Quote#Wisdom
The Shadows now so long do grow
Quote byCharles Cotton · 1630–1687
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Poems on Several Occasions (1689), Evening Quatrains, st. 3.
English (original)
The Shadows now so long do grow, That Brambles like tall Cedars show, Mole-hills seem Mountains, and the Ant Appears a monstrous Elephant.
— Charles Cotton
More from Charles Cotton
No, hang me if I ever marry, Till Womankind grow stancher, I do delight delights to vary, And love not in one Hulk to tarry, But only Trim and Launch her.
My infant love could humbly wait, When young it scarce knew how To plead; but grown to Man's estate, He is impatient now.
Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, We, who improve his golden hours, By sweet experience know That marriage, rightly understood, Gives to the tender and the good A paradise below.
... She cries I doe not love her, And tells me of her Honor; Then have I no way to disprove her, And my true passion to discover, But streight to fall upon her.
My state is more advanc’d than when I first attempted thee; I su’d to be a Servant then, But now to be made free.
Woman, man’s greatest woe, or bliss, Does ofter far, than serve, enslave, And with the Magick of a Kiss, Destroys whom she was made to save.