In a dialogue between two
inanimate
horses ?
Marvell - Poems
BUD OF THS THIRD PART.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
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.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
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
Digitized by VjOOQIC
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.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
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.
