The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophy, are by Cowley, with still more perplexity, applied to Love: Five years ago (says story) I lov'd you, For which you call me most inconstant now; Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove, If from one subject they t' another move; My members then the father members were, From whence these take their birth which now are here If then this body love what th' other did, The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to travels through different countries: Hast thou not found each woman's breast (The land where thou hast travelled) Either by savages possest, Or wild, and uninhabited ? What joy could'st take, or what repose, COWLEY. A Lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt: The fate of Egypt I sustain, COWLEY. The Lover supposes his Lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury and rites of sacrifice: And yet this death of mine, I fear, When sound in every other part, Her sacrifice is found without an heart. Shall sigh out that too, with my breath. That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but whence the different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover: Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew; COWLEY. 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 And quickly make that which was nothing all. Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so. On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out-Confusion worse confounded : Here lies a she sun, and a he moon here, DONNE. Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope? Though God be our true glass through which we see Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many remote ideas could be brought together? Send me at least a sigh or two, Such and so many I'll repay As shall themselves make wings to get to you. In tears I'll waste these eyes, By Love so vainly fed; COWLEY. So lust of old the Deluge punished. COWLEY. All arm'd in brass, the richest dress of war, An universal consternation: COWLEY. His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there; 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 To the false light that treacherous fishers shew, As she at first took me : For ne'er did light so clear 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 sentiments slight and trifling. On an inconstant woman; He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, 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 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 enquire 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 World and a Clock: Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face COWLEY. Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace; COWLEY. A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that may not want its due honour, Cleiveland has paralleled it with the Sun: it The moderate value of our guiltless ore Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore ; Had he our pits, the Persian would admire The sun's Heaven's coalery, and coals our sun. |