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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PINDARIC ODE: LIFE, by ABRAHAM COWLEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: We're ill by these grammarians us'd Last Line: The noble vigorous bird already wing'd to part. | |||
1. WE're ill by these Grammarians us'd; We are abus'd by Words, grosly abus'd; From the Maternal Tomb, To the Grave's fruitful Womb, We call here Life; but Life's a Name That nothing here can truly claim: This wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait, We call our Dwelling-place; We call one Step a Race: But Angels in their full enlighten'd State, Angels who Live, and know what 'tis to Be, Who all the Nonsense of our Language see, Who speak Things, and our Words, their ill-drawn Pictures scorn. When we by' a foolish Figure say Behold an old Man dead! then they Speak properly, and cry, Behold a Man-child born. 2. My Eyes are open'd, and I see Through the transparent Fallacy: Because we seem wisely to talk Like Men of Business; and for Business walk From Place to Place, And mighty Voyages we take, And mighty Journeys seem to make O'er Sea and Land, the little Point that has no Space. Because we fight, and Battels gain; Some Captives call, and say, the rest are slain. Because we heap up yellow Earth, and so, Rich, valiant, wise, and virtuous seem to grow; Because we draw a long Nobility From Hieroglyphick Proofs of Heraldry, And impudently talk of a Posterity, And, like Egyptian Chroniclers, Who write of twenty thousand Years, With Maravedies make th' Account, That single Time might to a Sum amount, We grow at last by Custom to believe, That really we Live: Whilst all these Shadows that for Things we take, Are but the empty Dreams which in Death's Sleep we make. 3. But these fantastick Errors of our Dream, Lead us to solid Wrong; We pray God, our Friends' Torments to prolong, And wish uncharitably for them, To be as long a dying as Methusalem. The ripen'd Soul longs from his Pris'on to come, But we would seal, and sow up, if we could, the Womb. We seek to close and plaister up by Art The Cracks and Breaches of th' extended Shell, And in that narrow Cell Would rudely force to dwell, The noble vigorous Bird already wing'd to part. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AGAINST HOPE by ABRAHAM COWLEY ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW by ABRAHAM COWLEY ON THE DEATH OF MR. WILLIAM HERVEY by ABRAHAM COWLEY THE CHRONICLE; A BALLAD by ABRAHAM COWLEY TO HIS MISTRESS by ABRAHAM COWLEY A DEDICATORY ELEGY TO THE ... UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE by ABRAHAM COWLEY |
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