Abraham Cowley

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

Abraham Cowley (1618 – July 28, 1667) was an English metaphysical poet. In his own time he was widely considered the greatest poet of the age.

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What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?

His time is forever, everywhere his place.

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

• Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover
  And not to me, they no less silent lover?
  • Bathing in the River.

• To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world
  • Of Agriculture.

• What shall I do to be forever known,
  And make the age to come my own?
  • The Motto; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• His time is forever, everywhere his place.
  • Friendship in Absence; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Life is an incurable disease.
  • To Dr. Scarborough; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• 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; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
  Be wrong; his life, I 'm sure, was in the right.
  • On the Death of Crashaw; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "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.

• 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; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Fill all the glasses there, for why
  Should every creature drink but I?
  Why, man of morals, tell me why?
  • From Anacreon, ii. Drinking; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• 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; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Hope, of all ills that men endure,
  The only cheap and universal cure.
  • The Mistress. For Hope; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• 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; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
  But an eternal now does always last.
  • Davideis, book i, line 25; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). See also "One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now", Robert Southey, The Doctor, chap. xxv. p. 1.

• 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; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
  And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.
  • Davideis, book ii, line 95. Compare: "Loose his beard and hoary hair / Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air", Thomas Gray, The Bard, i. 2.

• The monster London laugh at me.
  • Of Solitude, xi; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• 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; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• The fairest garden in her looks,
  And in her mind the wisest books.
  • The Garden, i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
  • The Garden, ii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all,
  Both the great vulgar and the small.
  • Horace, book iii, Ode 1; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.
  • Virgil, Georgics, book ii, line 72; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Ravish'd with the whistling of a name", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, epistle iv, line 281.

• Words that weep and tears that speak.
  • The Prophet; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn", Thomas Gray, Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4.

• We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept; we never blush'd before.
  • Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Thus would I double my life's fading space;
  For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
  • Discourse xi, Of Myself, stanza xi; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "For he lives twice who can at once employ / The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy", Alexander Pope, Imitation of Martial.

• Awake, awake, my Lyre!
  And tell thy silent master's humble tale
  In sounds that may prevail;
  Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
  Though so exalted she
  And I so lowly be
  Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
  • Poem: A Supplication.

• Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape
  Who dost in every country change thy shape!
  • "Beauty," complete poem in The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Samuel Johnson ed., vol. 7, p. 115.

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• Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.