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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

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Abraham Cowley
Age: 49 †
Born: 1618
Born: January 1
Died: 1667
Died: July 28
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
the City
Men
World
Husbandman
Retreat
Philosopher
City
Cities
Rather

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Hope! fortune's cheating lottery when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
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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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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, in fields d'or or d'argent but, if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms.
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The monster London laugh at me.
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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
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The present is an eternal now.
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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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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
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Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
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Books should, not Business, entertain the Light And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
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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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All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
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Awake, awake, my Lyre!And tell thy silent master's humble taleIn sounds that may prevailSounds that gentle thoughts inspire:Though so exalted sheAnd I so lowly beTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
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May I a small house and large garden have And a few friends, And many books, both true.
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Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning's gentle wine! Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill 'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread, Nature's self's thy Ganymede.
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Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
Abraham Cowley
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What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving or paying all kinds of ceremonies!
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Thus would I double my life's fading spaceFor he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
Abraham Cowley
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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, 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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Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.
Abraham Cowley