Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)

Extracts from The Miscellanies: On the Death of Mr. William Hervey

IT was a dismal and a fearful night,

Scarce could the Morn drive on th’ unwilling light,

When sleep, death’s image, left my troubled breast,

By something more like death possest.

My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow,

And on my soul hung the dull weight

Of some intolerable fate.

What bell was that? Ah me! Too much I know.

My sweet companion, and my gentle peer,

Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here,

Thy end for ever, and my life to moan?

O thou hast left me all alone!

Thy soul and body when death’s agony

Besieg’d around thy noble heart,

Did not with more reluctance part

Than I, my dearest friend, do part from thee.

My dearest friend, would I had died for thee!

Life and this world henceforth will tedious be,

Nor shall I know hereafter what to do

If once my griefs prove tedious too.

Silent and sad I walk about all day,

As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by

Where their hid treasures lie;

Alas, my treasure’s gone, why do I stay?

He was my friend, the truest friend on earth;

A strong and mighty influence join’d our birth;

Nor did we envy the most sounding name

By friendship giv’n of old to fame.

None but his brethren he, and sisters knew,

Whom the kind youth preferr’d to me;

And ev’n in that we did agree,

For much above myself I lov’d them too.

Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights,

How oft unwearied have we spent the nights?

Till the Ledaean stars, so fam’d for love,

Wondered at us from above.

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine;

But search of deep philosophy,

Wit, eloquence, and poetry,

Arts which I lov’d, for they, my friend, were thine.

Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say,

Have ye not seen us walking every day?

Was there a tree about which did not know

The love betwixt us two?

Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade,

Or your sad branches thicker join,

And into darksome shades combine,

Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid.

Henceforth no learned youths beneath you sing,

Till all the tuneful birds t’ your boughs they bring;

No tuneful birds play with their wonted cheer,

And call the learned youths to hear;

No whistling winds through the glad branches fly,

But all with sad solemnity,

Mute and unmoved be,

Mute as the grave wherein my friend does lie.

To him my muse made haste with every strain

Whilst it was new, and warm yet from the brain,

He lov’d my worthless rhymes, and like a friend

Would find out something to commend.

Hence now, my muse, thou canst not me delight;

Be this my latest verse

With which I now adorn his hearse,

And this my grief without thy help shall write.

Had I a wreath of bays about my brow

I should contemn that flourishing honour now,

Condemn it to the fire, and joy to hear

It rage and crackle there.

Instead of bays, crown with sad cypress me;

Cypress which tombs does beautify;

Not Phoebus griev’d so much as I

For him, who first was made that mournful tree.

Large was his soul; as large a soul as e’er

Submitted to inform a body here;

High as the place ’twas shortly in heav’n to have,

But low, and humble as his grave;

So high that all the virtues there did come

As to their chiefest seat

Conspicuous, and great;

So low that for me too it made a room.

He scorn’d this busy world below, and all

That we, mistaken mortals, pleasure call;

Was filled with innocent gallantry and truth,

Triumphant o’er the sins of youth.

He like the stars, to which he now is gone,

That shine with beams like flame,

Yet burn not with the same,

Had all the light of youth, of the fire none.

Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught,

As if for him knowledge had rather sought;

Nor did more learning ever crowded lie

In such a short mortality.

When e’er the skilful youth discours’d or writ,

Still did the notions throng

About his eloquent tongue,

Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit.

So strong a wit did nature to him frame,

As all things but his judgment overcame;

His judgment like the heav’nly moon did show,

Temp’ring that mighty sea below.

Oh had he lived in learning’s world, what bound

Would have been able to control

His overpowering soul?

We have lost in him arts that not yet are found.

His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit,

Yet never did his God or friends forget.

And when deep talk and wisdom came in view,

Retir’d and gave to them their due.

For the rich help of books he always took,

Though his own searching mind before

Was so with notions written o’er

As if wise nature had made that her book.

So many virtues join’d in him, as we

Can scarce pick here and there in history,

More than old writers’ practice e’er could reach,

As much as they could ever teach.

These did religion, queen of virtues, sway,

And all their sacred motions steer,

Just like the first and highest sphere

Which wheels about, and turns all heav’n one way.

With as much zeal, devotion, piety,

He always liv’d, as other saints do die.

Still with his soul severe account he kept,

Weeping all debts out ere he slept.

Then down in peace and innocence he lay,

Like the sun’s laborious light,

Which still in water sets at night,

Unsullied with his journey of the day.

Wondrous young man, why wert thou made so good,

To be snatched hence ere better understood?

Snatched before half of thee enough was seen!

Thou ripe, and yet thy life but green!

Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell,

But danger and infectious death

Maliciously seiz’d on that breath

Where life, spirit, pleasure always us’d to dwell.

But happy thou, ta’en from this frantic age,

Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage!

A fitter time for heaven no soul ere chose,

The place now only free from those.

There ’mong the blest thou dost for ever shine,

And wheresoe’er thou cast thy view

Upon that white and radiant crew,

See’st not a soul cloth’d with more light than thine.

And if the glorious saints cease not to know

Their wretched friends who fight with life below;

Thy flame to me does still the same abide,

Only more pure and rarified.

There whilst immortal hymns thou dost rehearse,

Thou dost with holy pity see

Our dull and earthly poesy,

Where grief and misery can be joined with verse.