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
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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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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:Though so exalted sheAnd I so lowly beTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
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His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I’m sure, was in the right.
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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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To th’ active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave, To Saturn’s string a touch more sore and grave.
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Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.
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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?
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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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Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.
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And I myself a Catholic will be, So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee. Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow On us, the Poets militant below.
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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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The liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.
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Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
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Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
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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
ABRAHAM COWLEY