Many of his best pieces were originally written in Latin, and afterwards translated by himself.

There is a splendid Ode to Cromwell--a worthy companion of Milton's glorious sonnet--which is not generally known, and which we transfer entire to our pages.

Its simple dignity and the melodious flow of its versification commend themselves more to our feelings than its eulogy of war.

It is energetic and impassioned, and probably affords a better idea of the author, as an actor in the stirring drama of his time, than the "soft Lydian airs" of the poems that we have quoted.
AN HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND.
The forward youth that would appear Must now forsake his Muses dear; Nor in the shadows sing His numbers languishing.
'T is time to leave the books in dust, And oil the unused armor's rust; Removing from the wall The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease In the inglorious arts of peace, But through adventurous war Urged his active star.
And, like the three-forked lightning, first Breaking the clouds wherein it nurst, Did thorough his own side His fiery way divide.
For 't is all one to courage high, The emulous, or enemy; And with such to enclose Is more than to oppose.
Then burning through the air he went, And palaces and temples rent; And Caesar's head at last Did through his laurels blast.
'T is madness to resist or blame The face of angry Heaven's flame; And, if we would speak true, Much to the man is due, Who, from his private gardens, where He lived reserved and austere, (As if his highest plot To plant the bergamot,) Could by industrious valor climb To ruin the great work of time, And cast the kingdoms old Into another mould! Though justice against fate complain, And plead the ancient rights in vain,-- But those do hold or break, As men are strong or weak.
Nature, that hateth emptiness, Allows of penetration less, And therefore must make room Where greater spirits come.
What field of all the civil war, Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part He had of wiser art; Where, twining subtle fears with hope, He wove a net of such a scope, That Charles himself might chase To Carisbrook's narrow case; That hence the royal actor borne, The tragic scaffold might adorn, While round the armed bands Did clap their bloody hands.
HE nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right! But bowed his comely head, Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour, Which first assured the forced power; So when they did design The Capitol's first line, A bleeding head, where they begun, Did fright the architects to run; And yet in that the state Foresaw its happy fate.
And now the Irish are ashamed To see themselves in one year tamed; So much one man can do, 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 sweetness owes; Nothing could make the river be So crystal pure but only she,-- She, yet more pure, sweet, strait, and fair, Than gardens, woods, meals, rivers are Therefore, what first she on them spent They gratefully again present: The meadow carpets where to tread, The garden flowers to crown her head, And for a glass the limpid brook Where she may all her beauties look; But, since she would not have them seen, The wood about her draws a screen; For she, to higher beauty raised, Disdains to be for lesser praised; She counts her beauty to converse In all the languages as hers, Nor yet in those herself employs, But for the wisdom, not the noise, Nor yet that wisdom could affect, But as 't is Heaven's dialect." It has been the fashion of a class of shallow Church and State defenders to ridicule the great men of the Commonwealth, the sturdy republicans of England, as sour-featured, hard-hearted ascetics, enemies of the fine arts and polite literature.