The fate of Egypt I sustain, And never feel the dew of rain COWLEY. The lover fuppofes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury and rites of facrifice : And yet this death of mine, I fear, When found in every other part, That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but whence the different founds arofe, remained for a modern to discover: Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew, The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, they may be read again. On a round ball A workman, that hath copies by, can lay An Europe, Afric, and an Afia, And quickly make that, which was nothing, all. *Cowley appears, by thefe lines, to have been but little skilled in mufic. Not to speak of the fentiment, had he resembled water alone to the tenor, and air to the contra-tenor, the analogy had been just. So doth each tear, Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impreffion grow, This world, by waters fent from thee my Leaven dif may per- 79 On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out-Confufion worfe confounded. Here lies a fhe fun, and a he moon here Or each is both, and all, and fo They unto one another nothing owe. DONNE. Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope? Το Though God be our true glass, through which we see Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive Things in proportion fit, by perspective Deeds of good men; for by their living here, Who would imagine it poffible that in a very few lines To many remote ideas could be brought together: Since 'tis my doom, Love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my She Advowfon fly Incumbency? To fell thyfelf doft thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contraft thus in doubt, Think but how foon the market fails, The 82 The fober Julian were th' account of man, CLEIVELAND, OF enormous and disgusting hyberboles, these may be examples: By every wind, that comes this way, Send me at least a figh or two, Such and fo many I'll repay As fhall themselves make winds to get to you. In tears I'll waste these eyes, By Love fo vainly fed; COWLEY. So luft of old the Deluge punished. COWLEY, All arm'd in brass the richest drefs of war, An univerfal confternation: COWLEY. His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws Beafts creep into their dens, and tremble there; Trees, though no wind is ftirring, shake with fear; Echo itself dares fcarce repeat the found. COWLEY. THEIR fictions were often violent and unnatural, Of his Mistress bathing. The fish around her crouded, as they do To the falfe light that treacherous fishes fhew, As fhe at firft took me : For ne'er did light fo clear Among Among the waves appear, Though every night the fun himself set there. COWLEY. The poetical effect of a Lover's name upon glafs : My name engrav'd herein Doth contribute my firmness to this glafs; As hard as that which grav'd it was. DONNE. Their conceits were fometimes flight and trifling. On an inconftant woman: He enjoys the calmy funfhine now, And no breath ftirring hears, In the clear heaven of thy brow, No fmalleft cloud appears. He fees thee gentle, fair and gay, And trufts the faithlefs April of thy May. COWLEY. Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire: Nothing yet in thee is feen, But when a genial heat warms thee within, Here sprouts a V, and there a T, And all the flourishing letters ftand in rows. COWLEY. As they fought only for novelty, they did not much enquire whether their allufions were to things high or low, elegant or grofs; whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little. Phyfick and Chirurgery for a Lover. The wound, which you yourself have made; Vol. II. D That 1 85 That pain must needs be very much, For I too weak of purgings grow. The World and a Clock. COWLEY. Mahol, th' inferior world's fantastic face, 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 Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore ; Had he our pits, the Perfian would admire The fun's heaven's coalery, and coals our fun Death, a Voyage: No family Ere rigg'd a foul for heaven's discovery. |