William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

Prescribed their course, to regulate it now.

  Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God

  The encumbrance of His own concerns, and spare

  The great Artificer of all that moves

  The stress of a continual act, the pain

  Of unremitted vigilance and care,

  As too laborious and severe a task.

  So man the moth is not afraid, it seems,

  To span Omnipotence, and measure might

  That knows no measure, by the scanty rule

  And standard of his own, that is to-day,

  And is not ere to-morrow’s sun go down.

  But how should matter occupy a charge

  Dull as it is, and satisfy a law

  So vast in its demands, unless impelled

  To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,

  And under pressure of some conscious cause?

  The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused

  Sustains and is the life of all that lives.

  Nature is but a name for an effect

  Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire

  By which the mighty process is maintained,

  Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight

  Slow-circling ages are as transient days;

  Whose work is without labour, whose designs

  No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts,

  And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.

  Him blind antiquity profaned, not served,

  With self-taught rites and under various names

  Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,

  And Flora and Vertumnus; peopling earth

  With tutelary goddesses and gods

  That were not, and commending as they would

  To each some province, garden, field, or grove.

  But all are under One. One spirit — His

  Who bore the platted thorns with bleeding brows —

  Rules universal nature. Not a flower

  But shows some touch in freckle, streak, or stain,

  Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires

  Their balmy odours and imparts their hues,

  And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,

  In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,

  The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth.

  Happy who walks with Him! whom, what he finds

  Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,

  Or what he views of beautiful or grand

  In nature, from the broad majestic oak

  To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,

  Prompts with remembrance of a present God.

  His presence, who made all so fair, perceived,

  Makes all still fairer. As with Him no scene

  Is dreary, so with Him all seasons please.

  Though winter had been none had man been true,

  And earth be punished for its tenant’s sake,

  Yet not in vengeance; as this smiling sky,

  So soon succeeding such an angry night,

  And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream,

  Recovering fast its liquid music, prove.

  Who then, that has a mind well strung and tuned

  To contemplation, and within his reach

  A scene so friendly to his favourite task,

  Would waste attention at the chequered board,

  His host of wooden warriors to and fro

  Marching and counter-marching, with an eye

  As fixt as marble, with a forehead ridged

  And furrowed into storms, and with a hand

  Trembling, as if eternity were hung

  In balance on his conduct of a pin?

  Nor envies he aught more their idle sport,

  Who pant with application misapplied

  To trivial toys, and, pushing ivory balls

  Across the velvet level, feel a joy

  Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds

  Its destined goal of difficult access.

  Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noon

  To Miss, the Mercer’s plague, from shop to shop

  Wandering, and littering with unfolded silks

  The polished counter, and approving none,

  Or promising with smiles to call again.

  Nor him, who, by his vanity seduced,

  And soothed into a dream that he discerns

  The difference of a Guido from a daub,

  Frequents the crowded auction. Stationed there

  As duly as the Langford of the show,

  With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand,

  And tongue accomplished in the fulsome cant

  And pedantry that coxcombs learn with ease,

  Oft as the price-deciding hammer falls

  He notes it in his book, then raps his box,

  Swears ’tis a bargain, rails at his hard fate

  That he has let it pass — but never bids.

  Here unmolested, through whatever sign

  The sun proceeds, I wander; neither mist,

  Nor freezing sky, nor sultry, checking me,

  Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy.

  Even in the spring and play-time of the year

  That calls the unwonted villager abroad

  With all her little ones, a sportive train,

  To gather king-cups in the yellow mead,

  And prank their hair with daisies, or to pick

  A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook,

  These shades are all my own. The timorous hare,

  Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,

  Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmed

  Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends

  His long love-ditty for my near approach.

  Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm

  That age or injury has hollowed deep,

  Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves

  He has outslept the winter, ventures forth

  To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun,

  The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play.

  He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,

  Ascends the neighbouring beech; there whisks his brush,

  And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,

  With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,

  And anger insignificantly fierce.

  The heart is hard in nature, and unfit

  For human fellowship, as being void

  Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike

  To love and friendship both, that is not pleased

  With sight of animals enjoying life,

  Nor feels their happiness augment his own.

  The bounding fawn that darts across the glade

  When none pursues, through mere delight of heart,

  And spirits buoyant with excess of glee;

  The horse, as wanton and almost as fleet,

  That skims the spacious meadow at full speed,

  Then stops and snorts, and throwing high his heels

  Starts to the voluntary race again;

  The very kine that gambol at high noon,

  The total herd receiving first from one,

  That leads the dance, a summons to be gay,

  Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth

  Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent

  To give such act and utterance as they may

  To ecstasy too big to be suppressed —

  These, and a thousand images of bliss,

  With which kind nature graces every scene

  Where cruel man defeats not her design,

  Impart to the benevolent, who wish

  All that are capable of pleasure pleased,

  A far superior happiness to theirs,

  The comfort of a reasonable joy.

  Man scarce had risen, obedient to His call

  Who formed him from the dust, his future grave,

  When he was crowned as never king was since
.

  God set His diadem upon his head,

  And angel choirs attended. Wondering stood

  The new-made monarch, while before him passed,

  All happy and all perfect in their kind,

  The creatures, summoned from their various haunts

  To see their sovereign, and confess his sway.

  Vast was his empire, absolute his power,

  Or bounded only by a law whose force

  ’Twas his sublimest privilege to feel

  And own, the law of universal love.

  He ruled with meekness, they obeyed with joy.

  No cruel purpose lurked within his heart,

  And no distrust of his intent in theirs.

  So Eden was a scene of harmless sport,

  Where kindness on his part who ruled the whole

  Begat a tranquil confidence in all,

  And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear.

  But sin marred all; and the revolt of man,

  That source of evils not exhausted yet,

  Was punished with revolt of his from him.

  Garden of God, how terrible the change

  Thy groves and lawns then witnessed! every heart,

  Each animal of every name, conceived

  A jealousy and an instinctive fear,

  And, conscious of some danger, either fled

  Precipitate the loathed abode of man,

  Or growled defiance in such angry sort,

  As taught him too to tremble in his turn.

  Thus harmony and family accord

  Were driven from Paradise; and in that hour

  The seeds of cruelty, that since have swelled

  To such gigantic and enormous growth,

  Were sown in human nature’s fruitful soil.

  Hence date the persecution and the pain

  That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,

  Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport,

  To gratify the frenzy of his wrath,

  Or his base gluttony, are causes good

  And just in his account, why bird and beast

  Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed

  With blood of their inhabitants impaled.

  Earth groans beneath the burden of a war

  Waged with defenceless innocence, while he,

  Not satisfied to prey on all around,

  Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs

  Needless, and first torments ere he devours.

  Now happiest they that occupy the scenes

  The most remote from his abhorred resort,

  Whom once as delegate of God on earth

  They feared, and as His perfect image loved.

  The wilderness is theirs with all its caves,

  Its hollow glens, its thickets, and its plains

  Unvisited by man. There they are free,

  And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrolled,

  Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play.

  Woe to the tyrant, if he dare intrude

  Within the confines of their wild domain;

  The lion tells him, “I am monarch here;”

  And if he spares him, spares him on the terms

  Of royal mercy, and through generous scorn

  To rend a victim trembling at his foot.

  In measure, as by force of instinct drawn,

  Or by necessity constrained, they live

  Dependent upon man, those in his fields,

  These at his crib, and some beneath his roof;

  They prove too often at how dear a rate

  He sells protection. Witness, at his foot

  The spaniel dying for some venial fault,

  Under dissection of the knotted scourge;

  Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells

  Driven to the slaughter, goaded as he runs

  To madness, while the savage at his heels

  Laughs at the frantic sufferer’s fury spent

  Upon the guiltless passenger o’erthrown.

  He too is witness, noblest of the train

  That wait on man, the flight-performing horse:

  With unsuspecting readiness he takes

  His murderer on his back, and, pushed all day,

  With bleeding sides, and flanks that heave for life,

  To the far-distant goal, arrives and dies.

  So little mercy shows who needs so much!

  Does law, so jealous in the cause of man,

  Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.

  He lives, and o’er his brimming beaker boasts

  (As if barbarity were high desert)

  The inglorious feat, and, clamorous in praise

  Of the poor brute, seems wisely to suppose

  The honours of his matchless horse his own.

  But many a crime, deemed innocent on earth,

  Is registered in heaven, and these, no doubt,

  Have each their record, with a curse annexed.

  Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,

  But God will never. When He charged the Jew

  To assist his foe’s down-fallen beast to rise,

  And when the bush-exploring boy that seized

  The young, to let the parent bird go free,

  Proved He not plainly that His meaner works

  Are yet His care, and have an interest all,

  All, in the universal Father’s love?

  On Noah, and in him on all mankind,

  The charter was conferred by which we hold

  The flesh of animals in fee, and claim,

  O’er all we feed on, power of life and death.

  But read the instrument, and mark it well;

  The oppression of a tyrannous control

  Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield

  Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin,

  Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute.

  The Governor of all, Himself to all

  So bountiful, in whose attentive ear

  The unfledged raven and the lion’s whelp

  Plead not in vain for pity on the pangs

  Of hunger unassuaged, has interposed,

  Not seldom, His avenging arm, to smite

  The injurious trampler upon nature’s law,

  That claims forbearance even for a brute.

  He hates the hardness of a Balaam’s heart,

  And, prophet as he was, he might not strike

  The blameless animal, without rebuke,

  On which he rode. Her opportune offence

  Saved him, or the unrelenting seer had died.

  He sees that human equity is slack

  To interfere, though in so just a cause,

  And makes the task His own; inspiring dumb

  And helpless victims with a sense so keen

  Of injury, with such knowledge of their strength,

  And such sagacity to take revenge,

  That oft the beast has seemed to judge the man.

  An ancient, not a legendary tale,

  By one of sound intelligence rehearsed,

  (If such, who plead for Providence may seem

  In modern eyes) shall make the doctrine clear.

  Where England, stretched towards the setting sun,

  Narrow and long, o’erlooks the western wave,

  Dwelt young Misagathus; a scorner he

  Of God and goodness, atheist in ostent,

  Vicious in act, in temper savage-fierce.

  He journeyed, and his chance was, as he went,

  To join a traveller of far different note —

  Evander, famed for piety, for years

  Deserving honour, but for wisdom more.

  Fame had not left the venerable man

  A stranger to the manners of the youth,

  Whose face, too, was familiar to his view.

  Their way was on the margin of the land,

  O’er the green summit of the rocks whose base

  Beats back the roaring surge, scarce he
ard so high.

  The charity that warmed his heart was moved

  At sight of the man-monster. With a smile

  Gentle and affable, and full of grace,

  As fearful of offending whom he wished

  Much to persuade, he plied his ear with truths

  Not harshly thundered forth or rudely pressed,

  But, like his purpose, gracious, kind, and sweet.

  “And dost thou dream,” the impenetrable man

  Exclaimed, “that me the lullabies of age,

  And fantasies of dotards such as thou,

  Can cheat, or move a moment’s fear in me?

  Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave

  Need no such aids as superstition lends

  To steel their hearts against the dread of death.”

  He spoke, and to the precipice at hand

  Pushed with a madman’s fury. Fancy shrinks,

  And the blood thrills and curdles at the thought

  Of such a gulf as he designed his grave.

  But though the felon on his back could dare

  The dreadful leap, more rational, his steed

  Declined the death, and wheeling swiftly round,

  Or ere his hoof had pressed the crumbling verge,

  Baffled his rider, saved against his will.

  The frenzy of the brain may be redressed

  By medicine well applied, but without grace

  The heart’s insanity admits no cure.

  Enraged the more by what might have reformed

  His horrible intent, again he sought

  Destruction, with a zeal to be destroyed,

  With sounding whip and rowels dyed in blood.

  But still in vain. The Providence that meant

  A longer date to the far nobler beast,

  Spared yet again the ignobler for his sake.

  And now, his prowess proved, and his sincere,

  Incurable obduracy evinced,

  His rage grew cool; and, pleased perhaps to have earned

  So cheaply the renown of that attempt,

  With looks of some complacence he resumed

  His road, deriding much the blank amaze

  Of good Evander, still where he was left

  Fixed motionless, and petrified with dread.

  So on they fared; discourse on other themes

  Ensuing, seemed to obliterate the past,

  And tamer far for so much fury shown

  (As is the course of rash and fiery men)

  The rude companion smiled as if transformed.

  But ’twas a transient calm. A storm was near,

  An unsuspected storm. His hour was come.

  The impious challenger of power divine

  Was now to learn that Heaven, though slow to wrath,

  Is never with impunity defied.

  His horse, as he had caught his master’s mood,

  Snorting, and starting into sudden rage,