No More Learning

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. 143

Which, on the basis of a senate free,
Knit by the roof's protecting weight, agree.

When for his foot he thus a place had found,
He hurls e'er since the world about him round ;
And in his seveial aspects, like a star.
Here shines in peace, and thither shoots a war,
While by his beams observing princes steer.
And wisely court the influence they fear.
O, would they rather, by his pattern won,
Kiss the approaching, nor yet angry sun,
And in their numbered footsteps humbly tread
The path where holy oracles do lead.
How might they under such a captain raise
The great designs kept for the latter days !
But mad with reason, [so miscalled] of state, •
They know them not, and what they know not,

hate.
Hence still they sing Hosanna to the whore.
And, him whom they should massacre, adore ;
But Indians, whom they should convert, subdue,
Nor teach, but traffic with, or bum the Jew.
Unhappy princes, ignorantly bred.
By malice some, by error more misled,
If gracious Heaven to my life give length.
Leisure to time, and to my weakness strength,
Then shall 1 once with graver accents shake
Your regal sloth and your long slumbers wake,
Like the shrill huntsman that prevents the east;
Winding his horn to kings that chase the bejCst !