One of things about National Poetry Month is that it generally seems
best to post poems that are relatively short. This is both a problem and
an advantage: while I have been known to excerpt epics, and while I did
once post the entire first book of
Paradise Lost, it really does
make more sense to post poems that can be read comfortably in one go,
that can be typed up or copied and pasted and edited in a relatively
short amount of time, that don't fill
too much space. It makes
more sense that way, and it also means that you guys are probably more
likely to enjoy the poems. Longer poems take longer to read, and take up
more time, and time is usually at a premium for me, in April.
But
sometimes, I need to break my own rules. Sometimes, I need to post a
poem that encapsulates -- if a poem as this metaphysically crazy can
ever be said to encapsulate anything -- a lot of my feelings about the
17th century, that is about a house and a landscape and the history of a
place, that is about contemporary politics, and family, and the English
Civil War, and patronage, that does intensely bizarre things with
metaphysical conceits, that collapses space and time and mythology, that
has evil lesbian nuns and bondage sex with trees and a character that
breaks the fourth wall from inside the poem. If you like
Alice in Wonderland,
you will probably like this poem; if you like science fiction, you
might like this poem. I love this poem, but let it never be said that it
is not utterly fucking batshit. It contains multitudes.
So here you are: Andrew Marvell's
Upon Appleton House:
I.
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 raised
To arch the rows that on them gazed.
II.
Why should of all things Man unruled
Such unproportioned dwellings build?
The beasts are by their dens exprest:
And birds contrive an equal nest;
The low-roofed tortoises do dwell
In cases fit of tortoise-shell:
No creature loves an empty space;
Their bodies measure out their place.
III.
But he, superfluously spread,
Demands more room alive then dead.
And in his hollow palace goes
Where winds as he themselves may lose.
What need of all this marble crust
T'impark the wanton mote of dust,
That thinks by breadth the world t'unite
Though the first builders failed in height?
IV.
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.
V.
And surely when the after age
Shall hither come in pilgrimage,
These sacred places to adore,
By Vere 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 his bee-like cell.
VI.
Humility alone designs
Those short but admirable lines,
By which, ungirt and unconstrained,
Things greater are in less contained.
Let others vainly strive t'immure
The circle in the quadrature!
These holy mathematics can
In ev'ry figure equal man.
VII.
Yet thus the laden house does sweat,
And scarce indures the Master great:
But where he comes the swelling hall
Stirs, and the square grows spherical;
More by his magnitude distrest,
Then he is by its straitness prest:
And too officiously it slights
That in it self which him delights.
VIII.
So Honour better lowness bears,
Than that unwonted Greatness wears
Height with a certain grace does bend,
But low things clownishly ascend.
And yet what needs there here excuse,
Where ev'ry thing does answer use?
Where neatness nothing can condemn,
Nor pride invent what to contemn?
IX.
A stately frontispice of poor
Adorns without the open door:
Nor less the rooms within commends
Daily new furniture of friends.
The house was built upon the place
Only as for a mark of grace;
And for an inn to entertain
Its Lord a while, but not remain.
X.
Him Bishop's-Hill, or Denton may,
Or Bilbrough, better hold than they:
But Nature here hath been so free
As if she said 'Leave this to me'.
Art would more neatly have defac'd
What she had laid so sweetly wast;
In fragrant gardens, shady woods,
Deep meadows, and transparent floods.
XI.
While with slow eyes we these survey,
And on each pleasant footstep stay,
We opportunly 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.
XII.
Near to this gloomy cloister's gates
There dwelt the blooming virgin Thwaites,
Fair beyond measure, and an heir
Which might deformity make fair.
And oft she spent the summer suns
Discoursing with the subtle nuns.
Whence in these words one to her weaved,
(As 'twere by chance) thoughts long conceived.
XIII.
'Within this holy leisure we
Live innocently as you see.
These walls restrain the world without,
But hedge our liberty about.
These bars inclose the wider den
Of those wild creatures, called men.
The cloister outward shuts its gates,
And, from us, locks on them the grates.
XIV.
'Here we, in shining armour white,
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 prayer.
And holy-water of our tears
Most strangly our complexion clears.
XV.
'Not tears of grief; but such as those
With which calm pleasure overflows;
Or pity, when we look on you
That live without this happy vow.
How should we grieve that must be seen
Each one asSpouse, and each a queen;
And can in heaven hence behold
Our brighter robes and crowns of gold?
XVI.
'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
They in their lives do interweave
This work the saints best represents;
That serves for altar's ornaments.
XVII.
But much it to our work would add
If here your hand, your face we had:
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 bestowed.
And in one beauty we would take
Enough a thousand saints to make.
XVIII.
'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 show'ring down:
And round about you glory breaks,
That something more then human speaks.
XIX.
'All beauty, when at such a height,
Is so already consecrate.
Fairfax I know; and long ere this
Have marked the youth, and what he is.
But can he such a rival seem
For whom you heav'n should disesteem?
Ah, no! and 'twould more honour prove
He your
devoto were, than love.
XX.
'Here live beloved, and obeyed:
Each one your sister, each your maid.
And, if our rule seem strictly penned,
The rule it self 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!
XXI.
'Your voice, the sweetest of the choir,
Shall draw heav'n nearer, raise us higher.
And your example, if our head,
Will soon us to perfection lead.
Those virtues to us all so dear,
Will straight grow sanctity when here:
And that, once sprung, increase so fast
Till miracles it work at last.
XXII.
'Nor is our order yet so nice,
Delight to banish as a vice.
Here pleasure piety doth meet;
One perfecting the other sweet.
So through the mortal fruit we boil
The sugar's uncorrupting oil:
And that which perished while we pull,
Is thus preserved clear and full.
XXIII.
'For such indeed are all our arts;
Still handling nature's finest parts.
Flowers dress the altars; for the clothes,
The sea-born amber we compose;
Balms for the grieved we draw; and pastes
We mould, as baits for curious tastes.
What need is here of man, unless
These as sweet sins we should confess.
XXIV.
'Each night among us to your side
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.
XXV.
'But what is this to all the store
Of joys you see, and may make more!
Try but a while, if you be wise:
The trial neither costs, nor ties.'
Now Fairfax seek her promised faith:
Religion that dispensed hath;
Which she hence forward does begin;
The nun's smooth tongue has sucked her in.
XXVI.
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.
XXVII.
'Were there but, when this house was made,
One stone that a just hand had laid,
It must have fall'n upon her Head
Who first thee from thy faith misled.
And yet, how well soever ment,
With them 'twould soon grow fraudulent
For like themselves they alter all,
And vice infects the very wall.
XXVIII.
'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 from their ruin. How I fear
Though guiltless lest thou perish there.'
XIX.
What should he do? He would respect
Religion, but not right neglect:
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.
XXX.
Small honour would be in the storm.
The court him grants the lawful form;
Which licensed either peace or force,
To hinder the unjust divorce.
Yet still the nuns his right debarred,
Standing upon their holy guard.
Ill-counselled women, do you know
Whom you resist, or what you do?
XXXI.
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,
His horse through conquered Britain ride?
Yet, against fate, his spouse they kept;
And the great race would intercept.
XXXII.
Some to the breach against their foes
Their wooden saints in vain oppose
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;
And sharpest weapons were their tongues.
XXXIII.
But, waving these aside like flies,
Young Fairfax through the wall does rise.
Then th'unfrequented vault appeared,
And superstitions vainly feared.
The relics false were set to view;
Only the jewels there were true.
But truly bright and holy Thwaites
That weeping at the altar waites.
XXXIV.
But the glad youth away her bears,
And to the nuns bequeaths her tears:
Who guiltily their prize bemoan,
Like gypsies that a child hath stol'n.
Thenceforth (as when th'enchantment ends
The castle vanishes or rends)
The wasting cloister with the rest
Was in one instant dispossessed.
XXXV.
At the demolishing, this seat
To Fairfax fell as by escheat.
And what both nuns and founders willed
'Tis likely better thus fulfilled,
For if the virgin proved not theirs,
The cloister yet remained hers.
Though many a nun there made her vow,
'Twas no religious house till now.
XXXVI.
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
In the just figure of a fort;
And with five bastions it did fence,
As aiming one for ev'ry sense.
XXXVII.
When in the east the morning ray
Hangs out the colours of the day,
The bee through these known allies 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,
And fills its flask with odours new.
XXXVIII.
These, as their Governor goes by,
In fragrant volleys they let fly;
And to salute their Governess
Again as great a charge they press:
None for the virgin Nymph; for she
Seems with the flowers a flower to be.
And think so still! though not compare
With breath so sweet, or cheek so fair.
XXXIX.
Well shot, ye fireman! 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:
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink, and rose.
XL.
But when the vigilant patrol
Of stars walks round about the pole,
Their leaves, that to the stalks are curled,
Seem to their staves the ensigns furled.
Then in some flow'r's beloved hut
Each bee as sentinel is shut;
And sleeps so too: but, if once stirrd,
She runs you through, nor asks the word.
XLI.
Oh thou, that dear and happy isle
The garden of the world ere while,
Thou Paradise of four seas,
Which heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With wat'ry if not flaming sword;
What luckless apple did we taste,
To make us mortal, and thee waste?
XLII.
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.
XLIII.
The gard'ner had the soldier's place,
And his more gentle forts did trace.
The nursery 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.
XLIV.
And yet their walks one on the sod
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 five imaginary Forts:
And, in those half-dry trenches, spanned
Power which the ocean might command.
XLV.
For he did, with his utmost skill,
Ambition weed, but conscience till.
Conscience, that heaven-nursed plant,
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,
That in the crowns of saints do shine.
XLVI.
The sight does from these bastions ply,
Th' invisible artillery;
And at proud Cawood Castle seems
To point the batt'ry of its beams.
As if it quarrelled in the seat
Th'ambition of its prelate great.
But o're the meads below it plays,
Or innocently seems to graze.
XLVII.
And now to the abyss I pass
Of that unfathomable grass,
Where men like grashoppers appear,
But grashoppers are giants there:
They, in there squeaking laugh, contemn
Us as we walk more low then them:
And, from the precipices tall
Of the green spires, to us do call.
XLVIII.
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.
XLIX.
No scene that turns with engines strange
Does oft'ner then 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.
L.
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 gate as black forebode.
LI.
But bloody Thestylis, that waites
To bring the mowing camp their cates,
Greedy as kites, has trussed it up,
And forthwith means on it to sup:
When on another quick she lights,
And cries, 'He called us Israelites;
But now, to make his saying true,
Rails rain for quails, for manna, dew.'
LII.
Unhappy birds! What does it boot
To build below the grasses root;
When lowness is unsafe as height,
And chance o'ertakes what 'scapeth spite?
And now your orphan parents call
Sounds your untimely funeral.
Death-trumpets creak in such a note,
And 'tis the sourdine in their throat.
LIII.
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're with bodies slain:
The women that with forks it fling,
Do represent the pillaging.
LIV.
And now the careless victors play,
Dancing the triumphs of the hay;
Where every mowers wholesome heat
Smells like an Alexander's sweat.
Their females fragrant as the mead
Which they in fairy circles tread:
When at their dances end they kiss,
Their new-made hay not sweeter is.
LV.
When after this 'tis piled in cocks,
Like a calm sea it shows the rocks:
We wond'ring in the river near
How boats 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.
LVI.
This scene again withdrawing brings
A new and empty face of things;
A levelled space, as smooth and plain,
As clothes for Lely 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.
LVII.
For to this naked equal flat,
Which Levellers take pattern at,
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
Dav'nant with th'universal herd.
LVIII.
They seem within the polished grass
A landskip drawen in looking-glass.
And shrunk in the huge pasture show
As spots, so shaped, on faces do.
Such fleas, ere they approach the eye,
In multiplying glasses lie.
They feed so wide, so slowly move,
As constellations do above.
LIX.
Then, to conclude these pleasant acts,
Denton sets ope its cataracts;
And makes the meadow truly be
(What it but seemed before) a sea.
For, jealous of its Lords long stay,
It tries t'invite him thus away.
The river in itself is drowned,
And isles th'astonished cattle round.
LX.
Let others tell the paradox,
How eels now bellow in the ox;
How horses at their tails do kick,
Turned as they hang to leeches quick;
How boats can over bridges sail;
And fishes do the stables scale.
How salmons trespassing are found;
And pikes are taken in the pound.
LXI.
But I, retiring from the flood,
Take sanctuary in the wood;
And, while it lasts, my self embark
In this yet green, yet growing ark;
Where the first carpenter might best
Fit timber for his keel have pressed.
And where all creatures might have shares,
Although in armies, not in paires.
LXII.
The double wood of ancient stocks
Linked in so thick, an union locks,
It like two pedigrees appears,
On one hand Fairfax, th'other Veres:
Of whom though many fell in war,
Yet more to heaven shooting are:
And, as they Nature's cradle decked,
Will in green age her hearse expect.
LXIII.
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 ment
To thrust up a fifth element;
And stretches still so closely wedged
As if the night within were hedged.
LXIV.
Dark all without it knits; within
It opens passable and thin;
And in as loose an order grows,
As the Corinthean porticoes.
The arching boughs unite between
The columns of the temple green;
And underneath the winged choirs
Echo about their tuned fires.
LXV.
The 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 list'ning elders prick the ear.
The thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws
Within the skin its shrunken claws.
LXVI.
But I have for my music found
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.
O why should such a couple mourn,
That in so equal flames do burn!
LXVII.
Then as I careless on the bed
Of gelid strawberries do tread,
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
That tribute to its Lord to send.
LXVIII.
But most the hewel's wonders are,
Who here has the holt-felster's care.
He walks still upright from the root,
Meas'ring the timber with his foot;
And all the way, to keep it clean,
Doth from the bark the woodmoths glean.
He, with his beak, examines well
Which fit to stand and which to fell.
LXIX.
The good he numbers up, and hacks;
As if he marked them with the 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.
Who could have thought the tallest oak
Should fall by such a feeble stroke!
LXX.
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 punishment.
LXXI.
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.
LXXII.
Already I 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
Then if she were with lime-twigs knit.
No leaf does tremble in the wind
Which I returning cannot find.
LXXIII.
Out of these scattered sibyl's leaves
Strange prophecies my fancy weaves:
And in one history consumes,
Like Mexique paintings, all the plumes.
What Rome, Greece, Palestine, ere said
I in this light mosaic read.
Thrice happy he who, not mistook,
Hath read in Nature's mystic book.
LXXIV.
And see how Chance's better wit
Could with a masque 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 antic cope I move
Like some great prelate of the grove,
LXXV.
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 ye mossy banks,
And unto you cool zephyrs thanks,
Who, as my hair, my thoughts too shed,
And winnow from the chaff my head.
LXXVI.
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
Can make, or me it toucheth not.
But I on it securely play,
And gaul its horsemen all the day.
LXXVII.
Bind me ye woodbines in your twines,
Curl me about ye gadding vines,
And oh so close your circles lace,
That I may never leave this place:
But, lest your fetters prove too weak,
Ere I your silken bondage break,
Do you, O brambles, chain me too,
And courteous briars nail me though.
LXXVIII.
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,
Betwixt two labyrinths does lead.
But, where the floods did lately drown,
There at the evening stake me down.
LXXIX.
For now the waves are fall'n and dried,
And now the meadow's 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.
LXXX.
See in what wanton harmless folds
It ev'rywhere 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,
Narcissus-like, the sun too pines.
LXXXI.
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
On th'osiers undermined root,
And in its branches tough to hang,
While at my lines the fishes twang!
LXXXII.
But now away my hooks, my quills,
And angles, idle utensils.
The young Maria walks tonight:
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 Aw.
LXXXIII.
See how loose Nature, in respect
To her, itself doth recollect;
And ever thing so whisht and fine,
Starts forthwith 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 conceales his head.
LXXXIV.
So when the shadows laid asleep
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,
Flying betwixt the day and night;
And such an horror calm and dumb,
Admiring Nature does benumb.
LXXXV.
The viscous air, wheres'e're she fly,
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 overta'ne,
And men the silent scene assist,
Charmed with the sapphire-winged mist.
LXXXVI.
Maria such, and so doth hush
The world, and through the ev'ning rush.
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.
LXXXVII.
'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-pure but only she;
She yet more pure, sweet, straight, and fair,
Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.
LXXXVIII.
Therefore what first she on them spent,
They gratefully again present.
The meadow carpets where to tread;
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.
LXXXIX.
For she, to higher beauties raised,
Disdains to be for lesser praised.
She counts her beauty to converse
In all the languages as hers;
Not yet in those her self employes
But for the wisdom, not the noise;
Nor yet that wisdom would affect,
But as 'tis heaven's dialect.
LXXX.
Blest Nymph! that couldst so soon prevent
Those trains by youth against thee meant;
Tears (wat'ry shot that pierce the mind;)
And sighs (Love's cannon charged 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.
LXXXXI.
This 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed,
Under the discipline severe
Of Fairfax, and the starry Vere;
Where not one object can come nigh
But pure, and spotless as the eye;
And goodness doth it self entail
On females, if there want a male.
LXXXXII.
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.
LXXXXIII.
Hence she with graces more divine
Supplies beyond her sex the line;
And, like a sprig of mistletoe,
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.
LXXXXIV.
Meantime ye fields, springs, bushes, flowers,
Where yet she leads her studious hours,
(Till Fate her worthily translates,
And find a Fairfax for our Thwaites)
Employ the means you have by her,
And in your kind yourselves prefer;
That, as all virgins she preceds,
So you all woods, streams, gardens, meads.
LXXXXV.
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;
Much less the dead's Elysian fields,
Yet nor to them your beauty yields.
LXXXXVI.
'Tis not, what once it was, the world;
But a rude heap together hurled;
All negligently overthrown,
Gulfs, deserts, precipices, stone.
Your lesser world contains the same.
But in more decent order tame;
You, heaven's center, Nature's Lap.
And Paradise's only map.
LXXXVII.
But 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.
—Andrew
Marvell (1621-1678), "Upon Appleton House, To My Lord Fairfax,"
generally agreed to have been written sometime in the summer of 1651.
Spelling modernization and editing courtesy of
The Poems of Andrew Marvell,
edited by Nigel Smith, revised edition (Longman, 2007). (I did think
about just copying and pasting from the Virginia EText, but in this case
I really do prefer the 21st century spelling and punctuation.)
