The lover determines to take the place by assault. It was not a very heroic enterprise, as Marvell describes it.
“Some to the breach, against their foes,
Their wooden Saints in vain oppose;
Another bolder, stands at push,
With their old holy-water brush,
While the disjointed Abbess threads
The jingling chain-shot of her beads;
But their loud’st cannon were their lungs,
And sharpest weapons were their tongues.
But waving these aside like flies,
Young Fairfax through the wall does rise.
Then the unfrequented vault appeared,
And superstition, vainly feared;
The relicks false were set to view;
Only the jewels there were true,
And truly bright and holy Thwaites,
That weeping at the altar waits.
But the glad youth away her bears,
And to the Nuns bequeathes her tears,
Who guiltily their prize bemoan,
Like gypsies who a child have stol’n.”
The poet then goes on to glorify the results of this union and to describe happy days spent at Nunappleton by the descendants of Isabella Thwaites.
“At the demolishing, this seat
To Fairfax fell, as by escheat;
And what both nuns and founders willed,
’Tis likely better thus fulfilled.
For if the virgin proved not theirs,
The cloister yet remainèd hers;
Though many a nun there made her vow,
’Twas no religious house till now.
From that blest bed the hero came
Whom France and Poland yet does fame;
Who, when retirèd here to peace,
His warlike studies could not cease;
But laid these gardens out, in sport,
In the just figure of a fort,
And with five bastions it did fence,
As aiming one for every sense.
When in the east the morning ray
Hangs out the colours of the day,
The bee through these known alleys hums,
Beating the dian with its drums.
Then flowers their drowsy eyelids raise,
Their silken ensigns each displays,
And dries its pan, yet dank with dew,
And fills its flask with odours new.
These as their Governor goes by
In fragrant volleys they let fly,
And to salute their Governess
Again as great a charge they press:
None for the virgin nymph; for she
Seems with the flowers a flower to be.
And think so still! though not compare
With breath so sweet, or cheek so fair!
Well shot, ye firemen! Oh, how sweet
And round your equal fires do meet,
Whose shrill report no ear can tell,
But echoes to the eye and smell!
See how the flowers, as at parade,
Under their colours stand displayed;
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink and rose.
But when the vigilant patrol
Of stars walk round about the pole,
Their leaves, which to the stalks are curled,
Seem to their staves the ensigns furled.
Then in some flower’s belovèd hut,
Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
And sleeps so too, but, if once stirred,
She runs you through, nor asks the word.
Oh, thou, that dear and happy isle,
The garden of the world erewhile,
Thou Paradise of the four seas,
Which heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With watery, if not flaming sword,—
What luckless apple did we taste,
To make us mortal, and thee waste?
Unhappy! shall we never more
That sweet militia restore,
When gardens only had their towers
And all the garrisons were flowers,
When roses only arms might bear,
And men did rosy garlands wear?
Tulips, in several colours barred,
Were then the Switzers of our guard;
The gardener had the soldier’s place,
And his more gentle forts did trace;
The nursery of all things green
Was then the only magazine;
The winter quarters were the stoves,
Where he the tender plants removes.
But war all this doth overgrow:
We ordnance plant, and powder sow.
The arching boughs unite between
The columns of the temple green,
And underneath the wingèd quires
Echo about their tunèd fires.
The nightingale does here make choice
To sing the trials of her voice;
Low shrubs she sits in, and adorns
With music high the squatted thorns;
But highest oaks stoop down to hear,
And listening elders prick the ear;
The thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws
Within the skin its shrunken claws.
But I have for my music found
A sadder, yet more pleasing sound;
The stock-doves, whose fair necks are graced
With nuptial rings, their ensigns chaste,
Yet always, for some cause unknown,
Sad pair, unto the elms they moan.
O why should such a couple mourn,
That in so equal flames do burn!
Then as I careless on the bed
Of gelid strawberries do tread,
And through the hazels thick espy
The hatching throstle’s shining eye,
The heron, from the ash’s top,
The eldest of its young lets drop,
As if it stork-like did pretend
That tribute to its lord to send.
Thus I, easy philosopher,
Among the birds and trees confer;
And little now to make me, wants,
Or of the fowls, or of the plants;
Give me but wings as they, and I
Straight floating on the air shall fly;
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted tree.
Already I begin to call
In their most learn’d original,
And where I language want, my signs
The bird upon the bough divines,
And more attentive there doth sit
Than if she were with lime-twigs knit,
No leaf does tremble in the wind,
Which I returning cannot find.
One of these scattered Sibyls’ leaves
Strange prophecies my fancy weaves,
And in one history consumes,
Like Mexique paintings, all the plumes;
What Rome, Greece, Palestine e’er said,
I in this light mosaic read.
Thrice happy he, who, not mistook,
Hath read in Nature’s mystic book!
And see how chance’s better wit
Could with a mask my studies hit!
The oak-leaves me embroider all,
Between which caterpillars crawl;
And ivy, with familiar trails,
Me licks and clasps, and curls and hales.
Under this Attic cope I move,
Like some great prelate of the grove;
Then, languishing with ease, I toss
On pallets swoln of velvet moss,
While the wind, cooling through the boughs,
Flatters with air my panting brows.
Thanks for your rest, ye mossy banks,
And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks,
Who, as my hair, my thoughts too shed,
And winnow from the chaff my head!
How safe, methinks, and strong behind
These trees, have I encamped my mind,
Where beauty, aiming at the heart,
Bends in some tree its useless dart,
And where the world no certain shot
Can make, or me it toucheth not,
But I on it securely play
And gall its horsemen all the day.
Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines
Curl me about, ye gadding vines,
And oh so close your circles lace,
That I may never leave this place!
But, lest your fetters prove too weak,
Ere I your silken bondage break,
Do you, O brambles, chain me too,
And, courteous briars, nail me through!
Oh what a pleasure ’tis to hedge
My temples here with heavy sedge,
Abandoning my lazy side,
Stretched as a bank unto the tide,
Or to suspend my sliding foot
On the osier’s underminèd root,
And in its branches tough to hang,
While at my lines the fishes twang?
But now away, my hooks, my quills,
And angles, idle utensils!
The young Maria walks to-night;
’Tis she that to these gardens gave
That wondrous beauty which they have;
She straightness on the woods bestows;
To her the meadow sweetness owes;
Nothing could make the river be
So crystal pure, but only she,
She yet more pure, sweet, straight, and fair
Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.