"A sweet disorder in the dresse Kindles in cloathes a wantonnesse; A lawne about the shoulders thrown _Into a fine distraction_; An erring lace, which here and there Enthralls the crimson stomacher; A cuffe neglectfull, and thereby Ribbands to flow confusedly; _A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticote_; A carelesse shooe-string, in whose tye _I see a wild civility_; Doe more bewitch me, than when art Is too precise in every part." Mark the ease, the play, the _curiosa felicitas_, of this exquisite little poem. Could it have been as happy in any other measure? The stern and unflinching patriot, Andrew Marvell, evidently takes delight in the piquant grace of the octo-syllabic. Here is a passage from his poem addressed to the Lord Fairfax, descriptive of the grounds about that nobleman's house, in Yorkshire, called Nun-Appleton. Speaking of the meadows, Marvell says:-- "No scene, that turns with engines strange, Does oftener than these meadows change; For when the sun the grass hath vex'd, The tawny mowers enter next; _Who seem like Israelites to be, Walking on foot through a green sea_. To them the grassy deeps divide, And crowd a lane to either side. With whistling scythe, and elbow strong, _These massacre the grass along_. * * * * * The mower now commands the field; In whose new traverse seemeth wrought A camp of battle newly fought; Where, as the meads with hay, the plain Lies quilted o'er with bodies slain: The women that with forks it fling, Do represent the pillaging. And now the careless victors play, Dancing the triumphs of the hay. When, after this, 'tis piled in cocks, _Like a calm sea it shews the rocks_." The poems of Thomas Randolph, a writer of the seventeenth century, are not so well known as they deserve to be. A specimen, therefore, of his treatment of our favourite verse, will be some such a novelty as is afforded by the revival of an obsolete fashion. He is addressing his mistress while walking through a grove:-- "See Zephyrus through the leaves doth stray, And has free liberty to play, And braid thy locks. And shall I find Less favour than a saucy wind? Now let me sit and fix my eyes On thee that art my paradise. Thou art my all: the spring remains In the fair violets of thy veins; And that it is a summer's day, Ripe cherries in thy lips display; And when for autumn I would seek, 'Tis in the apples of thy cheek; But that which only moves my smart, Is to see winter in thy heart."