85

SELECTIONS

FROM THE

POETICAL WORKS OF MARVELL.

As a Poet, MARVELL was certainly unequal, and some of his most beautiful passages are alloyed with vulgarism and common-place similes. His early poems express a fondness for the charms of rural and pastoral scenes, with much delicacy of sentiment; and are full of fancy, after the manner of COWLEY and his contemporaries. Marvell's wit was debased, indeed, by the coarseness of the time, and his imagination by its conceits; but he had a true vein of poetry. The first edition of his poems, in folio, 1681, was surreptitious, and contains the following impudent preface:

"TO THE READER,

These are to certify every ingenious reader, that all these poems, as also the other things in this book contained, are printed according to the exact copies of my late dear husband, under his own hand-writing, being found since his death, among his other papers. Witness my hand, this 15th day of October, 1680.

MARY MARVELL."

Marvell was never married, and therefore this cheat was soon detected; but a bookseller bought his manuscripts from the woman in whose house he lodged. As few other poems, besides those contained in this edition, exist, it is to be feared that what this person thought unsaleable, were destroyed.

I

We commence our selection with the following interesting poem, which is perhaps the most finished, and, on the whole, the best in the collection:

THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH
OF HER FAWN.

The wanton troopers riding by,
Have shot my fawn, and it will die.
Ungentle-men! They cannot thrive

Who kill'd thee. Thou ne'er didst, alive,
Them any harm: alas! nor could

Thy death yet do them any good.
I'm sure I never wish'd them ill;
Nor do I for all this; nor will:
But, if my simple prayers may yet
Prevail with heaven to forget
Thy murder, I will join my tears,
Rather than fail.

It cannot die so.

But, O my fears!

Heaven's king

Keeps register of every thing;

And nothing may we use in vain,
Ev'n beasts must be with justice slain;
Else men are made their deodands.
Though they should wash their guilty hands
In this warm life-blood, which doth part
From thine, and wound me to the heart,
Yet could they not be clean: their stain
Is dy'd in such a purple grain.
There is not such another in
The world, to offer for their sin.

Inconstant SYLVIO, when yet
I had not found him counterfeit,
One morning, (I remember well,)
Ty'd in this silver chain and bell,
Gave it to me: nay, and I know
What he said then; I'm sure I do.

Said he, "Look how your huntsman here

Hath taught a fawn to hunt his dear."

Unkind t'a beast that loveth me.

Had it liv'd long, I do not know
Whether it too might have done so
As Sylvio did: his gifts might be
Perhaps as false, or more, than he.
But I am sure, for ought that I
Could in so short a time espy,
Thy love was far more better than
The love of false and cruel man.

With sweetest milk and sugar, first
I it at mine own fingers nurs'd;
And as it grew, so every day

It wax'd more white and sweet than they.
It had so sweet a breath! and oft

I blush'd to see its foot more soft,

And white, shall I say than my hand!
Nay, any lady's of the land.

It is a wond'rous 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.
For it was nimbler much than hinds;
And trod, as if on the Four Winds.

I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown,
And lilies, that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness;

And all the spring-time of the year
It only loved to be there.
Among the beds of lilies I

Have sought it oft, where it should lie;
Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it, although before mine eyes.
For in the flaxen lily's shade,
It like a bank of lilies laid.
Upon the roses it would feed,

Until its lips ev'n seem'd to bleed;
. And then to me 'twould boldly trip,
And print those roses on my lip.
But all its chief delight was still
On roses thus itself to fill;
And its pure virgin limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of lilies cold.
Had it liv'd long, it would have been
Lilies without-roses within.

O help! O help! I see it faint,
And die as calmly as a saint.

See how it weeps! The tears do come

Sad, slowly, dropping like a gum.
So weeps the wounded balsam, so

The holy frankincense doth flow.

The brotherless Heliades

Melt in such amber tears as these.

I in a golden phial will

Keep these two crystal tears, and fill
It, till it doth o'erflow with mine-
Then place it in Diana's shrine.

Now my sweet fawn is vanish'd to
Whither the swans and turtles go;
In fair Elysium to endure,

With milk-white lambs, and ermines pure.

O do not run too fast; for I

Will but bespeak thy grave, and die.

First, my unhappy statue shall
Be cut in marble; and withal,
Let it be weeping too; but there
Th'

engraver sure his art may spare;
For I so truly thee bemoan,

That I shall weep though I be stone,
Until my tears, still dropping, wear
My breast, themselves engraving there.
There at my feet shalt thou be laid,
Of purest alabaster made;

For I would have thine image be
White as I can, though not as thee.

The following stanzas are supposed to be sung by a party of those voluntary exiles for conscience' sake, who, in a profligate age, left their country, to enjoy religious freedom in regions beyond the Atlantic. The scene is laid near the Bermudas, or Summer Islands, as they are now called :

THE EMIGRANTS.

Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In th' ocean's bosom unespy'd;
From a small boat that row'd along,
The list'ning winds receiv'd this song.

"What should we do but sing his praise,
That led us through the wat'ry maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own.

Where He the huge sea-monsters racks,
That lift the deep upon their backs;

He lands us on a grassy stage,

Safe from the storms, and prelates' rage.
He gave us this eternal spring,
Which here enamels every thing;