Abraham Cowley

“Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thy aim so far,That still or short, or wide thine arrows are!”

“Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?”

“To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.”

“Life is an incurable disease.”

“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 culture of them and the study of nature.And there (with no design beyond my wall) whole and entire to lie, In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.”

“Oh happy, (if his happiness he knows)Whom the just Earth with easie plenty feeds.”

“Awake, awake, my Lyre!Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.”

“Beauty, thou wild fantastic apeWho dost in every country change thy shape!”

“To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold,Which makes it look so gilded and so foul)”

“If of their pleasures and desires no end be found;Ye strive for more, as if ye liked it not.”

“I sing the Man who Judahs Scepter boreThe two chief gifts Heav'n could on Man bestow.”

“Ev'en Thou my breast with such blest rage inspire,As mov'd the tuneful strings of Davids Lyre”

“Lo, this great work, a Temple to thy praise,Th' Apostle, to convert that World to Thee;”

“Here Lucifer the mighty Captive reigns;Proud, 'midst his Woes, and Tyrant in his Chains.”

“Unable to corrupt, seek to destroy;And where their Poysons miss, the Sword employ.”

“He saw the beauties of his shape and face,His female sweetness, and his manly grace”

“Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,But an eternal now does always last.”

“When Israel was from bondage led,The great sea beheld and fled.”

“An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.”

“Thus each extream to equal danger tends,Plenty as well as Want can separate Friends;”

“Hope! of all ills that men endure, the only cheap and universal cure.”

“Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.”