Abraham Cowley Quotations

Abraham Cowley (1618 – 1667-07-28) was an English metaphysical poet. In his own time he was widely considered the greatest poet of the age.

Sourced

• 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

Unsourced

• Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.

External links

Related 'Abraham Cowley' Searches: