The Wish

WELL then; I now do plainly see,

This busy world and I shall ne'er agree;

The very honey of all earthly joy

Does of all meats the soonest cloy;

And they, methinks, deserve my pity

Who for it can endure the stings,

The crowd, and buzz, and murmurings

Of this great hive, the city.

Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave

May I a small house and large garden have!

And a few friends, and many books, both true,

Both wise and both delightful too!

And since love ne'er will from me flee,

A mistress moderately fair,

And good as guardian angels are,

Only beloved, and loving me!

O fountains, when in you shall I

Myself, eased of unpeaceful thoughts, espy?

O fields! O woods! when, when shall I be made

The happy tenant of your shade?

Here's the spring-head of pleasure's flood,

Here's wealthy Nature's treasury,

Where all the riches lie that she

Has coined and stamped for good.

Pride and ambition here

Only in farfetched metaphors appear;

Here naught but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter,

And naught but Echo flatter.

The gods, when they descend, hither

From heaven did always choose their way;

And therefore we may boldly say

That 'tis the way, too, thither.

How happy here should I

And one dear she live and, embracing, die!

She who is all the world, and can exude

In deserts, solitude.

I should have then this only fear,

Lest men, when they my pleasures see,

Should hither throng to live like me,

And so make a city here.

Abraham Cowley

Drinking

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.

The sea itself, which one would think

Should have but little need of drink,

Drinks ten thousand rivers up,

So fill'd that they o'erflow the cup.

The busy sun (and one would guess

By's drunken fiery face no less)

Drinks up the sea, and when h'as done,

The moon and stars drink up the sun.

They drink and dance by their own light,

They drink and revel all the night.

Nothing in Nature's sober found,

But an eternal health goes round.

Fill up the bowl then, fill it high,

Fill all the glasses there, for why

Should every creature drink but I,

Why, man of morals, tell me why?

Abraham Cowley

The Epicure

FILL the bowl with rosy wine,

Around our temples roses twine.

And let us cheerfully awhile,

Like the wine and roses smile.

Crown'd with roses we contemn

Gyge's wealthy diadem.

Today is ours; what do we fear?

Today is ours; we have it here.

Let's treat it kindly, that it may

Wish, at least, with us to stay.

Let's banish business, banish sorrow;

To the Gods belongs tomorrow.

Abraham Cowley

The Change

LOVE in her sunny eyes does basking play;

Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair;

Love does on both her lips for ever stray

And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there.

In all her outward parts Love's always seen;

But, oh, He never went within.

Within Love's foes, his greatest foes abide,

Malice, Inconstance, and Pride.

So the Earth's face, trees, herbs, and flowers do dress,

With other beauties numberless;

But at the center, darkness is, and Hell;

There wicked spirits, and there the Damned dwell.

With me alas, quite contrary it fares;

Darkness and death lies in my weeping eyes,

Despair and paleness in my face appears,

And grief, and fear, Love's greatest enemies;

But, like the Persian tyrant, Love within

Keeps his proud court, and ne're is seen.

Oh take my heart, and by that means you'll prove

Within, too stor'd enough of Love;

Give me but yours, I'll by that change so thrive,

That Love in all my parts shall live.

So powerful is this change, it render can,

My outside woman, and your inside man.

Abraham Cowley

On the Death of Mr. Crashaw

POET and saint! to thee alone are given

The two most sacred names of earth and heaven;

The hard and rarest union which can be,

Next that of Godhead with humanity.

Long did the Muses banished slaves abide,

And built vain pyramids to mortal pride;

Like Moses thou, though spells and charms withstand,

Hast brought them nobly home, back to their Holy Land.

Ah, wretched we, poets of earth! but thou

Wert, living, the same poet which thou 'rt now

Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine,

And joy in an applause so great as thine.

Equal society with them to hold,

Thou need'd not make new songs, but say the old,

And they, kind spirits, shall all rejoice to see

How little less than they exalted man may be.

Still the old heathen gods in numbers swell,

The heav'nliest thing on earth still keeps up hell;

Nor have we yet quite purged the Christian land,

Still idols here, like calves at Bethel, stand,

And though Pan's death long since all oracles broke,

Yet still in rhyme the fiend Apollo spoke;

Nay, with the worst of heathen dotage, we,

Vain men, the monster woman deify,

Find stars and tie our fates there in a face,

And paradise in them by whom we lost it, place.

What different faults corrupt our muses thus?

Wanton as girls, as old wives fabulous!

Thy spotless muse, like Mary, did contain

The boundless Godhead; she did well disdain

That her eternal verse employed should be

On a less subject than eternity,

And for a sacred mistress scorned to take

But her whom God himself scorned not his spouse to make.

It, in a kind, her miracle did do:

A fruitful mother was, and virgin too.

How well, blest swan, did fate contrive thy death,

And made thee render up thy tuneful breath

In thy great mistress' arms, thou most divine

And richest off'ring of Loretto's shrine!

Where like some holy sacrifice t' expire,

A fever burns thee, and love lights the fire.

Angels, they say, brought the famed chapel there,

And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air;

'Tis surer much they brought thee there, and they

And thou, their charge, went singing all the way.

Pardon, my mother church, if I consent

That angels led him when from thee he went,

For even in error sure no danger is

When joined with so much piety as his.

Ah, mighty God! (with shame I speak 't, and grief),

Ah, that our greatest faults were in belief!

And our weak reason were ev'n weaker yet,

Rather than thus, our wills too strong for it.

His faith perhaps in some nice tenents might

Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.

And I myself a Catholic will be,

So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee.

Hail, bard triumphant! and some care bestow

On us, the poets militant below,

Opposed by our old en'my, adverse chance,

Attacked by envy and by ignorance,

Enchained by beauty, tortured by desires,

Exposed by tyrant love to savage beasts and fires.

Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise,

And like Elijah mount alive the skies.

Elisha-like (but with a wish much less,

More fit thy greatness and my littleness),

Lo, here I beg (I whom thou once didst prove

So humble to esteem, so good to love)

Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be,

I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me;

And when my muse soars with so strong a wing,

'Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee to sing.

Abraham Cowley