The Works of the English Poets: Cowley

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H. Hughs, 1779

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Page 291 - I found everywhere there (though my understanding had little to do with all this) ; and, by degrees, with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers, so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch.
Page 291 - I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found any where ; though I was in business of great and honourable trust...
Page 291 - French courts); yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty, which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me, when I saw that it was adulterate.
Page 291 - And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
Page 291 - Rumour can ope the grave. Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends Not on the number, but the choice of friends.
Page 269 - I myself am able yet to do, is only to recommend to mankind the search of that felicity, which you instruct them how to find and to enjoy.
Page 267 - I NEVER had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them, and study of nature...
Page 157 - ... and to command them victoriously at last; to overrun each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north; to be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth; to call together parliaments with a word of his pen.
Page 237 - To him, alas, to him, I fear, The face of death will terrible appear ; Who, in his life flattering his senseless pride, By being known to all the world beside, Does not himself, when he is dying, know, Nor what he is, nor whither he's to go.
Page 291 - Thus would I double my life's fading space; For he that runs it well twice runs his race. And in this true delight. These unbought sports, this happy state. I would not fear, nor wish, my fate; But boldly say each night, "To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them, — I have lived to-day.

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