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It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.

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
Speak
Egotism
Anything
Ears
Hard
Praise
Heart
Subject
Men
Subjects
Reader
Grates
Hear
Disparagement
Nice
Grate

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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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Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.
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Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
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Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
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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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God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
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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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Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
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Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
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Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.
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Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.
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A mighty pain to love it is, And 'tis a pain that pain to miss But, of all pains, the greatest pain Is to love, but love in vain.
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When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.
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I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that ... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature.
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Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.
Abraham Cowley
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s a scene of changes, and to be constant in Nature were inconstancy.
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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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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