William Cowper

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William Cowper (26 November 1731 - 25 April 1800) was an English poet and hymnodist.

Contents 1 Sourced 1.1 Olney Hymns (1779) 1.2 Table Talk (1782) 1.3 Conversation (1782) 1.4 Retirement (1782) 1.5 Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782) 1.6 History of John Gilpin (1785) 1.7 The Task (1785) 2 Attributed 3 External links

Sourced

• Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.
  • Boadicea (1782)

• Lights of the world, and stars of human race.
  • The Progress of Error, Line 97 (1782)

• How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
  Excels a dunce that has been kept at home!
  • The Progress of Error, Line 415 (1782)

• Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade,
  Apt emblem of a virtuous maid
  Silent and chaste she steals along,
  Far from the world's gay busy throng:
  With gentle yet prevailing force,
  Intent upon her destined course;
  Graceful and useful all she does,
  Blessing and blest where'er she goes;
  Pure-bosom'd as that watery glass,
  And Heaven reflected in her face.
  • To a Young Lady (1782)

• An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,
  Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.
  • Epistle to Joseph Hill, l. 62 (1785)

• Shine by the side of every path we tread
  With such a luster, he that runs may read.
  • Tirocinium, l. 79 (1785)

• Toll for the brave —
  The brave! that are no more;
  All sunk beneath the wave,
  Fast by their native shore!
  • On the Loss of the Royal George, st. 1 (1791)

• And still to love, though prest with ill,
  In wintry age to feel no chill,
  With me is to be lovely still,
  My Mary!
  • To Mary, st. 11 (1791)

• Beware of desp'rate steps! The darkest day
  (Live till tomorrow) will have passed away.
  • The Needless Alarm, Moral (1794)

• Misses! the tale that I relate
  This lesson seems to carry —
  Choose not alone a proper mate,
  But proper time to marry.
  • Pairing Time Anticipated, MOral (c. 1794)

• Misery still delights to trace
  Its semblance in another's case.
  • The Castaway (1799)

• No voice divine the storm allay'd,
  No light propitious shone;
  When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
  We perish'd, each alone;
  But I beneath a rougher sea,
  And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he.
  • The Castaway (1799)

Olney Hymns (1779)

• Oh! for a closer walk with God,
  A calm and heav'nly frame;
  A light to shine upon the road
  That leads me to the Lamb!
  • No. 1, Walking With God

• What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
  How sweet their memory still!
  But they have left an aching void
  The world can never fill.
  • No. 1, Walking With God

• God moves in a mysterious way,
  His wonders to perform;
  He plants his footsteps in the sea,
  And rides upon the storm.
  • The opening statement is often quoted as: God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
  • No. 35, Light Shining out of Darkness

• Behind a frowning providence
  He hides a smiling face.
  • No. 35, Light Shining out of Darkness

• Deep in unfathomable mines
  Of never failing skill,
  He treasures up his bright designs,
  And works his sovereign will.
  • No. 35, Light Shining out of Darkness

• His purposes will ripen fast,
  Unfolding every hour;
  The bud may have a bitter taste,
  But sweet will be the flower.
  • No. 35, Light Shining out of Darkness

• Blind unbelief is sure to err,
  And scan his work in vain;
  God is his own interpreter,
  And he will make it plain.
  • No. 35, Light Shining out of Darkness

• There is a fountain fill'd with blood
  Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
  And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood,
  Lose all their guilty stains.
  • No. 79, Praise for the Fountain Opened

Table Talk (1782)

• Happiness depends, as Nature shows,
  Less on exterior things than most suppose.
  • Line 246

• Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
  That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
  • Line 260

• Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
  The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
  • Line 542

• Low ambition and the thirst of praise.
  • Line 591

Conversation (1782)

• A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
  • Line 96

• He would not, with a peremptory tone,
  Assert the nose upon his face his own.
  • Line 121

• A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
  Will not affront me, and no other can.
  • Line 193

• Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
  Unfriendly to society's chief joys,
  Thy worst effect is banishing for hours
  The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
  • Line 251

• I cannot talk with civet in the room,
  A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.
  • Line 283

• His wit invites you by his looks to come,
  But when you knock it never is at home.
  • Line 303

• Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
  Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.
  • Line 357

Retirement (1782)

• A business with an income at its heels
  Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
  • Line 615

• Absence of occupation is not rest,
  A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
  • Line 623

• Philologists, who chase
  A panting syllable through time and space,
  Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
  To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.
  • Line 691

• I praise the Frenchman [Voltaire], his remark was shrewd —
  How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
  But grant me still a friend in my retreat
  Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.
  • Line 739

Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782)

(This was Cowper's tribute to the actual man who's shipwrecked existence upon an island inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe.)

• I am monarch of all I survey,
  My right there is none to dispute;
  From the center all round to the sea
  I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

• O solitude! where are the charms
  That sages have seen in thy face?
  Better dwell in the midst of alarms
  Than reign in this horrible place.

• I am out of humanity's reach.
  I must finish my journey alone,
  Never hear the sweet music of speech;
  I start at the sound of my own.

• Society friendship and love
  Divinely bestow'd upon man,
  O had I the wings of a dove
  How soon I would taste you again!

• My friends, do they now and then send
  A wish or a thought after me?
  O tell me I yet have a friend,
  Though a friend I am never to see.

• There is mercy in every place,
  And mercy, encouraging thought!
  Gives even affliction a grace
  And reconciles man to his lot.

History of John Gilpin (1785)

• Though on pleasure she was bent,
  She had a frugal mind.
  • St. 8

• A hat not much the worse for wear.
  • St. 46

• Now let us sing — Long live the king,
  And Gilpin, long live he;
  And, when he next doth ride abroad,
  May I be there to see!
  • St. 63

The Task (1785)

• God made the country, and man made the town.
  • Book I, The Sofa, l. 749

• Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
  Some boundless contiguity of shade,
  Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
  Of unsuccessful or successful war,
  Might never reach me more.
  • Book II, The Timepiece, l. 1

• Mountains interposed
  Make enemies of nations, who had else
  Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
  • Book II, The Timepiece, l. 17

• Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
  Receive our air, that moment they are free!
  They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
  • Book II, The Timepiece, l. 40

• There is a pleasure in poetic pains
  Which only poets know.
  • Book II, The Task, l. 285

• Variety's the very spice of life,
  That gives it all its flavour.
  • Book II, The Timepiece, l. 606

• His head,
  Not yet by time completely silvered o'er,
  Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
  But strong for service still, and unimpaired.
  • Book II, The Timepiece, l. 702

• I was a stricken deer that left the herd
  Long since.
  • Book III, The Garden, l. 108

• Great contest follows, and much learned dust
  Involves the combatants.
  • Book III, The Garden, l. 161

• From reveries so airy, from the toil
  Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
  And growing old in drawing nothing up.
  • Book III, The Garden, l. 188

• Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
  • Book III, The Garden, l. 265

• Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
  • Book III, The Garden, l. 566

• Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
  Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
  And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
  Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
  That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
  So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
  • Book IV, The Winter Evening, l. 36

• 'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
  To peep at such a world; to see the stir
  Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
  • Book IV, The Winter Evening, l. 88

• O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!
  • Book IV, The Winter Evening, l. 120

• With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
  Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
  And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.
  • Book IV, The Winter Evening, l. 217

• Silently as a dream the fabric rose —
  No sound of hammer or of saw was there.
  • Book V, The Winter MOrning Walk, l. 144

• But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
  Kings would not play at.
  • Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, l. 187

• There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
  And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased
  With melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave:
  Some chord in unison with what we hear
  Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
  • Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, l. 1

• Here the heart
  May give a useful lesson to the head,
  And Learning wiser grow without his books.
  • Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, l. 85

• Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
  The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
  Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
  Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
  Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
  Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
  • Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, l. 92

• Nature is but a name for an effect,
  Whose cause is God.
  • Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, l. 223

Attributed

• A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.

• Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
  And frustrates hope severer than despair.

• Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

• Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste His works.
  Admitted once to his embrace,
  Thou shalt perceive that thou was blind before:
  Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart
  Made pure shall relish with divine delight
  Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.

• But many a crime deemed innocent on earth
  Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt
  Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.

• But oars alone can ne'er prevail
  To reach the distant coast;
  The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
  Or all the toil is lost.

• Candid and generous and just.
  Boys care but little whom they trust.
  An error soon corrected— for who but learns in riper years,
  That man, when smoothest he appears, is most to be suspected?

• Conversation, choose what theme we may,
  And chiefly when religion leads the way,
  Should flow, like waters after summer show'rs,
  Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.

• Detested sport,
  That owes its pleasures to another's pain.

• Dream after dream ensues;
  And still they dream that they shall still succeed;
  And still are disappointed.

• England with all thy faults, I love thee still—
  My country! and, while yet a nook is left
  Where English minds and manners may be found,
  Shall be constrained to love thee.

• Ever let the Fancy roam,
  Pleasure never is at home.

• Existence is a strange bargain.
  Life owes us little; we owe it everything.
  The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

• Fanaticism, the false fire of an overheated mind.

• Fate steals along with silent tread,
  Found oftenest in what least we dread;
  Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
  But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

• Give what thou canst, without Thee we are poor;
  And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.

• Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.

• Great contest follows, and much learned dust
  Involves the combatants; each claiming truth,
  And truth disclaiming both.

• I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
  Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain,
  And bear the marks upon a blushing face,
  Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.

• I would not enter in my list of friends,
  Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
  An inadvertent step may crush the snail
  That crawls at evening in the public path,
  But he has the humanity, forewarned,
  Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.

• It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme
  Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.

• Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.

• No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.

• No one was ever scolded out of their sins.

• No wild enthusiast could rest,
  Till half the world like him was possessed.

• Not a flower
  But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain,
  Of his unrivall'd pencil.

• O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?

• Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness.
  Where rumors of oppression and deceit,
  Of unsuccessful and successful wars
  May never reach me anymore.

• Reasoning at every step he treads,
  Man yet mistakes his way,
  Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads,
  Are rarely known to stray.

• Religion! what treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!

• Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.

• Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.

• Still ending, and beginning still.

• The dogs did bark, the children screamed,
  Up flew the windows all;
  And every soul bawled out,
  Well done! As loud as he could bawl.

• The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.

• The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

• The solemn fog; significant and budge;
  A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.

• The still small voice is wanted.

• Thus happiness depends, as nature shows,
  Less on exterior things than most suppose.

• Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.

• True Charity, a plant divinely nurs'd.

• Visitors are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not visit, would do nothing.

External links

• Works by William Cowper at Project Gutenberg
• Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper at CCEL
• The Task, and Other Poems at Project Gutenberg
• Selected Poems at The Poet's Corner
• Selected Poetry of Cowper at the University of Toronto
• Electronic text of Cowper's "Odyssey" translation at bibliomania.com.

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pt:William Cowper