No More Learning

Standing upon their holy guard.

Ill-counselled women, do you know

Whom you resist, or what to do ? i4o

Is not this he, whose offspring fierce

Shall fight through all the universe ;

And with successive valour try

France, Poland, either Germany,

Till one, as long since prophesied, s«5

His horse through conquered Britain ride ?

Yet, against fate, his spouse they kept.

And the great race would intercept.

Some to the breach, against their foes,

Their wooden Saints in vain oppose ; »o.

Another bolder, stands at push.

With, their old holy-water brush.

While the disjointed Abbess threads

The jingling chain-shot of her beads ;

But their loud'st cannon were their lungs, 255=

And sharpest weapons were their tongues.



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16 THE POEMS

But, waving these aside like flies,

Young Faikfax through the wall does rise.

Then the unfrequented vault appeared,

And superstitions, vainly feared ; «o

The relicks false were set to view ;

Only the jewels there were true.

And truly bright and holy Thwates,

That weeping at the altar waits.

But the glad youth away her bears, s»

And to the Nuns bequeathes her tears.

Who guiltily their prize bemoan.

Like gypsies who a child have stoFa.
Thenceforth (as, when the enchantment ends.

The castle vanishes or rends) sw

The wasting cloister, with the rest,

Was, in one instant, dispossessed.

At the demolishing, this seat.
To Fairfax fell, as by escheat ;
And what both Nuns and Founders willed, sts
'Tis likely better thus fulfilled.
For if the virgin proved not theirs,
The cloister yet remained hers ;
Though many a Nun there made her voWy
'Twas no religious house till now. aso

From that blest bed the hero came
Whom France and Poland yet does fame.
Who, when retired here to peace.
His warlike studies could not cease.
But laid these gardens out in sport sss

In the just figure of a fort,



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OP MARVELL. 17

And with five bastions it did fence,
As aiming one for every sense.
When in the cast the morning ray
Hangs out the colours of the day, mo

The bee through these known alleys hums,
Beating the dian with its drums.
Then flowers their drowsy eyelids raise.
Their silken ensigns each displays,
And dries its pan yet dank with dew, aai*

And fills its flask with odours new.
These, as their Governor goes by.
In fragrant volleys they let fly,
And to salute their Governess
Again as great a charge they press :. aw

None for the virgin nymph ; for she
Seems with the flowers, a flower to \>e.