habitation Furnish’d at her own expence.
[Mrs. Maitland’s note: then follows: — ]
To my dearest Cousin
on
her removal of us
from
Silver End, to
Weston.
1.
WHO gave me grassy Lawns for miry ways,
These silent shades for dull and noisy streets,
For Rustics who can only gape & gaze,
Good neighbourhood with all its social sweets?
2.
Whe took me from my dwelling old and drear
As Prisons or inclosures of the dead,
By vermin haunted, sinking ev’ry year,
And threat’ning downfall on its Tenant’s head?
3.
Plac’d me, when least I hop’d so fair a change,
In this neat Mansion furnish’d by her care,
And gave me for you marshy flats, to range
These pleasant heights, and breathe this purer air?
4.
No patron prais’d ‘till his relenting hands
Forgot their gripe, no poem-pamper’d Peer,
But lib’ral as the show’rs on thirsty lands
And true as Day-Spring, Harriot has been here.
5.
She stoop’d from you great city, from the sight
Of proud Hyde-Park was happy to descend
Wing’d with Benevolence, into the night
Of infant-throng’d, thief-harb’ring Silver End.
6.
She took me thence, and my departure shap’d
From scenes of filth, to Weston’s verdant scene;
So by an Angel’s conduct Lot escap’d
From Sodom’s fires to Zoar fresh and green.
7.
Sweet Cousin! with whom so oft at early day,
While many a homely lass lay slumb’ring still,
Chearful & happy I was wont to stray
Through Ducal Bedford’s fields to Primrose-Hill.
8.
I little thought that Pleasures dead so long
Should yet revive, that I should hear again
The once familiar music of that tongue
So oft employ’d to mitigate my pain.
9.
And would’st thou now, that after many a year
With sadness of the deepest gloom o’ercast,
The evening of my life should open clear,
And Mary taste, and I, some ease at last?
10.
Come then — frequent what thou hast made so fair,
Thy Converse add to all thy gifts beside,
Else thou shalt leave the want we least can bear,
Still, after all thy kindness, unsupplied.
Thy needles, once a shining store,
Discernible by thee no more,
Rust in disuse, their service o’er,
My Mary!
But thy ingenious work remains,
Nor small the profit it obtains
Since thou esteemst my pleasure gains
My Mary!
ON A LITIGIOUS DEBTOR
You pay your lawyer more than was my due —
Oh what a knave and what a fool are you!
ON A NEW-CREATED NOBLE
Of a long line, my Lord, you well may brag,
Whose Mother spun, whose Father cast the drag.
[‘well may’ is corrected from ‘justly’]
VERSE AND PROSE
Why swifter far than Prose do verses run?
Verses have num’rous feet, and Prose has none.
COMFORT FOR WALKERS
Ne’er did Triptolemus in his chariot rise,
Nor Castor mount on horse-back to the skies.
On foot the strait way may be safely trod,
But studs and wheels demand a spacious road.
TO ERASMUS
Thy praise of Folly so well writ
Proves not thy folly, but thy wit.
ON HIS CANDID & UNCANDID READERS
My Good are excellent, the candid say,
And e’en my Worst too good to cast away.
Th’ uncandid deem Indifferent e’en my Best,
And without mercy censure all the rest.
ON THE PRODIGAL AND THE COVETOUS
Misers distribute nothing while they live,
And Spendthrifts when they die have nought to give.
CHEAP AND DEAR
Though Vice be common, we pay dear for Vice,
While Virtue, rare, is yet of little price.
ON THE SALT SEA
Salt begets thirst; then well may rivers be,
Salt as it is, all swallowed by the sea.
THE EVILS OF BAD EXAMPLE
Princes and Parents, sinning, must atone
For the example, not the crime alone.
The son still follows where the father leads,
And in her mother’s steps the daughter treads;
Unchaste, if she be such; for seldom wild
And wanton mother owns a prudent child.
Ye Parents! give your offspring then, to read
Their Duty plainly in your word and deed,
Since virtuous habits at an early day
Acquir’d, no time can ever steal away.
[In 1. 6 ‘prudent’is a correction from ‘virtuous’, and in 1. 8 ‘offspring’ is a correction from ‘child’.]
PHILAUTOS
Philautos loves himself alone,
Himself alone admires;
But save himself beholder none
With love of Him inspires.
[Line 3 originally ran ‘But none except himself alone’, and is corrected.]
TO LADY M. N. HIS PATRONESS
Praise to deserve yet never to desire
Is such high praise that none can merit higher
And this I give Thee with no base design
To flatter Thee for it is justly thine.
The same manuscript contains (besides two, or perhaps
three, from the Greek, for which see notes to pp. 572, 573)
the six printed on p. 563 with the following variant:
Sunset and Sunrise. LI. 3, 4:
And when again in East he shines
Thy day of resurrection.
THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE KING
A Philosopher, included in the same sentence of condemnation with several guilty persons among whom he had been apprehended, sent the following lines, composed suddenly in the moment when be was going to death, to a certain King who had ignorantly condemned him.
Know this, O King! that if thou shalt destroy
Me, no man’s enemy and who have liv’d
Obedient to the Laws, thou may’st with ease
Strike off a wise man’s head, but, taught the truth
Hereafter, shalt with vain regret deplore
Thy city’s loss of one, her chief support.
ON THE ENGRAVER OF HIS POURTRAIT
Look on myself, and thou shalt own at once
This Copy of me taken by a Dunce;
My Friends, who gaze and guess not whom ye see,
Laugh. Would ye think it? He intended me!
[The version printed by Mr. Bailey from Add. MS. 30801 is there interlined with a second version in another ink. Neither version is crossed out, but the first, third, and fourth lines of Mr. Bailey’s version are underlined. That the following is Cowper’s later version is shown by the omission indicated below in the third line, which is left to be supplied from the earlier-written version.]
Survey my Features — you will own it clear
That little skill has been exerted here
[My Friends,] who know me not here smile to see
How ill the model and the work agree.
IN VAIN TO LIVE FROM AGE TO AGE I
Cowper took great pains over this trifle,
and produced several versions before he and his friends
were satisfied. An earlier version ran:
In vain to
live from age to age
We modern bards endeavour;
But write in Patty’s book one page,
You gain your point for ever.
IN VAIN TO LIVE FROM AGE TO AGE II
[In W. Roberts’s Memoirs of Hannah More (ed. 2, 1834, ii. 282) is a letter from Cowper to Newton in 1791 with the following version, marked by Newton: ‘Exemplar verum. Witness J. N.’]
In vain to live from age to age,
We modern bards endeavour,
In Patty’s book I wrote one page,
And gained my point for ever.
A SONNET: PHILLIPS! THE SUFF’RER LESS BY LAW THAN POW’R
[Addressed to Mr. Phillips Printer now in confinement at Leicester]
PHILLIPS! the suff’rer less by law than pow’r,
Though prison’d in an adamantine hold.
May bear a heart as free and uncontroul’d
In his dark cell, as in a summer’s bow’r.
The sly accuser — He, who in an hour
When all suspicion slept, like Him of old
Eve’s Tempter, wreath’d in many an artful fold
Conceal’d his drift with purpose to devour —
He is the pris’ner, and those ribs within
That hoop his sorry vitals round about
Dwells one, who never shall compassion win
Feel what he may, ‘till Judgment call him out.
Thou then less deeply at thy wrongs repine,
Scorn is his meed, commiseration thine.
[Written by the Poet Cowper, about the year 1793. Given to Mrs. Howard of Corby, by Lady Throckmorton, July 29, 1823. The Phillips to whom this sonnet is addressed was Sir Richard Phillips, author, bookseller, and publisher, who was sentenced to 18 Months imprisonment in Leicester Gaol for selling Paine’s ‘Rights of Man.’]
THE GRIEF OF AN HEIR
[In the Norfolk MS. is the following hitherto unpublished and apparently original poem:]
The Rich man’s Heir, his father’s spirit fled,
How mourns the stripling, with what rites, the Dead?
Haste — bid the sexton toll two hours the bell,
That all may know it for my father’s knell.
Tie up the knocker. Darken ev’ry room
With half-closed shutters. Sorrow loves a gloom.
To deepen the funereal silence more
With tip-toe step, ye lacqueys! tread the floor.
Let each be measur’d for his suit of woe;
A sad event demands as sad a show.
Within, without, wheels, harness, box and all
Black be my carriage; sable as the pall.
Th’ emblazon’d coat of my paternal race
Fix in my mansion’s front, its proper place;
And, hung with sables, let the pulpit prove,
Itself, my deep regret, my filial love.
Ah specious counterfeit! Thy sorrow, dress’d
In all this solemn pomp is all a jest;
Earth has no joy that can thy joys exceed,
And, could we doubt them, we were fools indeed.
April 20, 1799.
ON THE JOY UNIVERSALLY EXPRESS’D ON THE KING’S HAPPY ESCAPE FROM ASSASSINATION
By Wm Cowper Esq.
THE Cloud that frowns on what we prize
Endears it but the more
It gains new lustre in our eyes
When once the Storm is o’er.
Since George escap’d the mad design
That threaten’d us with Night
The Royal Virtues seem to shine
With more resplendent light.
So when the dread Eclipse is gone
The happy Persians gaze
Upon their Deity the Sun
And give him double Praise.
CUM RATIONE INSANIRE
I am a Caledonian born
And in the British Senate
Have sounded oft Sedition’s horn
“For vary weal I ken it”.
When London blazed then I was warm,
Association-drunk,
And hoped in that illustrious storm
Britannia should have sunk.
Two themes I chose, Popery one,
Prerogative the other,
And Tag and Rag by canting won
And Bob-tail and his brother.
Tried and acquitted (none can tell
On what sufficient reason)
On other projects soon I fell,
Still hank’ring after treason.
I raved and bawl’d with such a noise
As we’re in Homer told
Ulysses made, as big a voice
As a man’s head could hold.
And all to show how well inclin’d
I stood to ev’ry measure
In Congress plann’d — To ease my mind —
And for my own good pleasure.
Fam’d d’Adhemar I worried next
For popular diversion,
And Royal Antoinitta vex’d
With libellous aspersion.
The Pris’ners too in Newgate all
To mutiny exciting
I taught them on their knees to fall
With pray’rs of my inditing.
Convict at last, I fled the Land,
And set my patriot shoulder
To help the Dutchman to withstand
And shove out the Stadtholder.
But thence expell’d, I took it ill,
Renounced my own Baptismal,
And with long beard made longer still
My length of visage dismal.
No Christian then — I’m now a Jew,
And as my last good work
Hope yet to prove the Koran true,
And die a turban’d Turk.
These and a thousand pranks beside
Of similar complexion
Prove me at all points qualified
For Akerman’s protection.
You call me mad, but, if you dare,
E’en turn me loose and try
Who best deserves that blame to bear,
You, my good friend, or I.
A GOOD SONG
TUNE. “How happy could I be with either.”
HERE’S a health to honest JOHN BULL,
When he’s gone we shan’t find such another;
And with hearts and with glasses brim full,
Here’s a health to old England his mother.
She gave him a good education,
Bade him keep to his church and his KING;
Be loyal and true to the Nation,
And then go be merry and sing.
Now John is a good humoured fellow,
Industrious, honest, and brave;
Not afraid of his betters when mellow,
For betters he knows he must have.
For there must be fine lords and fine ladies,
There must be some little and great;
Their wealth the supply of the trade is,
Our hands the support of their state.
Some are born for the court and the City,
And some for the village and cot;
But oh! ‘twere a dolorous ditty,
If all became equal in lot.
If our ships have no pilots to steer,
What wou’d ‘come of poor Jack in the shrouds?
Or our troops no commanders to fear,
They’d soon be arm’d robbers in crouds.
Then the plough and (the) loom must stand still,
If they made of us gentlemen all;
Or all clodhoppers; then who wou’d fill
The parliament, pulpit, and hall?
“Rights of Man” make a very fine sound,
“Equal Riches” a plausible tale;
But whose labour wou’d then till the ground?
All wou’d drink, but who’d brew the best ale?
When half naked, half starv’d in the street,
We were wand’ring about sans culottes,
Wou’d equality go fetc
h us meat?
Or wou’d liberty lengthen our coats?
That knaves are for levelling no wonder,
’Tis easy to guess at their views;
Tis they who get all by their plunder,
’Tis they who have nothing to lose.
Then away with such nonsense and stuff,
Full of treason, confusion and blood;
Ev’ry Briton has freedom enough
To be happy as long as he’s good.
To be rul’d by a merciful kino,
To be guarded by juries and laws;
And when our work’s finished to sing —
This, this is true liberty’s cause.
Then holloo boys! holloo boys! ever;
For just such a nation are we;
Tis our pleasure; O may it cease never!
’Tis our pride, to be loyal and free.
[printer’s ornament.]
TRANSLATION
by Wm.Cowper Esqr
THY counsel sage, Maria fair,
Persuades me to be free;
And, free that I may still remain —
I bid adieu to thee!
William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works Page 81
