The world with throes
laboured
beneath their
load.
load.
Marvell - Poems
Foreboding princes' falls, and seldom vain :
Whether some kinder powers, that wish us well,
What they above cannot prevent, foretell ;
Or the great world do by consent presage.
As hollow seas with future tempests rage ;
Or rather Heaven, which us so long foresees.
Their funerals celebrates, while it decrees.
But never yet was any human fate
By nature solemnized with so much state :
He unconcerned the dreadful passage crost.
But oh ! what pangs that death did Nature cost !
First the great thunder was shot off, and
sent
The signal from the starry battlement :
The winds receive it, and its force outdo.
As practising how they could thunder too ;
Out of the binder's hand the sheaves they tore.
And thrashed the harvest in the airy floor ;
Or of huge trees, whose growth with his did
rise,
The deep foundations opened to the skie? * ;
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160 THE POEMS
Tlien bear J Bhower>t the winged tempests lead,
And |KHir (he deluge o'er the chaon' bead.
Tlie race of warlike hor^H^ at hi« tomb,
Offer theiDiielvetf in many a hecatomb ;
With pensive head towards the ground they fall.
And helpless languii^h at the tainted stall.
Numbers of men decrease with pains unknown.
And hasten (not to see his deatli) their own.
Huch tortures all the elements unfixed,
Troubled to part where so exactly mixed ;
And as through air his wasting spirits flowed.
The world with throes laboured beneath their
load.
Nature, it seemed, with him would nature vie,
lie with Eliza, it with him would die.
He without noise still travelled to his end.
An silent suns to meet the night descend ;
Tiic Htars that for him fought, had only power
Left to determine now his fatal hour.
Which since they might not hinder, yet they
cast
To choose it worthy of his glories past.
No part of time but bart; his mark away
Ol' lionour, — all the yfur was Cromwell's day;
Hut this, of all the most auspicious found,
Twice had in open tielil hi in victor crowned,
Whoii up the armed nuxintains of Dunbar
lie marched, and through (h(;p Severn, ending wai*:
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OP MARYELL. IGl
What day should him eternize, but the same
That had before immortalized his name,
That so whoe'er would at his death have joyed,
In their own griefs might find themselves em-
ployed,
But those that sadly his departure grieved,
Yet joyed, remembering what he once achieved ?
And the last minute his victorious ghost
Gave chase to Ligny on the Belgic coast :.
Here ended all his mortal toils, he laid
And slept in peace under the laurel-shade.
O Cromwell ! Heaven's favourite, to none.
Have such high honours from above been
shown,
For whom the elements we mourners see.
And Heaven itself would the great herald be,
Which with more care set foith his obsequies
Than those of Moses, hid from human eyes ;
As jealous only here, lest all be less
Than we could to his memory express.
Then let us too our course of mourning keep ;
Where Heaven leads, His piety to weep.
Stand back ye seas, and shrunk, beneath the veil
Of your abyss, with covered head bewail
Your monarch : we demand not your supplier
To compass-in our isle, — our tears suffice,
Since him away the dismal tempest rent,
Who once more joined us to the continent ;
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162 THE POEMS
Who planted England on the Flanderic shore,
And stretched our frontier to the Indian ore ;
Whose greater truths obscure the fables old,
Whether of British saints or worthies told.
And in a valour lessening Arthur^s deeds,
For holiness the Confessor exceeds.
