Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell (March 31, 1621 – August 16, 1678) was an English metaphysical poet, and the son of an Anglican clergyman. As a metaphysical, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert. He was the first assistant of John Milton.

Quotes

 * Popery is such a thing as cannot, but for want of a word to express it, be called a religion; nor is it to be mentioned with that civility which is otherwise decent to be used in speaking about the differences of human opinion about divine matters...There has now for divers years a design been carried on, to change the lawful government of England into an absolute tyranny, and to convert the established Protestant religion into downright Popery...If under his present Majesty we have as yet seen no more visible effects of the same spirit than the firing of London...it is not to be attributed to the good nature or better principles of that sect, but to the wisdom of his Holiness, who observes that we are not of late so dangerous Protestants as to deserve any special mark of his indignation, but that we may be made better use of to the wrecking of those that are of our religion, and that if he do not disturb us, there are those amongst ourselves that are leading us into a fair way of reconciliation with him.
 * An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England [1677] (reprinted in State Tracts: Volume I (1692), pp. 69 ff.).


 * Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.
 * The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers.

She with her voice might captivate my mind.
 * She with her eyes my heart does bind,
 * The Fair Singer.

Whose subtle art invisibly can wreath My fetters of the very air I breath?'''
 * '''How should I avoid to be her slave,
 * The Fair Singer.

Depopulating all the Ground, And, with his whistling Sythe, does cut Each stroke between the Earth and Root, The edged Stele by careless chance Did into his own Ankle glance; And there among the Grass fell down, by his own Sythe, the Mower mown.
 * While thus he threw his Elbow round,
 * Damon The Mower.


 * Art indeed is long, but life is short.
 * Upon the Death of Lord Hastings (1649), last line
 * Variant: "Art is long, and time is fleeting." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life (1839).

That can so well obey ("Horatian Ode," 83-84),
 * How fit is he to sway
 * An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland (1650), lines 83-84; on political authority.

The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere.
 * The world in all doth but two nations bear &mdash;
 * The Loyal Scot (1650-1652).

Their bodies measure out their place.
 * No creature loves an empty space;
 * Upon Appleton House, to My Lord Fairfax.

Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate.
 * To make a bank was a great plot of state;
 * The Character of Holland (c. 1653).

Fell to the Dutch by Just Propriety.
 * This indigested vomit of the Sea,
 * The Character of Holland (c. 1653).

Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland (1650)

 * ...the inglorious arts of peace...

Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try.
 * He nothing common did or mean

Down as upon a bed.
 * But bowed his comely head

That does both act and know.
 * So much one man can do,

To His Coy Mistress (1650-1652)
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.''' We would sit down and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day.
 * '''Had we but world enough, and time,

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.
 * I would

And the last age should show your heart.
 * An age at least to every part,

Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.'''
 * '''But at my back I always hear

Nor, in thy marble vault shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honor turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust. The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace.
 * Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, 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.
 * Now therefore while the youthful hue

Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.'''
 * '''Let us roll all our strength and all

The Garden (1650-1652)

 * In busy companies of men.

To this delicious solitude.
 * Society is all but rude,

Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine; The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on melons, as I pass, Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
 * What wondrous life in this I lead!

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 shade.'''
 * Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less

My soul into the boughs does glide.
 * Casting the body's vest aside,

The Definition of Love (1650-1652)
As 'tis for object strange and high; It was begotten by Despair Upon Impossibility.
 * My love is of a birth as rare
 * Stanza 1.


 * Love's whole world on us doth wheel.

Themselves in every angle greet; But ours so truly parallel, Though infinite, can never meet.
 * As lines, so loves oblique may well
 * Stanza 7.

But Fate so enviously debars, Is the conjunction of the mind, And opposition of the stars.
 * Therefore the love which us doth bind,

Bermudas (1657)
In th' ocean's bosom unespied.
 * Where the remote Bermudas ride,

Like golden lamps in a green light.
 * Orange bright,

With falling oars they kept the time.
 * And all the way, to guide their chime,

The Mover to the Glow-worms
The nightingale does sit so late And studying all the summer night Her matchless songs does meditate; Ye country comets, that portend No war, nor prince's funeral, Shining unto no higher end Than to presage the grasses's fall; Ye glow-worms whose officious flame To wandering mowers shows the way, That in the night have lost their aim And after foolish fires do stray; Your courteous lights in vain you waste, Since juliana here is come, For she my mind hath so displaced That I shall never find my home.
 * Ye living lamps, by whose dear light