Andrew Marvell. Birrell Augustine

from the chaff my head!

      How safe, methinks, and strong behind

       These trees, have I encamped my mind,

       Where beauty, aiming at the heart,

       Bends in some tree its useless dart,

       And where the world no certain shot

       Can make, or me it toucheth not,

       But I on it securely play

       And gall its horsemen all the day.

       Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines

       Curl me about, ye gadding vines,

       And oh so close your circles lace,

       That I may never leave this place!

       But, lest your fetters prove too weak,

       Ere I your silken bondage break,

       Do you, O brambles, chain me too,

       And, courteous briars, nail me through!

      Oh what a pleasure ’tis to hedge

       My temples here with heavy sedge,

       Abandoning my lazy side,

       Stretched as a bank unto the tide,

       Or to suspend my sliding foot

       On the osier’s underminèd root,

       And in its branches tough to hang,

       While at my lines the fishes twang?

       But now away, my hooks, my quills,

       And angles, idle utensils!

       The young Maria walks to-night;

      ’Tis she that to these gardens gave

       That wondrous beauty which they have;

       She straightness on the woods bestows;

       To her the meadow sweetness owes;

       Nothing could make the river be

       So crystal pure, but only she,

       She yet more pure, sweet, straight, and fair

       Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.

      This ’tis to have been from the first

       In a domestic heaven nursed,

       Under the discipline severe Of Fairfax, and the starry Vere; Where not one object can come nigh But pure, and spotless as the eye, And goodness doth itself entail On females, if there want a male.”

      This poem, having a biographical value, I have quoted at, perhaps, too great length. Other poems of this garden-period of Marvell’s life are better known. His own English version of his Latin poem Hortus contains lovely stanzas:—