No More Learning

Vainly in hell let Pluto domineer.



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178 THE POEMS



FLECNO, AN ENGLISH PKIEST AT ROME.

Obliged by freqaent visits of this maiiy
Whom as priest, poet, and musician,
I for some branch of Melchisedek took,
(Though he derives himself from my Lord

Brooke)
I sought his lodging which is at the sign
Of the sad Pelican, — subject divine
For poetry ; — there, three stair-cases high.
Which signifies his triple property,
I found at last a chamber, as 'twas said.
But seemed a coffin set on the stair's head ;
Not higher than seven, nor larger than three feet,
There neither was or ceiling, or a sheet,
Save that the ingenious door did, as you come.
Turn in, and show to wainscot half the room :
Yet of his state no man could have complained,
There being no bed where he entertained ;
And though within one cell so narrow pent,
He*d . stanzas for a whole apartiment



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OP MARVELL. 179

Straight without farther information,
In hideous verse, he in a dismal tone,
Begins to exorcise, as if I were
Possessed, — and sure the devil brought me

there.
But I, who now imagined myself brought
To my last trial, in a serious thought
Calmed the disorders of my youthful breast,
And to my martyrdom prepared rest.
Only this frail ambition did remain,
The last distemper of the sober brain,
That there had been some present to assure
The future ages how I did endure,
Arid how I, silent, turned my burning ear
Towards the verse, and when that could not

hear.
Held him the other and unchanged yet.
Asked him for more and prayed him to repeat,
Till the tyrant, weary to pei^secute,
Left off, and tried to allure me with his lute.

Now as two instruments to the same key
Being tuned by art, if the one touched be.
The other opposite as soon replies,
Moved by the air and hidden sympathies,
So while he with his gouty finger:? crawls
Over the lute, his murmuring belly calls,
Whose hungry guts, to the same straitness

twined,
In echo to the trembling strings repined.
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180 THE POEMS

I that perceived now what his music meant,
Asked civilly, if he had eat his Lent ?
lie answered yes ; with such, and such a one,
For he has this of generous, that alone
He never feeds, save only when he tries
With gristly tongue to dart the passing flies.
I asked if he eat flesh, and he, that was
So hungry, that though ready to say mass,
Would break his fast before, said he was sick.
And the ordinance was only politic.
Nor was I longer to invite him scant,
Happy at once to make him Protestant
And silent. Nothing now dinner stayed.
But till he had himself a body made,
I mean till he were dressed ; for else so thin
He stands, as if he only fed had been
With consecmted wafers, and the host
Hath sure more flesh and blood than he can boast.
This basso-relievo of a man.
Who, as a camel tall, yet easily can
The needle's eye thread without any stitch,
(His only impossible is to be rich,)
Lest his too subtle body, growing rare,
Should leave his soul to wander in tlie air,
He therefore circumscribes himself in rliymes.
And swaddled in's own papers sewn times,
Wears a close jacket of poetic buff.
With which he doth his third dirnonsiun stuff.
Thus armed underneath, he over ail
Does make a primitive Sotana fail.



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OP MARVELL. 181

And above that yet casts an antique cloak,
Worn at the first council of Antioch,
Which by the Jews long hid, and disesteemed,
He heard of by tradition, and redeemed.
But were he not in this black habit decked,
This half transparent man would soon reflect
Each colour that he past by, and be seen.
As the chameleon, yellow, blue, or green.