THE FAIR SINGER
by: Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
- O make a
final conquest of all me,
- Love did compose so sweet an enemy,
- In whom both beauties to my death agree,
- Joining themselves in fatal harmony;
- That while she with her eyes my heart does bind,
- She with her voice might captivate my mind.
-
- I could have fled from one but singly fair,
- My disentangled soul itself might save,
- Breaking the curled trammels of her hair.
- But how should I avoid to be her slave,
- Whose subtle art invisibly can wreath
- My fetters of the very air I breathe?
-
- It had been easy fighting in some plain,
- Where victory might hang in equal choice,
- But all resistance against her is vain,
- Who has th'advantage both of eyes and voice,
- And all my forces needs must be undone,
- She having gained both the wind and sun.
"The Fair Singer" is reprinted
from Miscellaneous Poems. Andrew Marvell. London: Printed
for Robert Boulter at the Turks-Head in Cornhill, 1681. |
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POEMS BY ANDREW MARVELL |
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