30
COWLEY'S POEMS.
WISDOM.
'T is mighty wise that you would now be thought,
With your grave rules from musty morals brought;
Through which some streaks too of divinity ran,
Partly of Monk and partly Puritan;
With tedious repetitions too you 'ave ta'en
Often the name of vanity in vain:
Things which, I take it, friend, you'd ne'er recite,
Should she I love but say t' you, "Come at night."
The wisest king refus'd all pleasures quite,
Till Wisdom from above did him enlight;
But, when that gift his ignorance did remove,
Pleasures he chose, and plac'd them all in love.
And, if by event the counsels may be seen,
This Wisdom 't was that brought the southern queen:
She came not, like a good old wife, to know
The wholesome nature of all plants that grow;
Nor did so far from her own country roam,
To cure scald-heads and broken-shins at home:
She came for that, which more befits all wives,
The art of giving, not of saving, lives.
With your grave rules from musty morals brought;
Through which some streaks too of divinity ran,
Partly of Monk and partly Puritan;
With tedious repetitions too you 'ave ta'en
Often the name of vanity in vain:
Things which, I take it, friend, you'd ne'er recite,
Should she I love but say t' you, "Come at night."
The wisest king refus'd all pleasures quite,
Till Wisdom from above did him enlight;
But, when that gift his ignorance did remove,
Pleasures he chose, and plac'd them all in love.
And, if by event the counsels may be seen,
This Wisdom 't was that brought the southern queen:
She came not, like a good old wife, to know
The wholesome nature of all plants that grow;
Nor did so far from her own country roam,
To cure scald-heads and broken-shins at home:
She came for that, which more befits all wives,
The art of giving, not of saving, lives.
