That does best act and know.

They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confest
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust.

Nor yet grown stiffer by command,
But still in the Republic's hand,
How fit he is to sway
That can so well obey.

He to the Commons' feet presents
A kingdom for his first year's rents,
And, what he may, forbears
His fame to make it theirs.

And has his sword and spoils ungirt,
To lay them at the public's skirt;
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,

She, having killed, no more does search,
But on the next green bough to perch,
Where, when he first does lure,
The falconer has her sure.

What may not, then, our isle presume,
While Victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,

If thus he crowns each year?

As Caesar, he, erelong, to Gaul;
To Italy as Hannibal,
And to all states not free
Shall climacteric be.

The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his parti-contoured mind;
But from his valor sad
Shrink underneath the plaid,

Happy if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,
Nor lay his hands a near
The Caledonian deer.

But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
And, for the last effect,
Still keep the sword erect.

Besides the force, it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

Marvell was never married. The modern critic, who affirms that bachelors
have done the most to exalt women into a divinity, might have quoted his
extravagant panegyric of Maria Fairfax as an apt illustration:--

"'T is she that to these gardens gave
The wondrous beauty which they have;
She straitness on the woods bestows,
To her the meadow swe