Abraham Cowley (1618 – 1667)
English metaphysical poet.
Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape
Who dost in every country change thy shape!
The monster London laugh at me.
We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept; we never blush'd before.
Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small.
The fairest garden in her looks,
And in her mind the wisest books.
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 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.
Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover
And not to me, thy no less silent lover?
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.
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.
To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.
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.
Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.
An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.
Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.
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.
His time is forever, everywhere his place.
Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thy aim so far,
That still or short, or wide thine arrows are!
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.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I 'm sure, was in the right.