William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works
Page 15
The fear of being silent makes us mute.
We sometimes think we could a speech produce
Much to the purpose, if our tongues were loose,
But being tied, it dies upon the lip,
Faint as a chicken’s note that has the pip:
Our wasted oil unprofitably burns
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.
Few Frenchmen of this evil have complained,
It seems as if we Britons were ordained
By way of wholesome curb upon our pride,
To fear each other, fearing none beside.
The cause perhaps enquiry may descry,
Self-searching with an introverted eye,
Concealed within an unsuspected part,
The vainest corner of our own vain heart:
For ever aiming at the world’s esteem,
Our self-importance ruins its own scheme,
In other eyes our talents rarely shown,
Become at length so splendid in our own,
We dare not risque them into public view,
Lest they miscarry of what seems their due.
True modesty is a discerning grace,
And only blushes in the proper place,
But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear,
Where ’tis a shame to be ashamed t’ appear;
Humility the parent of the first,
The last by vanity produced and nurst.
The circle formed we sit in silent state,
Like figures drawn upon a dial-plate,
Yes ma’am, and no ma’am, utter’d softly, show
Ev’ry five minutes how the minutes go;
Each individual suffering a constraint
Poetry may, but colours cannot paint,
As if in close committee on the sky,
Reports it hot or cold, or wet or dry;
And finds a changing clime, an happy source
Of wise reflection and well-timed discourse.
We next enquire, but softly and by stealth,
Like conservators of the public health,
Of epidemic throats if such there are,
And coughs and rheums and phtisic and catarrh.
That theme exhausted, a wide chasm ensues,
Filled up at last with interesting news,
Who danced with whom, and who are like to wed,
And who is hanged, and who is brought to bed,
But fear to call a more important cause,
As if ‘twere treason against English laws.
The visit paid, with extasy we come
As from a seven years transportation, home,
And there resume an unembarrass’d brow,
Recov’ring what we lost we know not how,
The faculties that seem’d reduc’d to nought,
Expression and the privilege of thought.
The reeking roaring hero of the chase,
I give him over as a desp’rate case.
Physicians write in hopes to work a cure,
Never, if honest ones, when death is sure;
And though the fox he follows may be tamed,
A mere fox-follower never is reclaimed.
Some farrier should prescribe his proper course,
Whose only fit companion is his horse,
Or if deserving of a better doom
The noble beast judge otherwise, his groom.
Yet ev’n the rogue that serves him, though he stand
To take his honour’s orders cap in hand,
Prefers his fellow-grooms with much good sense,
Their skill a truth, his master’s a pretence.
If neither horse nor groom affect the squire,
Where can at last his jockeyship retire?
Oh to the club, the scene of savage joys,
The school of coarse good fellowship and noise;
There in the sweet society of those
Whose friendship from his boyish years he chose,
Let him improve his talent if he can,
‘Till none but beasts acknowledge him a man.
Man’s heart had been impenetrably sealed,
Like theirs that cleave the flood or graze the field,
Had not his Maker’s all-bestowing hand
Giv’n him a soul and bade him understand.
The reas’oning pow’r vouchsafed of course inferred
The pow’r to cloath that reason with his word,
For all is perfect that God works on earth,
And he that gives conception, adds the birth.
If this be plain, ’tis plainly understood
What uses of his boon the Giver would.
The mind dispatched upon her busy toil
Should range where Providence has blest the soil,
Visiting ev’ry flow’r with labour meet,
And gathering all her treasures sweet by sweet,
She should imbue the tongue with what she sips,
And shed the balmy blessing on the lips,
That good diffused may more abundant grow,
And speech may praise the pow’r that bids it flow.
Will the sweet warbler of the live-long night
That fills the list’ning lover with delight,
Forget his harmony with rapture heard,
To learn the twitt’ring of a meaner bird,
Or make the parrot’s mimickry his choice,
That odious libel on an human voice?
No — nature unsophisticate by man,
Starts not aside from her Creator’s plan,
The melody that was at first design’d
To cheer the rude forefathers of mankind,
Is note for note deliver’d in our ears,
In the last scene of her six thousand years:
Yet Fashion, leader of a chatt’ring train,
Whom man for his own hurt permits to reign,
Who shifts and changes all things but his shape,
And would degrade her vot’ry to an ape,
The fruitful parent of abuse and wrong,
Holds an usurp’d dominion o’er his tongue:
There sits and prompts him with his own disgrace,
Prescribes the theme, the tone and the grimace,
And when accomplished in her wayward school,
Calls gentleman whom she has made a fool.
’Tis an unalterable fixt decree
That none could frame or ratify but she,
That heav’n and hell and righteousness and sin,
Snares in his path and foes that lurk within,
God and his attributes (a field of day
Where ’tis an angel’s happiness to stray)
Fruits of his love and wonders of his might,
Be never named in ears esteemed polite.
That he who dares, when she forbids, be grave,
Shall stand proscribed, a madman or a knave,
A close designer not to be believed,
Or if excus’d that charge, at least deceived.
Oh folly worthy of the nurse’s lap,
Give it the breast or stop its mouth with pap!
Is it incredible, or can it seem
A dream to any except those that dream,
That man should love his Maker, and that fire
Warming his heart should at his lips transpire?
Know then, and modestly let fall your eyes,
And vail your daring crest that braves the skies,
That air of insolence affronts your God,
You need his pardon, and provoke his rod,
Now, in a posture that becomes you more
Than that heroic strut assumed before,
Know, your arrears with ev’ry hour accrue,
For mercy shown while wrath is justly due.
The time is short, and there are souls on earth,
Though future pain may serve for present mirth,
Acquainted with the woes that fear or shame
By fashion taught, forbade them once
to name,
And having felt the pangs you deem a jest,
Have prov’d them truths too big to be express’d:
Go seek on revelation’s hallow’d ground,
Sure to succeed, the remedy they found,
Touch’d by that pow’r that you have dared to mock,
That makes seas stable and dissolves the rock,
Your heart shall yield a life-renewing stream,
That fools, as you have done, shall call a dream.
It happened on a solemn even-tide,
Soon after He that was our surety died,
Two bosom-friends each pensively inclined,
The scene of all those sorrows left behind,
Sought their own village, busied as they went
In musings worthy of the great event:
They spake of him they loved, of him whose life
Though blameless, had incurred perpetual strife,
Whose deeds had left, in spite of hostile arts,
A deep memorial graven on their hearts;
The recollection like a vein of ore,
The farther traced enrich’d them still the more,
They thought him, and they justly thought him one
Sent to do more than he appear’d to have done,
T’ exalt a people, and to place them high
Above all else, and wonder’d he should die.
E’re yet they brought their journey to an end,
A stranger joined them, courteous as a friend,
And asked them with a kind engaging air,
What their affliction was, and begged a share.
Informed, he gather’d up the broken thread,
And truth and wisdom gracing all he said,
Explained, illustrated and searched so well
The tender theme on which they chose to dwell,
That reaching home, the night, they said, is near,
We must not now be parted, sojourn here —
The new acquaintance soon became a guest,
And made so welcome at their simple feast,
He blessed the bread, but vanish’d at the word,
And left them both exclaiming, ’twas the Lord!
Did not our hearts feel all he deigned to say,
Did they not burn within us by the way?
Now theirs was converse such as it behoves
Man to maintain, and such as God approves;
Their views indeed were indistinct and dim,
But yet successful being aimed at him.
Christ and his character their only scope,
Their object and their subject and their hope,
They felt what it became them much to feel,
And wanting him to loose the sacred seal,
Found him as prompt as their desire was true,
To spread the new-born glories in their view.
Well — what are ages and the lapse of time
Matched against truths as lasting as sublime?
Can length of years on God himself exact,
Or make that fiction which was once a fact?
No — marble and recording brass decay,
And like the graver’s mem’ry pass away;
The works of man inherit, as is just,
Their authors frailty and return to dust;
But truth divine for ever stands secure,
Its head as guarded as its base is sure,
Fixt in the rolling flood of endless years
The pillar of th’ eternal plan appears,
The raving storm and dashing wave defies,
Built by that architect who built the skies.
Hearts may be found that harbour at this hour,
That love of Christ in all its quick’ning pow’r,
And lips unstained by folly or by strife,
Whose wisdom drawn from the deep well of life,
Tastes of its healthful origin, and flows
A Jordan for th’ ablution of our woes.
Oh days of heav’n and nights of equal praise,
Serene and peaceful as those heav’nly days,
When souls drawn upward in communion sweet,
Enjoy the stillness of some close retreat,
Discourse as if released and safe at home,
Of dangers past and wonders yet to come,
And spread the sacred treasures of the breast
Upon the lap of covenanted rest.
What always dreaming over heav’nly things,
Like angel-heads in stone with pigeon-wings?
Canting and whining out all day the word
And half the night? fanatic and absurd!
Mine be the friend less frequent in his pray’rs,
Who makes no bustle with his soul’s affairs,
Whose wit can brighten up a wintry day,
And chase the splenetic dull hours away,
Content on earth in earthly things to shine,
Who waits for heav’n e’er he becomes divine,
Leaves saints t’ enjoy those altitudes they teach,
And plucks the fruit plac’d more within his reach.
Well spoken, Advocate of sin and shame,
Known by thy bleating, Ignorance thy name.
Is sparkling wit the world’s exclusive right,
The fixt fee-simple of the vain and light?
Can hopes of heav’n, bright prospects of an hour
That come to waft us out of sorrow’s pow’r,
Obscure or quench a faculty that finds
Its happiest soil in the serenest minds?
Religion curbs indeed its wanton play,
And brings the trifler under rig’rous sway,
But gives it usefulness unknown before,
And purifying makes it shine the more.
A Christian’s wit is inoffensive light,
A beam that aids but never grieves the sight,
Vig’rous in age as in the flush of youth,
’Tis always active on the side of truth,
Temp’rance and peace insure its healthful state,
And make it brightest at its latest date.
Oh I have seen (nor hope perhaps in vain
E’er life go down to see such sights again)
A vet’ran warrior in the Christian field,
Who never saw the sword he could not wield;
Grave without dullness, learned without pride,
Exact yet not precise, though meek, keen-eyed,
A man that would have foiled at their own play,
A dozen would-be’s of the modern day:
Who when occasion justified its use,
Had wit as bright as ready, to produce,
Could fetch from records of an earlier age,
Or from philosophy’s enlighten’d page
His rich materials, and regale your ear
With strains it was a privilege to hear;
Yet above all his luxury supreme,
And his chief glory was the gospel theme;
There he was copious as old Greece or Rome,
His happy eloquence seem’d there at home,
Ambitious, not to shine or to excel,
But to treat justly what he lov’d so well.
It moves me more perhaps than folly ought,
When some green heads as void of wit as thought,
Suppose themselves monopolists of sense,
And wiser men’s ability pretence.
Though time will wear us, and we must grow old,
Such men are not forgot as soon as cold,
Their fragrant mem’ry will out last their tomb,
Embalmed for ever in its own perfume:
And to say truth, though in its early prime,
And when unstained with any grosser crime,
Youth has a sprightliness and fire to boast,
That in the valley of decline are lost,
And virtue with peculiar charms appears
Crown’d with the garland of life’s blooming years;
Yet age by
long experience well informed,
Well read, well temper’d, with religion warmed,
That fire abated which impells rash youth,
Proud of his speed to overshoot the truth,
As time improves the grape’s authentic juice,
Mellows and makes the speech more fit for use,
And claims a rev’rence in its short’ning day,
That ’tis an honour and a joy to pay.
The fruits of age, less fair, are yet more sound,
Than those a brighter season pours around,
And like the stores autumnal suns mature,
Through wintry rigours unimpaired endure.
What is fanatic frenzy, scorned so much,
And dreaded more than a contagious touch?
I grant it dang’rous, and approve your fear,
That fire is catching if you draw too near,
But sage observers oft mistake the flame,
And give true piety that odious name.
To tremble (as the creature of an hour
Ought at the view of an almighty pow’r)
Before his presence, at whose awful throne
All tremble in all worlds, except our own,
To supplicate his mercy, love his ways,
And prize them above pleasure, wealth or praise,
Though common sense allowed a casting voice,
And free from bias, must approve the choice,
Convicts a man fanatic in th’ extreme,
And wild as madness in the world’s esteem.
But that disease when soberly defin’d
Is the false fire of an o’erheated mind,
It views the truth with a distorted eye,
And either warps or lays it useless by,
’Tis narrow, selfish, arrogant, and draws
Its sordid nourishment from man’s applause,
And while at heart sin unrelinqush’d lies,
Presumes itself chief fav’rite of the skies.
’Tis such a light as putrefaction breeds
In fly-blown flesh, whereon the maggot feeds,
Shines in the dark, but usher’d into day,
The stench remains, the lustre dies away.
True bliss, if man may reach it, is composed
Of hearts in union mutually disclosed:
And, farewell else all hope of pure delight,
Those hearts should be reclaim’d, renew’d, upright.
Bad men, profaning friendship’s hallow’d name,
Form, in its stead, a covenant of shame,
A dark confed’racy against the laws
Of virtue, and religion’s glorious cause.
They build each other up with dreadful skill,
As bastions set point-blank against God’s will,
Enlarge and fortify the dread redoubt,
Deeply resolv’d to shut a Saviour out,
Call legions up from hell to back the deed,
And curst with conquest, finally succeed: