T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Account
By Abraham Cowley (16181667)(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. | |