William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

So dignified, that she was hardly less

  Than the fair shepherdess of old romance,

  Is seen no more. The character is lost.

  Her head adorned with lappets pinned aloft

  And ribbons streaming gay, superbly raised

  And magnified beyond all human size,

  Indebted to some smart wig-weaver’s hand

  For more than half the tresses it sustains;

  Her elbows ruffled, and her tottering form

  Ill propped upon French heels; she might be deemed

  (But that the basket dangling on her arm

  Interprets her more truly) of a rank

  Too proud for dairy-work, or sale of eggs;

  Expect her soon with foot-boy at her heels,

  No longer blushing for her awkward load,

  Her train and her umbrella all her care.

  The town has tinged the country; and the stain

  Appears a spot upon a vestal’s robe,

  The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs

  Down into scenes still rural, but alas,

  Scenes rarely graced with rural manners now.

  Time was when in the pastoral retreat

  The unguarded door was safe; men did not watch

  To invade another’s right, or guard their own.

  Then sleep was undisturbed by fear, unscared

  By drunken howlings; and the chilling tale

  Of midnight murder was a wonder heard

  With doubtful credit, told to frighten babes

  But farewell now to unsuspicious nights,

  And slumbers unalarmed. Now, ere you sleep,

  See that your polished arms be primed with care,

  And drop the night-bolt. Ruffians are abroad,

  And the first larum of the cock’s shrill throat

  May prove a trumpet, summoning your ear

  To horrid sounds of hostile feet within.

  Even daylight has its dangers; and the walk

  Through pathless wastes and woods, unconscious once

  Of other tenants than melodious birds,

  Or harmless flocks, is hazardous and bold.

  Lamented change! to which full many a cause

  Inveterate, hopeless of a cure, conspires.

  The course of human things from good to ill,

  From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails.

  Increase of power begets increase of wealth;

  Wealth luxury, and luxury excess;

  Excess, the scrofulous and itchy plague

  That seizes first the opulent, descends

  To the next rank contagious, and in time

  Taints downward all the graduated scale

  Of order, from the chariot to the plough.

  The rich, and they that have an arm to check

  The licence of the lowest in degree,

  Desert their office; and themselves, intent

  On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus

  To all the violence of lawless hands

  Resign the scenes their presence might protect.

  Authority itself not seldom sleeps,

  Though resident, and witness of the wrong.

  The plump convivial parson often bears

  The magisterial sword in vain, and lays

  His reverence and his worship both to rest

  On the same cushion of habitual sloth.

  Perhaps timidity restrains his arm,

  When he should strike he trembles, and sets free,

  Himself enslaved by terror of the band,

  The audacious convict whom he dares not bind.

  Perhaps, though by profession ghostly pure,

  He, too, may have his vice, and sometimes prove

  Less dainty than becomes his grave outside

  In lucrative concerns. Examine well

  His milk-white hand. The palm is hardly clean —

  But here and there an ugly smutch appears.

  Foh! ’twas a bribe that left it. He has touched

  Corruption. Whoso seeks an audit here

  Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish,

  Wildfowl or venison, and his errand speeds.

  But faster far and more than all the rest

  A noble cause, which none who bears a spark

  Of public virtue ever wished removed,

  Works the deplored and mischievous effect.

  ’Tis universal soldiership has stabbed

  The heart of merit in the meaner class.

  Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage

  Of those that bear them, in whatever cause,

  Seem most at variance with all moral good,

  And incompatible with serious thought.

  The clown, the child of nature, without guile,

  Blest with an infant’s ignorance of all

  But his own simple pleasures, now and then

  A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair,

  Is balloted, and trembles at the news.

  Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears

  A Bible-oath to be whate’er they please,

  To do he knows not what. The task performed,

  That instant he becomes the serjeant’s care,

  His pupil, and his torment, and his jest;

  His awkward gait, his introverted toes,

  Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks,

  Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees,

  Unapt to learn and formed of stubborn stuff,

  He yet by slow degrees puts off himself,

  Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well.

  He stands erect, his slouch becomes a walk,

  He steps right onward, martial in his air,

  His form and movement; is as smart above

  As meal and larded locks can make him: wears

  His hat or his plumed helmet with a grace,

  And, his three years of heroship expired,

  Returns indignant to the slighted plough.

  He hates the field in which no fife or drum

  Attends him, drives his cattle to a march,

  And sighs for the smart comrades he has left.

  ‘Twere well if his exterior change were all —

  But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost

  His ignorance and harmless manners too.

  To swear, to game, to drink, to show at home

  By lewdness, idleness, and Sabbath-breach,

  The great proficiency he made abroad,

  To astonish and to grieve his gazing friends,

  To break some maiden’s and his mother’s heart,

  To be a pest where he was useful once,

  Are his sole aim, and all his glory now!

  Man in society is like a flower

  Blown in its native bed. ’Tis there alone

  His faculties expanded in full bloom

  Shine out, there only reach their proper use.

  But man associated and leagued with man

  By regal warrant, or self-joined by bond

  For interest sake, or swarming into clans

  Beneath one head for purposes of war,

  Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound

  And bundled close to fill some crowded vase,

  Fades rapidly, and by compression marred

  Contracts defilement not to be endured.

  Hence chartered boroughs are such public plagues,

  And burghers, men immaculate perhaps

  In all their private functions, once combined,

  Become a loathsome body, only fit

  For dissolution, hurtful to the main.

  Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin

  Against the charities of domestic life,

  Incorporated, seem at once to lose

  Their nature, and, disclaiming all regard

  For mercy and the common rights of man,

  Build factories with blood, conducting trade

  At the sword’s point, and dyeing the white robe

  O
f innocent commercial justice red.

  Hence too the field of glory, as the world

  Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,

  With all the majesty of thundering pomp,

  Enchanting music and immortal wreaths,

  Is but a school where thoughtlessness is taught

  On principle, where foppery atones

  For folly, gallantry for every vice.

  But slighted as it is, and by the great

  Abandoned, and, which still I more regret,

  Infected with the manners and the modes

  It knew not once, the country wins me still.

  I never framed a wish or formed a plan

  That flattered me with hopes of earthly bliss,

  But there I laid the scene. There early strayed

  My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice

  Had found me, or the hope of being free.

  My very dreams were rural, rural too

  The first-born efforts of my youthful muse,

  Sportive, and jingling her poetic bells

  Ere yet her ear was mistress of their powers.

  No bard could please me but whose lyre was tuned

  To Nature’s praises. Heroes and their feats

  Fatigued me, never weary of the pipe

  Of Tityrus, assembling as he sang

  The rustic throng beneath his favourite beech.

  Then Milton had indeed a poet’s charms:

  New to my taste, his Paradise surpassed

  The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue

  To speak its excellence; I danced for joy.

  I marvelled much that, at so ripe an age

  As twice seven years, his beauties had then first

  Engaged my wonder, and admiring still,

  And still admiring, with regret supposed

  The joy half lost because not sooner found.

  Thee, too, enamoured of the life I loved,

  Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit

  Determined, and possessing it at last

  With transports such as favoured lovers feel,

  I studied, prized, and wished that I had known,

  Ingenious Cowley: and though now, reclaimed

  By modern lights from an erroneous taste,

  I cannot but lament thy splendid wit

  Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.

  I still revere thee, courtly though retired,

  Though stretched at ease in Chertsey’s silent bowers,

  Not unemployed, and finding rich amends

  For a lost world in solitude and verse.

  ’Tis born with all. The love of Nature’s works

  Is an ingredient in the compound, man,

  Infused at the creation of the kind.

  And though the Almighty Maker has throughout

  Discriminated each from each, by strokes

  And touches of His hand, with so much art

  Diversified, that two were never found

  Twins at all points — yet this obtains in all,

  That all discern a beauty in His works,

  And all can taste them: minds that have been formed

  And tutored, with a relish more exact,

  But none without some relish, none unmoved.

  It is a flame that dies not even there,

  Where nothing feeds it. Neither business, crowds,

  Nor habits of luxurious city life,

  Whatever else they smother of true worth

  In human bosoms, quench it or abate.

  The villas, with which London stands begirt

  Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads,

  Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air,

  The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer

  The citizen, and brace his languid frame!

  Even in the stifling bosom of the town,

  A garden in which nothing thrives, has charms

  That soothe the rich possessor; much consoled

  That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint,

  Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well

  He cultivates. These serve him with a hint

  That Nature lives; that sight-refreshing green

  Is still the livery she delights to wear,

  Though sickly samples of the exuberant whole.

  What are the casements lined with creeping herbs,

  The prouder sashes fronted with a range

  Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,

  The Frenchman’s darling? are they not all proofs

  That man, immured in cities, still retains

  His inborn inextinguishable thirst

  Of rural scenes, compensating his loss

  By supplemental shifts, the best he may?

  The most unfurnished with the means of life,

  And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds

  To range the fields, and treat their lungs with air,

  Yet feel the burning instinct: over-head

  Suspend their crazy boxes planted thick

  And watered duly. There the pitcher stands

  A fragment, and the spoutless tea-pot there;

  Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets

  The country, with what ardour he contrives

  A peep at nature, when he can no more.

  Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease

  And contemplation, heart-consoling joys

  And harmless pleasures, in the thronged abode

  Of multitudes unknown, hail rural life!

  Address himself who will to the pursuit

  Of honours, or emolument, or fame,

  I shall not add myself to such a chase,

  Thwart his attempts, or envy his success.

  Some must be great. Great offices will have

  Great talents. And God gives to every man

  The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,

  That lifts him into life, and lets him fall

  Just in the niche he was ordained to fill.

  To the deliverer of an injured land

  He gives a tongue to enlarge upon, a heart

  To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs;

  To monarchs dignity, to judges sense;

  To artists ingenuity and skill;

  To me an unambitious mind, content

  In the low vale of life, that early felt

  A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long

  Found here that leisure and that ease I wished.

  BOOK V. THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

  ’Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb

  Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,

  That crowd away before the driving wind,

  More ardent as the disk emerges more,

  Resemble most some city in a blaze,

  Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray

  Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,

  And, tingeing all with his own rosy hue,

  From every herb and every spiry blade

  Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field,

  Mine, spindling into longitude immense,

  In spite of gravity, and sage remark

  That I myself am but a fleeting shade,

  Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance

  I view the muscular proportioned limb

  Transformed to a lean shank; the shapeless pair,

  As they designed to mock me, at my side

  Take step for step, and, as I near approach

  The cottage, walk along the plastered wall,

  Preposterous sight, the legs without the man.

  The verdure of the plain lies buried deep

  Beneath the dazzling deluge, and the bents

  And coarser grass upspearing o’er the rest,

  Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine

  Conspicuous, and, in bright apparel clad,

  And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.

  The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
/>   Screens them, and seem, half petrified, to sleep

  In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait

  Their wonted fodder, not, like hungering man,

  Fretful if unsupplied, but silent, meek,

  And patient of the slow-paced swain’s delay.

  He from the stack carves out the accustomed load,

  Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft

  His broad keen knife into the solid mass:

  Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,

  With such undeviating and even force

  He severs it away: no needless care,

  Lest storms should overset the leaning pile

  Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.

  Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned

  The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe

  And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,

  From morn to eve his solitary task.

  Shaggy and lean and shrewd, with pointed ears

  And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur,

  His dog attends him. Close behind his heel

  Now creeps he slow, and now with many a frisk,

  Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow

  With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;

  Then shakes his powdered coat and barks for joy.

  Heedless of all his pranks the sturdy churl

  Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught,

  But now and then, with pressure of his thumb,

  To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,

  That fumes beneath his nose; the trailing cloud

  Streams far behind him, scenting all the air.

  Now from the roost, or from the neighbouring pale,

  Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam

  Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side,

  Come trooping at the housewife’s well-known call

  The feathered tribes domestic; half on wing,

  And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,

  Conscious, and fearful of too deep a plunge.

  The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves

  To seize the fair occasion; well they eye

  The scattered grain, and, thievishly resolved

  To escape the impending famine, often scared

  As oft return, a pert, voracious kind.

  Clean riddance quickly made, one only care

  Remains to each, the search of sunny nook,

  Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned

  To sad necessity the cock foregoes

  His wonted strut, and, wading at their head

  With well-considered steps, seems to resent

  His altered gait, and stateliness retrenched.

  How find the myriads, that in summer cheer

  The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,

  Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?