• God
  • Christianity
  • Judaism
  • Buddhism & Zen
  • Awareness
  • Topics
Quotes
Poems
Proverbs
Famous Inspirational Poems, Poetry, Quotes
Monday, January 25, 2021
  • Home
  • All Quotes
  • Inspirational Quotes
  • Stories
  • Attitude
  • Life
  • Love
  • Friendship
  • Happiness
  • Success
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • All Quotes
  • Inspirational Quotes
  • Stories
  • Attitude
  • Life
  • Love
  • Friendship
  • Happiness
  • Success
No Result
View All Result
Famous Inspirational Poems, Poetry, Quotes
No Result
View All Result

Abraham Cowley Poems >>
The Request

2 min read
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

I’AVE often wish’d to love; what shall I do?
      Me still the cruel boy does spare;
      And I a double task must bear,
First to woo him, and then a mistress too.
      Come at last and strike, for shame,
If thou art any thing besides a name;
      I’ll think thee else no God to be,
But poets rather Gods, who first created thee.

I ask not one in whom all beauties grow;
      Let me but love, whate’er she be,
      She cannot seem deform’d to me;
And I would have her seem to others so.
      Desire takes wings and straight does fly,
It stays not dully to inquire the Why.
      That happy thing, a lover, grown,
I shall not see with others’ eyes, scarce with mine own.

If she be coy, and scorn my noble fire;
      If her chill heart I cannot move;
      Why I’ll enjoy the very love,
And make a mistress of my own desire.
      Flames their most vigorous heat do hold,
And purest light, if compass’d round with cold:
      So, when sharp winter means most harm,
The springing plants are by the snow itself kept warm.

But do not touch my heart, and so be gone;
      Strike deep thy burning arrows in!
      Lukewarmness I account a sin,
As great in love as in religion.
      Come arm’d with flames; for I would prove
All the extremities of mighty Love.
      Th’ excess of heat is but a fable;
We know the torrid zone is now found habitable.

Among the woods and forests thou art found,
      There boars and lions thou dost tame;
      Is not my heart a nobler game?
Let Venus, men; and beasts, Diana, wound!
      Thou dost the birds thy subjects make;
Thy nimble feathers do their wings o’ertake:
      Thou all the spring their songs dost hear;
Make me love too, I’ll sing to’ thee all the year!

What service can mute fishes do to thee?
      Yet against them thy dart prevails,
      Piercing the armour of their scales;
And still thy sea-born mother lives i’th’ sea.
      Dost thou deny only to me
The no-great privilege of captivity?
      I beg or challenge here thy bow;
Either thy pity to me, or else thine anger, show.

Come! or I ‘ll teach the world to scorn that bow:
      I’ll teach them thousand wholesome arts
      Both to resist and cure thy darts,
More than thy skilful Ovid e’er did know.
      Musick of sighs thou shalt not hear,
Nor drink one wretched lover’s tasteful tear:
      Nay, unless soon thou woundest me,
My verses shall not only wound, but murder, thee.

(Abraham Cowley)

More Poetry from Abraham Cowley:

Abraham Cowley Poems based on Topics: Man, Love, God, Light, Art, Sin, World, Name, Spring, Anger, Fire
  • To The Royal Society (excerpts) (Abraham Cowley Poems)
  • Hymn To Light (Abraham Cowley Poems)
  • To The Royal Society (Abraham Cowley Poems)
  • Hymn. To Light (Abraham Cowley Poems)
  • On the Death of Mr. Crashaw (Abraham Cowley Poems)
  • On the Death of Mr. William Hervey (Abraham Cowley Poems)

Browse All: Abraham Cowley Poems

Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:

Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, God Poems, World Poems, Light Poems, Name Poems, Fire Poems, Art Poems, Birds Poems, Spring Poems, Anger Poems

Based on Keywords: sea-born, ertake, extremities, boars, tasteful, habitable, woundest, lukewarmness

  • Shakuntala Act III (Kalidasa Poems)
  • Battle Of Hastings - I (Thomas Chatterton Poems)
  • The Tragedy of White Injustice (Marcus Mosiah Garvey Poems)
  • The Sea-Gull (Hanford Lennox Gordon Poems)
  • The Progres Of The Soule (John Donne Poems)

Related Posts

Things That Never Die (Charles Dickens Poem)

The Brus Book 19 (John Barbour Poems)

The Iliad: Book 1 (Homer Poems)

Poetry: A Metrical Essay, Read Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard (Oliver Wendell Holmes Poems)

Orlando Furioso Canto 4 (Ludovico Ariosto Poems)

Fitz Adam’s Story (James Russell Lowell Poems)

Search Poems / Author

No Result
View All Result

Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Popular Topics

Life Poems - Love Poems - Happiness Poems - Success Poems - Friendship Poems - Sadness Poems - Inspirational Poems
View All Topics

Other Inspiring Sections

Inspirational Stories – Quotes – Proverbs

Welcome to Inspirational Stories, we believe in holding yourself together, accepting life, and making the inspired decisions that change the horizons of their life. This podium is developed for the people who want to gift compassion and empathy to the people who have been given nothing in their life and making them rise above those times. Read more.
  • God
  • Christianity
  • Judaism
  • Buddhism & Zen
  • Awareness
  • Topics

© 2020 Inspirational Stories

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Quotes
  • Poems
  • Proverbs
  • Inspirational Stories
  • Attitude Stories
  • Life Stories
  • Love Stories
  • Friendship
  • Happiness
  • Success
  • Parental

© 2020 Inspirational Stories

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In