Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Abraham Cowley. 16181667353. The Wish
WELL then! I now do plainly see | |
This busy world and I shall ne’er agree. | |
The very honey of all earthly joy | |
Does of all meats the soonest cloy; | |
And they, methinks, deserve my pity | 5 |
Who for it can endure the stings, | |
The crowd and buzz and murmurings, | |
Of this great hive, the city. | |
Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave | |
May I a small house and large garden have; | 10 |
And a few friends, and many books, both true, | |
Both wise, and both delightful too! | |
And since love ne’er will from me flee, | |
A Mistress moderately fair, | |
And good as guardian angels are, | 15 |
Only beloved and loving me. | |
O fountains! when in you shall I | |
Myself eased of unpeaceful thoughts espy? | |
O fields! O woods! when, when shall I be made | |
Thy happy tenant of your shade? | 20 |
Here ‘s the spring-head of Pleasure’s flood: | |
Here ‘s wealthy Nature’s treasury, | |
Where all the riches lie that she | |
Has coin’d and stamp’d for good. | |
Pride and ambition here | 25 |
Only in far-fetch’d metaphors appear; | |
Here nought but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter, | |
And nought but Echo flatter. | |
The gods, when they descended, hither | |
From heaven did always choose their way: | 30 |
And therefore we may boldly say | |
That ’tis the way too thither. | |
Hoe happy here should I | |
And one dear She live, and embracing die! | |
She who is all the world, and can exclude | 35 |
In deserts solitude. | |
I should have then this only fear: | |
Lest men, when they my pleasures see, | |
Should hither throng to live like me, | |
And so make a city here. | 40 |