So sweet to huntsman, gentleman, and hound.
MORAL
Beware of desp’rate steps. The darkest day
(Live till to-morrow) will have pass’d away.
EPIGRAM ON THE REFUSAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD TO SUBSCRIBE TO HIS TRANSLATION OF HOMER
[Written in letter to Mrs. Throckmorton, April 1, 1791. Published by Hayley, 1803.]
Could Homer come himself, distress’d and poor,
And tune his harp at Rhedicina’s door,
The rich old vixen would exclaim (I fear)
Begone! no tramper gets a farthing here. 4
THE FOUR AGES (A BRIEF FRAGMENT OF AN EXTENSIVE PROJECTED POEM)
[Written May (?), 1791. Published by Hayley, 1803.]
“I could be well content, allow’d the use
Of past experience, and the wisdom glean’d
From worn-out follies, now acknowledg’d such,
To recommence life’s trial, in the hope
Of fewer errors, on a second proof!”
Thus, while grey evening lull’d the wind, and call’d
Fresh odours from the shrubb’ry at my side,
Taking my lonely winding walk, I mus’d,
And held accustom’d conference with my heart;
When, from within it, thus a voice replied. 10
‘Could’st thou in truth? and art thou taught at length
This wisdom, and but this, from all the past?
Is not the pardon of thy long arrear,
Time wasted, violated laws, abuse
Of talents, judgments, mercies, better far
Than opportunity vouchsaf’d to err
With less excuse, and haply, worse effect?”
I heard, and acquiesc’d: then to and fro
Oft pacing, as the mariner his deck,
My grav’lly bounds, from self to human kind 20
I pass’d, and next consider’d — what is man?
Knows he his origin? — can he ascend
By reminiscence to his earliest date?
Slept he in Adam? and in those from him
Through num’rous generations, till he found
At length his destin’d moment to be born?
Or was he not, till fashion’d in the womb?
Deep myst’ries both! which schoolmen much have toil’d
T’ unriddle, and have left them myst’ries still.
It is an evil, incident to man,
And of the worst, that unexplor’d he leaves
Truths useful, and attainable with ease,
To search forbidden deeps, where myst’ry lies
Not to he solv’d, and useless if it might.
Myst’ries are food for angels; they digest
With ease, and find them nutriment; but man.
While yet he dwells below, must stoop to glean
His manna from the ground, or starve, and die.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE POETS
[Written May, 1791. Published by Hayley, 1803.]
Two nymphs, both nearly of an age,
Of num’rous charms possess’d,
A warm dispute once chanc’d to wage,
Whose temper was the best.
The worth of each had been complete,
Had both alike been mild;
But one, although her smile was sweet,
Frown’d oft’ner than she smil’d,
And in her humour, when she frown’d,
Would raise her voice, and roar;
And shake with fury, to the ground,
The garland that she wore.
The other was of gentler cast,
From all such frenzy clear;
Her frowns were seldom known to last,
And never prov’d severe.
To poets of renown in song,
The nymphs referr’d the cause,
Who, strange to tell, all judg’d it wrong,
And gave misplac’d applause.
They gentle call’d, and kind, and soft,
The flippant, and the scold;
And though she chang’d her mood so oft,
That failing left untold.
No judges, sure, were e’er so mad,
Or so resolv’d to err;
In short, the charms her sister had
They lavish’d all on her.
Then thus the God whom fondly they
Their great inspirer call,
Was heard, one genial summer’s day,
To reprimand them all.
Since thus ye have combin’d, he said,
My favourite nymph to slight,
Adorning May, that peevish maid!
With June’s undoubted right;
The minx shall, for your folly’s sake,
Still prove herself a shrew;
Shall make your scribbling fingers ache,
And pinch your noses blue. 40
EPITAPH ON MRS. M. HIGGINS, OF WESTON
[Written 1791. Published by Hayley 1803.]
LAURELS may flourish round the conqu’ror’s tomb,
But happiest they, who win the world to come:
Believers have a silent field to fight,
And their exploits are veil’d from human sight.
They in some nook, where little known they dwell,
Kneel, pray in faith, and rout the hosts of hell;
Eternal triumphs crown their toils divine,
And all those triumphs, Mary, now are thine. 8
THE RETIRED CAT
[Written 1791. Published by Hayley, 1803.]
A POET’S cat, sedate and grave,
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks, to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick —
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould PHILOSOPHIQUE,
Or else she learn’d it of her master. 10
Sometimes ascending, debonair,
An apple-tree or lofty pear,
Lodg’d with convenience in the fork,
She watched the gard’ner at his work;
Sometimes her ease and solace sought
In an old empty wat’ring pot,
There wanting nothing, save a fan,
To seem some nymph in her sedan,
Apparell’d in exactest sort,
And ready to be borne to court. 20
But love of change it seems has place
Not only in our wiser race;
Cats also feel as well as we
That passion’s force, and so did she.
Her climbing, she began to find,
Expos’d her too much to the wind,
And the old utensil of tin
Was cold and comfortless within:
She therefore wish’d instead of those,
Some place of more serene repose, 30
Where neither cold might come, nor air
Too rudely wanton with her hair,
And sought it in the likeliest mode
Within her master’s snug abode.
A draw’r, — it chanc’d, at bottom lin’d
With linen of the softest kind,
With such as merchants introduce
From India, for the ladies’ use, —
A draw’r impending o’er the rest,
Half open in the topmost chest, 40
Of depth enough, and none to spare,
Invited her to slumber there.
Puss with delight beyond expression,
Survey’d the scene, and took possession.
Recumbent at her ease ere long,
And lull’d by her own hum-drum song,
She left the cares of life behind,
And slept as she would sleep her last,
When in came, housewifely inclin’d,
The chambermaid, and shut it fast, 50
By no malignity impell’d,
But all unconscious whom it held.
Awaken’d by the shock (cried puss)
Was ever cat attended thus!
The open draw’r was left, I see,
Merely to prove a nest for me.
For soon as I was well compos’d,
Then came the maid, and it was closed:
How smooth these ‘kerchiefs, and how sweet,
O what a delicate retreat! 60
I will resign myself to rest
Till Sol, declining in the west,
Shall call to supper; when, no doubt,
Susan will come and let me out.
The evening came, the sun descended,
And puss remain’d still unattended.
The night roll’d tardily away,
(With her indeed ’twas never day)
The sprightly mom her course renew’d,
The evening gray again ensued, 70
And puss came into mind no more
Than if entomb’d the day before.
With hunger pinch’d, and pinch’d for room,
She now presag’d approaching doom,
Not slept a single wink, or purr’d,
Conscious of jeopardy incurr’d.
That night, by chance, the poet watching,
Heard an inexplicable scratching,
His noble heart went pit-a-pat,
And to himself he said — what’s that? 80
He drew the curtain at his side,
And forth he peep’d, but nothing spied.
Yet, by his ear directed, guess’d
Something imprison’d in the chest,
And doubtful what, with prudent care,
Resolv’d it should continue there.
At length a voice, which well he knew,
A long and melancholy mew,
Saluting his poetic ears,
Consol’d him, and dispell’d his fears; 90
He left his bed, he trod the floor,
He ‘gan in haste the draw’rs explore,
The lowest first, and without stop,
The rest in order to the top.
For ’tis a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In ev’ry cranny but the right.
Forth skipp’d the cat; not now replete
As erst with airy self-conceit, 100
Nor in her own fond apprehension,
A theme for all the world’s attention,
But modest, sober, cur’d of all
Her notions hyberbolical,
And wishing for a place of rest
Any thing rather than a chest:
Then stept the poet into bed,
With this reflexion in his head:
MORAL
Beware of too sublime a sense
Of your own worth and consequence! 110
The man who dreams himself so great,
And his importance of such weight,
That all around, in all that’s done,
Must move and act for him alone,
Will learn, in school of tribulation,
The folly of his expectation.
YARDLEY OAK
[Written 1791. Published by Hayley, 1804. The MS. is in the Cowper Museum at Olney.]
SURVIVOR sole, and hardly such, of all
That once liv’d here thy brethren, at my birth
(Since which I number three-score winters past)
A shatter’d veteran, hollow-trunk’d perhaps
As now, and with excoriate forks deform,
Relicts of ages! Could a mind, imbued
With truth from heav’n, created thing adore,
I might with rev’rence kneel and worship thee.
It seems idolatry with some excuse
When our fore-father Druids in their oaks 10
Imagin’d sanctity. The conscience yet
Unpurified by an authentic act
Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine,
Lov’d not the light, but gloomy into gloom
Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste
Of fruit proscrib’d, as to a refuge, fled.
Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,
Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin’d
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs 21
And all thine embryo vastness, at a gulp.
But Fate thy growth decreed: autumnal rains
Beneath thy parent tree mellow’d the soil
Design’d thy cradle, and a skipping deer,
With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepar’d
The soft receptacle in which secure
Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through.
So Fancy dreams — Disprove it, if ye can,
Ye reas’ners broad awake, whose busy search 30
Of argument, employ’d too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away.
Thou fell’st mature, and in the loamy clod
Swelling, with vegetative force instinct
Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins
Now stars; two lobes, protruding, pair’d exact;
A leaf succeeded, and another leaf,
And all the elements thy puny growth
Fost’ring propitious, thou becam’st a twig.
Who liv’d when thou wast such? Oh couldst thou speak, 40
As in Dodona once thy kindred trees
Oracular, I would not curious ask
The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past.
By thee I might correct, erroneous oft,
The clock of history, facts and events
Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts
Recov’ring, and misstated setting right —
Desp’rate attempt, till trees shall speak again!
Time made thee what thou wast — King of the woods; 50
And Time hath made thee what thou art — a cave
For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs
O’erhung the champain; and the numerous flock
That graz’d it stood beneath that ample cope
Uncrowded, yet safe-shelter’d from the storm.
No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outliv’d
Thy popularity and art become
(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing
Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth.
While thus through all the stages thou hast push’d
Of treeship, first a seedling hid in grass, 61
Then twig, then sapling, and, as century roll’d
Slow after century, a giant bulk
Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion’d root
Upheav’d above the soil, and sides imboss’d
With prominent wens globose, till at the last
The rottenness, which time is charg’d t’ inflict
On other mighty ones, found also thee —
What exhibitions various hath the world
Witness’d of mutability in all 70
That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet, on which all subsist
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them. — Skies uncertain now the heat
Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam
Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds, —
Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought,
Invigorate by turns the springs of life
In all that live, plant, animal, and man 79
And in conclusion mar them. Nature’s threads,
Fine passing thought, ev’n in her coarsest works,
Delight in agitation, yet sustain
The force, that agitates not unimpair’d,
But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause
Of their bes
t tone their dissolution owe.
Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still
The great and little of thy lot, thy growth
From almost nullity into a state
Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence
Slow into such magnificent decay. 90
Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly
Could shake thee to the root — and time has been
When tempests could not. At thy firmest age
Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents
That might have ribb’d the sides or plank’d the deck
Of some flagg’d admiral; and tortuous arms,
The ship-wright’s darling treasure, didst present
To the four-quarter’d winds, robust and bold,
Warp’d into tough knee-timber, many a load.
But the axe spar’d thee; in those thriftier days
Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply 101
The bottomless demands of contest wag’d
For senatorial honours. Thus to Time
The task was left to whittle thee away
With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge
Noiseless, an atom and an atom more
Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserv’d,
Achiev’d a labour, which had, far and wide,
(By man perform’d) made all the forest ring.
Embowell’d now, and of thy ancient self 110
Possessing nought but the scoop’d rind, that seems
An huge throat calling to the clouds for drink,
Which it would give in riv’lets to thy root,
Thou temptest none, but rather much forbid’st
The feller’s toil, which thou couldst ill requite.
Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock,
A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs,
Which, crook’d into a thousand whimsies, clasp
The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect.
So stands a kingdom, whose foundations yet 120
Fail not, in virtue and in wisdom laid,
Though all the superstructure, by the tooth
Pulveriz’d of venality, a shell
Stands now, and semblance only of itself.
Thine arms have left thee. Winds have rent them off
Long since, and rovers of the forest wild
With bow and shaft have burnt them. Some have left
A splinter’d stump bleach’d to a snowy white;
William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works Page 54
