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The Poems and Some Satires of Andrew Marvell
The Poems and Some Satires of Andrew Marvell Author:Andrew Marvell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: POEMS AND SELECTED SATIRES OF ANDREW MARVELL POEMS UPON APPLETON HOUSE1 TO MY LORD FAIRFAX I WITHIN this sober frame expect Work of no foreign a... more »rchitect; 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 raised, To arch the brows that on them gazed. ' The seat of Lord Fairfax, lying on the northern bank of the Wharfe, near to its junction with the Ouse. It was a picturesque brick mansion, with a centre containing a hall fifty yards long, and two wings. It had been mainly built during the Civil War, and was just finished when Fairfax and Marvell arrived about the beginning of July 1650. Why should, of all things, man, unruled, Such unproportioned dwellings build ? The beasts are by their dens expressed, And birds contrive an equal nest; The low-roofed 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, To impark the wanton mote ' of dust, That thinks by breadth the world to unite, Though the first builders failed 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 practising, in doors so strait, To strain themselves through Heaven's gate. And surely, when the after-age Shall hither come in pilgrimage, 1 1681 edition "mose"; later editions "mole." These sacred places to adore, By Vere and Fairfax I trod before, M...« less