No More Learning

And surely, when the after-age

Shall hither come in pilgrimage,

These sacred places to adore.

By Verb and Fairfax trod before,

Men will dispute how their extent

Within such dwarfish confines went.

And some will smile at this, as well

As Romulus's bee-like cell.

Humility alone designs

Those short but admirable lines.

By which, ungirt and unconstrained,

Things greater are in less contained.

Let others vainly strive to immure

The circle in the quadmture !



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OF MARYELL.

These holy mathematics can
In every figure equal man.
Yet thus tlie laden house does sweat,
And scarce endures the master great :
But, where he comes, the swelling hall
Stirs, and the square grows spherical ;
More by his magnitude distressed,
Than he is by its straitness pressed :
And too officiously it slights.
That in itself, which him delights^.
So honour better lowness bears.
Than that unwonted gi^eatness wears ;
Height with a certain grace does bend.
But low things clownishly ascend.
And yet what need there here excuse.
Where every thing does answer use ?
"Where neatness nothing can condemn,.
Nor pride invent what to contemn ?
A stately frontispiece of poor,.
Adorns without the open door ;
Daily new furniture of friends.
No less the rooms within commends*
The house was built upon the place.
Only as for a mark of grace.
And for an inn to entertain
Its Lord awhile, but not remain.
Him Bishop's-hill or Denton may,
Or Bilborow, better hold than they :
But nature here hath been so free,
As if she said, ' Leave this to me.



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10 THE POEMS .

Art would more neatly have defae'd
What she had laid so sweetly waste
In fragrant gardens, shady woods,
Deep meadows, and transparent floods.

While, with slow eyes, we these survey.
And on each pleasant footstep stay,
We opportunely may relate
The progress of this house's fate.
A nunnery first gave it birth,
(For virgin buildings oft brought forth,)
And all that neighbour-ruin shows
The quarries whence this dwelling rose.
Near to this gloomy cloister's gates.
There dwelt the blooming virgin Thwates,
Fair beyond measure, and an heir,
Which might deformity make fair ;
And oft she spent the summer's suns
Discoursing with the subtle Nuns,
Whence, in these words, one to her weav'd,
As 'twere by chance, thoughts long conceiv'd :
' Within this holy leisure, we

* Live innocently, as you see.

' These walls restrain the world without,
' But hedge our liberty about ;

* These bars inclose that wider den

' Of those wild creatures, called men ;
' The cloister outward shuts its gates,

* And, from us, locks on them the grates.