The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 2/The Despair
For works with similar titles, see Despair.
THE DESPAIR.
Beneath this gloomy shade,By Nature only for my sorrows made,I'll spend this voice in cries;In tears I'll waste these eyes,By Love so vainly fed;So Lust, of old, the Deluge punished."Ah, wretched youth!" said I;Ah, wretched youth!" twice did I sadly cry;Ah, wretched youth!" the fields and floods reply.
When thoughts of Love I entertain,I meet no words but "Never," and "In vain.""Never," alas! that dreadful nameWhich fuels the internal flame:"Never" my time to come must waste;"In vain" torments the present and the past."In vain, in vain," said I;"In vain, in vain!" twice did I sadly cry;"In vain, in vain!" the fields and floods reply.
No more shall fields or floods do so;For I to shades more dark and silent go:All this world's noise appears to meA dull, ill-acted comedy:No comfort to my wounded sight,In the sun's busy and impertinent light. 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 condemn'd and destin'd is to burn!"Once dead, how can it be,"Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,"That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?"