The Mower to the Glow-Worms

Ye living lamps, by whose dear light

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 princes funeral,

Shining unto no higher end

Than to presage the grasses' fall;

Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame

To wandring 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.

Andrew Marvell

The Mower's Song

    My mind was once the true survey

    Of all these meadows fresh and gay;

    And in the greeness of the grass

    Did see its hopes as in a glass;

    When Juliana came, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

    But these, while I with sorrow pine,

    Grow more luxuriant still and fine;

    That not one blade of grass you spied,

    But had a flower on either side;

    When Juliana came, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

    Unthankful meadows, could you so

    A fellowship so true forego,

    And in your gaudy May-games meet,

    While I lay trodden under feet?

    When Juliana came, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

    But what you in compassion ought,

    Shall now by my revenge be wrought:

    And flowers, and grass, and I and all,

    Will in one common ruin fall.

    For Juliana comes, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

    And thus, ye meadows, which have been

    Companions of my thoughts more green,

    Shall now the heraldry become

    With which I shall adorn my tomb;

    For Juliana comes, and she

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

Andrew Marvell

Bermudas

Where the remote Bermudas ride

In the ocean's bosom unespied,

From a small boat, that rowed along,

The listening winds received this song.

"What should we do but sing his praise

That led us through the watery maze,

Unto an isle so long unknown,

And yet far kinder than our own?

Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks,

That lift the deep upon their backs,

He lands us on a grassy stage,

Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage.

He gave us this eternal spring,

Which here enamels everything,

And sends the fowl to us in care,

On daily visits through the air.

He hangs in shades the orange bright,

Like golden lamps in a green night,

And does in the pom'granates close

Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.

He makes the figs our mouths to meet,

And throws the melons at our feet,

But apples plants of such a price,

No tree could ever bear them twice.

With cedars, chosen by his hand,

From Lebanon, he stores the land,

And makes the hollow seas, that roar,

Proclaim the ambergris on shore.

He cast (of which we rather boast)

The gospel's pearl upon our coast,

And in these rocks for us did frame

A temple, where to sound his name.

Oh let our voice his praise exalt,

Till it arrive at heaven's vault:

Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may

Echo beyond the Mexique Bay."

Thus sung they, in the English boat,

An holy and a cheerful note,

And all the way, to guide their chime,

With falling oars they kept the time.

Andrew Marvell

Music's Empire

First was the world as one great cymbal made,

Where jarring winds to infant Nature played.

All music was a solitary sound,

To hollow rocks and murm'ring fountains bound.

Jubal first made the wilder notes agree;

And Jubal tuned music's Jubilee;

He call'd the echoes from their sullen cell,

And built the organ's city where they dwell.

Each sought a consort in that lovely place,

And virgin trebles wed the manly bass.

From whence the progeny of numbers new

Into harmonious colonies withdrew.

Some to the lute, some to the viol went,

And others chose the cornet eloquent,

These practicing the wind, and those the wire,

To sing men's triumphs, or in Heaven's choir.

Then music, the mosaic of the air,

Did of all these a solemn noise prepare;

With which she gain'd the empire of the ear,

Including all between the earth and sphere.

Victorious sounds! yet here your homage do

Unto a gentler conqueror than you;

Who though he flies the music of his praise,

Would with you Heaven's Hallelujahs raise.

Andrew Marvell