All arm'd in brass the richest dress of war, COWLEY. An universal consternation: His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there; Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear; Silence and horror fill the place around: Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound. COWLEY. THEIR fictions were often violent and unnatural. Of his mistress bathing: The fish around her crowded, as they do For ne'er did light so clear Among the waves appear, Though every night the sun himself set there. COWLEY. The poetical effect of a lover's name upon glass: My name engrav'd herein Doth contribute my firmness to this glass; Which, ever since that charm, hath been As hard as that which grav'd it was. DONNE. Their conceits were sometimes slight and trifling. On an inconstant woman : He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, And no breath stirring hears, In the clear heaven of thy brow, No smallest cloud appears. He sees thee gentle, fair and gay, And trusts the faithless April of thy May. COWLEY. Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire: Nothing yet in thee is seen, But when a genial heat warms thee within, A new-born wood of various lines there grows; Here buds an L, and there a B, Here spouts a V, and there a T, And all the flourishing letters stand in rows. COWLEY. As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whether their allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross; whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little. Physick and chirurgery for a lover : Gently, ah gently, madam, touch The wound, which you yourself have made; That pain must needs be very much, Which makes me of your hand afraid. Cordials of pity give me now, For I too weak of purgings grow. The world and a clock : Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face COWLEY. Thro' all the turns of matter's maze did trace; COWLEY. A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but that it may not want its due honour, Cleiveland has paralleled it with the sun : The moderate value of our guiltless ore Had he our pits, the Persian would admire The sun's heaven's coalery, and coals our sun. Death, a voyage: No family E'er rigg'd a soul for heaven's discovery, DONNE. Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and such as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding. A lover neither dead nor alive : Then down I laid my head Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead, When back to its cage again I saw it fly; Fool, to resume her broken chain! And row her galley here again! Fool, to that body to return Where it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn! Once dead, how can it be, Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me? A lover's heart, a hand grenado : Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come Into the self-same room, "Twill tear and blow up all within, Like a grenado shot into a magazin. Then shall Love keep the ashes, and torn parts, Of both our broken hearts: Shall out of both one new one make : From hers th' allay; from mine, the metal take. COWLEY. |