William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps,

  The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng

  To thaw him into feeling, or the smart

  And snappish dialogue that flippant wits

  Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile?

  The self-complacent actor, when he views

  (Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house)

  The slope of faces from the floor to the roof,

  As if one master-spring controlled them all,

  Relaxed into an universal grin,

  Sees not a countenance there that speaks a joy

  Half so refined or so sincere as ours.

  Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks

  That idleness has ever yet contrived

  To fill the void of an unfurnished brain,

  To palliate dulness and give time a shove.

  Time, as he passes us, has a dove’s wing,

  Unsoiled and swift and of a silken sound.

  But the world’s time is time in masquerade.

  Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged

  With motley plumes, and, where the peacock shows

  His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red

  With spots quadrangular of diamond form,

  Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,

  And spades, the emblem of untimely graves.

  What should be, and what was an hour-glass once,

  Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard mast

  Well does the work of his destructive scythe.

  Thus decked he charms a world whom fashion blinds

  To his true worth, most pleased when idle most,

  Whose only happy are their wasted hours.

  Even misses, at whose age their mothers wore

  The back-string and the bib, assume the dress

  Of womanhood, sit pupils in the school

  Of card-devoted time, and night by night,

  Placed at some vacant corner of the board,

  Learn every trick, and soon play all the game.

  But truce with censure. Roving as I rove,

  Where shall I find an end, or how proceed?

  As he that travels far, oft turns aside

  To view some rugged rock, or mouldering tower,

  Which seen delights him not; then coming home,

  Describes and prints it, that the world may know

  How far he went for what was nothing worth;

  So I, with brush in hand and pallet spread

  With colours mixed for a far different use,

  Paint cards and dolls, and every idle thing

  That fancy finds in her excursive flights.

  Come, Evening, once again, season of peace,

  Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!

  Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,

  With matron-step slow moving, while the night

  Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employed

  In letting fall the curtain of repose

  On bird and beast, the other charged for man

  With sweet oblivion of the cares of day;

  Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid,

  Like homely-featured night, of clustering gems,

  A star or two just twinkling on thy brow

  Suffices thee; save that the moon is thine

  No less than hers, not worn indeed on high

  With ostentatious pageantry, but set

  With modest grandeur in thy purple zone,

  Resplendent less, but of an ampler round.

  Come, then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm,

  Or make me so. Composure is thy gift;

  And whether I devote thy gentle hours

  To books, to music, or to poet’s toil,

  To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit,

  Or twining silken threads round ivory reels

  When they command whom man was born to please,

  I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still.

  Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze

  With lights, by clear reflection multiplied

  From many a mirror, in which he of Gath,

  Goliath, might have seen his giant bulk

  Whole without stooping, towering crest and all,

  My pleasures too begin. But me perhaps

  The glowing hearth may satisfy a while

  With faint illumination, that uplifts

  The shadow to the ceiling, there by fits

  Dancing uncouthly to the quivering flame.

  Not undelightful is an hour to me

  So spent in parlour twilight; such a gloom

  Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind,

  The mind contemplative, with some new theme

  Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all.

  Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial powers

  That never feel a stupor, know no pause,

  Nor need one; I am conscious, and confess.

  Fearless, a soul that does not always think.

  Me oft has fancy ludicrous and wild

  Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers,

  Trees, churches, and strange visages expressed

  In the red cinders, while with poring eye

  I gazed, myself creating what I saw.

  Nor less amused have I quiescent watched

  The sooty films that play upon the bars

  Pendulous, and foreboding in the view

  Of superstition, prophesying still,

  Though still deceived, some stranger’s near approach.

  ’Tis thus the understanding takes repose

  In indolent vacuity of thought,

  And sleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face

  Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask

  Of deep deliberation, as the man

  Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost.

  Thus oft reclined at ease, I lose an hour

  At evening, till at length the freezing blast

  That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home

  The recollected powers, and, snapping short

  The glassy threads with which the fancy weaves

  Her brittle toys, restores me to myself.

  How calm is my recess! and how the frost

  Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear

  The silence and the warmth enjoyed within!

  I saw the woods and fields at close of day

  A variegated show; the meadows green

  Though faded, and the lands, where lately waved

  The golden harvest, of a mellow brown,

  Upturned so lately by the forceful share;

  I saw far off the weedy fallows smile

  With verdure not unprofitable, grazed

  By flocks fast feeding, and selecting each

  His favourite herb; while all the leafless groves

  That skirt the horizon wore a sable hue,

  Scarce noticed in the kindred dusk of eve.

  To-morrow brings a change, a total change,

  Which even now, though silently performed

  And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face

  Of universal nature undergoes.

  Fast falls a fleecy shower; the downy flakes,

  Descending and with never-ceasing lapse

  Softly alighting upon all below,

  Assimilate all objects. Earth receives

  Gladly the thickening mantle, and the green

  And tender blade, that feared the chilling blast,

  Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.

  In such a world, so thorny, and where none

  Finds happiness unblighted, or if found,

  Without some thistly sorrow at its side,

  It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin

  Against the law of love, to measure lots

  With less distinguished than ourselves, that thus

  We may with patience bear our moderate ills,

  And sympathise with others, suffering more.
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  Ill fares the traveller now, and he that stalks

  In ponderous boots beside his reeking team;

  The wain goes heavily, impeded sore

  By congregating loads adhering close

  To the clogged wheels, and, in its sluggish pace,

  Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow.

  The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide,

  While every breath, by respiration strong

  Forced downward, is consolidated soon

  Upon their jutting chests. He, formed to bear

  The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night,

  With half-shut eyes, and puckered cheeks, and teeth

  Presented bare against the storm, plods on;

  One hand secures his hat, save when with both

  He brandishes his pliant length of whip,

  Resounding oft, and never heard in vain.

  Oh happy, and, in my account, denied

  That sensibility of pain with which

  Refinement is endued, thrice happy thou!

  Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed

  The piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired;

  The learned finger never need explore

  Thy vigorous pulse, and the unhealthful East,

  That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone

  Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee.

  Thy days roll on exempt from household care,

  Thy waggon is thy wife; and the poor beasts,

  That drag the dull companion to and fro,

  Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care.

  Ah, treat them kindly! rude as thou appearest,

  Yet show that thou hast mercy, which the great,

  With needless hurry whirled from place to place,

  Humane as they would seem, not always show.

  Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat,

  Such claim compassion in a night like this,

  And have a friend in every feeling heart.

  Warmed while it lasts, by labour, all day long

  They brave the season, and yet find at eve,

  Ill clad and fed but sparely, time to cool.

  The frugal housewife trembles when she lights

  Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear,

  But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys;

  The few small embers left she nurses well.

  And while her infant race with outspread hands

  And crowded knees sit cowering o’er the sparks,

  Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed.

  The man feels least, as more inured than she

  To winter, and the current in his veins

  More briskly moved by his severer toil;

  Yet he, too, finds his own distress in theirs.

  The taper soon extinguished, which I saw

  Dangled along at the cold finger’s end

  Just when the day declined, and the brown loaf

  Lodged on the shelf, half-eaten, without sauce

  Of sav’ry cheese, or butter costlier still,

  Sleep seems their only refuge. For alas,

  Where penury is felt the thought is chained,

  And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.

  With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care

  Ingenious parsimony takes, but just

  Saves the small inventory, bed and stool,

  Skillet and old carved chest, from public sale.

  They live, and live without extorted alms

  From grudging hands, but other boast have none

  To soothe their honest pride that scorns to beg,

  Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love.

  I praise you much, ye meek and patient pair,

  For ye are worthy; choosing rather far

  A dry but independent crust, hard-earned

  And eaten with a sigh, than to endure

  The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs

  Of knaves in office, partial in their work

  Of distribution; liberal of their aid

  To clamorous importunity in rags,

  But ofttimes deaf to suppliants who would blush

  To wear a tattered garb however coarse,

  Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth;

  These ask with painful shyness, and, refused

  Because deserving, silently retire.

  But be ye of good courage! Time itself

  Shall much befriend you. Time shall give increase,

  And all your numerous progeny, well trained,

  But helpless, in few years shall find their hands,

  And labour too. Meanwhile ye shall not want

  What, conscious of your virtues, we can spare,

  Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may send.

  I mean the man, who when the distant poor

  Need help, denies them nothing but his name.

  But poverty with most, who whimper forth

  Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe,

  The effect of laziness or sottish waste.

  Now goes the nightly thief prowling abroad

  For plunder; much solicitous how best

  He may compensate for a day of sloth,

  By works of darkness and nocturnal wrong,

  Woe to the gardener’s pale, the farmer’s hedge

  Plashed neatly and secured with driven stakes

  Deep in the loamy bank. Uptorn by strength

  Resistless in so bad a cause, but lame

  To better deeds, he bundles up the spoil —

  An ass’s burden, — and when laden most

  And heaviest, light of foot steals fast away.

  Nor does the boarded hovel better guard

  The well-stacked pile of riven logs and roots

  From his pernicious force. Nor will he leave

  Unwrenched the door, however well secured,

  Where chanticleer amidst his harem sleeps

  In unsuspecting pomp; twitched from the perch

  He gives the princely bird with all his wives

  To his voracious bag, struggling in vain,

  And loudly wondering at the sudden change.

  Nor this to feed his own. ‘Twere some excuse

  Did pity of their sufferings warp aside

  His principle, and tempt him into sin

  For their support, so destitute; but they

  Neglected pine at home, themselves, as more

  Exposed than others, with less scruple made

  His victims, robbed of their defenceless all.

  Cruel is all he does. ’Tis quenchless thirst

  Of ruinous ebriety that prompts

  His every action, and imbrutes the man.

  Oh for a law to noose the villain’s neck

  Who starves his own; who persecutes the blood

  He gave them in his children’s veins, and hates

  And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love.

  Pass where we may, through city, or through town,

  Village or hamlet of this merry land,

  Though lean and beggared, every twentieth pace

  Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff

  Of stale debauch, forth-issuing from the styes

  That law has licensed, as makes temperance reel.

  There sit involved and lost in curling clouds

  Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor,

  The lackey, and the groom. The craftsman there

  Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil;

  Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears,

  And he that kneads the dough: all loud alike,

  All learned, and all drunk. The fiddle screams

  Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailed

  Its wasted tones and harmony unheard;

  Fierce the dispute, whate’er the theme; while she,

  Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate,

  Perched on the sign-post, holds with even hand

  Her undecisive
scales. In this she lays

  A weight of ignorance, in that, of pride,

  And smiles delighted with the eternal poise.

  Dire is the frequent curse and its twin sound

  The cheek-distending oath, not to be praised

  As ornamental, musical, polite,

  Like those which modern senators employ,

  Whose oath is rhetoric, and who swear for fame.

  Behold the schools in which plebeian minds,

  Once simple, are initiated in arts

  Which some may practise with politer grace,

  But none with readier skill! ’Tis here they learn

  The road that leads from competence and peace

  To indigence and rapine; till at last

  Society, grown weary of the load,

  Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out.

  But censure profits little. Vain the attempt

  To advertise in verse a public pest,

  That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds

  His hungry acres, stinks and is of use.

  The excise is fattened with the rich result

  Of all this riot; and ten thousand casks,

  For ever dribbling out their base contents,

  Touched by the Midas finger of the state,

  Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away.

  Drink and be mad then; ’tis your country bids!

  Gloriously drunk, obey the important call,

  Her cause demands the assistance of your throats; —

  Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more.

  Would I had fallen upon those happier days

  That poets celebrate; those golden times

  And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,

  And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.

  Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts

  That felt their virtues. Innocence, it seems,

  From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves;

  The footsteps of simplicity, impressed

  Upon the yielding herbage (so they sing),

  Then were not all effaced. Then speech profane

  And manners profligate were rarely found,

  Observed as prodigies, and soon reclaimed.

  Vain wish! those days were never: airy dreams

  Sat for the picture; and the poet’s hand,

  Imparting substance to an empty shade,

  Imposed a gay delirium for a truth.

  Grant it: I still must envy them an age

  That favoured such a dream, in days like these

  Impossible, when virtue is so scarce

  That to suppose a scene where she presides

  Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief.

  No. We are polished now. The rural lass,

  Whom once her virgin modesty and grace,

  Her artless manners and her neat attire,