The Works of Mr Abraham Cowley Consisting of Those which were formerly Printed: And Those which he Design'd for the Press, Now Published out of the Authors Original Copies ... The Text Edited by A. R. Waller |
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Life.
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 | The Works of Mr Abraham Cowley |  |
209
Life.
Nascentes Morimur. Manil.
1.
We're ill by these Grammarians us'd;We are abus'd by Words, grosly abus'd;
From the Maternal Tomb,
To the Graves fruitful Womb,
We call here Life; but Life's a name
That nothing here can truly claim:
This wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait:
We call our Dwelling-place;
We call one Step a Race:
But Angels in their full enlightned state,
Angels who Live, and know what 'tis to Be,
Who all the nonsense of our Language see,
Who speak Things, and our Words, their ill-drawn Pictures scorn,
When we by'a foolish Figure say,
Behold an old man Dead! then they
Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born.
2.
My Eyes are opened, and I seeThrough the Transparent Fallacie:
Because we seem wisely to talk
Like men of business; and for business walk
From place to place,
And mighty voyages we take,
And mighty Journeys seem to make,
O're Sea and Land, the little Point that has no space.
Because we fight, and Battels gain;
Some Captives call, and say, the rest are slain.
Because we heap up yellow Earth, and so,
Rich, valiant, wise, and vertuous seem to grow;
Because we draw a long Nobilitie
From Hieroglyphick proofs of Herauldrie,
And impudently talk of a Posteritie,
And, like Egyptian Chroniclers,
Who write of twenty thousand years,
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That single Time might to a sum amount,
We grow at last by Custom to believe,
That really we Live:
Whilst all these Shadows that for Things we take,
Are but the empty Dreams which in Deaths sleep we make.
3.
But these fantastique errors of our Dream,Lead us to solid wrong;
We pray God, our Friends torments to prolong,
And wish uncharitably for them,
To be as long a Dying as Methusalem.
The ripened Soul longs from his pris'on to come,
But we would seal, and sow up, if we could, the Womb.
We seek to close and plaster up by Art
The cracks and breaches of the' extended Shell,
And in that narrow Cell
Would rudely force to dwell,
The noble vigorous Bird already wing'd to part.
| The Works of Mr Abraham Cowley | |