The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 2/The Gazers

by Abraham Cowley

THE GAZERS.

Come, let's go on, where love and youth does call;
I've seen too much, if this be all.
Alas! how far more wealthy might I be
With a contented ignorant poverty!
To shew such stores, and nothing grant,
Is to enrage and vex my want.
For love to die an infant's lesser ill,
Than to live long, yet live in childhood still.

We 'ave both sat gazing only, hitherto,
As man and wife in picture do;
The richest crop of joy is still behind,
And he who only sees, in love, is blind.
So, at first, Pygmalion lov'd,
But th' armour at last improv'd;
The statue itself at last a woman grew,
And so at last, my dear, should you do too.

Beauty to man the greatest torture is,
Unless it lead to farther bliss,
Beyond the tyrannous pleasures of the eye;
It grows too serious a cruelty,
Untless it heal, as well as strike:
I would not, salamander-like,
In scorching heats always to live desire,
But, like a martyr, pass to heaven through fire.

Mark how the lusty sun salutes the spring,
And gently kisses every thing!
His loving beams unlock each maiden flower,
Search all the treasures, all the sweets devour:
Then on the earth, with bridegroom-heat,
He does still new flowers beget.
The sun himself, although all eye he be,
Can find in love more pleasure than to see.