Chapter D: G. Rossetti

HOLLAND

Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, As but the off-scouring of the British sand; And so much earth as was contributed By English pilots when they heaved the lead; Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell, 5 Of shipwrecked cockle and the mussel-shell; This indigested vomit of the sea Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. Glad then, as miners who have found the ore, They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore: And dived as desperately for each piece 11 Of earth, as if 't had been of ambergris; Collecting anxiously small loads of clay, Less than what building swallows bear away; Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll 15 Transfusing into them their dunghill soul! How did they rivet, with gigantic piles, Thorough the centre their new-catched miles; And to the stake a struggling country bound, Where barking waves still bait the forced ground; Building their watery Babel far more high 21 To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky. Yet still his claim the injured ocean laid, And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played; As if on purpose it on land had come 25 To shew them what's their _mare liberum_, A daily deluge over them does boil; The earth and water play at level-coil. The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed, And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest; 30 And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, saw Whole shoals of Dutch served up for Cabillau; Or, as they over the new level ranged, For pickled herring, pickled heeren changed.

ANDREW MARVELL.

THE HAGUE

While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, And in one day atone for the business of six, In a little Dutch chaise, on a Saturday night, On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right; No memoirs to compose, and no post-boy to move, That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love. 6 For her neither visits nor parties at tea, Nor the long-winded cant of a dull refugee. This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine, To good or ill fortune the third we resign. 10 Thus scorning the world, and superior to fate, I drive in my car in professional state. So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode; Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god. But why should I stories of Athens rehearse 15 Where people knew love, and were partial to verse, Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose In Holland half-drowned in interest and prose? By Greece and past ages what need I be tried When The Hague and the present are both on my side; 20 And is it enough for the joys of the day To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say? When good Vandergoes and his provident vrow, As they gaze on my triumph do freely allow, That, search all the province, you'll find no man dar is 25 So blest as the Englishen Heer Secretar' is.