...

    Then burning through the air he went,
    And palaces and temples rent;
      And Caesar’s head at last
      Did through his laurels blast.

    ’Tis madness to resist or blame
    The force 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 valour climb
    To ruin the great work of time,
      And cast the kingdoms old
      Into another mould.”

The last stanzas of all have much pith and meaning in them:—­

    “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."[67:1]

It is not surprising that this Ode was not published in 1650—­if indeed it was the work of that, and not of a later year.  There is nothing either of the courtier or of the partisan about its stately versification and sober, solemn thought.  Entire self-possession, dignity, criticism of a great man and a strange career by one well entitled to criticise, are among the chief characteristics of this noble poem.  It is infinitely refreshing, when reading and thinking about Cromwell, to get as far away as possible from the fanatic’s scream and the fury of the bigot, whether of the school of Laud or Hobbes.  Andrew Marvell knew Oliver Cromwell alive, and gazed on his features as he lay dead—­he knew his ambition, his greatness, his power, and where that power lay.  How much might we unwittingly have lost, if Captain Thompson had not printed a poem which for more than a century of years had remained unknown, and exposed to all the risks of a single manuscript copy!

When Cromwell sent his picture to Queen Christina of Sweden to commemorate the peace he concluded with her in 1654, Marvell, though not then attached to the public service, was employed to write the Latin couplet that accompanied the picture.  He discharged his task as follows:—­

    In effigiem Oliveri Cromwell.

    “Haec est quae toties inimicos umbra fugavit
      At sub qua cives otia lenta terunt.”

The authorship of these lines is often attributed to Milton, but there is little doubt they are of Marvell’s composition.  They might easily have been better.