Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)

On Milton’s Paradise Lost

WHEN I beheld the poet blind yet bold

In slender book his vast design unfold,

Messiah crown’d, God’s reconcil’d decree,

Rebelling angels, the forbidden tree,

Heaven, hell, earth, chaos, all; the argument

Held me awhile misdoubting his intent,

That he would ruin (for I saw him strong)

The sacred truths to fable and old song;

So Sampson groped the temple’s posts in spite,

The world o’erwhelming to revenge his sight.

Yet as I read, soon growing less severe,

I liked his project, the success did fear;

Through that wide field how he his way should find,

O’er which lame faith leads understanding blind;

Lest he ’d perplex the things he would explain,

And what was easy he should render vain.

Or if a work so infinite he spanned,

Jealous I was that some less skilful hand

(Such as disquiet always what is well,

And by ill imitating would excel)

Might hence presume the whole creation’s day

To change in scenes, and show it in a play.

Pardon me, mighty poet, nor despise

My causeless yet not impious surmise.

But I am now convinced, and none will dare

Within thy labours to pretend a share.

Thou hast not missed one thought that could be fit,

And all that was improper dost omit;

So that no room is here for writers left,

But to detect their ignorance or theft.

That majesty which through thy work doth reign

Draws the devout, deterring the profane;

And things divine thou treat’st of in such state

As them preserves, and thee, inviolate.

At once delight and horror on us seize,

Thou sing’st with so much gravity and ease,

And above human flight dost soar aloft,

With plume so strong, so equal, and so soft:

The bird named from that paradise you sing

So never flags, but always keeps on wing.

Where couldst thou words of such a compass find?

Whence furnish such a vast expanse of mind?

Just heaven thee, like Tiresias, to requite,

Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight.

Well might thou scorn thy readers to allure

With tinkling rhyme, of thy own sense secure,

While the Town-Bayes writes all the while and spells,

And like a pack-horse tires without his bells.

Their fancies like our bushy points appear:

The poets tag them, we for fashion wear.

I too, transported by the mode, offend,

And while I meant to praise thee, must commend;

Thy verse created like thy theme sublime,

In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme.