The Life of Andrew Marvell: The Celebrated Patriot: with Extracts and Selections from His Prose and Poetical Works

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Simpkin and Marshall, 1832 - 116 pages

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Page 98 - TO HIS COY MISTRESS 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...
Page 99 - 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.
Page 90 - But apples, plants of such a price, No tree could ever bear them twice. With cedars chosen by His hand From Lebanon He stores the land; And makes the hollow seas that roar Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
Page 99 - Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life.
Page 88 - Yet could not till itself would rise, Find it, although before mine eyes ; For, in the flaxen lilies' shade, It like a bank of lilies laid. Upon the roses it would feed, Until its lips e'en seemed to bleed ; And then to me 'twould boldly trip, And print those roses on my lip.
Page 96 - The poets tag them, we for fashion wear. I too, transported by the mode, offend, And, while I meant to praise thee, must commend.
Page 96 - That majesty, which through thy work doth reign, Draws the devout, deterring the profane. And things divine thou treat'st of in such state As them preserves, and thee inviolate. At once delight and horror on us seize, Thou sing'st with so much gravity and ease ; And above human flight dost soar aloft With plume so strong, so equal, and so soft.
Page 90 - 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.
Page 36 - What have I for dinner to-day?' 'Don't you know, sir, that you bid me lay by the blade-bone to broil! "Tis so, very right, child, go away.
Page 100 - Of the clear fountain of eternal day, Could it within the human flower be seen, Remembering still its former height, Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green; And, recollecting its own light, Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express The greater heaven in an heaven less.

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