On the Danger of Procrastination by Abraham Cowley
THE DANGER OF PROCRASTINATION A letter to Mr. S. L. I am glad that you approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all tumult and business of the world and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly inclined me, and from which fortune like a step-mother has so […]
ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES by Abraham Cowley
THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES. If you should see a man who were to cross from Dover to Calais, run about very busy and solicitous, and trouble himself many weeks before in making provisions for the voyage, would you commend him for a cautious and discreet person, or laugh at him for a […]
CLAUDIAN’S OLD MAN OF VERONA by Abraham Cowley
CLAUDIAN’S OLD MAN OF VERONA. Happy the man who his whole time doth bound Within the enclosure of his little ground. Happy the man whom the same humble place (The hereditary cottage of his race) From his first rising infancy has known, And by degrees sees gently bending down, With natural propension to that earth Which […]
THE DANGERS OF AN HONEST MAN IN MUCH COMPANY by Abraham Cowley
THE DANGERS OF AN HONEST MAN IN MUCH COMPANY. If twenty thousand naked Americans were not able to resist the assaults of but twenty well-armed Spaniards, I see little possibility for one honest man to defend himself against twenty thousand knaves, who are all furnished cap-à-pie with the defensive arms of worldly prudence, and the offensive, too, of […]
The Garden by Abraham Cowley
THE GARDEN To J. Evelyn, Esquire. I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the […]