Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have something in them too scholastic, they are not inelegant: This twilight of two years, not past nor next, Some emblem is of me, or I of this, Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext, Whose what and where, in disputation is, If I should call me any thing, should miss. I sum the years and me, and find me not Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new, That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot, Nor trust I this with hopes: and yet scarce true This bravery is, since these times shew'd me you. --_Donne_. Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon Man as a Microcosm: If men be worlds, there is in every one Something to answer in some proportion All the world's riches: and in good men, this Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul is. Of thoughts so far-fetched as to be not only unexpected but unnatural, all their books are full. TO A LADY, WHO WROTE POESIES FOR RINGS. They, who above do various circles find, Say, like a ring th' aquator heaven does bind. When heaven shall be adorn'd by thee, (Which then more heaven than 't is, will be) 'T is thou must write the poesy there, For it wanteth one as yet, Though the sun pass through 't twice a year, The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit. --_Cowley_. The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophy are by Cowley, with still more perplexity, applied to Love: Five years ago (says story) I lov'd you, For which you call me most inconstant now; Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man; For I am not the same that I was then; No flesh is now the same't was then in me, And that my mind is chang'd yourself may see. The same thoughts to retain still, and intents, Were more inconstant far; for accidents Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove, If from one subject they t' another move: My members then, the father members were From whence these take their birth, which now are here. If then this body love what th' other did, 'T were incest, which by nature is forbid. The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to travels, through different countries: Hast thou not found each woman's breast (The land where thou hast travelled) Either by savages possest, Or wild, and uninhabited? What joy could'st take, or what repose, In countries so unciviliz'd as those? Lust, the scorching dog-star, here Rages with immoderate heat; Whilst Pride, the rugged Northern Bear, In others makes the cold too great. And when these are temperate known, The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone. --_Cowley_. A lover, burnt up by his affections, is compared to Egypt: