English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 247. A Supplication |
| | | Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) |
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| AWAKE, awake, my Lyre! | |
| And tell thy silent master’s humble tale | |
| In sounds that may prevail; | |
| Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire: | |
| Though so exalted she | 5 |
| And I so lowly be | |
| Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony. | |
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| Hark, how the strings awake: | |
| And, though the moving hand approach not near, | |
| Themselves with awful fear | 10 |
| A kind of numerous trembling make. | |
| Now all thy forces try; | |
| Now all thy charms apply; | |
| Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye. | |
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| Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure | 15 |
| Is useless here, since thou art only found | |
| To cure, but not to wound, | |
| And she to wound, but not to cure. | |
| Too weak too wilt thou prove | |
| My passion to remove; | 20 |
| Physic to other ills, thou’rt nourishment to love. | |
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| Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre! | |
| For thou canst never tell my humble tale | |
| In sounds that will prevail, | |
| Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire; | 25 |
| All thy vain mirth lay by, | |
| Bid thy strings silent lie, | |
| Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die. | |
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