William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

  Not that his hours devoted all to care,

  Hollow-ey’d abstinence and lean despair,

  The wretch may pine, while to his smell, taste, sight,

  She holds a Paradise of rich delight,

  But gently to rebuke his aukward fear,

  To prove that what she gives, she gives sincere,

  To banish hesitation, and proclaim

  His happiness, her dear, her only aim.

  ’Tis grave philosophy’s absurdest dream,

  That Heav’n’s intentions are not what they seem,

  That only shadows are dispens’d below,

  And earth has no reality but woe.

  Thus things terrestrial wear a diff’rent hue,

  As youth or age persuades, and neither true;

  So Flora’s wreath through colour’d chrystal seen,

  The rose or lily appears blue or green,

  But still th’ imputed tints are those alone

  The medium represents, and not their own.

  To rise at noon, sit slipshod and undress’d,

  To read the news or fiddle as seems best,

  ‘Till half the world comes rattling at his door,

  To fill the dull vacuity ‘till four,

  And just when evening turns the blue vault grey,

  To spend two hours in dressing for the day,

  To make the sun a bauble without use,

  Save for the fruits his heav’nly beams produce,

  Quite to forget, or deem it worth no thought,

  Who bids him shine, or if he shine or not,

  Through mere necessity to close his eyes

  Just when the larks and when the shepherds rise,

  Is such a life, so tediously the same,

  So void of all utility or aim,

  That poor JONQUIL, with almost ev’ry breath

  Sighs for his exit, vulgarly call’d, death:

  For he, with all his follies, has a mind

  Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind,

  But now and then perhaps a feeble ray

  Of distant wisdom shoots across his way,

  By which he reads, that life without a plan,

  As useless as the moment it began,

  Serves merely as a soil for discontent

  To thrive in, an incumbrance, e’er half spent.

  Oh weariness beyond what asses feel,

  That tread the circuit of the cistern wheel,

  A dull rotation never at a stay,

  Yesterday’s face twin image of to-day,

  While conversation, an exhausted stock,

  Grows drowsy as the clicking of a clock.

  No need, he cries, of gravity stuff’d out

  With academic dignity devout,

  To read wise lectures, vanity the text;

  Proclaim the remedy, ye learned, next,

  For truth self-evident with pomp impress’d,

  Is vanity surpassing all the rest.

  That remedy, not hid in deeps profound,

  Yet seldom sought, where only to be found,

  While passion turns aside from its due scope

  Th’ enquirer’s aim, that remedy, is hope.

  Life is his gift, from whom whate’er life needs,

  And ev’ry good and perfect gift proceeds,

  Bestow’d on man, like all that we partake,

  Royally, freely, for his bounty sake.

  Transient indeed, as is the fleeting hour,

  And yet the seed of an immortal flow’r,

  Design’d in honour of his endless love,

  To fill with fragrance his abode above.

  No trifle, howsoever short it seem,

  And howsoever shadowy, no dream,

  Its value, what no thought can ascertain,

  Nor all an angel’s eloquence explain.

  Men deal with life, as children with their play,

  Who first misuse, then cast their toys away,

  Live to no sober purpose, and contend

  That their creator had no serious end.

  When God and man stand opposite in view,

  Man’s disappointment must of course ensue.

  The just Creator condescends to write

  In beams of inextinguishable light,

  His names of wisdom, goodness, pow’r and love,

  On all that blooms below or shines above,

  To catch the wand’ring notice of mankind,

  And teach the world, if not perversely blind,

  His gracious attributes, and prove the share

  His offspring hold in his paternal care.

  If led from earthly things to things divine,

  His creature thwart not his august design,

  Then praise is heard instead of reas’ning pride,

  And captious cavil and complaint subside.

  Nature employ’d in her allotted place,

  Is hand-maid to the purposes of grace,

  By good vouchsaf’d makes known superior good,

  And bliss not seen by blessings understood.

  That bliss reveal’d in scripture with a glow

  Bright as the covenant-insuring bow,

  Fires all his feelings with a noble scorn

  Of sensual evil, and thus hope is born.

  Hope sets the stamp of vanity on all

  That men have deem’d substantial since the fall,

  Yet has the wond’rous virtue to educe

  From emptiness itself a real use,

  And while she takes as at a father’s hand

  What health and sober appetite demand,

  From fading good derives with chymic art

  That lasting happiness, a thankful heart.

  Hope with uplifted foot set free from earth,

  Pants for the place of her ethereal birth,

  On steady wing sails through th’ immense abyss,

  Plucks amaranthin joys from bow’rs of bliss,

  And crowns the soul while yet a mourner here,

  With wreaths like those triumphant spirits wear.

  Hope as an anchor firm and sure, holds fast

  The Christian vessel, and defies the blast;

  Hope! nothing else can nourish and secure

  His new-born virtues, and preserve him pure;

  Hope! let the wretch once conscious of the joy,

  Whom now despairing agonies destroy,

  Speak, for he can, and none so well as he,

  What treasures center, what delights in thee.

  Had he the gems, the spices, and the land

  That boasts the treasure, all at his command,

  The fragrant grove, th’ inestimable mine,

  Were light when weigh’d against one smile of thine.

  Though clasp’d and cradl’d in his nurse’s arms,

  He shine with all a cherub’s artless charms,

  Man is the genuine offspring of revolt,

  Stubborn and sturdy, a wild ass’s colt;

  His passions like the wat’ry stores that sleep

  Beneath the smiling surface of the deep,

  Wait but the lashes of a wintry storm,

  To frown and roar, and shake his feeble form.

  From infancy through childhood’s giddy maze,

  Froward at school, and fretful in his plays,

  The puny tyrant burns to subjugate

  The free republic of the whip-gig state.

  If one, his equal in athletic frame,

  Or more provoking still, of nobler name,

  Dares step across his arbitrary views,

  An Iliad, only not in verse, ensues.

  The little Greeks look trembling at the scales,

  ‘Till the best tongue or heaviest hand prevails.

  Now see him launched into the world at large;

  If priest, supinely droning o’er his charge,

  Their fleece his pillow, and his weekly drawl,

  Though short, too long, the price he pays for all;

  If lawyer, loud whatever cause he plead,

 
; But proudest of the worst, if that succeed.

  Perhaps a grave physician, gath’ring fees,

  Punctually paid for length’ning out disease,

  No COTTON, whose humanity sheds rays

  That make superior skill his second praise.

  If arms engage him, he devotes to sport

  His date of life, so likely to be short,

  A soldier may be any thing, if brave,

  So may a tradesman, if not quite a knave.

  Such stuff the world is made of; and mankind

  To passion, int’rest, pleasure, whim resign’d,

  Insist on, as if each were his own pope,

  Forgiveness, and the privilege of hope;

  But conscience in some awful silent hour,

  When captivating lusts have lost their pow’r,

  Perhaps when sickness, or some fearful dream

  Reminds him of religion, hated theme!

  Starts from the down on which she lately slept,

  And tells of laws despis’d, at least not kept;

  Shows with a pointing finger and no noise,

  A pale procession of past sinful joys,

  All witnesses of blessings foully scorn’d,

  And life abus’d — and not to be suborn’d.

  Mark these, she says, these summoned from afar,

  Begin their march to meet thee at the bar;

  There find a Judge, inexorably just,

  And perish there, as all presumption must.

  Peace be to those (such peace as earth can give)

  Who live in pleasure, dead ev’n while they live,

  Born capable indeed of heav’nly truth,

  But down to latest age from earliest youth

  Their mind a wilderness through want of care,

  The plough of wisdom never ent’ring there.

  Peace (if insensibility may claim

  A right to the meek honours of her name)

  To men of pedigree, their noble race

  Emulous always of the nearest place

  To any throne, except the throne of grace.

  Let cottagers and unenlightened swains

  Revere the laws they dream that heav’n ordains,

  Resort on Sundays to the house of pray’r,

  And ask, and fancy they find blessings there;

  Themselves perhaps when weary they retreat

  T’ enjoy cool nature in a country seat,

  T’ exchange the center of a thousand trades,

  For clumps and lawns and temples and cascades,

  May now and then their velvet cushions take,

  And seem to pray for good example sake;

  Judging, in charity no doubt, the town

  Pious enough, and having need of none.

  Kind souls! to teach their tenantry to prize

  What they themselves without remorse despise;

  Nor hope have they nor fear of aught to come,

  As well for them had prophecy been dumb;

  They could have held the conduct they pursue,

  Had Paul of Tarsus lived and died a Jew;

  And truth propos’d to reas’ners wise as they,

  Is a pearl cast — completely cast away.

  They die — Death lends them, pleas’d and as in sport,

  All the grim honours of his ghastly court;

  Far other paintings grace the chamber now,

  Where late we saw the mimic landscape glow;

  The busy heralds hang the sable scene

  With mournful ‘scutcheons and dim lamps between,

  Proclaim their titles to the crowd around,

  But they that wore them, move not at the sound;

  The coronet placed idly at their head,

  Adds nothing now to the degraded dead,

  And ev’n the star that glitters on the bier,

  Can only say, nobility lies here.

  Peace to all such— ‘twere pity to offend

  By useless censure whom we cannot mend,

  Life without hope can close but in despair,

  ’Twas there we found them and must leave them there.

  As when two pilgrims in a forest stray,

  Both may be lost, yet each in his own way,

  So fares it with the multitudes beguil’d

  In vain opinion’s waste and dang’rous wild;

  Ten thousand rove the brakes and thorns among,

  Some eastward, and some westward, and all wrong:

  But here, alas! the fatal diff’rence lies,

  Each man’s belief is right in his own eyes;

  And he that blames what they have blindly chose,

  Incurs resentment for the love he shows.

  Say botanist! within whose province fall

  The cedar and the hyssop on the wall,

  Of all that deck the lanes, the fields, the bow’rs,

  What parts the kindred tribes of weeds and flow’rs?

  Sweet scent, or lovely form, or both combin’d,

  Distinguish ev’ry cultivated kind,

  The want of both denotes a meaner breed,

  And Chloe from her garland picks the weed.

  Thus hopes of every sort, whatever sect

  Esteem them, sow them, rear them, and protect;

  If wild in nature, and not duly found

  Gethsemane! in thy dear, hallowed ground,

  That cannot bear the blaze of scripture light,

  Nor cheer the spirit, nor refresh the sight,

  Nor animate the soul to Christian deeds,

  Oh cast them from thee! are weeds, arrant weeds.

  Ethelred’s house, the center of six ways,

  Diverging each from each, like equal rays,

  Himself as bountiful as April rains,

  Lord paramount of the surrounding plains,

  Would give relief of bed and board to none,

  But guests that sought it in th’ appointed, ONE.

  And they might enter at his open door,

  Ev’n till his spacious hall would hold no more.

  He sent a servant forth by ev’ry road,

  To sound his horn and publish it abroad,

  That all might mark, knight, menial, high and low,

  An ord’nance it concern’d them much to know.

  If after all, some headstrong, hardy lowt,

  Would disobey, though sure to be shut out,

  Could he with reason murmur at his case,

  Himself sole author of his own disgrace?

  No! the decree was just and without flaw,

  And he that made, had right to make the law;

  His sov’reign pow’r and pleasure unrestrain’d,

  The wrong was his, who wrongfully complain’d.

  Yet half mankind maintain a churlish strife

  With him, the donor of eternal life,

  Because the deed by which his love confirms

  The largess he bestows, prescribes the terms.

  Compliance with his will your lot insures,

  Accept it only, and the boon is yours;

  And sure it is as kind to smile and give,

  As with a frown to say, do this and live.

  Love is not pedlars trump’ry, bought and sold,

  He will give freely, or he will withold,

  His soul abhors a mercenary thought,

  And him as deeply who abhors it not;

  He stipulates indeed, but merely this,

  That man will freely take an unbought bliss,

  Will trust him for a faithful gen’rous part,

  Nor set a price upon a willing heart.

  Of all the ways that seem to promise fair,

  To place you where his saints his presence share,

  This only can — for this plain cause, express’d

  In terms as plain; himself has shut the rest.

  But oh the strife, the bick’ring and debate,

  The tidings of unpurchas’d heav’n create!

  The flirted fan, the bridle and the toss,

  All speakers,
yet all language at a loss.

  From stucco’d walls smart arguments rebound,

  And beaus, adepts in ev’ry thing profound,

  Die of disdain, or whistle off the sound.

  Such is the clamor of rooks, daws, and kites,

  Th’ explosion of the levell’d tube excites,

  Where mould’ring abbey-walls o’erhang the glade,

  And oaks cooeval spread a mournful shade.

  The screaming nations hov’ring in mid air,

  Loudly resent the stranger’s freedom there,

  And seem to warn him never to repeat

  His bold intrusion on their dark retreat.

  Adieu, Vinoso cries, e’er yet he sips,

  The purple bumper trembling at his lips,

  Adieu to all morality! if grace

  Make works a vain ingredient in the case.

  The Christian hope is — waiter, draw the cork —

  If I mistake not — blockhead! with a fork!

  Without good works, whatever some may boast,

  Mere folly and delusion — Sir, your toast.

  My firm persuasion is, at least sometimes,

  That heav’n will weigh man’s virtues and his crimes,

  With nice attention in a righteous scale,

  And save or damn as these or those prevail.

  I plant my foot upon this ground of trust,

  And silence every fear with — God is just;

  But if perchance on some dull drizzling day,

  A thought intrude that says, or seems to say.

  If thus th’ important cause is to be tried,

  Suppose the beam should dip on the wrong side,

  I soon recover from these needless frights,

  And God is merciful — sets all to rights.

  Thus between justice, as my prime support,

  And mercy fled to, as the last resort,

  I glide and steal along with heav’n in view,

  And — pardon me, the bottle stands with you.

  I never will believe, the col’nel cries,

  The sanguinary schemes that some devise,

  Who make the good Creator, on their plan,

  A being of less equity than man.

  If appetite, or what divines call lust,

  Which men comply with, e’en because they must,

  Be punish’d with perdition, who is pure?

  Then theirs, no doubt, as well as mine, is sure.

  If sentence of eternal pain belong

  To ev’ry sudden slip and transient wrong,

  Then heav’n enjoins the fallible and frail,

  An hopeless task, and damns them if they fail.

  My creed (whatever some creed-makers mean

  By Athanasian nonsense or Nicene)

  My creed is, he is safe that does his best,

  And death’s a doom sufficient for the rest.

  Right, says an ensign, and for aught I see,

  Your faith and mine substantially agree: