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
Casting the body's vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot, / Or at some fruit tree's mossy root, / Casting the body's vest aside, / My soul into the boughs does glide.
I would / Love you ten years before the flood, / And you should if you please refuse / Till the conversion of the Jews; / My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires and more slow.
Who can foretell for what high cause / This darling of the Gods was born?
Had it lived long, is would have been Lilies without, roses within.
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, ...
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.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run
Annihilating all that's made, To a green thought in a green shade.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?
And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept their time.
And now, when I have summed up all my store, Thinking (so I myself deceive) So rich a chaplet thence to weave As never yet the King of Glory wore, Alas! I find the serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast, About the flowers disguised does fold With wreaths of fame and interest.
This indigested vomit of the Sea,Fell to the Dutch by Just Propriety.
See how the Orient dew, Shed from the bosom of the morn Into the blowing roses, Yet careless of its mansion new; For the clear region where 'twas born Round in its self encloses: And in its little globes extent, Frames as it can its native element.