Abraham Cowley
Overview
Abraham Cowley was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 born in the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

 late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his Works published between 1668 and 1721.
His father, a wealthy citizen, who died shortly before his birth, was a stationer. His mother was wholly given to works of devotion, but it happened that there lay in her parlour a copy of The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...

.
Quotations

Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thy aim so far,That still or short, or wide thine arrows are!

wikisource:Against Hope|Against Hope

Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, they no less silent lover?

wikisource:Bathing in the River|Bathing in the River

To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world

wikisource:Of Agriculture|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 mightBe 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 areWith constant drinking fresh and fair.

From Anacreon, ii. Drinking.

Fill all the glasses there, for whyShould every creature drink but I?Why, man of morals, tell me why?

From Anacreon, ii. Drinking.

 
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