Poems written by A. Cowley.

Life and Fame.

1.

1 OH Life, thou Nothings younger Brother! So like, that one might take One for the other! 2 What's Some Body, or No Body? 3 In all the Cobwebs of the Schoolmens trade, We no such nice Distinction woven see, As 'tis To be, or Not to Bee. 4 Dream of a Shadow! a Reflection made From the false glories of the gay reflected Bow, Is a more solid thing then Thou. 5 Vain weak-built Isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up betwixt two Eternities; Yet canst nor Wave nor Wind sustain, But broken and orewhelm'd the endless Oceans meet again.

2.

1 And with what rare Inventions do we strive, Our selves then to survive? Wise, subtle Arts, and such as well befit 2 That Nothing Mans no Wit. 3 Some with vast costly Tombs would purchase it, And by the proofs of Death pretend to Live. 4 Here lies the Great—False Marble, where? Nothing but small and sordid Dust lies there. Some build enormous Mountain Palaces, The Fools and Architects to please. A lasting Life in well-hew'en Stone they rear, 1 So he who on th' Egyptian shore, Was slain so many hundred years before, Lives still (Oh Life most happy and most dear! 2 Oh Life that Epicures envy to hear!) Lives in the dropping Ruines of his Amphitheater.

3.

1 His Father in Law an higher place does claim 2 In the Seraphique Entity of Fame. He since that Toy his Death, Does fill all Mouthes, and breathes in all mens Breath. 'Tis true, the two Immortal Syllables remain, But, Oh ye learned men, explain, What Essence, what Existence this,

What Substance, what Subsistence, what Hypostasis In Six poor Letters is? In those alone does the Great Caesar live, 'Tis all the Conquered World could give. We Poets madder yet then all, With a refin'ed Phantastick Vanitie, Think we not onely Have, but Give Eternitie. Fain would I see that Prodigal, Who his To-morrow would bestow, For all old Homers Life ere since he Dy'ed till now.

NOTES.

1.

1. BEcause Nothing preceded it, as Privation does all Being; which perhaps is the sense of the Distinction of Days in the story of the Creation, Night signifying the Privation, and Day, the subsequent Being, from whence the Evening is placed first, Gen. 1. 5. And the Evening and the Morning were the first day.

2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Pindar, Quid est Aliquis, aut quid est Neme? Somnium Vmbrae▪Homo est.

3. The Distinctions of the Schoolmen may be likened to Cobwebs (I mean many of them. for some are better woven) either because of the too much fineness of the work which makes it slight, and able to catch onely little Creatures; or because they take not the materials from Nature, but spin it out of Themselves.

4. The Rainbow is in it self of No Colour; those that appear are but Reflections of the Suns light received differently,

Mille trahit varios adverso Sole Colores.

As is evident by artificial Rainbows; And yet this shadow, this almost Nothing makes some∣times another Rainbow (but not so distinct or beautiful) by Reflection.

5. Isthmus is a neck of Land that divides a Peninsula from the Continent, and is betwixt two Seas, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. In which manner this narrow passage of Life divides the Past Time from the Future, and is at last swallowed up into Eternity.

2.

1. Pompey the Great.

2. An Irony; that is, Oh Life which Epicures laugh at and contemn.

3.

1. Caesar, whose Daughter Iulia was married to Pompey; an Alliance fatal to the Com∣monwealth; which as Tully says, ought never to have been made, or never ended.

2. Supernatural, Intellectual, Unintelligible Being.