No More Learning

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The river in itself is drowned.

And isles the astonished cattle round.

Let others tell the paradox.
How eels now bellow in the ox ;
How horses at their tails do kick, 47s

Turned, as they hang, to leeches quick ;.
How boats can over bridges sail,
And fishes to the stables scale ;
How salmons trespassing are found.
And pikes are taken in the pound ; ««

But I, retiring from the flood.
Take sanctuary in the wood ;
And, while it lastf! , myself embark
In this yet green, yet growing ark.
Where the first carpenter might best 48s

Fit timber for his keel have pressed,
And where all creatures might have shares.
Although in armies, not in pairs.
The double wood, of ancient stocks.
Linked in so thick an union locks, <»

It like two pedigrees appears,



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tJ4 THE POEMS.

On one hand Fairfax, t'other Veres :

Of whom though many fell in war,

Yet more to heaven shooting are :

And, as tliey Nature's cradle decked,

Will, in green age, her hearse expect

When first the eye this forest sees,

It seems indeed as wood, not trees ;

As if their neighbourhood so old

To one great trunk them all did mould.

There the huge bulk takes place, as meant

To thrust up a fifth element.

And stretches still so closely wedged,

As if the night within were hedged.
Dark all without it knits ; within

It opens passable and thin.

And in as loose an order gix)W8,

As the Corinthian porticos.

The arching boughs unite between

The columns of the temple green,

And underneath the winged quires

p]cho about their tuned fires.

TJie nightingale does here make choice

To sing the trials of her voice ;

Low shrubs she sits in, and adorns

With music high the squatted thorns ;

But highest oaks stoop down to hear,

And listening elders prick the ear ;

The thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws

Within the skin its shrunken claws.

But I have for my music found



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OF MARVELL. 25

A sadder, yet more pleasing sound ;

The stock-doves, whose fair necks are graced

With nuptial rings, their ensigns chaste,

Yet always, for some cause unknown, ««

Sad pair, unto the elms they moan.

why should such a couple mourn,

That in so equal flames do bui*n !

Then as I careless on the bed

Of gelid strawberries do tread, 5»

And through the hazels thick espy

The hatching throstle's shining eye,

The heron, from the ash's top,

The eldest of its young lets drop.

As if it stork-like did pretend mj

That tribute to its lord to send.

But most the heweFs wonders are,

Who here has the holtselster's care ;

He walks still upright from the root,

Measuring the timber with his foot, 540

And all the way, to keep it clean,

Doth from the bark the wood-moths glean ;

He, with his beak, examines well

Which fit to stand, and which to fell ;

The good he numbers up, and hacks 545

As if he marked them with an axe ;

But where he, tinkling with his beak.

Does find the hollow oak to speak,

That for his building he designs,

And through the tainted side he mines. sso

Who could have thought the tallest oak



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26 THE POEMS

Should fall by s;uch a feeble stroke ?
Nor would it, had the tree not fed
A traitor worm, within it bred,
(As first our flesh, corrupt within,
Tempts impotent and bashful sin,)
And yet that worm triumphs not long,
But serves to feed the hewel's young.
While the oak seems to fall content,
Viewing the treason's punishments

Thus, I, easy philosopher,
Among the birds and trees confer,
And little now to make me wants
Or of the fowls, or of the plants :
Give me but wings as they, and I
Straight floating on the air shall fly ;
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted tree.
Already 1 begin to call
In their most learned original,
And, where I language want, my signs
The bird upon the bough divines.
And more attentive there doth sit
Than if she were with lime-twigs knit.