The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 2/Love and Life

by Abraham Cowley

LOVE AND LIFE.

Now, sure, within this twelvemonth past,
I 'ave lov'd at least some twenty years or more:
Th' account of Love runs much more fast
Than that with which our life does score:
So, though my life be short, yet I may prove
The great Methusalem of Love.

Not that Love's hours or minutes are
Shorter than those our being's measur'd by;
But they 're more close compacted far,
And so in lesser room do lie:
Thin airy things extend themselves in space,
Things solid take up little place.

Yet Love, alas! and Life, in me,
Are not two several things, but purely onej
At once how can there in it be
A double, different motion?
O yes, there may; for so the self-same sun
At once does slow and swiftly run:

Swiftly his daily journey he goes,
But treads his annual with a statelier pace;
And does three hundred rounds enclose
Within one yearly circle's space;
At once, with double course in the same sphere,
He runs the day, and walks the year.

When Soul does to myself refer,
'Tis then my life, and does but slowly move;
But when it does relate to her,
It swiftly flies, and then is Love.
Love 's my diurnal course, divided right
'Twixt hope and fear—my day and night.

 

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