`To His Coy Mistress` and Other Poems

Andrew Marvell

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780486815213
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

One of the greatest of the metaphysical poets, Andrew Marvell (1621–78) was also among the most eclectic. His lyrics, love poems, satires, and religious and political verse display a remarkable range of styles and ideas that make him one of the most interesting and rewarding poets to study. In addition to their complexity and intellectual rigor, Marvell's poems abound in captivating language and imagery.
This collection includes such masterpieces as `To His Coy Mistress,` `The Definition of Love,` `The Garden,` `The Coronet,` `A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body,` `On a Drop of Dew,` `An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland,` `Upon Appleton House,` and many others. Ideal for use in English literature courses, high school to college, this volume will appeal to poetry lovers everywhere.

UPON APPLETON HOUSE

TO MY LORD FAIRFAX1

Within this sober frame expect

Work of no foreign architect;

That unto caves the quarries drew,

And forests did to pastures hew;

Who of his great design in pain

Did for a model vault his brain,

Whose columns should so high be rais'd

To arch the brows that on them gaz'd.

Why should of all things man unrul'd

Such unproportional dwellings build?

The beasts are by their dens express'd,

And birds contrive an equal nest;

The low-roof d tortoises do dwell

In cases fit of tortoise-shell:

No creature loves an empty space;

Their bodies measure out their place.

But he, superfluously spread,

Demands more room alive than dead,

And in his hollow palace goes

Where winds as he themselves may lose.

What need of all this marble crust

T impark the wanton mote of dust,

That thinks by breadth the world t' unite

Though the first builders fail'd in height?

But all things are composed here

Like Nature, orderly and near:

In which we the dimensions find

Of that more sober age and mind,

When larger-sized men did stoop

To enter at a narrow loop;

As practicing, in doors so strait,

To strain themselves through Heaven's gate.

And surely when the after age

Shall hither come in pilgrimage,

These sacred places to adore,

By Vere and Fairfax² trod before,

Men will dispute how their extent

Within such dwarfish confines went,

And some will smile at this, as well

As Romulus his bee-like cell.

Humility alone designs

Those short but admirable lines,

By which, ungirt and unconstrain'd,

Tilings greater are in less contain'd.

Let others vainly strive t' immure

The circle in the quadrature!

These holy mathematics can

In ev'ry figure equal man.

Yet thus the laden house does sweat,

And scarce endures the master great:

But where he comes the swelling hall

Stirs, and the square grows spherical;

More by his magnitude distressed,

Than he is by its straitness press'd;

And too officiously it slights

That in itself which him delights.

So honor better lowness bears

Than that unwonted greatness wears.

Height with a certain grace does bend,

But low things clownishly ascend.

And yet what needs there here excuse,

Where everything does answer use?

Where neatness nothing can condemn,

Nor pride invent what to contemn?

A stately frontispiece of poor

Adorns without the open door:

Nor less the rooms within commends

Daily new furniture of friends.

The house was built upon the place

Only as for a mark of grace;

And for an inn to entertain

Its lord a while, but not remain.

Him Bishops-Hill, or Denton may,

Or Bilbrough, better hold than they,³

But Nature here hath been so free

As if she said "leave this to me."

Art would more neatly have defac'd

What she had laid so sweetly waste;

In fragrant gardens, shady woods,

Deep meadows, and transparent floods.

While with slow eyes we these survey,

And on each pleasant footstep stay,

We opportunely may relate

The progress of this house's fate.

A nunnery first gave it birth;

For virgin buildings oft brought forth.

And all that neighbor-ruin shows

The quarries whence this dwelling rose.

Near to this gloomy cloister's gates

There dwelt the blooming virgin Thwaites;⁴

Fair beyond measure, and an heir

Which might deformity make fair.

And oft she spent the summer suns

Discoursing with the subtle nuns.

Whence in these words one to her weav'd

(As 'twere by chance) thoughts long conceiv'd.

"Within this holy leisure we

Live innocently as you see.

These walls restrain the world without,

But hedge our liberty about.

These bars enclose that wider den

Of those wild creatures called men.

The cloister o...