If the
cathedral
still shall have its isles.
Marvell - Poems
Or what new perpendicular does rise.
Up from her streams, continued to the skies.
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OF MARVELL. 131
That between us the common air should bar,
And split the influence of every star ?
But *who considers right, will find indeed,
'Tis Holy Island parts us, not the Tweed.
Nothing but clergy could us two seclude,
No Scotch was ever like a bishop's feud.
All Litanies in this have wanted faith.
There's no deliver us from a bishop* s wrath.
Never shall Calvin pardoned be for sales, \
Never, for Burnet's sake, the Lauderdales ;r C
For Becket's sake, Kent always shall have tales. )
Who fcermons e'er can pacify and prayers ?
Or to the joint stools reconcile the chairs ?
Though kingdoms join, yet church will kirk
oppose;
The mitre still divides, the crown does close ;
As in Hogation week they whip us round.
To keep in tim« the Scotch and English bound.
What the ocean binds is by the bishops rent,
As seas make islands in the continent.
Nature in vain us in one land compiles.
If the cathedral still shall have its isles.
Nothing, not bogs nor sands nor seas nor Alps,
Separates the world so as the bishops scalps ;
Stretch for the line their surcingle alone,
'Twill make a more inhabitable zone.
The friendly loadstone has not more combined,
Than bishops cramped the commerce of mankind.
Had it not been for such a bias strong.
Two nations ne'er had missed the mark so long.
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132 THE rOEMS
The world in all doth but two nations bear,
The good, the bad, and these mixed everywhere ;
Under each pole place either of these two.
The bad will basely, good will bravely, do ;
And few, indeed, can parallel our climes,
For worth heroic, or heroic crimes^
The trial would, however, be too nice,
Which stronger were, a Scotch or English vice ;
Or whether the same virtue would reflect.
From Scotch or English heart, the same effect.
Nation is all but name, a Shibboleth,
Where a mistaken accent causes death.
In Paradise names only nature showed.
At Babel names from pride and discord flowed ;
And ever since men, with a female spite,
First call each other names, and then they fight.
Scotland and England cause a just uproar ;
Do man and wife signify rogue and whore ?
Say but a Scot and straight we fall to sides ;
That syllable like a Picts* wall divides.
Rational men's words pledges are of peace ;
Perverted, serve dissension to increase.
For shame extirpate from each loyal breast
That senseless rancour, against interest.
One king, one faith, one language, and one i«le,
English and Scotch, 'tis all but cross and pile.
