Hill and Grove

Upon the Hill and Grove at Bilbrough

by

ANDREW MARVELL

See how the archèd earth does here

Rise in a perfect hemisphere!

The stiffest compass could not strike

A line more circular and like;

Nor softest pencil draw a brow

So equal as this hill does bow.

It seems as for a model laid,

And that the world by it was made.

Here learn, ye mountains more unjust,

Which to abrupter greatness thrust,

That do with your hook-shouldered height

The earth deform and heaven fright,

For whose excrescence, ill-designed,

Nature must a new centre find,

Learn here those humble steps to tread,

Which to securer glory lead.