Abraham Cowley

Born in London in 1618, Abraham Cowley showed literary talent very early and published Poetical Blossoms while still a teenager. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he built the reputation that would make him one of the best-known English poets of his century.

Cowley lived through the upheavals of the English Civil War, and his royalist loyalties shaped both his life and writing. After leaving Cambridge, he spent time with the royalist cause and later became known not only for poetry but also for essays and for helping introduce the irregular Pindaric ode into English verse.

Though later readers often place him among the metaphysical poets, his writing is broad in mood and form, moving from love poems and devotional pieces to reflective prose. He died in 1667, but for decades after his death his works remained widely printed, a sign of how deeply he was admired by earlier generations of readers.