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Home  »  The Book of Restoration Verse  »  Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

The Mower to the Glow-worms

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)

YE living lamps, by whose dear light

The nightingale does sit so late,

And studying all the summer night,

Her matchless song does meditate;

Ye country comets, that portend

No war nor prince’s funeral,

Shining unto no higher end

Than to presage the grass’s fall;

Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame

To wandering mowers shows the way,

That in the night have lost their aim,

And after foolish fires do stray;

Your courteous lights in vain you waste,

Since Juliana here is come,

For she my mind hath so displaced,

That I shall never find my home.