William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.
The Definition of LoveAndrew Marvell (16211678)
M
As ’tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble hope could ne’er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.
Where my extended soul is fixed;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose,
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love’s whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced,
And earth some new convulsion tear,
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.