The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 2/The Dissembler

by Abraham Cowley

THE DISSEMBLER.

Unhurt, untouch'd, did I complain,
And terrify'd all others with the pain:
But now I feel the mighty evil;
Ah! there's no fooling with the devil!
So, wanton men, whilst others they would fright,
Themselves have met a real sprite.

I thought, I'll swear, an handsome lye
Had been no sin at all in poetry;
But now I suffer an arrest,
For words were spoke by me in jest.
Dull, sottish God of love! and can it be
Thou understandst not raillery?

Darts, and wounds, and flame, and heat,
I nam'd but for the rhyme, or the conceit;
Nor meant my verse should raised be
To this sad fame of prophesy:
Truth gives a dull propriety to my style,
And all the metaphors does spoil.

In things where fancy much does reign,
’Tis dangerous too cunningly to feign;
The play at last a truth does grow,
And Custom into Nature go;
By this curst art of begging I became
Lame with counterfeiting lame.

My lines of amorous desire
I wrote to kindle and blow others' fire;
And 't was a barbarous delight
My fancy promis'd from the sight:
But now, my Love, the mighty Phalaris, I
My burning Bull the first do try.

 

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