The Wish,Born in 1618 in London, poet Abraham Cowley was one of the most popular and influential artists of the 17th Century. From a well to do family, his father died when Cowley was still a boy. At that early age he became immersed in literature and was particularly fond of the populist work The Faerie Queene written by Edmund Spenser.
The Wish by Abraham Cowley
Well then; I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne’er agree.
The very honey of all earthly joy
Does of all meats the soonest cloy;
And they (methinks) deserve my pity
Who for it can endure the stings,
The crowd, and buzz, and murmurings
Of this great hive, the city.
Ah, yet, ere I descend to th’ grave
May I a small house and large garden have!
And a few friends, and many books, both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too!
And since love ne’er will from me flee,
A mistress moderately fair,
And good as guardian angels are,
Only belov’d, and loving me.
O fountains! when in you shall I
Myself eas’d of unpeaceful thoughts espy?
O fields! O woods! when shall I be made
The happy tenant of your shade?
Here’s the spring-head of Pleasure’s flood:
Here’s wealthy Nature’s treasury,
Where all the riches lie that she
Has coin’d and stamp’d for good.
Pride and ambition here
Only in far-fetch’d metaphors appear;
Here nought but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter,
And nought but Echo flatter.
The gods, when they descended, hither
From heaven did always choose their way:
And therefore we may boldly say
That ’tis the way too thither.
How happy here should I
And one dear she live, and embracing die!
She who is all the world, and can exclude
In deserts solitude.
I should have then this only fear:
Lest men, when they my pleasures see,
Should hither throng to live like me,
And so make a city here.
