author's rage:--

"But all his praises could not now appease
The provok't Author, whom it did displease
To hear his verses by so just a curse
That were ill made, condemned to be read worse:
And how (impossible!) he made yet more
Absurdities in them than were before:
For his untun'd voice did fall or raise
As a deaf man upon the Viol plays,
Making the half-points and the periods run
Confus'der than the atoms in the sun:
Thereat the poet swell'd with anger full,"

and after violent exclamations retires in dudgeon back to his room. The
faithful friend is in despair. What is he to do to make peace? "Who
would commend his mistress now?" Marvell

"counselled him to go in time
Ere the fierce poet's anger turned to rhyme."

The advice was taken, and Marvell, finding himself at last free from
boredom, went off to St. Peter's to return thanks.

This poem is but an unsatisfactory _souvenir de voyage_, but it is all
there is.

What Marvell was doing during the stirring years 1646-1650 is not
known. Even in the most troubled times men go about their business, and
our poet was always a man of affairs. As for his opinions during these