn her dew distills

Before her darling daffodils.

And, if at noon my toil me heat,

The sun himself licks off my sweat.

While, going home, the evening sweet

In cowslip-water bathes my feet.

(Damon the Mower, 107)

Ye living lamps, by whose dear light

The nightingale does sit so late,

And studying all the summer night,

Her matchless songs does meditate;

/

Ye country comets, that portend

No war, nor prince’s funeral,

Shining unto no higher end

Than to presage the grass’s fall;

/

Ye glowworms, whose officious flame

To wandering mowers shows the way,

That in the night have lost their aim,

And after foolish fires do stray;

/

Your courteous lights in vain you waste,

Since Juliana here is come,

For she my mid hath so displaced

That I shall never find my home.

(The Mower to the Glowworms, Complete, 109)

My mind was once the true survey

Of all these meadows fresh and gay,

And in the greenness of the grass

Did see its hopes as in a glass;

When Juliana came, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

/

But these, while I with sorrow pine,

Grew more luxuriant still and fine,

That not one blade of grass you spied,

But had a flower on either side;

When Juliana came, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

/

Unthankful meadows, could you so

A fellowship so true forgo,

And in your gaudy May-games meet,

While I lay trodden under feet?

When Juliana came, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

/

But what you in compassion ought,

Shall now by my revenge be wrought:

And flow’rs, and grass, and I and all,

Will in one common ruin fall.

For Juliana comes, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

/

And thus, ye meadows, which have been

Companions of my thoughts more green,

Shall now the heraldry become

With which I will adorn my tomb;

For Juliana comes, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

(The Mower’s Song, Complete, 110)

Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,

As but the off-scouring of the British sand;

And so much earth as was contributed

By English pilots when they heaved the lead;

Or what by th’ ocean’s slow alluvion fell

Of shipwrecked cockle and the mussel shell;

This indigested vomit of the sea

Fell the the Dutch by just propriety.

(The Character of Holland, 112)

Therefore necessity, that first made kings,

Something like government among them brings.

For as with pygmies, who best kills the crane,

Among the hungry, he that treasures grain,

Among the blind, the one-eyes blinkard reigns,

So rules among the drowned, he that drains.

(The Character of Holland, 113)

Where the remote Bermudas ride

In the ocean’s bosom unespied,

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-monster 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 everything,

And sends the fowl 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 does in the pom’granates close

Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.

He makes the figs our mouths to meet,

And throws the melons at our feet,

But apples plants of such a price,

No tree could ever bear them twice.

With cedars, chosen by his hand,

From Lebano, he stores theland,

And makes the hollow seas, that roar,

Proclaim the ambergris on shore.

He cast (of which we rather boast)

The gospel’s pearl upon our coast,

And in these rocks for us did frame

A temple, where to sound his name.

Oh let our voice his praise exalt,

Till it arrive at heaven’s vault:

Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may

Echo beyond the Mexique Bay.’

  Thus sang they, in the English boat,

An holy and a cheerful note,

And all the way, to guide their chime,

With falling oars they kept the time.

(Bermudas, Complete, 116-7)

Cromwell alone with greater vigour runs,

(Sun-like) the stages of succeeding suns:

And still the day which he doth next restore,

Is the just wonder of the day before.

Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring,

And shines the jewel of the yearly ring.

  ’Tis he the force of scattered time contracts,

And in one year the work of ages acts:

While heavy monarchs make a wide return,

Longer, and more malignant than Saturn:

And though they all Platonic years should reign,

In the same posture would be found again.

Their earthly projects under ground they lay,

More slow and brittle than the China clay:

Well may they strive to leave them to their son,

For one things never was by one king done.

(The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector, 1655, 126-7)

While indefatigable Cromwell hies,

And cuts his way still nearer to the skies,

Learning a music in the region clear,

To turn this lower to that higher sphere.

(The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector, 1655, 126-7)

When for his foot he thus a place had found,

He hurls e’er since the world about him round,

And in his several aspects, like a star,

Here shines in peace, and thither shoots in war,

While by his beams observing princes steer,

And wisely court the influence they fear.

(The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector, 1655, 126-7)

Hence oft I think if in some happy hour

High grace should meet in one with highest power,

And then a seasonable people  still

Should bend to his, as he to heaven’s will,

(The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector, 1655, 126-7)

The ocean is the fountain of command,

But that once took, we captives are on land.

And those that have the waters for their share,

Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air.

(The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector, 1655, 126-7)

He seems a king by long succession born,

And yet the same to be a king does scorn.

Abroad a king he seems, and something more,

At home a subject on the equal floor.

(The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector, 1655, 126-7)

Modest as morn; as midday bright;

Gentle as evening; cool as night;

(An Epitaph upon —, 139)

The New World’s wounded entrails they had tore,

For wealth wherewith to wound the Old once more:

(On the Victory Obtained by Blake over the Spaniards in the Bay of Santa Cruz, in the Isle of Tenerife, 1657, 139)

Cynthia, O Cynthia, turn thine ear,

Nor scorn Endymion’s plaints to hear.

(Two Songs at the Marriage of the Lord Fauconberg and the Lady Mary Cromwell, 144)

So have I seen a vine, whose lasting age

Of many a winter hath survived the rage,

Under whose shady tent men every year

At its rich blood’s expense their sorrow cheer,

If some dear branch where it extends its life

Chance to be pruned by an untimely knife,

The parent-tree unto the grief succeeds,

And through the wound its vital humour bleeds,

Trickling in watery drops, whose flowing shape

Weeps that it falls ere fixed into a grape.

So the dry stock, no more that spreading vine,

Frustrates the autumn and the hopes of wine.

(A Poem upon the Death of His Late Highness the Lord Proteector, 150-1)