This a scene of changes, and to be constant in Nature were inconstancy.
ABRAHAM COWLEYNay, in death’s hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove’s.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
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Why to mute fish should’st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
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Ah, yet, e’er I descend to th’ grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true
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It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader’s ear to hear anything of praise from him.
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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.
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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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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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I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast.
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His time’s forever, everywhere his place.
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Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.
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Water and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose,
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“We may talk what we please,” he cries in his enthusiasm for the oldest of the arts, “of lilies, and lions rampant, and spread eagles
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Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning’s gentle wine!
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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
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Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
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I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that
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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep’rate friends.
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Till the whole stream, which stopped him, should be gone, That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.
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Fill all the Glasses there; for why Should every Creature Drink but I? Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?
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Poets by Death are conquer’d but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
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There Daphne’s Lover stopped, and thought it much The very leaves of her to touch: But Harvey, our Apollo, stopp’d not so; Into the Bark and Root he after her did go!
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Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
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The Sunflow’r, thinking ’twas for him foul shame To nap by daylight, strove t’ excuse the blame
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This only grant me, that my means may lie, too low for envy, for contempt to high.
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The world’s a scene of changes.
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Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
ABRAHAM COWLEY