Poems by Andrew Marvell

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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The Mower's Song

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;

by Andrew Marvell

An Epitaph

ENOUGH; and leave the rest to Fame!

'Tis to commend her, but to name.

Courtship which, living, she declined,

When dead, to offer were unkind:

Nor can the truest wit, or friend,

Without detracting, her commend.

To say—she lived a virgin chaste

In this age loose and all unlaced;

by Andrew Marvell

An Horation Ode Upon Cromwell's Return From Ireland

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 oyl th'unused Armours rust:

Removing from the Wall

The Corslet of the Hall.

by Andrew Marvell

The Fair Singer

To make a final conquest of all me,

Love did compose so sweet an Enemy,

In whom both Beauties to my death agree,

Joyning themselves in fatal Harmony;

That while she with her Eyes my Heart does bind,

She with her Voice might captivate my Mind.

I could have fled from One but singly fair:

My dis-intangled Soul it self might save,

by Andrew Marvell

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 county comets, that portend

No war nor prince's funeral,

Shining unto no higher end

Than to presage the grass's fall;

by Andrew Marvell

On A Drop Of Dew

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 incloses:

And in its little Globes Extent,

Frames as it can its native Element.

by Andrew Marvell

The Garden

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.

by Andrew Marvell

The Coronet

When for the Thorns with which I long, too long,

With many a piercing wound,

My Saviours head have crown'd,

I seek with Garlands to redress that Wrong:

Through every Garden, every Mead,

I gather flow'rs (my fruits are only flow'rs)

Dismantling all the fragrant Towers

That once adorn'd my Shepherdesses head.

by Andrew Marvell

Young Love

Come little Infant, Love me now,

While thine unsuspected years

Clear thine aged Fathers brow

From cold Jealousie and Fears.

Pretty surely 'twere to see

By young Love old Time beguil'd:

While our Sportings are as free

As the Nurses with the Child.

Andrew Marvell

Eyes And Tears

How wisely Nature did decree,

With the same Eyes to weep and see!

That, having view'd the object vain,

They might be ready to complain.

And since the Self-deluding Sight,

In a false Angle takes each hight;

These Tears which better measure all,

Like wat'ry Lines and Plummets fall.

by Andrew Marvell

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'r have flown

But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing.

by 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.

by Andrew Marvell