No More Learning

Some fifteen hundred and more years ago,
But surely never any that was so.

See but their mermaids, with their tails of fish,
Reeking at church over the chafing-dish !
A vestal turf, enshrined in earthen ware.
Fumes through the loopholes of a wooden

square ;
Each to the temple with these altars tend.
But still does place it at her western end.
While the fat steam of female sacrifice
Fills the priest's nostrils, and puts out his eyes.



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OF MARYBLL. 175

Or what a spectacle the skipper gross,
A water Hercules, butter Coloss,
Tunned up with all their several towns of beer ;
When, staggering upon some land, snick and

sneer,
The J try, like statuaries, if they can.
Cut out each other's Athos to a man.
And carve in their large bodies, where they

please,
The arms of the United Provinces.
But when such amity at home is showed.
What then are their confederacies abroad ?
Let this one courtesy witness all the rest,
When their whole navy they together pressed,
Not Christian captives to redeem from bands.
Or intercept the western golden sands,
No, but all ancient rights and leagues must fail.
Rather than to the English strike their sail ;
To whom their weather-beaten province owes
Itself, when, as some greater vessel tows
A cock-boat, tossed with the same wind and fate,
We buoyed so often up their sinking state.
Was this^i^ belli et pctcisf Could this be
Cause why their burgomaster of the sea.
Rammed with gunpowder, flaming with brand

wine
Should raging hold his linstock to the mine?
While, with feigned treaties, they invade by

stealth
Our i>ore new-circumcised commonwealth.



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176 THE POEMS

Yet of his vain attempt no more be sees.
Than of case-butter shot, and bullet cheese ;
And the torn navy staggered with him home.
While the sea laughed itself into a foam ;
'Tis true, since that (as fortune kindly sports)
A wholesome danger drove us to our ports,
While half their banished keels the tempest

tossed,
Half bound at home in prison to the frost ;
That ours, meantime, at leisure might careen,
In a calm winter, under skies serene,
As the obsequious air and waters rest,
'Till the dear Halcyon hatch out all its nest
The commonwealth doth by its losses grow,
And, like its own seas, only ebbs to flow ;
Besides, that very agitation laves.
And purges out the corruptible waves.

And now again our armed Bucentore
Doth yearly their sea-nuptials restore ;
And now the Hydra of seven provinces
Is strangled by our infant Hercules.
Their tortoise wants its vainly stretched neck,
Their navy, all our conquest, or our wreck,
Or, what is left, their Carthage overcome,
Would render fain unto our better Rome ;
Unless our senate, lest their youth disuse
The war, (but who would ? ) peace, if begged refuse.
For now of nothing may our state despair.
Darling of heaven, and of men the care.



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OP MARVELL. 177

Provided that they be, what they have been,
Watchful abroad, and honest still within ;
For while our Neptune doth a trident shake,
Steeled with those piercing heads, Dean, Monk,

and Blake,
And while Jove governs in the highest sphere.
Vainly in hell let Pluto domineer.



12



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178 THE POEMS



FLECNO, AN ENGLISH PKIEST AT ROME.