No More Learning

How long thou shalt continue fair,

And (when informed) them throw'st away

To be the greedy vulture's prey.

But, against that, thou sittest afloat,

Like Venus in her pearly boat ;

The halcyons, calming all that's nigh,

Betwixt the air and water fly ;

Or, if some rolling wave appears,

A mass of ambergrease it bears,

Nor blows more wind than what may well

Convoy the perfume to the smeJL

These pictures, and a thousand more.

Of thee, my gallery do store.

In all the forms thou can'st invent.

Either to please me, or torment ;

For thou alone, to people me,

Art grown a numerous colony.

And a collection choicer far

Than or Whitehall's, or Mantua's were.

But of these pictures, and the rest,

That at the entrance likes mc best,



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60 THE POEMS

Where the same postare and the look
Bemains with which I first was took ;
A tender shepherdess, whose hair
Hangs loosely playing in the air.
Transplanting flowers from the green hill
To crown her head and bosom filL



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F MARVELL* 61



THE FAIR SINGER.

I.
To make a final conquest of all me,
Love did compose so sweet an enemy,
In whom both beauties to my death agree,
Joining themselves in fatal harmony.
That, while she with her eyes my heart doe*

bind,
She with her voice might captivate my mind.

II.
I could have fled from one but singly fair ;
My disentangled soul itself might save.
Breaking the curled trammels of her hair ;
But how should I avoid to be her slave,
Whose subtle art invisibly can wreath
My fetters of the very air I breathe ?

III.
It had been easy fighting in some plain,
Where victory might hang in equal choice



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62 THE POEMS

But all resistance against her is vain,
Who has the advantage both of eyes and voice,
And all mj forces needs must be undone.
She having gained both the wind and sun.



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OF MARVELL. U8



MOURNING.



You, that decipher out the fate
Of human offsprings from the skies,
What mean these infants which, of late.
Spring from the stars of Chlora's eyes ?

11.
Her ejes confused, and doubled o'er
With tears suspended ere they flow,
Seem bending upwards to restore
To^ heaven, whence it came, their woe.

III.
When, moulding of the watery spheres,
Slow drops untie themselves away,
As if she with those precious tears.
Would strew the ground where Strephon lay.

IV. .
Yet some affirm, pretending art.
Her eyes have so her bosom drown'd,
Only to soften, near her heart,
A place to fix another wound.



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fi4 THE POEMS



V.