William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works
Page 49
And giving one whose heart is in the skies,
Born from above and made divinely wise,
He gives what bankrupt Nature never can,
Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man,
Gold purer far than Ophir ever knew,
A soul an image of Himself, and therefore true.
TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF THE HALIBUT ON WHICH I DINED THIS DAY
[Written in letter to Unwin April 25,1784. Published by Johnson, 1824. There is a copy among the Ash MSS.]
Where hast thou floated, in what seas pursued
Thy pastime? when wast thou an egg new-spawn’d,
Lost in th’ immensity of ocean’s waste?
Roar as they might, the overbearing winds
That rock’d the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe —
And in thy minikin and embryo state,
Attach’d to the firm leaf of some salt weed,
Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack’d
The joints of many a stout and gallant bark,
And whelm’d them in the unexplor’d abyss. 10
Indebted to no magnet and no chart,
Nor under guidance of the polar fire,
Thou wast a voyager on many coasts,
Grazing at large in meadows submarine,
Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps
Above the brine, — where Caledonia’s rocks
Beat back the surge, — and where Hibernia shoots
Her wondrous causeway far into the main.
— Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought’st,
And I not more, that I should feed on thee. 20
Peace therefore, and good health, and much good fish,
To him who sent thee! and success, as oft
As it descends into the billowy gulph,
To the same drag that caught thee! — Fare thee well!
Thy lot thy brethren of the slimy fin
Would envy, could they know that thou wast doom’d
To feed a bard, and to be prais’d in verse.
THE POPLAR- FIELD
[Written 1784. Published in The Gentleman’s Magazine, Jan., 1785; afterwards in 1800.]
THE poplars are fell’d, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade,
The winds play no longer, and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.
Twelve years have elaps’d since I first took a view
Of my favourite field and the bank where they grew,
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade. 8
The blackbird has fled to another retreat
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,
And the scene where his melody charm’d me before,
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.
My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,
‘Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead. 16
’Tis a sight to engage me, if any thing can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,
Have a being less durable even than he.
IDEM LATINE REDDITUM
[Written Jan. (?), 1785. Published in The Gentleman’s Magazine, Aug., 1785; afterwards in 1800.]
POPULEÆ cecidit gratissima copia silvæ,
Conticuere susurri, omnisque evanuit umbra.
Nullæ jam levibus se miscent frondibus aurae
Et nulla in fluvio ramorum ludit imago.
Hei mihi! his senos dum luctu torqueor annos,
His cogor silvis suetoque carere recessu,
Cum sero rediens stratasque in gramine cernens
Insedi arboribus sub queis errare solebam. 8
Ah ubi nunc merulæ cantus? Felicior ilium
Silva tegit, duræ nondum permissa bipenni;
Scilicet exustos colles camposque patentes
Odit, et indignans et non rediturus abivit.
Sed qui succisas doleo succidar et ipse,
Et prius huic parilis quam creverit altera silva
Flebor, et, exequiis parvis donatus, habebo
Defixum lapidem tumulique cubantis acervum. 16
Tam subito periisse videns tam digna manere
Agnosco humanas sortes et tristia fata —
Sit licet ipse brevis, volucrique simillimus umbrae,
Est homini brevior citiusque obitura voluptas.
LINES SENT WITH TWO COCKSCOMBS TO MISS GREEN
[Written 1784 (?). Published by Bruce, 1863. A slightly different version was first printed by Canon Benham in 1870.]
Two powder’d coxcombs wait at your command,
And, what is strange, both dress’d by Nature’s hand.
Like other fops, they dread a sudden shower,
And seek a shelter in your closest bower.
Showy like them, like them they yield no fruit,
But then, to make amends, they both are mute. 6
EPITAPH ON DR. JOHNSON
[Written Jan., 1785. Published from letter to Unwin, dated Jan. 15 (MS. in British Museum), by Hayley, 1803.]
Here Johnson lies — a sage, by all allow’d,
Whom to have bred may well make England proud;
Whose prose was eloquence by wisdom taught,
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;
Whose verse may claim — grave, masculine, and strong,
Superior praise to the mere poet’s song;
Who many a noble gift from heav’n possess’d,
And faith at last — alone worth all the rest.
Oh man immortal by a double prize!
By Fame on earth — by Glory in the skies! 10
ON THE AUTHOR OF LETTERS ON LITERATURE
[Written Nov., 1785. Published by Johnson, 1824.]
THE Genius of th’ Augustan age
His head among Rome’s ruins rear’d,
And bursting with heroic rage,
When literary Heron appear’d,
Thou hast, he cried, like him of old
Who set th’ Ephesian dome on fire,
By being scandalously bold,
Attain’d the mark of thy desire; 8
And for traducing Virgil’s name
Shalt share his merited reward;
A perpetuity of fame,
That rots, and stinks, and is abhorr’d.
THE POET’S NEW-YEAR’S GIFT TO MRS. THROCKMORTON
[Written Dec., 1787. Published in The Gentleman’s Magazine, Dec., 1788; afterwards in 1795.]
MARIA! I have ev’ry good
For thee wish’d many a time,
Both sad, and in a cheerful mood,
But never yet in rhime.
To wish thee fairer is no need,
More prudent, or more sprightly,
Or more ingenious, or more freed
From temper-flaws unsightly. 8
What favour, then, not yet possess’d,
Can I for thee require,
In wedded love already blest,
To thy whole heart’s desire?
None here is happy but in part;
Full bliss is bliss divine;
There dwells some wish in ev’ry heart,
And, doubtless, one in thine. 16
That wish, on some fair future day,
Which fate shall brightly gild,
(’Tis blameless, be it what it may)
I wish it all fulfill’d.
STANZAS PRINTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE TOWN OF NORTHAMPTON; DEC. 21, 1787
[Written Nov., 1787. Published in The Gentleman’s Magazine, June, 1788; afterwards in 1800, and by Bull in 1801.]
Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres. — HORACE.
Pa
le Death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls and novels of the poor.
While thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen’s barge-laden wave,
All these, life’s rambling journey done,
Have found their home — the grave.
Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?
Did famine, or did plague prevail,
That so much death appears? 8
No; these were vigorous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waves his claim.
Like crowded forest-trees we stand,
And some are mark’d to fall;
The axe will smite at God’s command,
And soon shall smite us all. 10
Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,
The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen;
I pass’d — and they were gone.
Read, ye that run, the awful truth
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age. 24
No present health can health insure
For yet an hour to come;
No med’cine, though it often cure,
Can always balk the tomb.
And oh! that (humble as my lot,
And scorn’d as is my strain)
These truths, though known, too much forgot,
I may not teach in vain. 32
So prays your Clerk, with all his heart;
And, ere he quits the pen,
Begs you for once to take his part,
And answer all — Amen!
ON A SIMILAR OCCASION FOR THE YEAR 1788
[Written 1788. Published 1800 (vol. I. Appendix), and by Bull, 1801.]
Quod adest, memento
Componere æquus; cætera fluminis
Ritu feruntur. — Horace.
Improve the present hour, for all beside
Is a mere feather on the torrent’s tide.
Could I, from heav’n inspir’d, as sure presage
To whom the rising year shall prove the last,
As I can number in my punctual page,
And item down the victims of the past;
How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet
On which the press might stamp him next to die;
And, reading here his sentence, how replete
With anxious meaning, heav’nward cast his eye. 8
Time then would seem more
precious than the joys
In which he sports away the treasure now,
And prayer more seasonable than the noise
Of drunkards or the music-drawing bow.
Then, doubtless, many a trifler, on the brink
Of this world’s hazardous and headlong shore,
Forc’d to a pause, would feel it good to think,
Told that his setting sun would rise no more. 16
Ah! self-deceiv’d! could I prophetic say
Who next is fated, and who next shall fall,
The rest might then seem privileg’d to play;
But, naming none, the voice now speaks to all.
Observe the dappled foresters, how light
They bound, and airy, o’er the sunny glade:
One falls — the rest, wide scatter’d with affright,
Vanish at once into the thickest shade. 24
Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn’d,
Still need repeated warnings; and at last,
A thousand awful admonitions scorn’d,
Die self-accus’d of life all run to waste?
Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones:
The grave admits no cure of guilt or sin;
Dew-drops may deck the turf that hides the hones,
But tears of godly grief ne’er flow within. 32
Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught
Of all these sepulchres instruction true,
That, soon or late, death also is your lot;
And the next op’ning grave may yawn for you.
ON A SIMILAR OCCASION FOR THE YEAR 1789
[Written 1789. Published in Public Characters 1799, afterwards in 1800, and by Bull, 1801.]
Plaeidaque ibi demum morte quievit. — Virg.
There calm at length he breath’d his soul away.
“Oh most delightful hour by man
Experienc’d here below;
The hour that terminates his span,
His folly and his woe.
“Worlds should not bribe me back to tread
Again life’s dreary waste;
To see my days again o’erspread
With all the gloomy past. 8
“My home, henceforth, is in the skies,
Earth, seas, and sun adieu;
All heav’n unfolded to my eyes,
I have no sight for you.”
Thus spake Aspatio, firm possest
Of faith’s supporting rod;
Then breath’d his soul into its rest,
The bosom of his God. 16
He was a man among the few
Sincere on Virtue’s side,
And all his strength from Scripture drew,
To hourly use applied.
That rule he priz’d, by that he fear’d,
He hated, hop’d, and lov’d,
Nor ever frown’d, or sad appear’d,
But when his heart had rov’d. 24
For he was frail as thou or I,
And evil felt within,
But when he felt it, heav’d a sigh,
And loath’d the thought of sin.
Such liv’d Aspatio, and at last,
Call’d up from earth to heaven,
The gulph of death triumphant pass’d,
By gales of blessing driven. 32
His joys be mine, each reader cries,
When my last hour arrives:
They shall be yours, my verse replies,
Such ONLY be your lives.
ON A SIMILAR OCCASION FOR THE YEAR 1790
[Written 1790. Published 1800 (vol. I. Appendix), and by Bull, 1801.]
Ne commonentem recta speme. — Buchanan.
Despise not my good counsel.
HE who sits from day to day,
Where the prison’d lark is hung,
Heedless of his loudest lay,
Hardly knows that he has sung.
Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustom’d to the sound,
Wakes the sooner for his cry. 8
So your verse-man I, and clerk,
Yearly in my song proclaim
Death at hand — yourselves his mark —
And the foe’s unerring aim.
Duly at my time I come,
Publishing to all aloud —
Soon the grave must be your home,
And your only suit a shroud. 16
But the monitory strain,
Oft repeated in your ears,
Seems to sound too much in vain,
Wins no notice, wakes no fears.
Can a truth, by all confess’d
Of such magnitude and weight,
Grow, by being oft express’d,
Trivial as a parrot’s prate? 24
Pleasure’s call attention wins,
Hear it often as we may;
New as ever seem our sins,
Though committed ev’ry day.
Death and Judgment, Heav’n and Hell —
These alone, so often heard,
No more move us than the hell
When some stranger is interr’d. 32
Oh then, ere the turf or tomb
Cover us from ev’ry eye,
Spirit of instruction come;
Make us learn that we must die.
ON A SIMILAR OCCASION FOR T
HE YEAR 1792
[Written 1792. Published 1800 (vol. I. Appendix), and by Bull, 1801.]
Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari! — VIRG.
Happy the mortal, who has trac’d effects
To their First Cause; cast fear beneath his feet;
And death, and roaring hell’s voracious fires.
THANKLESS for favours from on high,
Man thinks he fades too soon;
Though ’tis his privilege to die,
Would he improve the boon:
But he, not wise enough to scan
His best concerns aright,
Would gladly stretch life’s little span
To ages, if he might — 8
To ages, in a world of pain,
To ages, where he goes
Gall’d by Affliction’s heavy chain,
And hopeless of repose.
Strange fondness of the human heart,
Enamour’d of its harm!
Strange world, that costs it so much smart,
And still has pow’r to charm! 16
Whence has the world her magic pow’r?
Why deem we death a foe?
Recoil from weary life’s best hour,
And covet longer woe?
The cause is Conscience — Conscience oft
Her tale of guilt renews:
Her voice is terrible though soft,