Why dost thou heap up wealth, which thou must quit, Or what is worse, be left by it? Why dost thou load thyself when thou ‘rt to fly, Oh, man! ordain’d to die?
ABRAHAM COWLEYVain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
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 COWLEY -
Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
All this world’s noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty’s handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Water and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose,
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Our yesterday’s to-morrow now is gone, And still a new to-morrow does come on. We by to-morrow draw out all our store, Till the exhausted well can yield no more.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
I would not fear nor wish my fate, but boldly say each night, to-morrow let my sun his beams display, or in clouds hide them; I have lived today.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
To th’ active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave, To Saturn’s string a touch more sore and grave.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Hope! fortune’s cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
ABRAHAM COWLEY