Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers, are.
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.
For she to higher beauties rais'd,
Disdains to be for lesser prais'd.
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 ;
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 (watery shot that pierce the mind;)
And sighs (Love's cannon charg'd with wind;)
True praise (that breaks through all defence;)
And feign'd complying innocence:
But knowing where this ambush lay,
She scap'd the safe, but roughest way.
This 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nurst,
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 itself entail
On females, if there want a male. fond sex, that on your
Go now,
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 fill'd
And virtue all those furrows till'd.
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.
Mean time, ye fields, springs, bushes, flowers,
Where yet she leads her studious hours,
(Till fate her worthily translates,
And find a Fairfax for our Thwates)
Employ the means you have by her,
And in your kind your selves prefer;
That, as all virgins she precedes,
So you all woods, streams, gardens, meads.
For thou, Thessalian Tempe's seat,
Shall now be scorn'd, as obsolete;
Aranjuez, as less, disdain'd;
The Bel-Retiro, as constrain'd;
But name not the Idalian grove,
For 'twas the seat of wanton love;
Nor e'en the dead's Elysian fields,
Yet nor to them your beauty yields.
"Tis not, as once appear'd, the world,
A heap confus'd together hurl'd;
All negligently overgrown,
Gulphs, desarts, 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."
The next extract we make is descriptive of those two destructive engines," eyes and tears," which the society for the abolition of war will, we fear, never get the better of.
EYES AND TEARS.
"How wisely nature did decree,
With the same eyes to weep and see!
That, having view'd 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 wat'ry lines and plummets fall.
Two tears, which sorrow long did weigh,
Within the scales of either
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 thro' every garden been,
Amongst the red, the white, the green;
And yet from all those flowers I saw,
No honey, but these tears could draw.
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,
Dissolv'd 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 shews so fair,
As two eyes, swoln with weeping, are.
The sparkling glance that shoots desire,
Drench'd in these waves, does lose its fire.
Yea, oft the thund'rer 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:
Now, like two fountains, trickle down:
Now like two floods o'er-run, and drown.
Thus let your streams o'erflow your springs,
Till eyesand tears be the same things;
And each the other's difference bears;
These weeping eyes, those seeing tears."
The following fanciful and ingenious "Dialogue between Soul and Body" is well known as the original of several quaint and witty imitations.
"O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
A soul inslav'd so many ways
With bolts and bones? that fetter'd stands
In feet; and manacled in hands.
Here blinded with an eye; and there
Deaf with the drumming of an ear.
A soul hung up, as 'twere, in chains
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins.
Tortur'd, besides each other part,
In a vain head, and double heart.
O who shall me deliver whole,
From bonds of this tyrannic soul?
Which, stretch'd upright, impales me so,
That mine own precipice I go;
And warms and moves this needless frame;
(A fever could but do the same.)
And, wanting where its spight to try,
Has made me live to let me die,
A body that could never rest,
Since this ill spirit is possess'd.
What magic could me thus confine
Within another's grief to pine?
Where, whatsoever it complain,
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain.
And all my care itself employs,
That to preserve, which me destroys;
Constrain❜d not only to endure
Diseases, but, what's worse, the cure;
And ready oft the port to gain,
Am shipwreck'd into health again.
But physick yet could never reach
The maladies thou me dost teach;
Whom first the cramp of hope does tear;
And then the palsy, shakes of fear.
The pestilence of love does heat :
Or hatred's hidden ulcer eat.
Joy's cheerful madness does perplex;
Or sorrow's other madness vex;
Which knowledge forces me to know,
And memory will not forego.
What but a soul could have the wit
To build me up for sin so fit?
So architects do square and hew
Green trees that in the forest grew."
Johnson says that Milton was the first Englishman who wrote Latin verses with facility and purity. Marvell may justly claim the secondary honour of latinity, for he is little inferior in this accomplishment to Milton. The Carmina on the Dew Drop in our last, may be given in proof with the following:
"QUISNAM adeo, mortale genus! præcordia versat?
Heu palmæ, laurique furor, vel simplicis herbæ !
Arbor ut indomitos ornet vix una labores;
Tempora nec foliis præcingat tota malignis;
Dum simul implexi, tranquillæ ad serta quietis,
Omnigeni coëunt flores, integraque sylva.
Alma quies, teneo te! et te, germana quietis,
Simplicitas! vos ergo diu per templa, per urbes,
Quæsivi, regum perque alta palatia, frustra.
Sed vos hortorum per opaca silentia, longè
Celârunt plantæ virides, et concolor umbra.
O! mihi si vestros liceat violâsse recessus,
Erranti, lasso, et vitæ melioris anhelo,
Municipem servate novum; votoque potitum,
Frondosæ cives optate in florea regna.
Me quoque, vos Musæ, et te, conscie, testor, Apollo,
Non armenta juvant hominum, circive boatus,
Mugitusve fori; sed me penetralia veris,
Horroresque trahunt muti, et consortia sola,
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