Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

 

p                                                                     portrait (detail) by Vincent Galloway

from The Garden

What a wond’rous life in this I lead! 

Ripe apples drop about my head; 

The luscious clusters of the vine 

Upon my mouth do crush their wine; 

The nectarine and curious peach 

Into my hands themselves do reach; 

Stumbling on melons as I pass, 

Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass. 

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, 

Withdraws into its happiness; 

The mind, that ocean where each kind 

Does straight its own resemblance find, 

Yet it creates, transcending these, 

Far other worlds, and other seas; 

Annihilating all that’s made 

To a green thought in a green shade. 

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

        Bermudas

Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean’s bosom unespied
From a small boat, that rowed along, 
The listening winds received this song.
    ‘What should we do but sing his praise
That led us through the watery maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks,
That lift the deep upon their backs,
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms, and prelate’s rage,
He gave us this eternal spring,
Which here enamels everything,
And sends the fowls to us in care,
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night,
And does in the pom’granates close
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.
He makes the figs our mouths to meet,
And throws the melons at our feet,
But apples plants of such a price,
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars, chosen by his hand,
From Lebanon, he stores the land.
And makes the hollow seas, that roar,
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The gospel’s pearl upon our coast,
And in those rocks for us did frame
A temple, where to sound his name.
Oh let our voice his praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heaven’s vault:
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay.’
Thus sung they, in the English boat,
A holy and a cheerful note,
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

Sonnet Lxi: Since There's No Help

Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.

Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;

And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain.

Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath,

When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies;

When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And Innocence is closing up his eyes—

Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might’st him yet recover!