Lives of the English Poets : Waller, Milton, Cowley

A lover neither dead nor alive:

Then down I laid my head
Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.

Ah, sottish soul, said I,
When back to its cage again I saw it fly;
Fool to resume her broken chain,
And row her galley here again!
Fool, to that body to return
Where it condemned and destined is to burn!
Once dead, how can it be,
Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,
That thou should’st come to live it o’er again in me?—Cowley.

A lover’s heart, a hand grenado:

Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come
Into the self same room;
’Twill tear and blow up all within,
Like a grenade shot into a magazine.
Then shall Love keep the ashes and torn parts,
Of both our broken hearts;
Shalt out of both one new one make;
From hers th’ allay, from mine the metal take.—Cowley.

The poetical propagation of light:

The prince’s favour is diffused o’er all,
From which all fortunes names, and natures fall:
Then from those wombs of stars, the Bride’s bright eyes,
At every glance a constellation flies,
And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent
In light and power, the all-ey’d firmament:
First her eye kindles other ladies’ eyes,
Then from their beams their jewels’ lustres rise;
And from their jewels torches do take fire,
And all is warmth, and light, and good desire.—Donne.

They were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts.

That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is by Cowley thus expressed:

Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand
Than woman can be placed by Nature’s hand;
And I must needs, I’m sure, a loser be,
To change thee as thou’rt there, for very thee.

That prayer and labour should co-operate are thus taught by Donne:

In none but us are such mix’d engines found,
As hands of double office; for the ground
We till with them; and them to heaven we raise
Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays,
Doth but one half, that’s none.

By the same author, a common topic, the danger of procrastination, is thus illustrated:

That which I should have begun
In my youth’s morning, now late must be done;
And I, as giddy travellers must do,
Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost
Light and strength, dark and tired, must then ride post.

All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity is comprehended by Donne in the following lines:

Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie
After enabled but to suck and cry.
Think, when ’twas grown to most, ’twas a poor inn,
A province pack’d up in two yards of skin,
And that usurp’d, or threaten’d with a rage
Of sicknesses or their true mother, age.
But think that death hath now enfranchised thee;
Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty;
Think, that a rusty piece discharged is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,
And freely flies: this to thy soul allow,
Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch’d but now.

They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting.  Cowley thus apostrophises beauty:

Thou tyrant which leav’st no man free!
Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be!
Thou murtherer, which has kill’d, and devil, which would’st damn me!

Thus he addresses his mistress:

Thou who, in many a propriety,
So truly art the sun to me,
Add one more likeness, which I’m sure you can,
And let me and my sun beget a man.

Thus he represents the meditations of a lover:

Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been
So much as of original sin,
Such charms thy beauty wears, as might
Desires in dying confest saints excite.
Thou with strange adultery