William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

  Such when the teacher of his church was there,

  People and priest, the sons of Israel were,

  Stiff in the letter, lax in the design

  And import of their oracles divine,

  Their learning legendary, false, absurd,

  And yet exalted above God’s own word,

  They drew a curse from an intended good,

  Puff’d up with gifts they never understood.

  He judg’d them with as terrible a frown,

  As if, not love, but wrath had brought him down,

  Yet he was gentle as soft summer airs,

  Had grace for other sins, but none for theirs.

  Through all he spoke a noble plainness ran,

  Rhet’ric is artifice, the work of man,

  And tricks and turns that fancy may devise,

  Are far too mean for him that rules the skies.

  Th’ astonish’d vulgar trembl’d while he tore

  The mask from faces never seen before;

  He stripp’d th’ impostors in the noon-day sun,

  Show’d that they follow’d all they seem’d to shun,

  Their pray’rs made public, their excesses kept

  As private as the chambers where they slept.

  The temple and its holy rites profan’d

  By mumm’ries he that dwelt in it disdain’d,

  Uplifted hands that at convenient times

  Could act extortion and the worst of crimes,

  Wash’d with a neatness scrupulously nice,

  And free from ev’ry taint but that of vice.

  Judgment, however tardy, mends her pace

  When obstinacy once has conquer’d grace.

  They saw distemper heal’d, and life restor’d

  In answer to the fiat of his word,

  Confess’d the wonder, and with daring tongue,

  Blasphem’d th’ authority from which it sprung.

  They knew by sure prognostics seen on high,

  The future tone and temper of the sky,

  But grave dissemblers, could not understand

  That sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.

  Ask now of history’s authentic page,

  And call up evidence from ev’ry age,

  Display with busy and laborious hand

  The blessings of the most indebted land,

  What nation will you find, whose annals prove

  So rich an int’rest in almighty love?

  Where dwell they now, where dwelt in antient day

  A people planted, water’d, blest as they?

  Let Egypt’s plagues, and Canaan’s woes proclaim

  The favours pour’d upon the Jewish name;

  Their freedom purchas’d for them, at the cost

  Of all their hard oppressors valued most,

  Their title to a country not their own,

  Made sure by prodigies ‘till then unknown,

  For them, the state they left made waste and void,

  For them, the states to which they went, destroy’d;

  A cloud to measure out their march by day,

  By night a fire to cheer the gloomy way,

  That moving signal summoning, when best

  Their host to move, and when it stay’d, to rest.

  For them the rocks dissolv’d into a flood,

  The dews condens’d into angelic food,

  Their very garments sacred, old yet new,

  And time forbid to touch them as he flew,

  Streams swell’d above the bank, enjoin’d to stand,

  While they pass’d through to their appointed land,

  Their leader arm’d with meekness, zeal and love,

  And grac’d with clear credentials from above,

  Themselves secur’d beneath th’ Almighty wing,

  Their God their captain*, lawgiver, and king.

  Crown’d with a thousand vict’ries, and at last

  Lords of the conquer’d soil, there rooted fast,

  In peace possessing what they won by war,

  Their name far publish’d and rever’d as far;

  Where will you find a race like theirs, endow’d

  With all that man e’er wish’d, or Heav’n bestow’d?

  They and they only amongst all mankind

  Receiv’d the transcript of th’ eternal mind,

  Were trusted with his own engraven laws,

  And constituted guardians of his cause,

  Theirs were the prophets, theirs the priestly call,

  And theirs by birth the Saviour of us all.

  In vain the nations that had seen them rise,

  With fierce and envious yet admiring eyes,

  Had sought to crush them, guarded as they were

  By power divine, and skill that could not err,

  Had they maintain’d allegiance firm and sure,

  And kept the faith immaculate and pure,

  Then the proud eagles of all-conqu’ring Rome

  Had found one city not to be o’ercome,

  And the twelve standards of the tribes unfurl’d:

  Had bid defiance to the warring world.

  But grace abus’d brings forth the foulest deeds,

  As richest soil the most luxuriant weeds;

  Cur’d of the golden calves their fathers sin,

  They set up self, that idol god within,

  View’d a Deliv’rer with disdain and hate,

  Who left them still a tributary state,

  Seiz’d fast his hand, held out to set them free

  From a worse yoke, and nail’d it to the tree;

  There was the consummation and the crown,

  The flow’r of Israel’s infamy full blown;

  Thence date their sad declension and their fall,

  Their woes not yet repeal’d, thence date them all.

  Thus fell the best instructed in her day,

  And the most favor’d land, look where we may.

  Philosophy indeed on Grecian eyes

  Had pour’d the day, and clear’d the Roman skies;

  In other climes perhaps creative art,

  With pow’r surpassing theirs perform’d her part,

  Might give more life to marble, or might fill

  The glowing tablets with a juster skill,

  Might shine in fable, and grace idle themes

  With all th’ embroid’ry of poetic dreams;

  ’Twas theirs alone to dive into the plan

  That truth and mercy had reveal’d to man,

  And while the world beside, that plan unknown,

  Deified useless wood or senseless stone,

  They breath’d in faith their well-directed pray’rs,

  And the true God, the God of truth was theirs.

  Their glory faded, and their race dispers’d,

  The last of nations now, though once the first;

  They warn and teach the proudest, would they learn,

  Keep wisdom or meet vengeance in your turn:

  If we escap’d not, if Heav’n spar’d not us,

  Peel’d, scatter’d, and exterminated thus;

  If vice receiv’d her retribution due

  When we were visited, what hope for you?

  When God arises with an awful frown,

  To punish lust, or pluck presumption down;

  When gifts perverted or not duly priz’d,

  Pleasure o’ervalued and his grace despis’d,

  Provoke the vengeance of his righteous hand

  To pour down wrath upon a thankless land,

  He will be found impartially severe,

  Too just to wink, or speak the guilty clear.

  Oh Israel, of all nations most undone!

  Thy diadem displac’d, thy sceptre gone;

  Thy temple, once thy glory, fall’n and ras’d,

  And thou a worshipper e’en where thou mayst;

  Thy services once holy without spot,

  Mere shadows now, their antient pomp forgot;

  Thy Levites once a consec
rated host,

  No longer Levites, and their lineage lost,

  And thou thyself o’er ev’ry country sown,

  With none on earth that thou canst call thine own;

  Cry aloud thou that sittest in the dust,

  Cry to the proud, the cruel and unjust,

  Knock at the gates of nations, rouse their fears,

  Say wrath is coming and the storm appears,

  But raise the shrillest cry in British ears.

  What ails thee, restless as the waves that roar,

  And fling their foam against thy chalky shore?

  Mistress, at least while Providence shall please,

  And trident-bearing queen of the wide seas —

  Why, having kept good faith, and often shown

  Friendship and truth to others, findst thou none?

  Thou that hast set the persecuted free,

  None interposes now to succour thee;

  Countries indebted to thy pow’r, that shine

  With light deriv’d from thee, would smother thine;

  Thy very children watch for thy disgrace,

  A lawless brood, and curse thee to thy face:

  Thy rulers load thy credit year by year

  With sums Peruvian mines could never clear,

  As if like arches built with skilful hand,

  The more ‘twere press’d the firmer it would stand.

  The cry in all thy ships is still the same,

  Speed us away to battle and to fame,

  Thy mariners explore the wild expanse,

  Impatient to descry the flags of France,

  But though they fight as thine have ever fought,

  Return asham’d without the wreaths they sought:

  Thy senate is a scene of civil jar,

  Chaos of contrarieties at war,

  Where sharp and solid, phlegmatic and light,

  Discordant atoms meet, ferment and fight,

  Where obstinacy takes his sturdy stand,

  To disconcert what policy has plann’d,

  Where policy is busied all night long

  In setting right what faction has set wrong,

  Where flails of oratory thresh the floor,

  That yields them chaff and dust, and nothing more.

  Thy rack’d inhabitants repine, complain,

  Tax’d ‘till the brow of labour sweats in vain,

  War lays a burthen on the reeling state,

  And peace does nothing to relieve the weight,

  Successive loads succeeding broils impose,

  And sighing millions prophecy the close.

  Is adverse providence when ponder’d well,

  So dimly writ or difficult to spell,

  Thou canst not read with readiness and ease,

  Providence adverse in events like these?

  Know then, that heav’nly wisdom on this ball

  Creates, gives birth to, guides, consummates all:

  That while laborious and quick-thoughted man

  Snuffs up the praise of what he seems to plan;

  He first conceives, then perfects his design,

  As a mere instrument in hands divine:

  Blind to the working of that secret pow’r

  That balances the wings of ev’ry hour,

  The busy trifler dreams himself alone,

  Frames many a purpose, and God works his own.

  States thrive or wither as moons wax and wane,

  Ev’n as his will and his decrees ordain;

  While honour, virtue, piety bear sway,

  They flourish, and as these decline, decay.

  In just resentment of his injur’d laws,

  He pours contempt on them and on their cause,

  Strikes the rough thread of error right athwart

  The web of ev’ry scheme they have at heart,

  Bids rottenness invade and bring to dust

  The pillars of support in which they trust,

  And do his errand of disgrace and shame

  On the chief strength and glory of the frame.

  None ever yet impeded what he wrought,

  None bars him out from his most secret thought;

  Darkness itself before his eye is light,

  And Hell’s close mischief naked in his sight.

  Stand now and judge thyself — hast thou incurr’d

  His anger who can waste thee with a word,

  Who poises and proportions sea and land,

  Weighing them in the hollow of his hand,

  And in whose awful sight all nations seem

  As grasshoppers, as dust, a drop, a dream?

  Hast thou (a sacrilege his soul abhors)

  Claim’d all the glory of thy prosp’rous wars,

  Proud of thy fleets and armies, stol’n the gem

  Of his just praise to lavish it on them?

  Hast thou not learn’d what thou art often told,

  A truth still sacred, and believ’d of old,

  That no success attends on spears and swords

  Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord’s?

  That courage is his creature, and dismay

  The post that at his bidding speeds away,

  Ghastly in feature, and his stamm’ring tongue

  With doleful rumor and sad presage hung,

  To quell the valor of the stoutest heart,

  And teach the combatant a woman’s part?

  That he bids thousands fly when none pursue,

  Saves as he will by many or by few,

  And claims for ever as his royal right

  Th’ event and sure decision of the fight.

  Hast thou, though suckl’d at fair freedom’s breast,

  Exported slav’ry to the conquer’d East,

  Pull’d down the tyrants India serv’d with dread,

  And rais’d thyself, a greater, in their stead,

  Gone thither arm’d and hungry, returned full,

  Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul,

  A despot big with pow’r obtain’d by wealth,

  And that obtain’d by rapine and by stealth?

  With Asiatic vices stor’d thy mind,

  But left their virtues and thine own behind,

  And having truck’d thy soul, brought home the fee,

  To tempt the poor to sell himself to thee?

  Hast thou by statute shov’d from its design

  The Savior’s feast, his own blest bread and wine,

  And made the symbols of atoning grace

  An office-key, a pick-lock to a place,

  That infidels may prove their title good

  By an oath dipp’d in sacramental blood?

  A blot that will be still a blot, in spite

  Of all that grave apologists may write,

  And though a Bishop toil to cleanse the stain,

  He wipes and scours the silver cup in vain.

  And hast thou sworn on ev’ry slight pretence,

  ‘Till perjuries are common as bad pence,

  While thousands, careless of the damning sin,

  Kiss the book’s outside who ne’er look within?

  Hast thou, when heav’n has cloath’d thee with disgrace,

  And long provok’d, repaid thee to thy face,

  (For thou hast known eclipses, and endur’d

  Dimness and anguish all thy beams obscur’d,

  When sin has shed dishonour on thy brow,

  And never of a sabler hue than now)

  Hast thou with heart perverse and conscience sear’d,

  Despising all rebuke, still persever’d,

  And having chosen evil, scorn’d the voice

  That cried repent — and gloried in thy choice?

  Thy fastings, when calamity at last

  Suggests th’ expedient of an yearly fast,

  What mean they? Canst thou dream there is a pow’r

  In lighter diet at a later hour,

  To charm to sleep the threat’nings of the skies,

  And hide past folly from all-seeing ey
es?

  The fast that wins deliv’rance, and suspends

  The stroke that a vindictive God intends,

  Is to renounce hypocrisy, to draw

  Thy life upon the pattern of the law,

  To war with pleasures idolized before,

  To vanquish lust, and wear its yoke no more.

  All fasting else, whate’er be the pretence,

  Is wooing mercy by renew’d offence.

  Hast thou within thee sin that in old time

  Brought fire from heav’n, the sex-abusing crime,

  Whose horrid perpetration stamps disgrace

  Baboons are free from, upon human race?

  Think on the fruitful and well-water’d spot

  That fed the flocks and herds of wealthy Lot,

  Where Paradise seem’d still vouchsaf’d on earth,

  Burning and scorch’d into perpetual dearth,

  Or in his words who damn’d the base desire,

  Suff’ring the vengeance of eternal fire:

  Then nature injur’d, scandaliz’d, defil’d,

  Unveil’d her blushing cheek, look’d on and smil’d,

  Beheld with joy the lovely scene defac’d,

  And prais’d the wrath that lay’d her beauties waste.

  Far be the thought from any verse of mine,

  And farther still the form’d and fixt design,

  To thrust the charge of deeds that I detest,

  Against an innocent unconscious breast:

  The man that dares traduce because he can

  With safety to himself, is not a man:

  An individual is a sacred mark,

  Not to be pierc’d in play or in the dark,

  But public censure speaks a public foe,

  Unless a zeal for virtue guide the blow.

  The priestly brotherhood, devout, sincere,

  From mean self-int’rest and ambition clear,

  Their hope in Heav’n, servility their scorn,

  Prompt to persuade, expostulate and warn,

  Their wisdom pure, and giv’n them from above,

  Their usefulness insur’d by zeal and love,

  As meek as the man Moses, and withal

  As bold as in Agrippa’s presence, Paul,

  Should fly the world’s contaminating touch

  Holy and unpolluted — are thine such?

  Except a few with Eli’s spirit blest,

  Hophni and Phineas may describe the rest.

  Where shall a teacher look in days like these,

  For ears and hearts that he can hope to please?

  Look to the poor — the simple and the plain

  Will hear perhaps thy salutary strain;

  Humility is gentle, apt to learn,

  Speak but the word, will listen and return:

  Alas, not so! the poorest of the flock

  Are proud, and set their faces as a rock,

  Denied that earthly opulence they chuse,