Andrew Marvell

How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!

But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share To wander solitary there: Two paradises ’twere in one To live in paradise alone.

Such was that happy garden-state, While man there walked without a mate.

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot, Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root, Casting the body’s vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide.

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;

What wondrous 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;

Society is all but rude, To this delicious solitude.

In busy companies of men.

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

How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays, And their uncessant labours see Crowned from some single herb or tree, Whose short and narrow vergéd shade Does prudently their toils upbraid,

As lines, so loves oblique may well Themselves in every angle greet; But ours so truly parallel, Though infinite, can never meet.Therefore the love which us doth bind, But Fate so enviously debars, Is the conjunction of the mind,

But Fate does iron wedges drive, And always crowds itself betwixt.

My love is of a birth as rare As ’tis for object strange and high: It was begotten by Despair Upon Impossibility.Magnanimous Despair alone Could show me so divine a thing, Where feeble Hope could ne’er have flown

Among the blind the one-eye'd blinkard reigns.

This indigested vomit of the Sea, Fell to the Dutch by Just Propriety.

To make a bank was a great plot of state; Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate.

How fit is he to sway That can so well obey.

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.

He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try: Nor called the gods with vulgar spite To vindicate his helpless right,

The inglorious arts of peace.

While thus he threw his Elbow round, Depopulating all the Ground, And, with his whistling Sythe, does cut Each stroke between the Earth and Root, The edged Stele by careless chance Did into his own Ankle glance;

How should I avoid to be her slave, Whose subtle art invisibly can wreath My fetters of the very air I breath?

She with her eyes my heart does bind, She with her voice might captivate my mind.

Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.