No More Learning

Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight doth

raise,
So man, declining, always disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years ;
And his short tumults of themselves compose.
While flowing time above his head doth close.

Cromwell alone, with greater vigour runs
(Sun-like) the stages of succeeding suns,
And still the day which he doth next restore.
Is the just wonder of the day before ;
Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring.
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring.
'TIS he the force of scattered time contracts.
And in one year the work of ages acts ;
While heavy monarchs make a wide retprn.
Longer and more malignant than Saturn,



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140 THE POEMS

And they, though all Platonic years should

reign,
In the same posture would be found again ;
Their earthly projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle than the China clay ;
Well may they strive to leave them on their

son,
For one thing never was by one king done.
Yet some, more active, for a fix^ntier town
Took in by proxy, begs a false renown ;
Another triuraplis at the public cost,
And will have won, if he no more have lost ;
They fight by others, but in person wrong,
And only are against their subjects strong ;
Their other wars are but a feigned contest.
This common enemy is still opprest ;
If conquerors, on them they turn their might,
If conquered, on them they wreak their spite ;
They neither build the temple in their days.
Nor matter for succeeding founders raise ;
Nor sacred prophecies consult within.
Much less themselves to perfect them begin ;
No other care they bear of things above,
But with astrologers, divine of Jove,
To know how long their planet yet reprieves
From the deserved fate their guilty lives.
Thus (image-like) a useless time they tell.
And with vain sceptre strike the hourly bell.
Nor more contribute to the state of things,
Than wooden heads unto the vioFs strings,



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OF MARVKLL.
141

While indefatigable Cromwell tries,
And cuts his way $till nearer to the skies,
Learning a music in the region clear,
To tune this lower to that higher sphere^

So when Amphion did the lute command,
Which the God gave him, with his gentle hand,.
The rougher stones, unto his measures hew^cd.
Danced up in order from the quarries rude 'r
This took a lower, that a higher place,.
As he the treble altered, or the base ;
No note he struck, but a new story laid.
And the great work ascended while he played-

The listening structures he with wonder eyed,.
And still new stops to various time applied ;
Now through the strings a martial rage he

throws,
And joining, straight the Theban tower arose ;
Then as he strokes them with a touch more

sweet,
The flocking marbles in a palace meet ;
But for he most the graver notes did try,
Therefore the temples reared their columns high :
Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred lute creates
The harmonious city of the seven gates.
- Such was that wondrous order and consent,
When Cromwell tuned the ruling instrument ;
While tedious statesmen nmny years did hack,
Framing a liberty that still went back ;



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142 lilK rOKMS

Whose nuinerous gorge coul«l swallow in an hour.
That island which the sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issues out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice the powerful

strings.
The Commonwealth then first together came.
And each one entered in the willing frame.

All other matter yields, and may be ruled,
But who the minds of stubborn men can build ?
No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour fix>m its centre brought :
None to be sunk in the foundation bends,
Each in the house the highest place contends ;
And each the hand that lays him will direct.
And some fall back upon the architect ;
Yet all, composed by his attractive song,
Into the animated city throng.

The Commonwealth does through their cen-
tres all
Draw the circumference of the public wall ;
The crossest spirits liere do take their part,
Fastening the coiitignation which they thwart :
And they who. sti nature leads them to divide,
Uphold, this ones and that the other side ;
But the most e(|iial still sustain the height,
And they, as pillar-, keep the work upright,
While the resistance of opposed minds.
The fabric, as with arches, stronger binds,



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OP MARVELL.