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 […]
O fortunatus nimium, etc., a translation out of Virgil by Abraham Cowley
O fortunatus nimium, etc., a translation out of Virgil by Abraham Cowley Continued from the Essay on Agriculture by Abraham Cowley Virg. Georg. O fortunatus nimium, etc. A TRANSLATION OUT OF VIRGIL. Oh happy (if his happiness he knows) The country swain, on whom kind Heaven bestows At home all riches that wise Nature needs; Whom the just […]
The Essay on Agriculture by Abraham Cowley
OF AGRICULTURE. The first wish of Virgil (as you will find anon by his verses), was to be a good philosopher; the second, a good husbandman; and God (whom he seemed to understand better than most of the most learned heathens) dealt with him just as he did with Solomon: because he prayed for wisdom in […]
Obscurity, the Essay and Poems on Obscurity by Abraham Cowley
OF OBSCURITY. Nam neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis, Nec vixit male, qui natus moriensque fefellit. God made not pleasures only for the rich, Nor have those men without their share too lived, Who both in life and death the world deceived. This seems a strange sentence thus literally translated, and looks as if it were in vindication […]
The Essay on Liberty by Abraham Cowley
OF SOLITUDE. “Nunquam minus solus, quam cum solis,” is now become a very vulgar saying. Every man and almost every boy for these seventeen hundred years has had it in his mouth. But it was at first spoken by the excellent Scipio, who was without question a most worthy, most happy, and the greatest of all […]
The Hecatomb to his Mistress by John Cleveland
Hecatomb The Hecatomb to his Mistress. Be dumb, you beggars of the rhyming trade, Geld your loose wits and let your Muse be spayed. Charge not the parish with the bastard phrase Of balm, elixir, both the Indias, Of shrine, saint, sacrilege, and such as these Expressions common as your mistresses. Hence, […]