William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

  Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose His mark,

  May punish, if He please, the less, to warn

  The more malignant. If He spared not them,

  Tremble and be amazed at thine escape,

  Far guiltier England, lest He spare not thee!

  Happy the man who sees a God employed

  In all the good and ill that chequer life!

  Resolving all events, with their effects

  And manifold results, into the will

  And arbitration wise of the Supreme.

  Did not His eye rule all things, and intend

  The least of our concerns (since from the least

  The greatest oft originate), could chance

  Find place in His dominion, or dispose

  One lawless particle to thwart His plan,

  Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen

  Contingence might alarm Him, and disturb

  The smooth and equal course of His affairs.

  This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed

  In nature’s tendencies, oft overlooks;

  And, having found His instrument, forgets

  Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,

  Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims

  His hot displeasure against foolish men

  That live an Atheist life: involves the heaven

  In tempests, quits His grasp upon the winds

  And gives them all their fury; bids a plague

  Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,

  And putrefy the breath of blooming health.

  He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend

  Blows mildew from between his shrivelled lips,

  And taints the golden ear. He springs His mines,

  And desolates a nation at a blast.

  Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells

  Of homogeneal and discordant springs

  And principles; of causes how they work

  By necessary laws their sure effects;

  Of action and reaction. He has found

  The source of the disease that nature feels,

  And bids the world take heart and banish fear.

  Thou fool! will thy discovery of the cause

  Suspend the effect, or heal it? Has not God

  Still wrought by means since first He made the world,

  And did He not of old employ His means

  To drown it? What is His creation less

  Than a capacious reservoir of means

  Formed for His use, and ready at His will?

  Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve, ask of Him,

  Or ask of whomsoever He has taught,

  And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.

  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. Though thy clime

  Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed

  With dripping rains, or withered by a frost,

  I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies

  And fields without a flower, for warmer France

  With all her vines; nor for Ausonia’s groves

  Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers.

  To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime

  Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire

  Upon thy foes, was never meant my task;

  But I can feel thy fortune, and partake

  Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart

  As any thunderer there. And I can feel

  Thy follies too, and with a just disdain

  Frown at effeminates, whose very looks

  Reflect dishonour on the land I love.

  How, in the name of soldiership and sense,

  Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth

  And tender as a girl, all essenced o’er

  With odours, and as profligate as sweet,

  Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,

  And love when they should fight; when such as these

  Presume to lay their hand upon the ark

  Of her magnificent and awful cause?

  Time was when it was praise and boast enough

  In every clime, and travel where we might,

  That we were born her children. Praise enough

  To fill the ambition of a private man,

  That Chatham’s language was his mother tongue,

  And Wolfe’s great name compatriot with his own.

  Farewell those honours, and farewell with them

  The hope of such hereafter. They have fallen

  Each in his field of glory; one in arms,

  And one in council; — Wolfe upon the lap

  Of smiling victory that moment won,

  And Chatham, heart-sick of his country’s shame.

  They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still

  Consulting England’s happiness at home,

  Secured it by an unforgiving frown

  If any wronged her. Wolfe, where’er he fought,

  Put so much of his heart into his act,

  That his example had a magnet’s force,

  And all were swift to follow whom all loved.

  Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such!

  Or all that we have left is empty talk

  Of old achievements, and despair of new.

  Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers float

  Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck

  With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets,

  That no rude savour maritime invade

  The nose of nice nobility. Breathe soft,

  Ye clarionets, and softer still, ye flutes,

  That winds and waters lulled by magic sounds

  May bear us smoothly to the Gallic shore.

  True, we have lost an empire — let it pass.

  True, we may thank the perfidy of France

  That picked the jewel out of England’s crown,

  With all the cunning of an envious shrew.

  And let that pass— ’twas but a trick of state.

  A brave man knows no malice, but at once

  Forgets in peace the injuries of war,

  And gives his direst foe a friend’s embrace.

  And shamed as we have been, to the very beard

  Braved and defied, and in our own sea proved

  Too weak for those decisive blows that once

  Insured us mastery there, we yet retain

  Some small pre-eminence, we justly boast

  At least superior jockeyship, and claim

  The honours of the turf as all our own.

  Go then, well worthy of the praise ye seek,

  And show the shame ye might conceal at home,

  In foreign eyes! — be grooms, and win the plate,

  Where once your nobler fathers won a crown! —

  ’Tis generous to communicate your skill

  To those that need it. Folly is soon learned,

  And, under such preceptors, who can fail?

  There is a pleasure in poetic pains

  Which only poets know. The shifts and turns,

  The expedients and inventions multiform

  To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms

  Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win —

  To arrest the fleeting images that fill

  The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,

  And force them sit, till he has pencilled off

  A faithful likeness of the forms he views;

  Then to dispose his copies with such art

  That each may find its most propitious light,

  And shine by situation, hardly less

  Than by the labour and the skill it cost,

  Are occupations of the poet’s mind

  So pleasing, and that steal away the thought

  With such address from themes of sad import,

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nbsp; That, lost in his own musings, happy man!

  He feels the anxieties of life, denied

  Their wonted entertainment, all retire.

  Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such,

  Or seldom such, the hearers of his song.

  Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps

  Aware of nothing arduous in a task

  They never undertook, they little note

  His dangers or escapes, and haply find

  There least amusement where he found the most.

  But is amusement all? studious of song

  And yet ambitious not to sing in vain,

  I would not trifle merely, though the world

  Be loudest in their praise who do no more.

  Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay?

  It may correct a foible, may chastise

  The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,

  Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch;

  But where are its sublimer trophies found?

  What vice has it subdued? whose heart reclaimed

  By rigour, or whom laughed into reform?

  Alas, Leviathan is not so tamed.

  Laughed at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard,

  Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,

  That fear no discipline of human hands.

  The pulpit therefore — and I name it, filled

  With solemn awe, that bids me well beware

  With what intent I touch that holy thing —

  The pulpit, when the satirist has at last,

  Strutting and vapouring in an empty school,

  Spent all his force, and made no proselyte —

  I say the pulpit, in the sober use

  Of its legitimate peculiar powers,

  Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand,

  The most important and effectual guard,

  Support, and ornament of virtue’s cause.

  There stands the messenger of truth; there stands

  The legate of the skies; his theme divine,

  His office sacred, his credentials clear.

  By him, the violated Law speaks out

  Its thunders, and by him, in strains as sweet

  As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace.

  He stablishes the strong, restores the weak,

  Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart,

  And, armed himself in panoply complete

  Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms

  Bright as his own, and trains, by every rule

  Of holy discipline, to glorious war,

  The sacramental host of God’s elect.

  Are all such teachers? would to heaven all were!

  But hark — the Doctor’s voice — fast wedged between

  Two empirics he stands, and with swollen cheeks

  Inspires the news, his trumpet. Keener far

  Than all invective is his bold harangue,

  While through that public organ of report

  He hails the clergy, and, defying shame,

  Announces to the world his own and theirs,

  He teaches those to read whom schools dismissed,

  And colleges, untaught; sells accents, tone,

  And emphasis in score, and gives to prayer

  The adagio and andante it demands.

  He grinds divinity of other days

  Down into modern use; transforms old print

  To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes

  Of gallery critics by a thousand arts. —

  Are there who purchase of the Doctor’s ware?

  Oh name it not in Gath! — it cannot be,

  That grave and learned Clerks should need such aid.

  He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll,

  Assuming thus a rank unknown before,

  Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the Church.

  I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause. To such I render more than mere respect, Whose actions say that they respect themselves. But, loose in morals, and in manners vain, In conversation frivolous, in dress Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse, Frequent in park with lady at his side, Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes, But rare at home, and never at his books Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card; Constant at routs, familiar with a round Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor; Ambitions of preferment for its gold, And well prepared by ignorance and sloth, By infidelity and love o’ the world, To make God’s work a sinecure; a slave To his own pleasures and his patron’s pride. — From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, Preserve the Church! and lay not careless hands On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn.

  Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul,

  Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own,

  Paul should himself direct me. I would trace

  His master-strokes, and draw from his design.

  I would express him simple, grave, sincere;

  In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,

  And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,

  And natural in gesture; much impressed

  Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,

  And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds

  May feel it too; affectionate in look

  And tender in address, as well becomes

  A messenger of grace to guilty men.

  Behold the picture! — Is it like? — Like whom?

  The things that mount the rostrum with a skip,

  And then skip down again; pronounce a text,

  Cry — Hem; and reading what they never wrote,

  Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,

  And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.

  In man or woman, but far most in man,

  And most of all in man that ministers

  And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe

  All affectation. ’Tis my perfect scorn;

  Object of my implacable disgust.

  What! — will a man play tricks, will he indulge

  A silly fond conceit of his fair form

  And just proportion, fashionable mien,

  And pretty face, in presence of his God?

  Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,

  As with the diamond on his lily hand,

  And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,

  When I am hungry for the Bread of Life?

  He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames

  His noble office, and, instead of truth,

  Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock!

  Therefore, avaunt, all attitude and stare

  And start theatric, practised at the glass.

  I seek divine simplicity in him

  Who handles things divine; and all beside,

  Though learned with labour, and though much admired

  By curious eyes and judgments ill-informed,

  To me is odious as the nasal twang

  Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,

  Misled by custom, strain celestial themes

  Through the prest nostril, spectacle-bestrid.

  Some, decent in demeanour while they preach,

  That task performed, relapse into themselves,

  And having spoken wisely, at the close

  Grow wanton, and give proof to every eye —

  Whoe’er was edified themselves were not.

  Forth comes the pocket mirror. First we stroke

  An eyebrow; next compose a straggling lock;

  Then with an air, most gracefully performed,

  Fall back into our seat; extend an arm,

  And lay it at its ease with gentle care,

  With handkerchief in hand, depending low:

  The better hand, more busy, gives the nose

  Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye

  With opera glass to watch the moving scene,

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p; And recognise the slow-retiring fair.

  Now this is fulsome, and offends me more

  Than in a Churchman slovenly neglect

  And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind

  May be indifferent to her house of clay,

  And slight the hovel as beneath her care.

  But how a body so fantastic, trim,

  And quaint in its deportment and attire,

  Can lodge a heavenly mind — demands a doubt.

  He that negotiates between God and man,

  As God’s ambassador, the grand concerns

  Of judgment and of mercy, should beware

  Of lightness in his speech. ’Tis pitiful

  To court a grin, when you should woo a soul;

  To break a jest, when pity would inspire

  Pathetic exhortation; and to address

  The skittish fancy with facetious tales,

  When sent with God’s commission to the heart.

  So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip

  Or merry turn in all he ever wrote,

  And I consent you take it for your text,

  Your only one, till sides and benches fail.

  No: he was serious in a serious cause,

  And understood too well the weighty terms

  That he had ta’en in charge. He would not stoop

  To conquer those by jocular exploits,

  Whom truth and soberness assailed in vain.

  Oh, popular applause! what heart of man

  Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?

  The wisest and the best feel urgent need

  Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales;

  But swelled into a gust — who then, alas!

  With all his canvas set, and inexpert,

  And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power?

  Praise from the riveled lips of toothless, bald

  Decrepitude, and in the looks of lean

  And craving poverty, and in the bow

  Respectful of the smutched artificer,

  Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb

  The bias of the purpose. How much more,

  Poured forth by beauty splendid and polite,

  In language soft as adoration breathes?

  Ah, spare your idol! think him human still;

  Charms he may have, but he has frailties too;

  Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.

  All truth is from the sempiternal source

  Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome

  Drew from the stream below. More favoured, we

  Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head.

  To them it flowed much mingled and defiled

  With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams

  Illusive of philosophy, so called,