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Bermudas
- GenresPoetryLiteratureClassics
2 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 7, 2012
7 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Marvell
310 books85 followersFrequently satirical work of English metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell includes "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Definition of Love," both published posthumously.
A clergyman fathered Andrew Marvell, a parliamentarian. John Donne and George Herbert associated him. He befriended John Milton, a colleague.
The family moved to Hull, where people appointed his father as lecturer at church of Holy Trinity, and where grammar school educated the young Marvell. A secondary school in the city is now named after him.
He most famously composed The Garden , An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland , and the Country House Poem , Upon Appleton House .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_...
A clergyman fathered Andrew Marvell, a parliamentarian. John Donne and George Herbert associated him. He befriended John Milton, a colleague.
The family moved to Hull, where people appointed his father as lecturer at church of Holy Trinity, and where grammar school educated the young Marvell. A secondary school in the city is now named after him.
He most famously composed The Garden , An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland , and the Country House Poem , Upon Appleton House .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 25, 2022
Where the remote Bermudas ride
In th’ ocean’s bosom unespy’d,
From a small boat, that row’d along,
The list’ning winds receiv’d this song.
What should we do but sing his praise
That led us through the wat’ry maze
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
The poem has a dual subject matter:
1) It expresses the feeling of gratitude of the English pilgrims to God for having brought them to this island where they are safe from the harassment of the fanatical Laud.
2) The poem contains a glowing description of the prosperity and abundance of this island.
The religious eminence of the poem undoubtedly governs. All the way through the poem, the pilgrims are singing the praises of God.
It is God who has brought them to this island; it is God who annihilates the whales; it is God who has provided an assortment of fruits here; and it is God whom they will adore among the rocks of this island. The note of appreciation is most striking in the following lines:
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospel’s pearl upon our coast.
Oh let our voice his praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heaven’s vault.
The spiritual brilliance of the poem will make an unswerving plea to us unless we are sceptical by nature.
The imagery in the poem is awfully flamboyant, besides being ornately intense. There is eternal spring which “enamels” everything on this island. The bright oranges shine in the shade of trees “like golden lamps in a green night”. The pomegranates here are richer than the jewels to be found in Hormuz.
The Bermudas are a group of islands in mid-Atlantic. The name “Bermudas” was given to these islands by Juan Bermudez who discovered them in 1515. These islands came back into the news when Sir George Summers was wrecked there in 1609 and gave them their second name, ‘The Summer Islands’. Marvell’s poem portrays the luxuriance of one of these islands in the circumstance of the entrance there of a group of English pilgrims who had fled from the religious persecution of Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time.
The poem was almost certainly composed some time subsequent to July 1653 when the author went to Eton to work as a tutor to William Dutton, later a ward of Cromwell’s. There Marvell lodged in the house of the Puritan divine, John Oxenbridge, a Fellow of Eton College, who in 1634 had been maltreated by Archbishop Laud and who had made two expeditions to the Bermudas.
Thus Marvell was able to get some first-hand knowledge of these islands from Oxenbridge. It also appears that Marvell felt inspired by the Puritan holiness and cheeriness of the Oxenbridge family circle.
In th’ ocean’s bosom unespy’d,
From a small boat, that row’d along,
The list’ning winds receiv’d this song.
What should we do but sing his praise
That led us through the wat’ry maze
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
The poem has a dual subject matter:
1) It expresses the feeling of gratitude of the English pilgrims to God for having brought them to this island where they are safe from the harassment of the fanatical Laud.
2) The poem contains a glowing description of the prosperity and abundance of this island.
The religious eminence of the poem undoubtedly governs. All the way through the poem, the pilgrims are singing the praises of God.
It is God who has brought them to this island; it is God who annihilates the whales; it is God who has provided an assortment of fruits here; and it is God whom they will adore among the rocks of this island. The note of appreciation is most striking in the following lines:
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospel’s pearl upon our coast.
Oh let our voice his praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heaven’s vault.
The spiritual brilliance of the poem will make an unswerving plea to us unless we are sceptical by nature.
The imagery in the poem is awfully flamboyant, besides being ornately intense. There is eternal spring which “enamels” everything on this island. The bright oranges shine in the shade of trees “like golden lamps in a green night”. The pomegranates here are richer than the jewels to be found in Hormuz.
The Bermudas are a group of islands in mid-Atlantic. The name “Bermudas” was given to these islands by Juan Bermudez who discovered them in 1515. These islands came back into the news when Sir George Summers was wrecked there in 1609 and gave them their second name, ‘The Summer Islands’. Marvell’s poem portrays the luxuriance of one of these islands in the circumstance of the entrance there of a group of English pilgrims who had fled from the religious persecution of Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time.
The poem was almost certainly composed some time subsequent to July 1653 when the author went to Eton to work as a tutor to William Dutton, later a ward of Cromwell’s. There Marvell lodged in the house of the Puritan divine, John Oxenbridge, a Fellow of Eton College, who in 1634 had been maltreated by Archbishop Laud and who had made two expeditions to the Bermudas.
Thus Marvell was able to get some first-hand knowledge of these islands from Oxenbridge. It also appears that Marvell felt inspired by the Puritan holiness and cheeriness of the Oxenbridge family circle.
Displaying 1 of 1 review