The Sunflow’r, thinking ’twas for him foul shame To nap by daylight, strove t’ excuse the blame
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Nature 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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The Sunflow’r, thinking ’twas for him foul shame To nap by daylight, strove t’ excuse the blame
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
To th’ active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave, To Saturn’s string a touch more sore and grave.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
The motions strait, and round, and swift, and slow, And short and long, were mixt and woven so, Did in such artful Figures smoothly fall, As made this decent measur’d dance of all. And this is Musick.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
All the world’s bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
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
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends; not on number, but the choice of friends.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
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.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep’rate friends.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Does not the passage of Moses and the Israelites into the Holy Land yield incomparably more poetic variety than the voyages of Ulysses or Aeneas?
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Man is too near all kinds of beasts,–a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture.
ABRAHAM COWLEY