No More Learning

And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed ;
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.
They can aflirm his praises best.
And have, though overcome, confessed
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust.



Digitized by VjOOQIC



OF MARVELL. 137

Nor yet grown stiffer with command.
But still in the republic's hand,

(How fit he is to sway,

That can so well obey ! )
He to the Commons* feet presents
A kingdom for his first year's rents ;

And, what he may, forbears

His fame, to make it theirs ;
And has his sword and spoils ungirt,
To lay them at the public's skirt :

So when the falcon high

Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having killed, no more doth search.
But on the next green bough to perch ;

Where, when he first does lure.

The falconer has her sure.
What may not then our isle presume.
While victory his crest does plume?

What may not others fear,

If thus he crowns each year ?
As Cffisar, he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy a Hannibal,

And to all states not free,

Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his party-coloured mind.

But, from this valour sad,

Shrink underneath the plaid ;
Happy, if in the tuAed brake,
The English hunter him mistake.
Digitized by VjOOQIC



138 THE POEMS

Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.

But thou, the war's and fortune's son,

March indefatigably on,

And for the last effect.
Still keep the sword erect ;

Beside the force it has to fright

The spirits of the shady night.

The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.



Digitized by VjOOQIC



OP MARVELL. 139



THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY

OF

THB GOVSRNBCKNT UNDRR HIS HIGHKESS

THE LORD PROTECTOR.

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,



Digitized by VjOOQIC



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.