In a
dialogue
between two inanimate horses ?
Marvell - Poems
BUD OF THS THIRD PART.
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256 THE FOEMS
A
DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO HORSES.
1674.
THE INTRODUCTION.
We read, in profane and sacred records.
Of beasts which have uttered articulate words :
When magpies and parrots cry, waUcy knaves,
walk!
It is a clear proof that birds too may talk ;
And statues, without either windpipes or lungs,
Have spoken as plainly as men do with tongues.
Jjtvy tells a strange story, can hardly be fellowed,
That a sacrificed ox, when his guts were out,
bellowed ;
Phalaris had a bull, which, as grave authoi*s
tell ye.
Would roar like a devil with a man in his belly ;
Friar Bacon had a head that spake, made of
brass ;
And Balaam the prophet was reproved by his ass ;
At Delphos and Rome stocks and stones, now
and then, sirs.
Have to questions returned articulate answers.
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OF MARYELL. 257
All Popish believers think something divine,
When images speak, possesseth the shrine ;
But they who faith catholic ne'er understood,
When shrines give an answer, a knave 's on the
rood.
Those idols ne'er spoke, but are miracles done
By the devil, a priest, a friar, or a nun.
If the Roman church, good Christians, oblige ye
To believe man and beast have spoke in effigy.
Why should we not credit the public discourses.
In a dialogue between two inanimate horses ?
The horses I mean of Wool-Church and Channg,
Who told many truths worth any man's hearing,
Since Viner and Osborn did buy and provide *em*
For the two mighty monarchs who now do
bestride 'em.
The stately brass stallion^ and the white marble
steed.
The night came together, by all 'tis agreed ;
When both kings were weary of sitting all day,
They stole off, incognito, each his own way ;
And then the two jades, after mutual salutes,
Not only discoursed, but fell to disputes.
* The statue at Charing-Cro»s was erected by the Lord
Danby; that at Wool-Church by Sir Robert Viner, thea
lord-mayor.
17
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2C>d TlIC POEMS
THE DIALOGUE.
Quoth the marble horse,
WOOL-CHURCH.
It would make a 8tone speak,
To see a lord-mayor and a Lombard-street break,*
Thy founder and mine to cheat one another,
When both knaves agreed to be e^ch other's
brother, —
Here Charing broke forth, and thus he went on :
CHARING.
My brass is provoked as much as thy stone.
To see church and state bow down to a whore,
And the king's chief-minister holding the door ;
The money of widows and orphans employed,
And the bankers quite broke to maintain the
whore's pride.
* Alluding to the failure of the bankers.
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OF MARVKLL. 259
WOOL-CHURCH.
To see Dei GrcUia writ on the throne,
And the king's wiclced. life saj, God there is
none.
CHARING.
