What wond’rous life is this I lead! 
    Ripe apples drop about my head;
    The luscious clusters of the vine
    Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
    The nectarine, and curious peach,
    Into my hands themselves do reach;
    Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
    Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

    Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
    Withdraws into its happiness;—­
    The mind, that ocean where each kind
    Does straight its own resemblance find;—­
    Yet it creates, transcending these,
    Far other worlds, and other seas,
    Annihilating all that’s made
    To a green thought in a green shade."[46:1]

Well known as are Marvell’s lines to his Coy Mistress, I have not the heart to omit them, so eminently characteristic are they of his style and humour:—­

    “Had we but world enough and time,
    This coyness, lady, were no crime. 
    We would sit down and think which way
    To walk, and pass our long love’s day. 
    Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
    Should’st rubies find:  I by the tide
    Of Humber would complain.  I would
    Love you ten years before the Flood,
    And you should, if you please, refuse
    Till the conversion of the Jews. 
    My vegetable love should grow
    Vaster than empires and more slow. 
    An hundred years should go to praise
    Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
    Two hundred to adore each breast,
    But thirty thousand to the rest;
    An age at least to every part,
    And the last age should show your heart. 
    For, lady, you deserve this state,
    Nor would I love at lower rate. 
      But at my back I always hear
    Time’s winged chariot hurrying near,
    And yonder all before us lie
    Deserts of vast eternity. 
    Thy beauty shall no more be found,
    Nor in thy marble vault shall sound
    My echoing song; then worms shall try
    That long-preserved virginity,
    And your quaint honour turn to dust,
    And into ashes all my lust. 
    The grave’s a fine and private place,
    But none, I think, do there embrace. 
      Now, therefore, while the youthful hue
    Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
    And while thy willing soul transpires
    At every pore with instant fires,
    Now, let us sport us while we may;
    And now, like amorous birds of prey,
    Rather at once our time devour,
    Than languish in his slow-chapt power! 
    Let us roll all our strength, and all
    Our sweetness up into one ball;
    And tear our pleasures with rough strife,
    Through the iron gates of life! 
    Thus, though we cannot make our sun
    Stand still, yet we will make him run.”

Mr. Aitken’s valuable edition of Marvell’s poems and satires can now be had of all booksellers for two shillings,[47:1] and with these volumes in his possession the judicious reader will be able to supply his own reflections whilst life beneath the sun is still his.  Poetry is a personal matter.  The very canons of criticism are themselves literature.  If we like the Ars Poetica, it is because we enjoy reading Horace.