Her eyes confus'd, and doubled o'er
With tears suspended ere they flow,
Seem bending upwards, to restore
To heaven, whence it came, their woe.
When, moulding of the watry spheres,
Slow drops untie themselves away;
As if she with those precious tears,
Would strew the ground where STREPHON lay.
Yet some affirm, pretending art,
Her eyes have so her bosom drown'd,
Only to soften, near her heart,
A place to fix another wound.
And, while vain pomp does her restrain,
Within her solitary bow'r,
She courts herself in am'rous rain;
Herself both Danæ, and the show'r.
Nay others, bolder, hence esteem,
Joy now so much her master grown,
That whatsoever does but seem
Like grief, is from her windows thrown.
Nor that she pays, while she survives,
To her dead love this tribute due;
But casts abroad these donatives,
At the installing of a new.
How wide they dream! the Indian slaves,
Who sink for pearl through seas profound,
Would find her tears yet deeper waves,
And not of one the bottom sound.
I yet my silent judgment keep,
Disputing not what they believe:
But sure as oft the women weep,
It is to be suppos'd they grieve.
One of the pleasantest of Marvell's poems, is his character of HOLLAND. It is pregnant with wit, and though long, we shall quote the greater part of it:
THE CHARACTER OF HOLLAND.
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but th' off-scouring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heav'd the lead;
Or what by th' ocean's slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwreck'd cockle and the muscle shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners who have found the ore,
They, with mad labour, fish'd the land to shore;
And div'd as desperately for each piece
Of earth, as if't had been of ambergris;
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,
Less than what building swallows bear away;
Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll,
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.
How did they rivet with gigantic piles,
Through the centre their new-catched miles!
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where barking waves still bait the forced ground;
Building their watery Babel far more high
To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky.
Yet still his claim the injur'd ocean lay'd,
And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples play'd;
As if on purpose it on land had come
To shew them what's their mare liberum.
A daily deluge over them does boil;
The earth and water play at level coil.
The fish oft times the burgher dispossess'd,
And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest;
And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, saw
Whole shoals of Dutch serv'd up for Cabillau ;
Or, as they over the new level rang'd
For pickled herring, pickled herring chang'd.
Nature, it seem'd, asham'd of her mistake,
Would throw their land away at duck and drake,
Therefore necessity that first made kings,
Something like government among them brings.
For, as with pigmies, who best kills the crane,
Among the hungry he that treasures grain,
Among the blind the one-ey'd blinkard reigns,
So rules among the drowned he that drains.
Not who first see the rising sun commands:
But who could first discern the rising lands.
Who best could know to pump an earth so leak,
Him they their Lord, and Country's father, speak.
To make a bank, was a great plot of state;
Invent a shov❜l, and be a magistrate.
Hence some small dike grave, unperceiv'd, invades
The pow'r, and grows, as 'twere, a king of spades;
But, for less envy some join'd states endures,
Who look like a commission of the sewers:
For these Half-anders, half wet, and half dry,
Nor bear strict service, nor pure liberty.
'Tis probable religion, after this,
Came next in order; which they could not miss.
How could the Dutch but be converted, when
Th' Apostles were so many fishermen ;
Besides, the waters of themselves did rise,
And, as their land, so them did re-baptise;
Tho' herring for their God few voices miss'd,
And Poor-John to have been th' Evangelist.
Faith, that could never twins conceive before,
Never so fertile, spawn'd upon this shore
More pregnant than their Margret, that lay'd down
For Hans-in-Kelder of a whole Hans-Town.
Sure when Religion did itself embark,
And from the east would westward steer its ark, It struck, and splitting on this unknown ground, Each one thence pillag'd the first piece he found : Hence Amsterdam, Turk-Christian-Pagan-Jew, Staple of sects, and mint of schism grew;
That bank of conscience, where not one so strange
Opinion but finds credit, and exchange.
In vain for Catholics ourselves we bear;
The universal church is only there.
Nor can civility there want for tillage,
Where wisely for their court they chose a village.
How fit a title cloaths their governors,
Themselves the hogs, as all their subjects boars !
Let it suffice to give their country fame,
That it had one Civilis call'd by name,
Some fifteen hundred and more years ago;
But surely never any that was so.
See but their mermaids, with their tails of fish,
Reeking at church over the chasing-dish.
A vestal turf, enshrin'd in earthenware,
Fumes thro' the loop-holes of a wooden square.
Each to the temple with these altars tend,
But still does place it at her western end;
While the fat steam of female sacrifice
Fills the priest's nostrils, and puts out his eyes.
And now again our armed Bucentore
Doth yearly their sea nuptials restore;
And now the Hydra of seven provinces
Is strangled by our infant Hercules.
Their tortoise wants it vainly stretched neck;
Their navy, all our conquest, or our wreck;
Or, what is left, their Carthage overcome,
Would render fain unto our better Rome;
Unless our senate, lest their youth disuse
The war, (but who would) peace, if beg'd, refuse.
For now of nothing may our state despair,
Darling of heaven, and of men the care;
Provided that they be what they have been,
Watchful abroad, and honest still within;
For while our Neptune doth a trident shake,
Steel'd with those piercing heads, Dean, Monck, and Blake, And while Jove governs in the highest sphere,
Vainly in hell let Pluto domineer.
Ah! Raleigh, when thou didst thy breath resign
To trembling JAMES, would I had quitted mine!
"Cubs," didst thou call them? Had'st thou seen this brood
Of Earls and Dukes, and Princes of the blood;
No more of Scottish race thou would'st complain,
Those would be blessings in this spurious reign.
Awake, arise, from thy long bless'd repose,
Once more with me partake of mortal woes.
What mighty power has forced me from my rest?
Oh! mighty queen, why so untimely dress'd?
Favour'd by night, conceal'd in this disguise,
Whilst the lewd court in drunken slumber lies,
I stole away, and never will return,
Till England knows who did her city burn;
Till Cavaliers shall favourites be deem'd,
And loyal sufferers by the court esteem'd;
Till LEIGH and GALLOWAY* shall bribes reject;
Thus OSBORNE's golden cheat I shall detect:
Till atheist LAUDERDALE shall leave this land,
And Commons' votes shall cut-nose guards disband;
Till Kate a happy mother shall become;
Till CHARLES loves Parliaments, and JAMES hates Rome.
What fatal crimes make you for ever fly
Your once loved court, and Martyr's progeny?
A colony of French possess'd the court; Pimps, priests, buffoons, in privy-chamber sport. Such slimy monsters ne'er approach'd a throne Since Pharaoh's days, nor so defiled a crown.
* Leigh and Galloway were suspected to be bribed by the Earl of Danby, to vote with the Court.
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