Poems of the Week: Marvell
Andrew Marvell wrote masterpieces in several genres of verse, from satire to love poems to the most ambitious ode in the language. While it is foolish to use words like "the greatest" of any one poet, the worth of this libidinous Puritan is beyond question. Some of Marvell's satires are quite amusing, particularly "Flecknoe" and "Tom May's Death," but they are only funny if you know a good deal of the history of the period. Since the poet is on the opposite side of every issue that interests me, I don't want to spend time defending his polemics. Let us start, though, with one or two of his lighter love lyrics that most college students used to be required to read.
The Mower's Song
How My Mind was once the true survey
Of all these Medows fresh and gay;
And in the greenness 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,
Grew more luxuriant still and fine;
That not one Blade of Grass you spy'd,
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 gawdy 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 Flow'rs, and Grass, and I and all,
Will in one common Ruine 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.
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 prince’s funeral,
Shining unto no higher end
Than to presage the grass’s fall;
Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
To wand’ring 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 displac’d
That I shall never find my home.
The Mower against Gardens
Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use,
Did after him the world seduce,
And from the fields the flowers and plants allure,
Where nature was most plain and pure.
He first enclosed within the gardens square
A dead and standing pool of air,
And a more luscious earth for them did knead,
Which stupified them while it fed.
The pink grew then as double as his mind;
The nutriment did change the kind.
With strange perfumes he did the roses taint,
And flowers themselves were taught to paint.
The tulip, white, did for complexion seek,
And learned to interline its cheek:
Its onion root they then so high did hold,
That one was for a meadow sold.
Another world was searched, through oceans new,
To find the Marvel of Peru.
And yet these rarities might be allowed
To man, that sovereign thing and proud,
Had he not dealt between the bark and tree,
Forbidden mixtures there to see.
No plant now knew the stock from which it came;
He grafts upon the wild the tame:
That th’ uncertain and adulterate fruit
Might put the palate in dispute.
His green seraglio has its eunuchs too,
Lest any tyrant him outdo.
And in the cherry he does nature vex,
To procreate without a sex.
’Tis all enforced, the fountain and the grot,
While the sweet fields do lie forgot:
Where willing nature does to all dispense
A wild and fragrant innocence:
And fauns and fairies do the meadows till,
More by their presence than their skill.
Their statues, polished by some ancient hand,
May to adorn the gardens stand:
But howsoe’er the figures do excel,
The gods themselves with us do dwell.
Marvell's Horatian Ode
One of the most ambitious poems in the English language and perhaps the only truly successful ode is his "Horatian on Cromwell's Return from Ireland." Ordinarily I don't like to talk too much about a poem, but I am willing to talk this one to death. Read it carefully, bearing in mind that Marvell was a Roundhead. Yet he makes the execution of Charles the center--in all senses--of the poem. He shows such a fairness and such a tragic sense, I am struck with admiration for him every time I read this.
THE forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urged his active star:
And like the three-fork'd lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide:
For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy;
And with such, to enclose
Is more than to oppose.
Then burning through the air he went
And palaces and temples rent;
And Caesar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.
'Tis madness to resist or blame
The face of angry Heaven's flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,
Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere
(As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot),
Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of time,
And cast the Kingdoms old
Into another mould;
Though Justice against Fate complain,
And plead the ancient rights in vain--
But those do hold or break
As men are strong or weak--
Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.
What field of all the civil war
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art;
Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Caresbrooke's narrow case;
That thence the Royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;
Nor call'd the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;
But bow'd his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour
Which first assured the forced power:
So when they did design
The Capitol's first line,
A Bleeding Head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate!
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do
That does both act and know.
They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confest
How good he is, how just
And fit for highest trust.
Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the republic's hand--
How fit he is to sway
That can so well obey!
He to the Commons' feet presents
A Kingdom for his first year's rents,
And, what he may, forbears
His fame, to make it theirs:
And has his sword and spoils ungirt
To lay them at the public's skirt.
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having kill'd, no more doth search
But on the next green bough to perch;
Where, when he first does lure,
The falconer has her sure.
What may not then our Isle presume
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,
If thus he crowns each year?
As Caesar he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,
And to all States not free
Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his particolour'd mind,
But, from this valour, sad
Shrink underneath the plaid;
Happy, if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.
But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
And for the last effect,
Still keep the sword erect:
Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.
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Dr. Fleming,
Thank you for introducing Marvel. It is rather shameful to realise that these guys were attending college at 13 yrs of age, writing poems in Greek and Latin at fifteen,and forgetting more about their culture by age 25 than our current college graduates will ever learn. Sure they spent too much of their money on womanising, literature, pastimes, and travel. Sure they took their religious orders seriously and could still see the tears in the loss of the ancient order even as they eagerly awaited the false fruits of a republic. But they could write some verse and were serious men for the most part. I read recently where one old cowboy out in New Mexico said he spent most of his money on women and booze and the rest of it he just wasted. He must have meant he regretted never taking the time to write some poems.
"And fauns and fairies do the meadows till,
More by their presence than their skill."
Marvel that the essence of poetry is joy. Even if inevitably it contains best thinking. Imprisoned. (Oh yes where she belongs.)
An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland
By Andrew Marvell
1621-1678
THE forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urged his active star:
And like the three-fork'd lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide:
For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy;
And with such, to enclose
Is more than to oppose.
Then burning through the air he went
And palaces and temples rent;
And Caesar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.
'Tis madness to resist or blame
The face of angry Heaven's flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,
Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere
(As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot),
Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of time,
And cast the Kingdoms old
Into another mould;
Though Justice against Fate complain,
And plead the ancient rights in vain--
But those do hold or break
As men are strong or weak--
Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.
What field of all the civil war
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art;
Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Caresbrooke's narrow case;
That thence the Royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;
Nor call'd the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;
But bow'd his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour
Which first assured the forced power:
So when they did design
The Capitol's first line,
A Bleeding Head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate!
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do
That does both act and know.
They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confest
How good he is, how just
And fit for highest trust.
Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the republic's hand--
How fit he is to sway
That can so well obey!
He to the Commons' feet presents
A Kingdom for his first year's rents,
And, what he may, forbears
His fame, to make it theirs:
And has his sword and spoils ungirt
To lay them at the public's skirt.
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having kill'd, no more doth search
But on the next green bough to perch;
Where, when he first does lure,
The falconer has her sure.
What may not then our Isle presume
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,
If thus he crowns each year?
As Caesar he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,
And to all States not free
Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his particolour'd mind,
But, from this valour, sad
Shrink underneath the plaid;
Happy, if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.
But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
And for the last effect,
Still keep the sword erect:
Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.
A brief appreciative comment on "The Mower against Gardens": The poem begins with the word "luxuriant" and proceeds to suffuse the poem with luxuriousness by means of the laving vowel sounds , "l", "r", and "ur", which appear in every line; indeed, two or three of them in most lines, sometimes near-sinfully combined in the word "world". These sounds fill the mouth like a fine spirit, wine, or dessert. They are delicious. Who writes like this nowadays? Pity, eh?
And Marvell was a Puritan.
Some lines in "The Mower Against The Gardens" made me think of the results of today's wicked reproductive health/fertility services industry:
"No plant now knew the stock from which it came;"
nor do these mothers who use this service and their children know the "fathers";
"His green seraglio has its eunuchs too,
Lest any tyrant him outdo."
I see these "eunuchs" as the "men" who go into cubicles and desecrate the precious genetic heritage their ancestors entrusted to them for women and children they'll never see, who will repay them nothing in conjugal and filial love, and offer no honor to their name.
Thanks to Mr. Olson for explaining why it felt so good to recite this poem.
I'm going to read it a couple more times just to hear those sounds.
I must say I get from the poem God's favoring joy; keeping the gods with them who do. Maybe even in The Mower against Gardens a Puritan's joy buried wherever it is 'between bark and tree'? is preferable to a dullard's polished coin? The puritan at least looking for it yet even if in a fish's mouth? Although the puritan might too rarely cast his gaze south. Such a person's ambitions for necessary counterpoint might be too high minded; thusly inevitably also too low? I don't know.
Ah, what a pleasure it's been to set aside the several massive biographies I have to review and put off the new Odd Thomas yarn by Dean Koontz to plunge into the Marvell selection I own. The mower poems are lovely and intelligent, the amorous poems ("To His Coy Mistress", e.g.) are wily and intelligent, and the Horation ode is ambitious, indeed, as Dr. Fleming says. Marvell is candid enough to not just know and feel the untowardness of trying to heroize Cromwell vis à vis Charles I. He must depict Cromwell as a pivot on which the world as it has been turns into something new, signaled by Charles' execution: "This was that memorable hour / Which first assured the forced power". If such words imply the victory of might over right, well "'Tis madness to resist or blame / The face of angry Heaven's flame; / And if we would speak true, / Much to the man is due". (But is it true that the conquered Irish "confest / How good he is, how just / And fit for highest trust"?) He may--he can!--like Caesar, conquer Gaul, or like Hannibal, subdue Italy. But Marvell knows that after Gaul, Caesar conquered the republic, and Hannibal couldn't hold what he had of Italy. So maybe heading north to frighten Scotland will be sufficient to keep everyone aware of that "sword erect". Do I rightly detect a certain hesitation in Marvell's encomium? Or am I back-projecting from the low estimation of Cromwell that has prevailed throughout my lifetime?
I would not one or two things briefly about the ode. It consists of 30 stanzas. What happens in stanza 15? The execution of Charles I. Note the contrast between the cautious praise of Cromwell, "much to the man is due," with "he nothing common did or mean.." Note also the bloodthirsty savages. Cromwell is a force of nature, while the tragic king is a Christian. If Cromwell is, as he hints, another Caesar, does that mean that the commonwealth has been destroyed? there is so much more that can be said. I'll add another poem or two of Marvell's tomorrow, perhaps as a new post.
I have not been able to give this poetry section the attention it deserves of late (I am trying to save the selections into Word files on my computer, though, for later review), but I did want to spend time with Mr. Marvell. Naturally, the only thing I’ve ever read by him is “To His Coy Mistress” from my 11th grade Brit Lit class.
I’ve read through the Horation Ode several times. I’ve had to look up the definition of several words, and I’m not very familiar with the actual history other than a brief sketch of Cromwell rising up, Charles losing, Charles rallying, Charles losing again, Charles losing his head (Britain committing Regicide), and Cromwell going on to conquer Catholic Irish & the like. I’ve always had the notion, correctly founded or not, that Cromwell was not a savory character. I understand that he’s on the side of the Puritans and that Marvell is on his side, at least nominally.
So introductory excuses aside, I’m having a hard time understanding the Ode. I did some half-hearted web-searching to try to find out a little more about the structure of the Ode, but I came up with no clear answer. Can I assume that Marvell’s structure here is quintessential? I’m not very familiar with poetry, so the structure seemed very odd to me with the two short lines following the two longer ones. I had to read it out loud a few times before I could say it so that it didn’t sound odd.
I understand the structure with King Charles in the middle, and Marvell showing him as noble not only in name but in manner. The first part introducing Cromwell does seem like it’s calling him out as a sort of chosen one of God but in a way antithetical to Christ – am I reading too much into the following?
- Cromwell shuns the “Inglorious arts of Peace” in favor of war whereas Christ is the Prince of Peace
-Cromwell urges his own active star whereas Christ’s star was there to lead other men
-3-forked lightning, apart from recalling the old pagan bolt-thrower calls to my mind some strange representation of the Trinity – a very different way of looking at a light shining in the darkness
- “breaking clouds where it was nurst” seems a far and violent cry from what we sing in Advent “drop ye dew ye clouds of Heaven”
-“thorough his own side” “his fiery way divides” whereas from the side of Christ came a unification of water with blood
And from there Cromwell goes through the air burning temples and rending palaces. I confess to a habit of “over-reading” just about anything I run into, so please take this as me “thinking out-loud” with hope for corrections as applicable. I wasn’t looking to find images, those just popped into my head when I read it. Regardless, it seems that the violence and darkness of the beginning paints Cromwell in a large but not necessarily flattering light?
It seems like much of the poem is trying to justify or explain Cromwell. “He’s really a humble man”, “traditions will eventually fall when stronger men arise to challenge them – it’s just the way it is”, and “Cromwell will only fight when he has to and then he’ll be peaceable like a falcon returning to his master”.
Some stanzas I just don’t understand. I believe that a Pict was some sort of Catholic Scotsman, and basically those stanzas are fairly demeaning to the Picts with regard to their opposition to England/Cromwell? I don’t understand the stanza about Caesar & Gaul & Italy & Hannibal and I’ve already looked up the word climacteric.
Any help on this would be appreciated. I feel like I should be in the remedial class.
Mr. Cornell, I believe you're detecting the same insecurity in the poem that I descry. Marvell can't see his way to denigrating the executed king, who went to his doom a gentleman and a Christian. All he can do is liken Charles' severed head to the skull that, legend has it, was unearthed when digging the foundation of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill in Rome was begun. That was a taken to be a good omen of Rome's future greatness; perhaps the regicide's head is a good omen of future English republican greatness. That seems to me to be rather a stretch.
About the form of the poem, I also wonder. It often seems that a pair of four-foot lines makes a declaration that the three-foot couplets immediately following it qualify. It's not that the shorter lines always undercut the longer ones--for from it; Marvell's not that mechanical--but that it is easy to hear a modulation, characteristically a decrease in volume and/or speed in the shorter lines. This effect gives a certain caution to the whole poem.
The mention of Picts gave me pause, too. Nowadays we separate the Picts from the Scots, thinking of the latter as pushing out the former and being a different people. In Marvell's day Pict and Scot were, I think, much more synonymous, designating, with a nod to how Pict is used in Roman literature, those pesky savages north of the Clyde and the Forth.