Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvellwas an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period he was a colleague and friend of John Milton. His poems range from the love-song "To His Coy Mistress", to evocations of an aristocratic country house and garden in "Upon Appleton House" and "The Garden", the political address "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland", and the later personal and political satires...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth31 March 1621
What wondrous life is this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head.
Though I carry always some ill-nature about me, yet it is, I hope, no more than is in this world necessary for a preservative.
Music, the mosaic of the air.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?
The world in all doth but two nations bear- The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere.
And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept their time.
But Fate does iron wedges drive, And always crowds itself betwixt.
Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.
My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow;
Had it lived long, is would have been Lilies without, roses within.
And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.
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; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green glade ... Such was that happy garden-state, ...
Annihilating all that's made, To a green thought in a green shade.
Now let us sport us while we may; And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapped power.