The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 1/The Account

by Abraham Cowley

VI.

THE ACCOUNT.

When all the stars are by thee told
(The endless sums of heavenly gold);
Or when the hairs are reckon'd all,
From sickly autumn's head that fall;
Or when the drops that make the sea,
Whilst all her sands they counters be;
Thou then, and thou alone, may'st prove
Th' arithmetician of my love.
An hundred loves at Athens score,
At Corinth write an hundred more:
Fair Corinth does such beauties bear,
So few, is an escaping there.
Write then at Chios seventy-three;
Write then at Lesbos (let me see)
Write me at Lesbos ninety down,
Full ninety loves, and half a one.
And, next to these, let me present
The fair Ionian regiment;
And next the Carian company;
Five hundred both effectively.
Three hundred more at Rhodes and Crete;
Three hundred't is, I'm sure, complete;
For arms at Crete each face does bear,
And every eye's an archer there.
Go on this stop why dost thou make?
Thou think'st, perhaps, that I mistake.
Seems this to thee too great a sum?
Why many thousands are to come;
The mighty Xerxes could not boast
Such different nations in his host.
On; for my love, if thou be'st weary,
Must find some better secretary.
I have not yet my Persian told,
Nor yet my Syrian loves enroll'd,
Nor Indian, nor Arabian;
Nor Cyprian loves, nor African;
Nor Scythian nor Italian flames;
There's a whole map behind of names
Of gentle loves i' th' temperate zone,
And cold ones in the frigid one,
Cold frozen loves, with which I pine,
And parched loves beneath the Line.