As in a
crescent
moon the sun.
Marvell - Poems
Or to what gelid fountain bend ?
Alas ! I look for ease in vain,
\Vhen remedies themselves complain,
No moisture but my tears do rest,
Nor cold but in her icy breast.
How long wilt thou, fair shepherdess,
Esteem me and my presents less ?
To thee the harmless snake I bring.
Disarmed of its teeth and sting ;
To thee chameleons, changing hue,
And oak leaves tipt with honey dew ;
Yet thou ungrateful hast not sought
Nor what they are, nor who them brought.
I am the mower Damon, known
Through all the meadows I have mown.
On me the morn her dew distils
Before her darling daffodils.
And, if at noon my toil me heat,
The sun himself licks off my sweat ;
While going home the evening sweet
In cowslip-water batlis my feet.
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OF MARVELL. 93
What though the piping shepherd stock
The plains with an unnumbered flock.
This scythe of mine discovers wide
More ground than all his sheep do hide.
With this the golden fleece I shear
Of all these closes every year,
And though in wool more poor than they,
Yet I am richer far in hay.
Nor am I so deformed to sight.
If in my scythe I looked right ;
In which I see my picture done.
As in a crescent moon the sun.
The deathless fairies take me ofl
To lead them in their dances soft,
And when I tune myself to sing.
About me they contract their ring.
How happy might I still have mowed.
Had not Love here his thistle sowed I
But now I all the day complain.
Joining my labour to my pain,
And with my scythe cut down the grass.
Yet still my grief is where it was ;
But when the iron blunter grows,
Sighing I whet my scythe and woes.
While thus he drew his elbow round,
Depopulating all the ground,
And, with his whistling scythe, does cut
Each stroke between the earth and root,
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94 THE POEMS
The edged steel, by careless chance,
Did into his own ankle glance,
And there among the grass fell down.
By his own scythe the mower mown.
Alas ! said he, these hurts are slight
To those that die by love's despite.
With shepherd's-purse, and clown's all-heal,
The blood I stanch and wound I seal.
Only for him no cure is found,
Whom Juliana's eyes do wound ;
'Tis death alone that this must do ;
For, Death, thou art a Mower too.
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OF BIARVELL. 95
THE MOWER TO THE GLOW WORMS.
Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late.
