No More Learning

Which heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With watery, if not flaming sword, —
What luckless apple did we taste,
To make us mortal, and thee waste ?
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 ;
The gardener had the soldier's place.
And his more gentle forts did trace ;
The nui-sery 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.
And yet there walks one on the sod.



Digitized by VjOOQIC



OF MARVELL. 15

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 ^vq imaginary forts, sm

And, in those half-dry trenches, spanned

Power which the ocean might command.

For he did, with his utmost skill.

Ambition weed, but conscience till, —

Conscience, that heaven-nursed plant, 333

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,

Which in the crowns of Saints do shine.
3»

The sight does from these bastions ply,
The invisible artillery.
And at proud Cawood Castle seems
To point the battery of its beams,
As if it quarrelled in the seat, xa

The ambition of his prelate great,
But o'er the meads below it plays,
Or innocently seems to gaze.
And now to the abyss I pass
Of that unfathomable grass, 370

Where men like grasshoppers appear,
But grasshoppers are giants there :
They, in their squeaking laugh, contemn
Us as we walk more low than them,



Digitized by VjOOQIC



20 THE POEMS

And from the precipices tall
Of the green spires to us do call.
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 who 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 gi-ass 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 In's stroke detest.
Fearing the flesh, untimely mowed.
To him a fate as black forebode.
But bloody Thestylis, that waits
To bring the mowing camp their cates,
Greedy as kite, has trussed it up
And forthwith means on it to sup.



Digitized by VjOOQIC



OF MARVELL. 21

When on another quick she lights^ ^

And cries, " he calFd us Israelites ;

But now, to make his saying true^

Rails rain for quails, for manna dew. "

Unhappy biixls ! what docs it boot

To build below the grass's root ; <i»

When lowness is unsafe as height^

And chance overtakes Avhat 'scapeth spite ?