Why dost thou build up stately rooms on high, Thou who art under ground to lie? Thou sow’st and plantest, but no fruit must see, For death, alas! is reaping thee.
ABRAHAM COWLEYNature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill; ‘Tis fill’d wherever thou dost tread, Nature’s self’s thy Ganymede.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
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A mighty pain to love it is, And ’tis a pain that pain to miss; But, of all pains, the greatest pain Is to love, but love in vain.
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What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
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There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for, if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter.
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Poets by Death are conquer’d but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
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The spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man’s left to epitomize!
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Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise, He who defers this work from day to day, Does on a river’s bank expecting stay
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:Though so exalted sheAnd I so lowly beTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
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The world’s a scene of changes.
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Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th’ approaches of the last.
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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.
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Coy Nature, (which remain’d, though aged grown, A beauteous virgin still, enjoy’d by none, Nor seen unveil’d by anyone),
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The present is an eternal now.
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God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
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When Harvey’s violent passion she did see, Began to tremble and to flee; Took sanctuary, like Daphne, in a tree
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Books should, not Business, entertain the Light; And Sleep, as undisturb’d as Death, the Night.
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Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
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This a scene of changes, and to be constant in Nature were inconstancy.
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Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
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Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
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Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends; not on number, but the choice of friends.
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Nothing in Nature’s sober found, But an eternal Health goes round. Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high
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To-day is ours; what do we fear? To-day is ours; we have it here. Let’s treat it kindly, that it may Wish, at least, with us to stay.
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The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep’rate friends.
ABRAHAM COWLEY