William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

  To float a bubble on the breath of fame,

  Prompt his endeavour, and engage his aim,

  Debas’d to servile purposes of pride,

  How are the powers of genius misapplied?

  The gift whose office is the giver’s praise,

  To trace him in his word, his works, his ways,

  Then spread the rich discov’ry, and invite

  Mankind to share in the divine delight,

  Distorted from its use and just design,

  To make the pitiful possessor shine,

  To purchase at the fool-frequented fair

  Of vanity, a wreath for self to wear,

  Is profanation of the basest kind,

  Proof of a trifling and a worthless mind.

  A.

  Hail Sternhold then and Hopkins hail!

  B.

  Amen.

  If flatt’ry, folly, lust employ the pen,

  If acrimony, slander and abuse,

  Give it a charge to blacken and traduce;

  Though Butler’s wit, Pope’s numbers, Prior’s ease,

  With all that fancy can invent to please,

  Adorn the polish’d periods as they fall,

  One Madrigal of their’s is worth them all.

  A.

  ’Twould thin the ranks of the poetic tribe,

  To dash the pen through all that you proscribe.

  B.

  No matter — we could shift when they were not,

  And should no doubt if they were all forgot.

  THE PROGRESS OF ERROR.

  Si quid loquar audiendum.

  HOR. LIB. 4. OD. 2.

  SING muse (if such a theme, so dark, so long,

  May find a muse to grace it with a song)

  By what unseen and unsuspected arts

  The serpent error twines round human hearts,

  Tell where she lurks, beneath what flow’ry shades,

  That not a glimpse of genuin light pervades,

  The pois’nous, black, insinuating worm,

  Successfully conceals her loathsome form.

  Take, if ye can, ye careless and supine!

  Counsel and caution from a voice like mine;

  Truths that the theorist could never reach,

  And observation taught me, I would teach.

  Not all whose eloquence the fancy fills,

  Musical as the chime of tinkling rills,

  Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend,

  Can trace her mazy windings to their end,

  Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure,

  Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure.

  The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,

  Falls soporific on the listless ear,

  Like quicksilver, the rhet’ric they display,

  Shines as it runs, but grasp’d at slips away.

  Plac’d for his trial on this bustling stage,

  From thoughtless youth to ruminating age,

  Free in his will to chuse or to refuse,

  Man may improve the crisis, or abuse.

  Else, on the fatalists unrighteous plan,

  Say, to what bar amenable were man?

  With nought in charge, he could betray no trust,

  And if he fell, would fall because he must;

  If love reward him, or if vengeance strike,

  His recompence in both, unjust alike.

  Divine authority within his breast

  Brings every thought, word, action to the test,

  Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains,

  As reason, or as passion, takes the reins.

  Heav’n from above, and conscience from within,

  Cry in his startled ear, abstain from sin.

  The world around solicits his desire,

  And kindles in his soul a treach’rous fire,

  While all his purposes and steps to guard,

  Peace follows virtue as its sure reward,

  And pleasure brings as surely in her train,

  Remorse and sorrow and vindictive pain.

  Man thus endued with an elective voice,

  Must be supplied with objects of his choice.

  Where’er he turns, enjoyment and delight,

  Or present, or in prospect, meet his sight;

  These open on the spot their honey’d store,

  Those call him loudly to pursuit of more.

  His unexhausted mine, the sordid vice

  Avarice shows, and virtue is the price.

  Here, various motives his ambition raise,

  Pow’r, pomp, and splendor, and the thirst of praise;

  There beauty woes him with expanded arms,

  E’en Bacchanalian madness has its charms,

  Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refin’d,

  Might well alarm the most unguarded mind,

  Seek to supplant his unexperienced youth,

  Or lead him devious from the path of truth,

  Hourly allurements on his passions press,

  Safe in themselves, but dang’rous in th’ excess.

  Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air,

  O what a dying, dying close was there!

  ’Tis harmony from yon sequester’d bow’r,

  Sweet harmony that sooths the midnight hour;

  Long e’er the charioteer of day had run

  His morning course, th’ enchantment was begun,

  And he shall gild yon mountains height again,

  E’er yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain.

  Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent

  That virtue points to? Can a life thus spent

  Lead to the bliss she promises the wise,

  Detach the soul from earth, and speed her to the skies?

  Ye devotees to your ador’d employ,

  Enthusiasts, drunk with an unreal joy,

  Love makes the music of the blest above,

  Heav’ns harmony is universal love;

  And earthly sounds, though sweet and well combin’d,

  And lenient as soft opiates to the mind,

  Leave vice and folly unsubdu’d behind.

  Grey dawn appears, the sportsman and his train

  Dpeckle the bosom of the distant plain,

  ’Tis he, the Nimrod of the neighb’ring lairs,

  Save that his scent is less acute than their’s,

  For persevering chace, and headlong leaps,

  True beagle as the staunchest hound he keeps.

  Charg’d with the folly of his life’s mad scene,

  He takes offence, and wonders what you mean;

  The joy, the danger and the toil o’erpays,

  ’Tis exercise, and health and length of days,

  Again impetuous to the field he flies,

  Leaps ev’ry fence but one, there falls and dies;

  Like a slain deer, the tumbril brings him home,

  Unmiss’d but by his dogs and by his groom.

  Ye clergy, while your orbit is your place,

  Lights of the world, and stars of human race —

  But if eccentric yc forsake your sphere,

  Prodigious, ominous, and view’d with fear.

  The comets baneful influence is a dream,

  Your’s real, and pernicious in th’ extreme.

  What then — are appetites and lusts laid down,

  With the same ease the man puts on his gown?

  Will av’rice and concupiscence give place,

  Charm’d by the sounds, your rev’rence, or your grace?

  No. But his own engagement binds him fast,

  Or if it does not, brands him to the last

  What atheists call him, a designing knave,

  A mere church juggler, hypocrite and slave.

  Oh laugh, or mourn with me, the rueful jest,

  A cassock’d huntsman, and a fiddling priest;

  He from Italian songsters takes his cue,

  Set Paul to music, he shall quote him too.

  He takes the field, the m
aster of the pack

  Cries, well done Saint — and claps him on the back.

  Is this the path of sanctity? Is this

  To stand a way-mark in the road to bliss?

  Himself a wand’rer from the narrow way,

  His silly sheep, what wonder if they stray?

  Go, cast your orders at your Bishop’s feet,

  Send your dishonour’d gown to Monmouth Street,

  The sacred function, in your hands is made,

  Sad sacrilege! No function but a trade.

  Occiduus is a pastor of renown,

  When he has pray’d and preach’d the sabbath down,

  With wire and catgut he concludes the day,

  Quav’ring and semiquav’ring care away.

  The full concerto swells upon your ear;

  All elbows shake. Look in, and you would swear

  The Babylonian tyrant with a nod

  Had summon’d them to serve his golden God.

  So well that thought th’ employment seems to suit,

  salt’ry and sackbut, dulcimer, and flute,

  Oh fie! ’Tis evangelical and pure,

  Observe each face, how sober and demure,

  Extasy sets her stamp on ev’ry mien,

  Chins fall’n, and not an eye-ball to be seen.

  Still I insist, though music heretofore

  Has charm’d me much, not ev’n Occiduus more,

  Love, joy and peace make harmony, more meet

  For sabbath evenings, and perhaps as sweet.

  Will not the sickliest sheep of ev’ry flock,

  Resort to this example as a rock,

  There stand and justify the foul abuse

  Of sabbath hours, with plausible excuse?

  If apostolic gravity be free

  To play the fool on Sundays, why not we?

  If he, the tinkling harpsichord regards

  As inoffensive, what offence in cards?

  Strike up the fiddles, let us all be gay,

  Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play.

  Oh Italy! Thy sabbaths will be soon

  Our sabbaths, clos’d with mumm’ry and buffoon.

  Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene,

  Our’s parcell’d out, as thine have ever been,

  God’s worship and the mountebank between.

  What says the prophet? Let that day be blest

  With holiness and consecrated rest.

  Pastime and bus’ness both it should exclude,

  And bar the door the moment they intrude,

  Nobly distinguish’d above all the six,

  By deeds in which the world must never mix.

  Hear him again. He calls it a delight,

  A day of luxury, observ’d aright,

  When the glad soul is made heav’ns welcome guest,

  Sits banquetting, and God provides the feast.

  But triflers are engag’d and cannot come;

  Their answer to the call is — Not at home.

  Oh the dear pleasures of the velvet plain,

  The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again.

  Cards with what rapture, and the polish’d die,

  The yawning chasm of indolence supply!

  Then to the dance, and make the sober moon

  Witness of joys that shun the sight of noon.

  Blame cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball,

  The snug close party, or the splendid hall,

  Where night down-stooping from her ebon throne,

  Views constellations brighter than her own.

  ’Tis innocent, and harmless and refin’d,

  The balm of care, elysium of the mind.

  Innocent! Oh if venerable time

  Slain at the foot of pleasure, be no crime,

  Then with his silver beard and magic wand,

  Let Comus rise Archbishop of the land,

  Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe,

  Grand metropolitan of all the tribe.

  Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast,

  The rank debauch suits Clodio’s filthy taste.

  Rufillus, exquisitely form’d by rule,

  Not of the moral, but the dancing school,

  Wonders at Clodio’s follies, in a tone

  As tragical, as others at his own.

  He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,

  Then kill a constable, and drink five more;

  But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,

  And has the ladies etiquette by heart.

  Go fool, and arm in arm with Clodio, plead

  Your cause, before a bar you little dread;

  But know, the law that bids the drunkard die,

  Is far too just to pass the trifler by.

  Both baby featur’d and of infant size,

  View’d from a distance, and with heedless eyes,

  Folly and innocence are so alike,

  The diff’rence, though essential, fails to strike.

  Yet folly ever has a vacant stare,

  A simp’ring count’nance, and a trifling air;

  But innocence, sedate, serene, erect,

  Delights us, by engaging our respect.

  Man, nature’s guest by invitation sweet,

  Receives from her, both appetite and treat,

  But if he play the glutton and exceed,

  His benefactress blushes at the deed.

  For nature, nice, as lib’ral to dispense,

  Made nothing but a brute the slave of sense.

  Daniel ate pulse by choice, example rare!

  Heav’n bless’d the youth, and made him fresh and fair.

  Gorgonius sits abdominous and wan,

  Like a fatsquab upon a Chinese fan.

  He snuffs far off th’ anticipated joy,

  Turtle and ven’son all his thoughts employ,

  Prepares for meals, as jockeys take a sweat,

  Oh nauseous! an emetic for a whet —

  Will providence o’erlook the wasted good?

  Temperance were no virtue if he cou’d.

  That pleasures, therefore, or what such we call,

  Are hurtful, is a truth confess’d by all.

  And some that seem to threaten virtue less,

  Still hurtful, in th’ abuse, or by th’ excess.

  Is man then only for his torment plac’d,

  The center of delights he may not taste?

  Like fabled Tantalus condemn’d to hear

  The precious stream still purling in his ear,

  Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curst

  With prohibition and perpetual thirst?

  No, wrangler — destitute of shame and sense,

  The precept that injoins him abstinence,

  Forbids him none but the licentious joy,

  Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy.

  Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid

  In every bosom where her nest is made,

  Hatch’d by the beams of truth denies him rest,

  And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.

  No pleasure? Are domestic comforts dead?

  Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled?

  Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame

  Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame?

  All these belong to virtue, and all prove

  That virtue has a title to your love.

  Have you no touch of pity, that the poor

  Stand starved at your inhospitable door?

  Or if yourself too scantily supplied

  Need help, let honest industry provide.

  Earn, if you want, if you abound, impart,

  These both are pleasures to the feeling heart.

  No pleasure? Has some sickly eastern waste

  Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast?

  Can British paradise no scenes afford

  To please her sated and indiff’rent lord?

  Are sweet philosophy’s enjoyments run

&nb
sp; Quite to the lees? And has religion none?

  Brutes capable, should tell you ’tis a lye,

  And judge you from the kennel and the sty.

  Delights like these, ye sensual and profane,

  Ye are bid, begg’d, besought to entertain;

  Call’d to these crystal streams, do ye turn off

  Obscene, to swill and swallow at a trough?

  Envy the beast then, on whom heav’n bestows

  Your pleasures, with no curses in the close.

  Pleasure admitted in undue degree,

  Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.

  ’Tis not alone the grapes enticing juice,

  Unnerves the moral pow’rs, and marrs their use,

  Ambition, av’rice, and the lust of fame,

  And woman, lovely woman, does the same.

  The heart, surrender’d to the ruling pow’r

  Of some ungovern’d passion ev’ry hour,

  Finds by degrees, the truths that once bore sway,

  And all their deep impression wear away.

  So coin grows smooth, in traffic current pass’d,

  ‘Till Caesar’s image is effac’d at last.

  The breach, though small at first, soon op’ning wide,

  In rushes folly with a full moon tide.

  Then welcome errors of whatever size,

  To justify it by a thousand lies.

  As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,

  And hides the ruin that it feeds upon,

  So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects

  Sin’s rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

  Mortals whose pleasures are their only care,

  First wish to be impos’d on, and then are.

  And lest the fulsome artifice should fail,

  Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.

  Not more industrious are the just and true

  To give to virtue what is virtue’s due,

  The praise of wisdom, comeliness and worth,

  And call her charms to public notice forth,

  Than vice’s mean and disingenuous race,

  To hide the shocking features of her face.

  Her form with dress and lotion they repair,

  Then kiss their idol and pronounce her fair.

  The sacred implement I now employ

  Might prove a mischief or at best a toy,

  A trifle if it move but to amuse,

  But if to wrong the judgment and abuse,

  Worse than a poignard in the basest hand,

  It stabs at once the morals of a land.

  Ye writers of what none with safety reads,

  Footing it in the dance that fancy leads,

  Ye novellists who marr what ye would mend,

  Sniv’ling and driv’ling folly without end,

  Whose corresponding misses fill the ream