And a
collection
choicer far
Than or Whitehall's, or Mantua's were.
Than or Whitehall's, or Mantua's were.
Marvell - Poems
That, for all furniture, you'll find
Only your picture in my mind.
Here thou art painted in the dress
Of an inhumane murtheress,
Examining upon our hearts,
(Thy fertile shop of cruel arts,)
Engines more keen than ever yet
Adorned a tyrant's cabinet,
Of which the most tormenting are.
Black eyes, red lips, and curled hair.
But, on the other side, thou*rt drawn,
Like to Aurora in the dawn.
When in the east she slumbering lies,
'And stretches out her milky thighs.
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OF MARVELL. 59
While all the morning quire does sing,
And Manna falls and roses spring,
And, at thy feet, the wooing doves
Sit perfecting their harmless loves.
Like an enchantress here thou show'st,
Vexing thy restless lover's ghost.
And, by a light obscure, dost rave
Over his entrails, in the cave.
Divining thence, with horrid care.
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 ?
