More Marvell

Out of these scatter'd Sibyls Leaves
Strange Prophecies my Phancy weaves:
And in one History consumes,
Like Mexique-Paintings, all the Plumes.
What Rome, Greece, Palestine, ere said
I in this light Mosaick read.
Thrice happy he who, not mistook,
Hath read in Natures mystick Book.

  

from Andrew Marvell's "Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax" (1651)

Tis not, what once it was, the World;

But a rude heap together hurl'd;

All negligently overthrown,

Gulfes, Deserts, Precipices, Stone.

Your lesser World contains the same.

But in more decent Order tame;

You Heaven's Center, Nature's Lap.

And Paradice's only Map.

    xcvii

But now the Salmon-Fishers moist

Their Leathern Boats begin to hoist;

And, like Antipodes in Shoes,

Have shod their Heads in their Canoos.

How Tortoise like, but not so slow,

These rational Amphibii go?

Let's in: for the dark Hemisphere

Does now like one of them appear.

                                                            THE

                                 LOVER SHOWETH HOW HE IS FORSAKEN

                                OF SUCH AS HE SOMETIME ENJOYED.

HEY flee from me, that sometime did me
        seek,
  With naked foot stalking within my
        chamber :
Once have I seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
    That now are wild, and do not once remember,
    That sometime they have put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand ; and now they range
Busily seeking in continual change.
    Thanked be Fortune, it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better ; but once especial,
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
    When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,
    And she me caught in her arms long and small,
And therewithal sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, ' Dear heart, how like you this ?'
    It was no dream ; for I lay broad awaking :
But all is turn'd now through my gentleness,
Into a bitter fashion of forsaking ;
    And I have leave to go of her goodness ;
    And she also to use new fangleness.
But since that I unkindly so am served :
How like you this, what hath she now deserved ? 
                                 ---Sir Thomas Wyatt

Edmund Spenser

Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.

   Faerie Queene. Book v. Canto ii. St. 43.

Upon Appleton House, again

How safe, methinks, and strong, behind
These Trees have I incamp'd my Mind;
Where Beauty, aiming at the Heart,
Bends in some Tree its useless Dart;
And where the World no certain Shot
Can make, or me it toucheth not.
But I on it securely play,
And gaul its Horsemen all the Day.

    lxxvii
Bind me ye Woodbines in your 'twines,
Curle me about ye gadding Vines,
And Oh so close your Circles lace,
That I may never leave this Place:
But, lest your Fetters prove too weak,
Ere I your Silken Bondage break,
Do you, O Brambles, chain me too,
And courteous Briars nail me though.

     

For the Parrots