That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is by Cowley
thus expressed:
Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand,
Than woman can be plac'd by Nature's hand;
And I must needs, I'm sure, a loser be,
To change thee, as thou 'rt there, for very thee.
That prayer and labour should co-operate are thus taught by Donne:
In none but us, are such mixt engines found,
As hands of double office: for the ground
We till with them; and them to heaven we raise;
Who prayerless labours, or without this, prays,
Doth but one half, that's none.
By the same author, a common topic, the danger of procrastination, is
thus illustrated:
--That which I should have begun In my youth's morning, now late
must be done; And I, as giddy travellers must do, Which stray or
sleep all day, and having lost Light and strength, dark and tir'd
must then ride post.
All that Man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity is
comprehended by Donne in the following lines:
Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie;
After, enabled but to suck and cry.
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