Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VI. Fancy. 1904. | | | | Poems of Sentiment: VI. Labor and Rest | | A Wish | | Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) |
| | | THIS only grant me, that my means may lie | |
| Too low for envy, for contempt too high. | |
| Some honor I would have, | |
| Not from great deeds, but good alone; | |
| The unknown are better than ill known: | 5 |
| Rumor can ope the grave. | |
| Acquaintance I would have, but when ’t depends | |
| Not on the number, but the choice, of friends. | |
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| Books should, not business, entertain the light, | |
| And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. | 10 |
| My house a cottage more | |
| Than palace; and should fitting be | |
| For all my use, no luxury. | |
| My garden painted o’er | |
| With Nature’s hand, not Art’s; and pleasures yield, | 15 |
| Horace might envy in his Sabine field. | |
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| Thus would I double my life’s fading space; | |
| For he that runs it well twice runs his race. | |
| And in this true delight, | |
| These unbought sports, this happy state, | 20 |
| I would not fear, nor wish, my fate; | |
| But boldly say each night, | |
| To-morrow let my sun his beams display, | |
| Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day. | | | | |
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