Abraham Cowley Quotes

British writer (1618–1667)

Abraham Cowley (1618 – July 28, 1667) was an English metaphysical poet. In his own time he was widely considered the greatest poet of the age.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.

His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine,
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry;
Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine.

Life is an incurable disease.

His time is forever, everywhere his place.

What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?

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.

Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover
And not to me, thy no less silent lover?

Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thy aim so far,
That still or short, or wide thine arrows are!