(As if his highest plot

To plant the bergamot;)

Could by industrious valour climb

To ruin the great work of Time,

And cast the Kingdoms old
Into another mould;

Though Justice against Fate complain,

And plead the ancient rights in vain; (But those do hold or break

As men are strong or weak.)

Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,

And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.

What field of all the civil war

Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art;

Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope

That Charles himself might chase
To Caresbrooke's narrow case;

That thence the Royal actor borne,
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.

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He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,

But with his keener eye

The axe's edge did try;

Nor call'd the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;

But bow'd his comely head

Down, as upon a bed.

This was that memorable hour

Which first assured the forced power:

So when they did design

The Capitol's first line,

A bleeding head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;

And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate!

And now the Irish are ashamed

To see themselves in one year tamed;

So much one man can do,

That does both act and know.

And have, though overcome, confessed

How good he is, how just

And fit for highest, trust.

Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the republic's hand→→

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How fit he is to sway

That can so well obey!

He to the Commons' feet presents
A Kingdom for his first year's rents;
And, what he may, forbears

His fame, to make it theirs:

And has his sword and spoils ungirt,
To lay them at the public's skirt.

So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,

She, having kill'd, no more doth search,
But on the next green bough to perch ;
Where, when he first does lure,

The falconer has her sure.

What may not then our Isle presume
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,
If thus he crowns each year?

As Cæsar he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,

And to all States not free,

Shall climacteric be.

The Pict no shelter now shall find

Within his particolour'd mind,
But, from this valour, sad
Shrink underneath the plaid:

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Happy, if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.

But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;

And for the last effect,

Still keep the sword erect:

Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

1650. 1776..

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Andrew Marvell.

A SUPPLICATION

From Davideis

AWAKE, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master's humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
Though so exalted she,

And I so lowly be,

Tell her, such different notes make all thy

harmony.

Hark! how the strings awake:

And, though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear

A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try;

Now all thy charms apply;

Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her

eye.

Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure

Is useless here, since thou art only found
To cure, but not to wound;

And she to wound, but not to cure.

Too weak too wilt thou prove

My passion to remove;

Physic to other ills, thou 'rt nourishment to

love.

Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!

For thou canst never tell my humble tale
In sounds that will prevail,

Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;
All thy vain mirth lay by,

Bid thy strings silent lie,

Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master

1656.

die.

Abraham Cowley.

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