T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Account
By Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)(A Paraphrase of Anacreon, 1668) |
WHEN all the Stars are by thee told, | |
| (The endless Sums of heav’nly Gold) | |
| Or when the Hairs are reckon’d all, | |
| From sickly Autumn’s Head that fall, | |
| Of when the drops that make the Sea, | 5 |
| Whilst all her Sands thy Counters be; | |
| Thou then, and Thou alone must prove | |
| Th’ Arithmetician of my Love. | |
| An hundred Loves at Athens score, | |
| At Corinth write an hundred more; | 10 |
| Fair Corinth does such Beauties bear, | |
| So few is an Escaping there. | |
| Write then at Chios seventy-three, | |
| Write then at Lesbos (let me see); | |
| Write me at Lesbos ninety down, | 15 |
| Full ninety Loves, and half a One; | |
| And next to these let me present, | |
| The fair Ionian Regiment; | |
| And next the Carian Company, | |
| Five hundred both Effectively; | 20 |
| Three hundred more at Rhodes and Crete; | |
| Three hundred ’tis, I am sure, Complete; | |
| For arms at Crete each Face does bear, | |
| And ev’ry Eye’s an Archer there. | |
| Go on; this stop why dost thou make? | 25 |
| Thou think’st, perhaps, that I mistake. | |
| Seems this to thee too great a Sum? | |
| Why, many thousands are to come; | |
| The mighty Xerxes could not boast | |
| Such diff’rent Nations in his Host. | 30 |
| On; for my Love, if thou be’st weary, | |
| Must find some better Secretary. | |
| I have not yet my Persian told, | |
| Nor yet my Syrian Loves enroll’d, | |
| Nor Indian, nor Arabian; | 35 |
| Nor Cyprian Loves, nor African; | |
| Nor Scythian, nor Italian flames; | |
| There’s a whole Map behind of Names, | |
| Of gentle Love i’ th’ temp’rate Zone, | |
| And cold ones in the Frigid One, | 40 |
| Cold frozen Loves with which I pine, | |
| And parched Loves beneath the Line. | |