Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Andrew Marvell. 16211678360. Bermudas
WHERE the remote Bermudas ride | |
In the ocean’s bosom unespied, | |
From a small boat that row’d along | |
The listening woods received this song: | |
‘What should we do but sing His praise | 5 |
That led us through the watery maze | |
Unto an isle so long unknown, | |
And yet far kinder than our own? | |
Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks, | |
That lift the deep upon their backs, | 10 |
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 | 15 |
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: | 20 |
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 | 25 |
From Lebanon He stores the land; | |
And makes the hollow seas that roar | |
Proclaim the ambergris on shore. | |
He cast (of which we rather boast) | |
The Gospel’s pearl upon our coast; | 30 |
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 | 35 |
Echo beyond the Mexique bay!’ | |
Thus sung 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. | 40 |