Abraham Cowley
Topics
Abraham Cowley
Quotations
Quotations
Abraham Cowley was an English metaphysical poet. In his own time he was widely considered the greatest poet of the age.
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- Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thy aim so far,
That still or short, or wide thine arrows are!- Against Hope
- Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover
And not to me, they no less silent lover?- Bathing in the River
- To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world
- Of Agriculture
- What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?- The Motto.
- His time is forever, everywhere his place.
- Friendship in Absence.
- Life is an incurable disease.
- To Dr. Scarborough.
- We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine,
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry;
Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine.- On the Death of Mr. William Harvey.
- His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I 'm sure, was in the right.- On the Death of Crashaw. Compare: "For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, He can't be wrong whose life is in the right", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, epilogue iii, line 303.
- The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.- From Anacreon, ii. Drinking.
- Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?- From Anacreon, ii. Drinking.
- A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.- From Anacreon, vii. Gold.
- Hope, of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure.- The Mistress. For Hope.
- Th' adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barb'rous skill;
'T is like the pois'ning of a dart,
Too apt before to kill.- The Waiting Maid.
- Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.- Davideis, book i, line 25. See also "One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now", Robert Southey, The Doctor, chap. xxv. p. 1.
- When Israel was from bondage led,
Led by the Almighty's hand
From out of foreign land,
The great sea beheld and fled.- Davideis, book i, line 41.
- An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.- Davideis, book ii, line 95. Compare: "Loose his beard and hoary hair / Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air", Thomas Gray, The Bard, i. 2.
- The monster London laugh at me.
- Of Solitude, xi.
- Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.- Of Solitude, vii.
- The fairest garden in her looks,
And in her mind the wisest books.- The Garden, i.
- God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
- The Garden, ii.
- Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small.- Horace, book iii. Ode 1.
- Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.
- Virgil, Georgics, book ii, line 72. Compare: "Ravish'd with the whistling of a name", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, epistle iv, line 281.
- Words that weep and tears that speak.
- The Prophet. Compare: "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn", Thomas Gray, Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4.
- We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept; we never blush'd before.
- Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell.
- Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.- Discourse xi, Of Myself, stanza xi. Compare: "For he lives twice who can at once employ / The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy", Alexander Pope, Imitation of Martial.
- Awake, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master's humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
Though so exalted she
And I so lowly be
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.- Poem: A Supplication
- Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape
Who dost in every country change thy shape!- "Beauty," complete poem in The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Samuel Johnson ed., vol. 7, p. 115
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