Andrew Marvell was born at Winestead-in-Holderness, Yorkshire, on March 31, 1621 to the Rev. Andrew Marvell, and his wife Anne. In 1633 Marvell matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1638, where he remained for a few years in residence, leaving Cambridge only after his father's death in 1640.
Marvell was elected M. P. for his hometown of Hull, and he continued to represent it until his death on August 18, 1678.
The Definition of Love
My love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapp'd its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixt,
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic pow'r depose.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have plac'd,
(Though love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embrac'd;
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp'd into a planisphere.
As lines, so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet;
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.
The Gallery
Clora come view my Soul, and tell
Whether I have contriv'd it well.
Now all its several lodgings lye
Compos'd into one Gallery;
And the great Arras -hangings, made
Of various Faces, by are laid;
That, for all furniture, you'l find
Only your Picture in my Mind.
Here Thou art painted in the Dress
Of an Inhumane Murtheress;
Examining upon our Hearts
Thy fertile Shop of cruel Arts:
Engines more keen than ever yet
Adorned Tyrants Cabinet;
Of which the most tormenting are
Black Eyes, red Lips, and curled Hair.
But, on the other side, th' art drawn
Like to Aurora in the Dawn;
When in the East she slumb'ring lyes,
And stretches out her milky Thighs;
While all the morning Quire does sing,
And Mamma falls, and Roses spring;
And, at thy Feet, the wooing Doves
Sit perfecting their harmless Loves.
Like an Enchantress here thou show'st,
Vexing thy restless Lover's Ghost;
And, by a Light obscure, dost rave
Over his Entrails, in the Cave;
Divining thence, with horrid Care,
How long thou shalt continue fair;
And (when inform'd) them throw'st away,
To be the greedy Vultur's prey.
But, against that, thou sit'st a float
Like Venus in her pearly Boat.
The Halcyons , calming all that's nigh,
Betwixt the Air and Water fly.
Or, if some rowling Wave appears,
A Mass of Ambergris it bears.
Nor blows more Wind than what may well
Convoy the Perfume to the Smell.
These Pictures and a thousand more,
Of Thee, my Gallery dost store;
In all the Forms thou can'st invent
Either to please me, or torment:
For thou alone to people me,
Art grown a num'rous Colony;
And a Collection choicer far
Then or White-hall's, or Mantua's were.
But, of these Pictures and the rest,
That at the Entrance likes me best:
The Garden
I
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes;*
And their uncessant Labours see
Crown'd from some single Herb or Tree,
Whose short and narrow verged shade*
Does prudently their Toyles upbraid;
While all Flow'rs and all Trees do close
To weave the Garlands of repose.
II
Fair quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence thy Sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busie Companies of Men.
Your sacred Plants, if here below,
Only among the Plants will grow.
Society is all but rude
To this delicious Solitude.
III
No white nor red was ever seen*
So am'rous as this lovely green.
Fond Lovers, cruel as their Flame*
Cut in these Trees their Mistress name.
Little, alas, they know or heed,
How far these Beauties Hers exceed.
Fair Trees! were s'eer your barks I wound,
No Name shall but your own be found.
IV
When we have run our Passions heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.V
What wond'rous Life in this I lead!
Ripe Apples drop about my head;
The Luscious Clusters of the Vine
Upon my Mouth do crush their Wine;
The Nectaren, and curious Peach,*
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on Melons, as I pass,
Insar'd with Flow'rs, I fall on Grass.
VI
Mean while the Mind, from Pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness:
The Mind, that Ocean where each kind
Does streight 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.*
VII
Here at the Fountains sliding foot,
Or at some Fruit-trees mossy root,
Casting the Bodies Vest aside,*
My Soul into the bough does glide:
There like a Bird it sits, and sings,
Then whets, and combs its silver Wings;*
And, till prepar'd for longer flight,
Waves in its Plumes the various Light.
VIII
Such was that happy Garden-state,
While Man there walk'd without a Mate:
After a Place so pure, so sweet,
What other Help could yet be meet!*
But 'twas beyond a Mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two Paradises 'twere in one
To live in Paradise alone.
IX
How well the skillful Gardner drew
Of flow'rs and herbes this Dial new*
Where from above the milder Sun
Does through a fragrant Zodiac run;
And, as it works, th' industrious Bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome Hours
Be recokon'd but with herbs and flow'rs!
The Match
i
Nature had long a Treasure made
Of all her choisest store;
Fearing, when She should be decay'd,
To beg in vain for more.
ii
Her Orientest Colours there,
And Essences most pure,
With sweetest Perfumes hoarded were,
All as she thought secure.
iii
She seldom them unlock'd, or us'd,
But with the nicest care;
For, with one grain of them diffus'd,
She could the World repair.
iv
But likeness soon together drew
What she did separate lay;
Of which one perfect Beauty grew,
And that was Celia.
v
Love wisely had of long fore-seen
That he must once grow old;
And therefore stor'd a Magazine,
To save him from the cold.
vi
He kept the several Cells repleat
With Nitre thrice refin'd;
The Naphta's and the Sulphurs heat,
And all that burns the Mind.
vii
He fortifi'd the double Gate,
And rarely thither came,
For, with one Spark of these, he streight
All Nature could inflame.
viii
Till, by vicinity so long,
A nearer Way they sought;
And, grown magnetically strong,
Into each other wrought.
ix
Thus all his fewel did unite
To make one fire high:x
So we alone the happy rest,
Whilst all the World is poor,
And have within our Selves possest
All Love's and Nature's store.
A Dialogue between the soul and the body.
SOUL
O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
A soul enslav'd so many ways?
With bolts of bones, that fetter'd stands
In feet, and manacled in hands;
Here blinded with an eye, and there
Deaf with the drumming of an ear;
A soul hung up, as 'twere, in chains
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;
Tortur'd, besides each other part,
In a vain head, and double heart.
BODY
O who shall me deliver whole
From bonds of this tyrannic soul?
Which, stretch'd upright, impales me so
That mine own precipice I go;
And warms and moves this needless frame,
(A fever could but do the same)
And, wanting where its spite to try,
Has made me live to let me die.
A body that could never rest,
Since this ill spirit it possest.
SOUL
What magic could me thus confine
Within another's grief to pine?
Where whatsoever it complain,
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain;
And all my care itself employs;
That to preserve which me destroys;
Constrain'd not only to endure
Diseases, but, what's worse, the cure;
And ready oft the port to gain,
Am shipwreck'd into health again.
BODY
But physic yet could never reach
The maladies thou me dost teach;
Whom first the cramp of hope does tear,
And then the palsy shakes of fear;
The pestilence of love does heat,
Or hatred's hidden ulcer eat;
Joy's cheerful madness does perplex,
Or sorrow's other madness vex;
Which knowledge forces me to know,
And memory will not forego.
What but a soul could have the wit
To build me up for sin so fit?
So architects do square and hew
Green trees that in the forest grew.
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