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b"A Cowley read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\n\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------------\\n\\nA Supplication\\nby Abraham Cowley (1618 \\u2013 1667)\\n\\n Awake, awake, my lyre,\\nAnd tell thy silent master's humble tale\\n In sounds that may prevail,\\n Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire,\\n Though so exalted she\\n And I so lowly be,\\nTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.\\n\\n Hark, how the strings awake,\\nAnd though the moving hand approach not near,\\n Themselves with awful fear\\n A kind of numerous trembling make.\\n Now all thy forces try,\\n Now all thy charms apply,\\nRevenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.\\n\\n Weak lyre! thy virtue sure\\nIs useless here, since thou art only found\\n To cure but not to wound,\\n And she to wound but not to cure.\\n Too weak, too, wilt thou prove\\n My passion to remove;\\nPhysic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love.\\n\\n\\n\\n Sleep, sleep again, my lyre,\\nFor thou canst never tell my humble tale\\n In sounds that will prevail,\\n Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;\\n All thy vain mirth lay by,\\n Bid thy strings silent lie;\\nSleep, sleep again, my lyre, and let thy master die.\\n\\n\\n\\nFirst aired: 2 October 2008\\n\\nFor hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index.\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud 2008"