Thus, hit by bit, the world is swallow’d;
Each thinks his neighbour makes too free,
Yet likes a slice as well as he;
With sophistry their sauce they sweeten,
Till quite from tail to snout ’tis eaten.
BOADICEA: AN ODE
[Written 1780. Published 1782.]
WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country’s gods,
Sage beneath a spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Ev’ry burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief. 8
Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
’Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.
Rome shall perish — write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr’d,
Deep in ruin as in guilt. 16
Rome, for empire far renown’d,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground —
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!
Other Romans shall arise,
Heedless of a soldier’s name;
Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize —
Harmony the path to fame.. 24
Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Arm’d with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.
Regions Cæsar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they. 32
Such the bard’s prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending, as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.
She, with all a monarch’s pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow;
Rush’d to battle, fought, and died;
Dying, hurl’d them at the foe. 40
Ruffians, pitiless as proud,
Heav’n awards the vengeance due;
Empire is on us bestow’d,
Shame and ruin wait for you.
VERSES SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK, DURING HIS SOLITARY ABODE IN THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ
[Written (?). Published 1782. There is a MS. copy in the British Museum, not in Cowper’s handwriting; another among the Ash MSS.]
I AM monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
Oh, solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place. 8
I am out of humanity’s reach,
I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own.
The beasts, that roam over the plain,
My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me. 16
Society, friendship, and love,
Divinely bestow’d upon man,
Oh, had I the wings of a dove,
How soon would I taste you again!
My sorrows I then might assuage
In the ways of religion and truth,
Might learn from the wisdom of age,
And be cheer’d by the sallies of youth.
Religion! what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford.
But the sound of the church-going bell
These vallies and rocks never heard,
Ne’er sigh’d at the sound of a knell,
Or smil’d when a sabbath appear’d. 32
Ye winds, that have made me your sport,
Convey to this desolate shore
Some cordial endearing report
Of a land I shall visit no more.
My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see. 40
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compar’d with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift wing’d arrows of light.
When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there;
But alas! recollection at hand
Soon hurries me back to despair. 48
But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest,
The beast is laid down in his lair,
Ev’n here is a season of rest,
And I to my cabin repair.
There is mercy in every place;
And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace,
And reconciles man to his lot. 56
THE LILY AND THE ROSE
[Written 1781 (?). Published 1782. There is an undated MS. copy in the British Museum.]
THE nymph must lose her female friend,
If more admir’d than she —
But where will fierce contention end
If flow’rs can disagree?
Within the garden’s peaceful scene
Appear’d two lovely foes,
Aspiring to the rank of queen —
The Lily and the Rose. 8
The Rose soon redden’d into rage,
And, swelling with disdain,
Appeal’d to many a poet’s page
To prove her right to reign.
The Lily’s height bespoke command —
A fair imperial flow’r;
She seem’d design’d for Flora’s hand,
The sceptre of her pow’r. 16
This civil bick’ring and debate
The goddess chanc’d to hear,
And flew to save, ere yet too late,
The pride of the parterre. —
Your’s is, she said, the nobler hue,
And your’s the statelier mien,
And, till a third surpasses you,
Let each be deem’d a queen. 24
Thus, sooth’d and reconcil’d, each seeks
The fairest British fair;
The seat of empire is her cheeks,
They reign united there.
IDEM LATINE REDDITUM
[Written 1781 (?). Published 1782.]
HEU inimicitias quoties parit æmula forma,
Quam raro pulchræ pulchra placere potest!
Sed fines ultra solitos discordia tendit,
Cum flores ipsos bilis et ira movent.
Hortus ubi dulces præbet tacitosque recessus,
Se rapit in partes gens animosa duas;
Hie sibi regales Amaryllis Candida cultus,
Illic purpureo vindicat ore Rosa. 8
Ira Rosam et meritis quæsita superbia tangunt,
Multaque ferventi vix cohibenda sinu,
Dum sibi fautorum ciet undique nomina vatum,
Jusque suum, multo carmine fulta, probat.
Altior emicat ilia, et celso vertice nutat,
Ceu flores inter non habitura parem,
Fastiditque alios, et nata videtur in usus
Imperii, sceptrum, Flora quod ipsa gerat. 16
Nec Dea non sensit civilis murmura rixæ,
Gui curæ est pictas pandere ruris opes.
Deliciasque suas nunquam non prompta tueri,
Dum licet et locus est, ut tueatur, adest.
Et tibi forma datur procerior omnibus, inquit,
Et tibi, principibus qui solet esse, color,
Et donec vincat quædam formosi
or ambas,
Et tibi reginæ nomen, et esto tibi. 24
His ubi sedatus furor est, petit utraque nympham,
Qualem inter Veneres Anglia sola parit;
Hanc penes imperium est, nihil optant amplius, hujus
Regnant in nitidis, et sine lite, genis.
VOTUM
[Written (?). Published 1782.]
O MATUTINI rores, auræque salubres,
O nemora, et lætæ rivis felicibus berbæ,
Graminei colles, et amænæ in vallibus umbræ!
Fata modo dederint quas olim in rure paterno
Delicias, procul arte, procul formidine novi,
Quam vellem ignotus quodmens mea semperavebat,
Ante larem proprium placidam expectare senectam,
Tum demum, exactis non infeliciter annis,
Sortiri taciturn lapidem, aut sub cespite condi! 9
HORACE. BOOK THE 2ND. ODE THE 10TH.
[Written (?). Published 1782.]
RECEIVE, dear friend, the truths I teach,
So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse Fortune’s pow’r;
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treach’rous shore. 6
He, that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man’s door.
Imbitt’ring all his state. 12
The tallest pines feel most the pow’r
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tow’r
Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts, that spare the mountain’s side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide,
And spread the ruin round. 18
The well-inform’d philosopher
Rejoices with an wholesome fear,
And hopes, in spite of pain;
If winter bellow from the north,
Soon the sweet spring comes dancing forth.
And nature laughs again. 24
What if thine heav’n be overcast,
The dark appearance will not last;
Expect a brighter sky;
The God that strings the silver bow
Awakes sometimes the muses too,
And lays his arrows by. 30
If hindrances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,
And let thy strength be seen;
But oh! if Fortune fill thy sail
With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvass in. 36
A REFLECTION ON THE FOREGOING ODE
[Written (?). Published 1782.]
AND is this all? Can reason do no more
Than bid me shun the deep and dread the shore?
Sweet moralist! afloat on life’s rough sea,
The Christian has an art unknown to thee:
He holds no parley with unmanly fears;
Where duty bids, he confidently steers,
Faces a thousand dangers at her call,
And, trusting in his God, surmounts them all. 8
MUTUAL FORBEARANCE NECESSARY TO THE HAPPINESS OF THE MARRIED STATE
[Written (?). Published 1782. There is a MS. copy in the British Museum.]
THE lady thus address’d her spouse —
What a mere dungeon is this house!
By no means large enough; and, was it,
Yet this dull room, and that dark closet —
Those hangings, with their worn-out graces,
Long beards, long noses, and pale faces —
Are such an antiquated scene,
They overwhelm me with the spleen!
Sir Humphry, shooting in the dark,
Makes answer quite beside the mark: 10
No doubt, my dear — I bade him come,
Engag’d myself to be at home,
And shall expect him at the door
Precisely when the clock strikes four.
You are so deaf, the lady cried,
(And rais’d her voice and frown’d beside,)
You are so sadly deaf, my dear,
What shall I do to make you hear?
Dismiss poor Harry! he replies;
Some people are more nice than wise — 20
For one slight trespass all this stir?
What if he did ride whip and spur,
’Twas but a mile — your fav’rite horse
Will never look one hair the worse.
Well, I protest ’tis past all bearing. —
Child! I am rather hard of hearing. —
Yes, truly — one must scream and bawl —
I tell you, you can’t hear at all!
Then, with a voice exceeding low,
No matter if you hear or no. 30
Alas! and is domestic strife,
That sorest ill of human life,
A plague so little to be fear’d,
As to be wantonly incurr’d,
To gratify a fretful passion,
On ev’ry trivial provocation?
The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something, ev’ry day they live,
To pity, and, perhaps, forgive. 40
But if infirmities that fall
In common to the lot of all —
A blemish or a sense impair’d —
Are crimes so little to be spar’d, —
Then farewell all that must create
The comfort of the wedded state;
Instead of harmony, ’tis jar
And tumult, and intestine war.
The love that cheers life’s latest stage,
Proof against sickness and old age, 50
Preserv’d by virtue from declension,
Becomes not weary of attention;
But lives, when that exterior grace
Which first inspir’d the flame decays.
’Tis gentle, delicate, and kind,
To faults compassionate or blind,
And will with sympathy endure
Those evils it would gladly cure:
But angry, coarse, and harsh expression
Shows love to be a mere profession; 60
Proves that the heart is none of his,
Or soon expels him if it is.
ANTI-THELYPHTHORA
A TALE, IN VERSE
Ah miser, Quanta laboras in Charybdi!
Hor. Od i. 27.
[Written Jan. (?), 1781. Published anonymously as a 4to pamphlet, 1781.]
AIRY del Castro was as bold a knight
As ever earn’d a lady’s love in fight.
Many he sought, but one above the rest
His tender heart victoriously impress’d:
In Fairy land was born the matchless dame,
The land of Dreams, Hypothesis her name.
There Fancy nurs’d her in ideal bow’rs,
And laid her soft in Amaranthine flow’rs;
Delighted with her babe, th’ Inchantress smil’d,
And grac’d with all her gifts the fav’rite child. 10
Her, woo’d Sir Airy, by meandring streams,
In daily musings and in nightly dreams;
With all the flow’rs he found, he wove in haste
Wreaths for her brow, and girdles for her waist;
His time, his talents, and his ceaseless care
All consecrated to adorn the fair:
No pastime but with her he deign’d to take,
And if he studied, studied for her sake.
And, for Hypothesis was somewhat long,
Nor soft enough to suit a lover’s tongue, 20
He called her Posy, with an amorous art,
And grav’d it on a gem, and wore it next his heart.
But she, inconstant as the beams that play
On rippling waters in an April day,
With many a freakish trick deceiv’d his p
ains,
To pathless wilds and unfrequented plains
Entic’d him from his oaths of knighthood far,
Forgetful of the glorious toils of war.
’Tis thus the tenderness that love inspires
Too oft betrays the vot’ries of his fires; 30
Borne far away on elevated wings,
They sport like wanton doves in airy rings,
And laws and duties are neglected tilings.
Nor he alone address’d the wayward Fair,
Full many a knight had been entangled there.
But still whoever woo’d her or embrac’d,
On ev’ry mind some mighty spell she cast.
Some she would teach (for she was wondrous wise,
And made her dupes see all things with her eyes)
That forms material, whatsoe’er we dream, 40
Are not at all, or are not what they seem;
That substances and modes of ev’ry kind,
Are mere impressions on the passive mind;
And he that splits his cranium, breaks at most
A fancied head against a fancied post:
Others, that earth, ere sin had drown’d it all,
Was smooth and even as an iv’ry ball;
That all the various beauties we survey,
Hills, valleys, rivers, and the boundless sea,
Are but departures from the first design, 50
Effects of punishment and wrath divine.
She tutor’d some in Dædalus’s art,
And promis’d they should act his wildgoose part,
On waxen pinions soar without a fall,
Swift as the proudest gander of them all.
But fate reserv’d Sir Airy to maintain
The wildest project of her teeming brain;
That wedlock is not rig’rous as suppos’d,
But man, within a wider pale enclos’d,
May rove at will, where appetite shall lead, 60
Free as the lordly bull that ranges o’er the mead;
That forms and rites are tricks of human law,
William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works Page 44
