William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

  And in a world where (other ills apart)

  The roving eye misleads the careless heart,

  To limit thought, by nature prone to stray

  Wherever freakish fancy points the way,

  To bid the pleadings of self-love be still,

  Resign our own and seek our maker’s will,

  To spread the page of scripture, and compare

  Our conduct with the laws engraven there,

  To measure all that passes in the breast,

  Faithfully, fairly, by that sacred test,

  To dive into the secret deeps within,

  To spare no passion and no fav’rite sin,

  And search the themes important above all,

  Ourselves and our recov’ry from our fall.

  But leisure, silence, and a mind releas’d

  From anxious thoughts how wealth may be encreas’d,

  How to secure in some propitious hour,

  The point of int’rest or the post of power,

  A soul serene, and equally retired,

  From objects too much dreaded or desired,

  Safe from the clamours of perverse dispute,

  At least are friendly to the great pursuit.

  Op’ning the map of God’s extensive plan,

  We find a little isle, this life of man,

  Eternity’s unknown expanse appears

  Circling around and limiting his years;

  The busy race examine and explore

  Each creek and cavern of the dang’rous shore,

  With care collect what in their eyes excells,

  Some, shining pebbles, and some, weeds and shells,

  Thus laden dream that they are rich and great,

  And happiest he that groans beneath his weight;

  The waves o’ertake them in their serious play,

  And ev’ry hour sweep multitudes away,

  They shriek and sink, survivors start and weep,

  Pursue their sport, and follow to the deep;

  A few forsake the throng, with lifted eyes

  Ask wealth of heav’n, and gain a real prize,

  Truth, wisdom, grace, and peace like that above,

  Seal’d with his signet whom they serve and love;

  Scorn’d by the rest, with patient hope they wait

  A kind release from their imperfect state,

  And unregretted are soon snatch’d away

  From scenes of sorrow into glorious day.

  Nor these alone prefer a life recluse,

  Who seek retirement for its proper use,

  The love of change that lives in ev’ry breast,

  Genius, and temper, and desire of rest,

  Discordant motives in one center meet,

  And each inclines it’s vot’ry to retreat.

  Some minds by nature are averse to noise.

  And hate the tumult half the world enjoys,

  The lure of av’rice, or the pompous prize

  That courts display before ambitious eyes,

  The fruits that hang on pleasure’s flow’ry stem,

  Whate’er enchants them are no snares to them.

  To them the deep recess of dusky groves,

  Or forest where the deer securely roves,

  The fall of waters and the song of birds,

  And hills that echo to the distant herds,

  Are luxuries excelling all the glare

  The world can boast, and her chief fav’rites share.

  With eager step and carelessly array’d,

  For such a cause the poet seeks the shade,

  From all he sees he catches new delight,

  Pleas’d fancy claps her pinions at the sight,

  The rising or the setting orb of day,

  The clouds that flit, or slowly float away,

  Nature in all the various shapes she wears,

  Frowning in storms, or breathing gentle airs,

  The snowy robe her wintry state assumes,

  Her summer heats, her fruits, and her perfumes,

  All, all alike transport the glowing bard,

  Success in rhime his glory and reward.

  Oh nature! whose Elysian scenes disclose

  His bright perfections at whose word they rose,

  Next to that pow’r who form’d thee and sustains,

  Be thou the great inspirer of my strains.

  Still as I touch the lyre, do thou expand

  Thy genuine charms, and guide an artless hand,

  That I may catch a fire but rarely known,

  Give useful light though I should miss renown,

  And poring on thy page, whose ev’ry line

  Bears proof of an intelligence divine,

  May feel an heart enrich’d by what it pays,

  That builds its glory on its Maker’s praise.

  Woe to the man whose wit disclaims its use,

  Glitt’ring in vain, or only to seduce,

  Who studies nature with a wanton eye,

  Admires the work, but slips the lesson by,

  His hours of leisure and recess employs,

  In drawing pictures of forbidden joys,

  Retires to blazon his own worthless name,

  Or shoot the careless with a surer aim.

  The lover too shuns business and alarms,

  Tender idolator of absent charms.

  Saints offer nothing in their warmest prayr’s,

  That he devotes not with a zeal like theirs;

  ’Tis consecration of his heart, soul, time,

  And every thought that wanders is a crime.

  In sighs he worships his supremely fair,

  And weeps a sad libation in despair,

  Adores a creature, and devout in vain,

  Wins in return an answer of disdain.

  As woodbine weds the plants within her reach,

  Rough elm, or smooth-grain’d ash, or glossy beech,

  In spiral rings ascends the trunk, and lays

  Her golden tassels on the leafy sprays,

  But does a mischief while she lends a grace,

  Streight’ning its growth by such a strict embrace,

  So love that clings around the noblest minds,

  Forbids th’ advancement of the soul he binds,

  The suitor’s air indeed he soon improves,

  And forms it to the taste of her he loves,

  Teaches his eyes a language, and no less

  Refines his speech and fashions his address;

  But farewell promises of happier fruits,

  Manly designs, and learning’s grave pursuits,

  Girt with a chain he cannot wish to break,

  His only-bliss is sorrow for her sake,

  Who will may pant for glory and excell,

  Her smile his aim, all higher aims farewell!

  Thyrsis, Alexis, or whatever name

  May least offend against so pure a flame,

  Though sage advice of friends the most sincere,

  Sounds harshly in so delicate an ear,

  And lovers of all creatures, tame or wild,

  Can least brook management, however mild,

  Yet let a poet (poetry disarms

  The fiercest animals with magic charms)

  Risque an intrusion on thy pensive mood,

  And wooe and win thee to thy proper good.

  Pastoral images and still retreats,

  Umbrageous walks and solitary seats,

  Sweet birds in concert with harmonious streams,

  Soft airs, nocturnal vigils, and day-dreams,

  Are all enchantments in a case like thine▪

  Conspire against thy peace with one design,

  Sooth thee to make thee but a surer prey,

  And feed the fire that wastes thy pow’rs away.

  Up — God has formed thee with a wiser view,

  Not to be led in chains, but to subdue,

  Calls thee to cope with enemies, and first

  Points out a conflict with thyself, the worst.

  Woman indeed, a
gift he would bestow

  When he design’d a paradise below,

  The richest earthly boon his hands afford,

  Deserves to be belov’d, but not ador’d.

  Post away swiftly to more active scenes,

  Collect the scatter’d truths that study gleans,

  Mix with the world, but with its wiser part,

  No longer give an image all thine heart,

  Its empire is not her’s, nor is it thine,

  ’Tis God’s just claim, prerogative divine.

  Virtuous and faithful HEBERDEN! whose skill

  Attempts no task it cannot well fulfill,

  Gives melancholy up to nature’s care,

  And sends the patient into purer air.

  Look where he comes — in this embower’d alcove,

  Stand close conceal’d, and see a statue move:

  Lips busy, and eyes fixt, foot falling slow,

  Arms hanging idly down, hands clasp’d below,

  Interpret to the marking eye, distress,

  Such as its symptoms can alone express.

  That tongue is silent now, that silent tongue

  Could argue once, could jest or joint the song,

  Could give advice, could censure or commend,

  Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend.

  Renounced alike its office and its sport,

  Its brisker and its graver strains fall short,

  Both fail beneath a fever’s secret sway,

  And like a summer-brook are past away.

  This is a sight for pity to peruse

  ‘Till she resemble faintly what she views,

  ‘Till sympathy contract a kindred pain,

  Pierced with the woes that she laments in vain.

  This of all maladies that man infest,

  Claims most compassion and receives the least,

  Job felt it when he groan’d beneath the rod,

  And the barbed arrows of a frowning God,

  And such emollients as his friends could spare,

  Friends such as his for modern Jobs prepare.

  Blest, (rather curst) with hearts that never feel,

  Kept snug in caskets of close-hammer’d steel,

  With mouths made only to grin wide and eat,

  And minds that deem derided pain, a treat,

  With limbs of British oak and nerves of wire,

  And wit that puppet-prompters might inspire,

  Their sov’reign nostrum is a clumsy joke,

  On pangs inforc’d with God’s severest stroke.

  But with a soul that ever felt the sting

  Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing,

  Not to molest, or irritate, or raise

  A laugh at its expence, is slender praise;

  He that has not usurp’d the name of man.

  Does all, and deems too little, all he can,

  T’ assuage the throbbings of the sester’d part,

  And staunch the bleedings of a broken heart;

  ’Tis not as heads that never ach suppose,

  Forg’ry of fancy and a dream of woes,

  Man is an harp whose chords elude the sight,

  Each yielding harmony, disposed aright,

  The screws revers’d (a task which if he please

  God in a moment executes with ease)

  Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose,

  Lost, ‘till he tune them, all their pow’r and use.

  Then neither heathy wilds, nor scenes as fair

  As ever recompensed the peasant’s care,

  Nor soft declivities with tufted hills,

  Nor view of waters turning busy mills,

  Parks in which art preceptress nature weds,

  Nor gardens interspers’d with flow’ry beds,

  Nor gales that catch the scent of blooming groves,

  And waft it to the mourner as he roves,

  Can call up life into his faded eye,

  That passes all he sees unheeded by:

  No wounds like those a wounded spirit feels,

  No cure for such, ‘till God who makes them, heals.

  And thou sad suff’rer under nameless ill,

  That yields not to the touch of human skill,

  Improve the kind occasion, understand

  A father’s frown, and kiss his chast’ning hand:

  To thee the day-spring and the blaze of noon,

  The purple evening and resplendent moon,

  The stars that sprinkled o’er the vault of night

  Seem drops descending in a show’r of light,

  Shine not, or undesired and hated shine,

  Seen through the medium of a cloud like thine:

  Yet seek him, in his favour life is found,

  All bliss beside, a shadow or a sound:

  Then heav’n eclipsed so long, and this dull earth

  Shall seem to start into a second birth,

  Nature assuming a more lovely face,

  Borrowing a beauty from the works of grace,

  Shall be despised and overlook’d no more,

  Shall fill thee with delights unfelt before,

  Impart to things inanimate a voice,

  And bid her mountains and her hills rejoice,

  The sound shall run along the winding vales,

  And thou enjoy an Eden e’er it fails.

  Ye groves (the statesman at his desk exclaims

  Sick of a thousand disappointed aims)

  My patrimonial treasure and my pride,

  Beneath your shades your gray possessor hide,

  Receive me languishing for that repose

  The servant of the public never knows.

  Ye saw me once (ah those regretted days

  When boyish innocence was all my praise)

  Hour after hour delightfully allot

  To studies then familiar, since forgot,

  And cultivate a taste for antient song,

  Catching its ardour as I mused along;

  Nor seldom, as propitious heav’n might send,

  What once I valued and could boast, a friend,

  Were witnesses how cordially I press’d

  His undissembling virtue to my breast;

  Receive me now, not uncorrupt as then,

  Nor guiltless of corrupting other men,

  But vers’d in arts that while they seem to stay

  A falling empire, hasten its decay.

  To the fair haven of my native home,

  The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come,

  For once I can approve the patriot’s voice,

  And make the course he recommends, my choice,

  We meet at last in one sincere desire,

  His wish and mine both prompt me to retire.

  ’Tis done — he steps into the welcome chaise,

  Lolls at his ease behind four handsome bays,

  That whirl away from bus’ness and debate,

  The disincumber’d Atlas of the state.

  Ask not the boy, who when the breeze of morn

  First shakes the glitt’ring drops from ev’ry thorn,

  Unfolds his flock, then under bank or bush

  Sits linking cherry stones or platting rush,

  How fair is freedom? — he was always free —

  To carve his rustic name upon a tree,

  To snare the mole, or with ill-fashion’d hook

  To draw th’ incautious minnow from the brook,

  Are life’s prime pleasures in his simple view,

  His flock the chief concern he ever knew:

  She shines but little in his heedless eyes,

  The good we never miss, we rarely prize.

  But ask the noble drudge in state-affairs,

  Escap’d from office and its constant cares,

  What charms he sees in freedom’s smile express’d,

  In freedom lost so long, now repossess’d,

  The tongue whose strains were cogent as commands,

  Revered at home, and felt in foreign lands,

&n
bsp; Shall own itself a stamm’rer in that cause,

  Or plead its silence as its best applause.

  He knows indeed that whether dress’d or rude,

  Wild without art, or artfully subdued,

  Nature in ev’ry form inspires delight,

  But never mark’d her with so just a sight.

  Her hedge row shrubs, a variegated store,

  With woodbine and wild roses mantled o’er,

  Green baulks and furrow’d lands, the stream that spreads

  Its cooling vapour o’er the dewy meads,

  Downs that almost escape th’ enquiring eye,

  That melt and fade into the distant skie,

  Beauties he lately slighted as he pass’d,

  Seem all created since he travell’d last.

  Master of all th’ enjoyments he design’d,

  No rough annoyance rankling in his mind,

  What early philosophic hours he keeps,

  How regular his meals, how sound he sleeps!

  Not sounder he that on the mainmast head,

  While morning kindles with a windy red,

  Begins a long look-out for distant land,

  Nor quits till evening-watch his giddy stand,

  Then swift descending with a seaman’s haste,

  Slips to his hammock, and forgets the blast.

  He chuses company, but not the squire’s,

  Whose wit is rudeness, whose good breeding tires;

  Nor yet the parson’s, who would gladly come,

  Obsequious when abroad, though proud at home,

  Nor can he much affect the neighb’ring peer,

  Whose toe of emulation treads too near,

  But wisely seeks a more convenient friend,

  With whom, dismissing forms, he may unbend,

  A man whom marks of condescending grace

  Teach, while they flatter him, his proper place,

  Who comes when call’d, and at a word withdraws,

  Speaks with reserve, and listens with applause,

  Some plain mechanic, who without pretence

  To birth or wit, nor gives nor takes offence,

  On whom he rests well pleas’d his weary pow’rs,

  And talks and laughs away his vacant hours.

  The tide of life, swift always in its course,

  May run in cities with a brisker force,

  But no where with a current so serene,

  Or half so clear as in the rural scene.

  Yet how fallacious is all earthly bliss,

  What obvious truths the wisest heads may miss;

  Some pleasures live a month, and some a year,

  But short the date of all we gather here,

  Nor happiness is felt, except the true,

  That does not charm the more for being new.

  This observation, as it chanced, not made,

  Or if the thought occurr’d, not duely weigh’d,

  He sighs — for after all, by slow degrees,