The Abraham Cowley Text and Image Archive

Love given over
from The Mistress, Poems (1656; editor's copy)

1.
IT is enough; enough of time, and pain
   Hast thou consum'd in vain;
   Leave, wretched Cowley, leave
   Thy self with shadows to deceave;
Think that already lost which thou must never gain.
2.
Three of thy lustiest and thy freshest years,
   (Tost in storms of Hopes and Fears)
   Like helpless Ships that bee
   Set on fire ith' midst o'the Sea,
Have all been burnt in Love, and all been drown'd in Tears.  10
3.
Resolve then on it, and by force or art
   Free thy unlucky Heart;
   Since Fate does disapprove
   Th' ambition of thy Love.
And not one Star in heav'n offers to take thy part.
4.
If ere I clear my Heart from this desire,
   If ere it home to'his breast retire,
   It ne'r shall wander more about,
   Though thousand beauties call'd it out:
A Lover Burnt like me for ever dreads the fire.  20
5.
The Pox, the Plague, and ev'ry smal disease,
   May come as oft as ill Fate please;
   But Death and Love are never found
   To give a Second Wound,
We're by those Serpents bit, but we're devour'd by these.
6.
Alas, what comfort is't that I am grown
   Secure of be'ing again o'rethrown?
   Since such an Enemy needs not fear
   Least any else should quarter there,
Who has not only Sack't, but quite burnt down the Town.  30

This text normalized in the same way as Cowley's "Hymn to Light."
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