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 hated 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 subtile fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope

That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook'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 called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,

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

This was that memorable hour

Which first assured the forcèd 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 doth both act and know.

They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confessed
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 killed, 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 Cæsar 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 party-coloured 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.

XXII

IN EXILE

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,
Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks
That lift the deep upon their backs,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
He lands us on a grassy stage,

Safe from the storms and prelates' rage:
He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels everything,
And sends the fowls 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 pomegranates 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 ambergrease 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.
O let our voice his praise exalt
'Till it arrive at heaven's vault,
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay!'

Thus sang they in the English boat
A holy and a cheerful note:

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

Marvell.

XXIII

ALEXANDER'S FEAST

'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won By Philip's warlike son:

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne;

His valiant peers were placed around,

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound (So should desert in arms be crowned);

The lovely Thais by his side

Sate like a blooming Eastern bride

In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair!