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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=344334" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>First Anniversary</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like the vain curlings of the watery maze, <br>Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise, <br>So Man, declining always, disappears <br>In the weak circles of increasing years; <br>And his short tumults of themselves compose, <br>While flowing Time above his head does close. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cromwell alone with greater vigour runs, <br>(Sun-like) the stages of succeeding suns: <br>And still the day which he doth next restore, <br>Is the just wonder of the day before. <br>Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring, <br>And shines the jewel of the yearly ring. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis he the force of scattered time contracts, <br>And in one year the work of ages acts: <br>While heavy monarchs make a wide return, <br>Longer, and more malignant than Saturn: <br>And though they all Platonic years should reign, <br>In the same posture would be found again. <br>Their earthy projects under ground they lay, <br>More slow and brittle than the China clay: <br>Well may they strive to leave them to their son, <br>For one thing never was by one king done. <br>Yet some more active for a frontier town, <br>Taken by proxy, beg a false renown; <br>Another triumphs at the public cost, <br>And will have won, if he no more have lost; <br>They fight by others, but in person wrong, <br>And only are against their subjects strong; <br>Their other wars seem but a feigned contèst, <br>This common enemy is still oppressed; <br>If conquerors, on them they turn their might; <br>If conquered, on them they wreak their spite: <br>They neither build the temple in their days, <br>Nor matter for succeeding founders raise; <br>Nor sacred prophecies consult within, <br>Much less themself to pèfect them begin; <br>No other care they bear of things above, <br>But with astrologers divine of Jove <br>To know how long their planet yet reprieves <br>From the deservéd fate their guilty lives: <br>Thus (image-like) an useless time they tell, <br>And with vain sceptre strike the hourly bell, <br>Nor more contribute to the state of things, <br>Than wooden heads unto the viol's strings. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">While indefatigable Cromwell hies, <br>And cuts his way still nearer to the skies, <br>Learning a music in the region clear, <br>To tune this lower to that higher sphere. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So when Amphion did the lute command, <br>Which the god gave him, with his gentle hand, <br>The rougher stones, unto his measures hewed, <br>Danced up in order from the quarries rude; <br>This took a lower, that an higher place, <br>As he the treble altered, or the bass: <br>No note he struck, but a new stone was laid, <br>And the great work ascended while he played. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The listening structures he with wonder eyed, <br>And still new stops to various time applied: <br>Now through the strings a martial rage he throws, <br>And joining straight the Theban tower arose; <br>Then as he strokes them with a touch more sweet, <br>The flocking marbles in a palace meet; <br>But for the most the graver notes did try, <br>Therefore the temples reared their columns high: <br>Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred lute creates <br>Th' harmonious city of the seven gates. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such was that wondrous order and consent, <br>When Cromwell tuned the ruling Instrument, <br>While tedious statesmen many years did hack, <br>Framing a liberty that still went back, <br>Whose numerous gorge could swallow in an hour <br>That island, which the sea cannot devour: <br>Then our Amphion issued out and sings, <br>And once he struck, and twice, the powerful strings. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Commonwealth then first together came, <br>And each one entered in the willing frame; <br>All other matter yields, and may be ruled; <br>But who the minds of stubborn men can build? <br>No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought, <br>Nor with such labour from its centre brought; <br>None to be sunk in the foundation bends, <br>Each in the house the highest place contends, <br>And each the hand that lays him will direct, <br>And some fall back upon the architect; <br>Yet all composed by his attractive song, <br>Into the animated city throng. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Commonwealth does through their centres all <br>Draw the circumference of the public wall; <br>The crossest spirits here do take their part, <br>Fastening the contignation which they thwart; <br>And they, whose nature leads them to divide, <br>Uphold this one, and that the other side; <br>But the most equal still sustain the height, <br>And they as pillars keep the work upright, <br>While the resistance of opposèd minds, <br>The fabric (as with arches) stronger binds, <br>Which on the basis of a senate free, <br>Knit by the roof's protecting weight, agree. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When for his foot he thus a place had found, <br>He hurls e'er since the world about him round, <br>And in his several aspects, like a star, <br>Here shines in peace, and thither shoots in war, <br>While by his beams observing princes steer, <br>And wisely court the influence they fear. <br>O would they rather by his pattern won <br>Kiss the approaching, not yet angry Son; <br>And in their numbered footsteps humbly tread <br>The path where holy oracles do lead; <br>How might they under such a captain raise <br>The great designs kept for the latter days! <br>But mad with reason (so miscalled) of state <br>They know them not, and what they know not, hate. <br>Hence still they sing hosanna to the whore, <br>And her, whom they should massacre, adore: <br>But Indians, whom they would convert, subdue; <br>Nor teach, but traffic with, or burn the Jew. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Unhappy princes, ignorantly bred, <br>By malice some, by error more misled, <br>If gracious heaven to my life give length, <br>Leisure to time, and to my weaknes strength, <br>Then shall I once with graver accents shake <br>Your regal sloth, and your long slumbers wake: <br>Like the shrill huntsman that prevents the east, <br>Winding his horn to kings that chase the beast. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Till then my muse shall hollo far behind <br>Angelic Cromwell who outwings the wind, <br>And in dark nights, and in cold days alone <br>Pursues the monster through every throne: <br>Which shrinking to her Roman den impure, <br>Gnashes her gory teeth; nor there secure. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hence oft I think if in some happy hour <br>High grace should meet in one with highest power, <br>And then a seasonable people still <br>Should bend to his, as he to heaven's will, <br>What we might hope, what wonderful effect <br>From such a wished conjuncture might reflect. <br>Sure, the mysterious work, where none withstand, <br>Would forthwith finish under such a hand: <br>Foreshortened time its useless course would stay, <br>And soon precipitate the latest day. <br>But a thick cloud about that morning lies, <br>And intercepts the beams of mortal eyes, <br>That 'tis the most which we determine can, <br>If these the times, then this must be the man. <br>And well he therefore does, and well has guessed, <br>Who in his age has always forward pressed: <br>And knowing not where heaven's choice may light, <br>Girds yet his sword, and ready stand to fight; <br>But men, alas, as if they nothing cared, <br>Look on, all unconcerned, or unprepared; <br>And stars still fall, and still the dragon's tail <br>Swinges the volumes of its horrid flail. <br>For the great justice that did first suspend <br>The world by sin, does by the same extend. <br>Hence that blest day still counterposèd wastes, <br>The ill delaying what the elected hastes; <br>Hence landing nature to new seas is tossed, <br>And good designs still with their authors lost. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth <br>A mould was chosen out of better earth; <br>Whose saint-like mother we did lately see <br>Live out an age, long as a pedigree; <br>That she might seem (could we the Fall dispute), <br>T' have smelled the blossom, and not eat the fruit; <br>Though none does of more lasting parents grow, <br>Yet never any did them honour so, <br>Though thou thine heart from evil still unstained, <br>And always hast thy tongue from fraud refrained; <br>Thou, who so oft through storms of thundering lead <br>Hast born securely thine undaunted head, <br>Thy breast through poniarding conspiracies, <br>Drawn from the sheath of lying prophecies; <br>Thee proof behond all other force or skill, <br>Our sins endanger, and shall one day kill. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">How near they failed, and in thy sudden fall <br>At once assayed to overturn us all. <br>Our brutish fury struggling to be free, <br>Hurried thy horses while they hurried thee, <br>When thou hadst almost quit thy mortal cares, <br>And soiled in dust thy crown of silver hairs. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let this one sorrow interweave among <br>The other glories of our yearly song. <br>Like skilful looms, which through the costly thread <br>Of purling ore, a shining wave do shed: <br>So shall the tears we on past grief employ, <br>Still as they trickle, glitter in our joy. <br>So with more modesty we may be true, <br>And speak, as of the dead, the praises due: <br>While impious men deceived with pleasure short, <br>On their own hopes shall find the fall retort. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the poor beasts, wanting their noble guide, <br>(What could they more?) shrunk guiltily aside. <br>First wingèd fear transports them far away, <br>And leaden sorrow then their flight did stay. <br>See how they each his towering crest abate, <br>And the green grass, and their known mangers hate, <br>Nor through wide nostrils snuff the wanton air, <br>Nor their round hoofs, or curlèd manes compare; <br>With wandering eyes, and restless ears they stood, <br>And with shrill neighings asked him of the wood. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou, Cromwell, falling, not a stupid tree, <br>Or rock so savage, but it mourned for thee: <br>And all about was heard a panic groan, <br>As if that Nature's self were overthrown. <br>It seemed the earth did from the centre tear; <br>It seemed the sun was fall'n out of the sphere: <br>Justice obstructed lay, and reason fooled; <br>Courage disheartened, and religion cooled. <br>A dismal silence through the palace went, <br>And then loud shrieks the vaulted marbles rent, <br>Such as the dying chorus sings by turns, <br>And to deaf seas, and ruthless tempests mourns, <br>When now they sink, and now the plundering streams <br>Break up each deck, and rip the oaken seams. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But thee triumphant hence the fiery car, <br>And fiery steeds had borne out of the war, <br>From the low world, and thankless men above, <br>Unto the kingdom blest of peace and love: <br>We only mourned ourselves, in thine ascent, <br>Whom thou hadst left beneath with mantle rent. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For all delight of life thou then didst lose, <br>When to command, thou didst thyself dispose; <br>Resigning up thy privacy so dear, <br>To turn the headstrong people's charioteer; <br>For to be Cromwell was a greater thing, <br>Then ought below, or yet above a king: <br>Therefore thou rather didst thyself depress, <br>Yielding to rule, because it made thee less. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For neither didst thou from the first apply <br>Thy sober spirit unto things too high, <br>But in thine own fields exercised'st long, <br>An healthful mind within a body strong; <br>Till at the seventh time thou in the skies, <br>As a small cloud, like a man's hand, didst rise; <br>Then did thick mists and winds the air deform, <br>And down at last thou poured'st the fertile storm, <br>Which to the thirsty land did plenty bring, <br>But, though forewarned, o'ertook and wet the King. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">What since he did, an higher force him pushed <br>Still from behind, and yet before him rushed, <br>Though undiscerned among the tumult blind, <br>Who think those high decrees by man designed. <br>'Twas heaven would not that his power should cease, <br>But walk still middle betwixt war and peace: <br>Choosing each stone, and poising every weight, <br>Trying the measures of the breadth and height; <br>Here pulling down, and there erecting new, <br>Founding a firm state by proportions true. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Gideon so did from the war retreat, <br>Yet by the conquest of two kings grown great, <br>He on the peace extends a warlike power, <br>And Israel silent saw him raze the tower; <br>And how he Succorth's Elders durst suppress, <br>With thorns and briars of the wilderness. <br>No king might ever such a force have done; <br>Yet would not he be Lord, nor yet his son. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou with the same strength, and an heart as plain, <br>Didst (like thine olive) still refuse to reign, <br>Though why should others all thy labour spoil, <br>And brambles be anointed with thine oil, <br>Whose climbing flame, without a timely stop, <br>Had quickly levelled every cedar's top? <br>Therefore first growing to thyself a law, <br>Th' ambitious shrubs thou in just time didst awe. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So have I seen at sea, when whirling winds, <br>Hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds, <br>Who with mistaken course salute the sand, <br>And threatening rocks misapprehend for land, <br>While baleful Tritons to the shipwreck guide, <br>And corposants along the tackling slide, <br>The passengers all wearied out before, <br>Giddy, and wishing for the fatal shore, <br>Some lusty mate, who with more careful eye <br>Counted the hours, and every star did spy, <br>The help does from the artless steersman strain, <br>And doubles back unto the safer main. <br>What though a while they grumble discontent, <br>Saving himself, he does their loss prevent. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis not a freedom, that where all command; <br>Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand: <br>But who of both the bounder knows to lay <br>Him as their father must the state obey. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou, and thine house (like Noah's eight) did rest, <br>Left by the wars' flood on the mountains' crest: <br>And the large vale lay subject to thy will <br>Which thou but as an husbandman wouldst till: <br>And only didst for others plant the vine <br>Of liberty, not drunken with its wine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">That sober liberty which men may have, <br>That they enjoy, but more they vainly crave: <br>And such as to their parents' tents do press, <br>May show their own, not see his nakedness. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet such a Chammish issue still does rage, <br>The shame and plague both of the land and age, <br>Who watched thy halting, and thy fall deride, <br>Rejoicing when thy foot had slipped aside, <br>That their new king might the fifth sceptre shake, <br>And make the world, by his example, quake: <br>Whose frantic army should they want for men <br>Might muster heresies, so one were ten. <br>What thy misfortune, they the spirit call, <br>And their religion only is to fall. <br>Oh Mahomet! now couldst thou rise again, <br>Thy falling-sickness should have made thee reign, <br>While Feake and Simpson would in many a tome, <br>Have writ the comments of thy sacred foam: <br>For soon thou mightst have passed among their rant <br>Were't but for thine unmovèd tulipant; <br>As thou must needs have owned them of thy band <br>For prophecies fit to be Alcoraned. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Accursèd locusts, whom your king does spit <br>Out of the centre of the unbottomed pit; <br>Wanderers, adulterers, liars, Munster's rest, <br>Sorcerers, athiests, jesuits possessed; <br>You who the scriptures and the laws deface <br>With the same liberty as points and lace; <br>Oh race most hypocritically strict! <br>Bent to reduce us to the ancient Pict; <br>Well may you act the Adam and the Eve; <br>Ay, and the serpent too that did deceive. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the great captain, now the danger's o'er, <br>Makes you for his sake tremble one fit more; <br>And, to your spite, returning yet alive <br>Does with himself all that is good revive. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So when first man did through the morning new <br>See the bright sun his shining race pursue, <br>All day he followed with unwearied sight, <br>Pleased with that other world of moving light; <br>But thought him when he missed his setting beams, <br>Sunk in the hills, or plunged below the streams. <br>While dismal blacks hung round the universe, <br>And stars (like tapers) burned upon his hearse: <br>And owls and ravens with their screeching noise <br>Did make the funerals sadder by their joys. <br>His weeping eyes the doleful vigils keep, <br>Not knowing yet the night was made for sleep; <br>Still to the west, where he him lost, he turned, <br>And with such accents as despairing mourned: <br>`Why did mine eyes once see so bright a ray; <br>Or why day last no longer than a day?' <br>When straight the sun behind him he descried, <br>Smiling serenely from the further side. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So while our star that gives us light and heat, <br>Seemed now a long and gloomy night to threat, <br>Up from the other world his flame he darts, <br>And princes (shining through their windows) starts, <br>Who their suspected counsellors refuse, <br>And credulous ambassadors accuse. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">`Is this', saith one, `the nation that we read <br>Spent with both wars, under a captain dead, <br>Yet rig a navy while we dress us late, <br>And ere we dine, raze and rebuild their state? <br>What oaken forests, and what golden mines! <br>What mints of men, what union of designs! <br>(Unless their ships, do, as their fowl proceed <br>Of shedding leaves, that with their ocean breed). <br>Theirs are not ships, but rather arks of war <br>And beakèd promontories sailed from far; <br>Of floating islands a new hatchèd nest; <br>A fleet of worlds, of other worlds in quest; <br>An hideous shoal of wood-leviathans, <br>Armed with three tier of brazen hurricanes, <br>That through the centre shoot their thundering side <br>And sink the earth that does at anchor ride. <br>What refuge to escape them can be found, <br>Whose watery leaguers all the world surround? <br>Needs must we all their tributaries be, <br>Whose navies hold the sluices of the sea. <br>The ocean is the fountain of command, <br>But that once took, we captives are on land. <br>And those that have the waters for their share, <br>Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air. <br>Yet if through these our fears could find a pass, <br>Through double oak, and lined with treble brass, <br>That one man still, although but named, alarms <br>More than all men, all navies, and all arms. <br>Him, in the day, him, in late night I dread, <br>And still his sword seems hanging o'er my head. <br>The nation had been ours, but his one soul <br>Moves the great bulk, and animates the whole. <br>He secrecy with number hath enchased, <br>Courage with age, maturity with haste: <br>The valiant's terror, riddle of the wise, <br>And still his falchion all our knots unties. <br>Where did he learn those arts that cost us dear? <br>Where below earth, or where above the sphere? <br>He seems a king by long succession born, <br>And yet the same to be a king does scorn. <br>Abroad a king he seems, and something more, <br>At home a subject on the equal floor. <br>O could I once him with our title see, <br>So should I hope that he might die as we. <br>But let them write is praise that love him best, <br>It grieves me sore to have thus much confessed.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pardon, great Prince, if thus their fear of spite <br>More than our love and duty do thee right. <br>I yield, nor further will the prize contend, <br>So that we both alike may miss our end: <br>While thou thy venerable head dost raise <br>As far above their malice as my praise, <br>And as the Angel of our commonweal, <br>Troubling the waters, yearly mak'st them heal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Andrew+Marvell">Andrew Marvell</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=344334" data-title="First Anniversary de Andrew Marvell" data-description="Like the vain curlings of the watery maze, 
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise, 
So Man, declining always, disappears 
In the weak circles of increasing years; 
And his short tumults of themselves compose, 
While flowing Time abov..."></div>
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