Abraham Cowley. 1618-1667. John Bartlett, comp. 1919. Familiar Quotations, 10th ed.

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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Abraham Cowley. (1618–1667)

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.

    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. 1

On the Death of Crashaw.

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. 2

Davideis. Book i. Line 25.

    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. 3

Davideis. Book ii. Line 95.

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. 4

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 5

Virgil, Georgics. Book ii. Line 72.

Words that weep and tears that speak. 6

The Prophet.

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. 7

Discourse xi. Of Myself. St. xi.

Note 1.
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. [back]

Note 2.
One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now.—Robert Southey: The Doctor, chap. xxv. p. 1. [back]

Note 3.
Loose his beard and hoary hair
Stream’d like a meteor to the troubled air.
Thomas Gray: The Bard, i. 2. [back]

Note 4.
See Bacon, Quotation 32. [back]

Note 5.
Ravish’d with the whistling of a name.—Alexander Pope: Essay on Man, epistle iv. line 281. [back]

Note 6.
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.—Thomas Gray: Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4. [back]

Note 7.
For he lives twice who can at once employ
The present well, and ev’n the past enjoy.
Alexander Pope: Imitation of Martial. [back]

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