Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 72

See, the rain soaks to the skin, Make it rain as well within.

Wine, my boy; we'll sing and laugh, All night revel, rant, and quaff; Till the morn, stealing behind us, At the table sleepless find us.

When our bones, alas! shall have A cold lodging in the grave; When swift Death shall overtake us, We shall sleep and none can wake us.

Drink we then the juice o' the vine Make our b.r.e.a.s.t.s Lyaeus' shrine; Bacchus, our debauch beholding, By thy image I am moulding, Whilst my brains I do replenish With this draught of unmixed Rhenish; By thy full-branched ivy twine; By this sparkling gla.s.s of wine; By thy Thyrsus so renowned: By the healths with which th' art crowned; By the feasts which thou dost prize; By thy numerous victories; By the howls by Moenads made; By this haut-gout carbonade; By thy colours red and white; By the tavern, thy delight; By the sound thy orgies spread; By the s.h.i.+ne of noses red; By thy table free for all; By the jovial carnival; By thy language cabalistic; By thy cymbal, drum, and his stick; By the tunes thy quart-pots strike up; By thy sighs, the broken hiccup; By thy mystic set of ranters; By thy never-tamed panthers; By this sweet, this fresh and free air; By thy goat, as chaste as we are; By thy fulsome Cretan la.s.s; By the old man on the a.s.s; By thy cousins in mixed shapes; By the flower of fairest grapes; By thy bisks famed far and wide; By thy store of neats'-tongues dried; By thy incense, Indian smoke; By the joys thou dost provoke; By this salt Westphalia gammon; By these sausages that inflame one; By thy tall majestic flagons; By ma.s.s, tope, and thy flapdragons; By this olive's unctuous savour; By this orange, the wine's flavour; By this cheese o'errun with mites; By thy dearest favourites; To thy frolic order call us, Knights of the deep bowl install us; And to show thyself divine, Never let it want for wine.

ANDREW MARVELL.

This n.o.ble-minded patriot and poet, the friend of Milton, the Abdiel of a dark and corrupt age,--'faithful found among the faithless, faithful only he,'--was born in Hull in 1620. He was sent to Cambridge, and is said there to have nearly fallen a victim to the proselytising Jesuits, who enticed him to London. His father, however, a clergyman in Hull, went in search of and brought him back to his university, where speedily, by extensive culture and the vigorous exercise of his powerful faculties, he emanc.i.p.ated himself for ever from the dominion, and the danger of the dominion, of superst.i.tion and bigotry. We know little more about the early days of our poet. When only twenty, he lost his father in remarkable circ.u.mstances. In 1640, he had embarked on the Humber in company with a youthful pair whom he was to marry at Barrow, in Lincolns.h.i.+re. The weather was calm; but Marvell, seized with a sudden presentiment of danger, threw his staff ash.o.r.e, and cried out, 'Ho for heaven!' A storm came on, and the whole company perished. In consequence of this sad event, the gentleman, whose daughter was to have been married, conceiving that the father had sacrificed his life while performing an act of friends.h.i.+p, adopted young Marvell as his son. Owing to this, he received a better education, and was sent abroad to travel. It is said that at Rome he met and formed a friends.h.i.+p with Milton, then engaged on his immortal continental tour.

We find Marvell next at Constantinople, as Secretary to the English Emba.s.sy at that Court. We then lose sight of him till 1653, when he was engaged by the Protector to superintend the education of a Mr Dutton at Eton. For a year and a half after Cromwell's death, Marvell a.s.sisted Milton as Latin Secretary to the Protector. Our readers are all familiar with the print of Cromwell and Milton seated together at the council-table, --the one the express image of active power and rugged grandeur, the other of thoughtful majesty and ethereal grace. Marvell might have been added as a third, and become the emblem of strong English sense and incorruptible integrity. A letter of Milton's was, not long since, discovered, dated February 1652, in which he speaks of Marvell as fitted, by his knowledge of Latin and his experience of teaching, to be his a.s.sistant. He was not appointed, however, till 1657. In 1660, he became member for Hull, and was re-elected as long as he lived. He was absent, however, from England for two years, in the beginning of the reign, in Germany and Holland. After- wards he sought leave from his const.i.tuents to act as Amba.s.sador's Secretary to Lord Carlisle at the Northern Courts; but from the year 1665 to his death, his attention to his parliamentary duties was unremitting.

He constantly corresponded with his const.i.tuents; and after the longest sittings, he used to write out for their use a minute account of public proceedings ere he went to bed, or took any refreshment. He was one of the last members who received pay from the town he represented; (2s.

a-day was probably the sum;) and his const.i.tuents were wont, besides, to send him barrels of ale as tokens of their regard. Marvell spoke little in the House; but his heart and vote were always in the right place. Even Prince Eupert continually consulted him, and was sometimes persuaded by him to support the popular side; and King Charles having met him once in private, was so delighted with his wit and agreeable manners, that he thought him worth trying to bribe. He sent Lord Danby to offer him a mark of his Majesty's consideration. Marvell, who was seated in a dingy room up several flights of stairs, declined the proffer, and, it is said, called his servant to witness that he had dined for three successive days on the same shoulder of mutton, and was not likely, therefore, to care for or need a bribe. When the Treasurer was gone, he had to send to a friend to borrow a guinea. Although, a silent senator, Marvell was a copious and popular writer. He attacked Bishop Parker for his slavish principles, in a piece ent.i.tled 'The Rehearsal Transposed,' in which he takes occasion to vindicate and panegyrise his old colleague Milton. His anonymous 'Account of the Growth of Arbitrary Power and Popery in England'

excited a sensation, and a reward was offered for the apprehension of the author and printer. Marvell had many of the elements of a first-rate political pamphleteer. He had wit of a most pungent kind, great though coa.r.s.e fertility of fancy, and a spirit of independence that nothing could subdue or damp. He was the undoubted ancestor of the Defoes, Swifts, Steeles, Juniuses, and Burkes, in whom this kind of authors.h.i.+p reached its perfection, ceased to be fugitive, and a.s.sumed cla.s.sical rank.

Marvell had been repeatedly threatened with a.s.sa.s.sination, and hence, when he died suddenly on the 16th of August 1678, it was surmised that he had been removed by poison. The Corporation of Hull voted a sum to defray his funeral expenses, and for raising a monument to his memory; but owing to the interference of the Court, through the rector of the parish, this votive tablet was not at the time erected. He was buried in St Giles-in-the-Fields.

'Out of the strong came forth sweetness,' saith the Hebrew record. And so from the st.u.r.dy Andrew Marvell have proceeded such soft and lovely strains as 'The Emigrants,' 'The Nymph complaining for the Death of her Fawn,' 'Young Love,' &c. The statue of Memnon became musical at the dawn; and the stern patriot, whom no bribe could buy and no flattery melt, is found sympathising in song with a boatful of banished Englishmen in the remote Bermudas, and inditing 'Thoughts in a Garden,' from which you might suppose that he had spent his life more with melons than with men, and was better acquainted with the motions of a bee-hive than with the contests of Parliament, and the distractions of a most distracted age. It was said (not with thorough truth) of Milton, that he could cut out a Colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones--a task which his a.s.sistant may be said to have performed in his stead, in his small but delectable copies of verse.

THE EMIGRANTS.

1 Where the remote Bermudas ride, In the ocean's bosom unespied, From a small boat that rowed along, The listening winds received this song.

2 '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!

3 'Where he the huge sea-monsters racks, That lift the deep upon their backs; He lands us on a gra.s.sy stage, Safe from the storms and prelates' rage.

4 'He gave us this eternal spring Which here enamels everything, And sends the fowls to us in care, On daily visits through the air.

5 'He hangs in shades the orange bright, Like golden lamps in a green night: * * * * *

And in these rocks for us did frame A temple where to sound his name.

6 'Oh, let our voice his praise exalt Till it arrive at heaven's vault, Which then perhaps rebounding may Echo beyond the Mexique bay.'

7 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.

THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH OF HER FAWN.

The wanton troopers riding by Have shot my fawn, and it will die.

Ungentle men! they cannot thrive Who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst alive Them any harm; alas! nor could Thy death to them do any good.

I'm sure I never wished them ill; Nor do I for all this; nor will: But, if my simple prayers may yet Prevail with Heaven to forget Thy murder, I will join my tears, Rather than fail. But, O my fears!

It cannot die so. Heaven's King Keeps register of every thing, And nothing may we use in vain: Even beasts must be with justice slain.

Inconstant Sylvio, when yet I had not found him counterfeit, One morning (I remember well) Tied in this silver chain and bell, Gave it to me: nay, and I know What he said then: I'm sure I do.

Said he, 'Look how your huntsman here Hath taught a fawn to hunt his deer.'

But Sylvio soon had me beguiled.

This waxed tame while he grew wild, And, quite regardless of my smart, Left me his fawn, but took his heart.

Thenceforth I set myself to play My solitary time away With this, and very well content Could so my idle life have spent; For it was full of sport, and light Of foot and heart; and did invite Me to its game; it seemed to bless Itself in me. How could I less Than love it? Oh, I cannot be Unkind to a beast that loveth me!

Had it lived long, I do not know Whether it too might have done so As Sylvio did; his gifts might be Perhaps as false, or more, than he.

But I am sure, for aught that I Could in so short a time espy, Thy love was far more better than The love of false and cruel man.

With sweetest milk and sugar first I it at my own fingers nursed; And as it grew, so every day It waxed more white and sweet than they: It had so sweet a breath; and oft I blushed to see its foot more soft And white, shall I say, than my hand?

Nay, any lady's of the land.

It is a wondrous thing how fleet 'Twas on those little silver feet; With what a pretty skipping grace It oft would challenge me the race; And when't had left me far away, 'Twould stay, and run again, and stay; For it was nimbler much than hinds, And trod as if on the four winds.

I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness, And all the spring-time of the year It only loved to be there.

Among the beds of lilies I Have sought it oft where it should lie, Yet could not, till itself would rise, Find it, although before mine eyes; For in the flaxen lilies' shade It like a bank of lilies laid; Upon the roses it would feed, Until its lips e'en seemed to bleed; And then to me 'twould boldly trip, And print those roses on my lip.

But all its chief delight was still On roses thus itself to fill, And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold.

Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within. * * *

ON PARADISE LOST.

When I beheld the poet blind, yet bold, In slender book his vast design unfold, Messiah crowned, G.o.d's reconciled decree, Rebelling angels, the forbidden tree, Heaven, h.e.l.l, Earth, Chaos, all; the argument Held me a while mis...o...b..ing his intent, That he would ruin (for I saw him strong) The sacred truths to fable and old song; (So Sampson groped the temple's posts in spite) The world o'erwhelming to revenge his sight.

Yet as I read, still growing less severe, I liked his project, the success did fear; Through that wild field how he his way should find, O'er which lame Faith leads Understanding blind; Lest he'd perplex the things he would explain, And what was easy he should render vain.

Or if a work so infinite be spanned, Jealous I was that some less skilful hand (Such as disquiet always what is well, And, by ill imitating, would excel) Might hence presume the whole creation's day To change in scenes, and show it in a play.

Pardon me, mighty poet, nor despise My causeless, yet not impious, surmise.

But I am now convinced, and none will dare Within thy labours to pretend a share.

Thou hast not missed one thought that could be fit.

And all that was improper dost omit; So that no room is here for writers left, But to detect their ignorance or theft.

That majesty, which through thy work doth reign, Draws the devout, deterring the profane.

And things divine thou treat'st of in such state As them preserves, and thee, inviolate.

At once delight and horror on us seize, Thou sing'st with so much gravity and ease; And above human flight dost soar aloft With plume so strong, so equal, and so soft.

The bird named from that Paradise you sing, So never flags, but always keeps on wing.

Where couldst thou words of such a compa.s.s find?

Whence furnish such a vast expanse of mind?

Just Heaven thee, like Tiresias, to requite, Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight.

Well mightst thou scorn thy readers to allure With tinkling rhyme, of thy own sense secure; While the Town-Bays writes all the while and spells, And like a pack-horse tires without his bells: Their fancies like our bushy points appear; The poets tag them, we for fas.h.i.+on wear.

I too, transported by the mode, offend, And while I meant to praise thee, must commend.

Thy verse created, like thy theme, sublime, In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme.

THOUGHTS IN A GARDEN.

1 How vainly men themselves amaze, To win the palm, the oak, or bays!

And their incessant labours see Crowned from some single herb or tree, Whose short and narrow-verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all the flowers and trees do close, To weave the garlands of repose.

2 Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, And Innocence, thy sister dear?

Mistaken long, I sought you then In busy companies of men.

Your sacred plants, if here below, Only among the plants will grow.