William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

  May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile;

  Witty, and well employ’d, and, like thy Lord,

  Speaking in parables his slighted word;

  I name thee not, lest so despised a name

  Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame;

  Yet e’en in transitory life’s late day,

  That mingles all my brown with sober grey,

  Revere the man whose Pilgrim marks the road,

  And guides the Progress of the soul to God.

  ‘Twere well with most, if books that could engage

  Their childhood pleased them at a riper age;

  The man, approving what had charm’d the boy,

  Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy,

  And not with curses on his heart, who stole

  The gem of truth from his unguarded soul.

  The stamp of artless piety impress’d

  By kind tuition on his yielding breast,

  The youth, now bearded and yet pert and raw,

  Regards with scorn, though once received with awe;

  And, warp’d into the labyrinth of lies,

  That babblers, call’d philosophers, devise,

  Blasphemes his creed, as founded on a plan

  Replete with dreams, unworthy of a man.

  Touch but his nature in its ailing part,

  Assert the native evil of his heart,

  His pride resents the charge, although the proof

  Rise in his forehead, and seem rank enough:

  Point to the cure, describe a Saviour’s cross

  As God’s expedient to retrieve his loss,

  The young apostate sickens at the view,

  And hates it with the malice of a Jew.

  How weak the barrier of mere nature proves,

  Opposed against the pleasures nature loves!

  While self-betray’d, and wilfully undone,

  She longs to yield, no sooner woo’d than won.

  Try now the merits of this blest exchange

  Of modest truth for wit’s eccentric range.

  Time was, he closed as he began the day,

  With decent duty, not ashamed to pray;

  The practice was a bond upon his heart,

  A pledge he gave for a consistent part;

  Nor could he dare presumptuously displease

  A power confess’d so lately on his knees.

  But now farewell all legendary tales,

  The shadows fly, philosophy prevails;

  Prayer to the winds, and caution to the waves;

  Religion makes the free by nature slaves.

  Priests have invented, and the world admired

  What knavish priests promulgate as inspired;

  Till Reason, now no longer overawed,

  Resumes her powers, and spurns the clumsy fraud;

  And, common sense diffusing real day,

  The meteor of the Gospel dies away.

  Such rhapsodies our shrewd discerning youth

  Learn from expert inquirers after truth;

  Whose only care, might truth presume to speak,

  Is not to find what they profess to seek.

  And thus, well tutor’d only while we share

  A mother’s lectures and a nurse’s care;

  And taught at schools much mythologic stuff,

  But sound religion sparingly enough;

  Our early notices of truth disgraced,

  Soon lose their credit, and are all effaced.

  Would you your son should be a sot or dunce,

  Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once;

  That in good time the stripling’s finish’d taste

  For loose expense and fashionable waste

  Should prove your ruin, and his own at last;

  Train him in public with a mob of boys,

  Childish in mischief only and in noise,

  Else of a mannish growth, and five in ten

  In infidelity and lewdness men.

  There shall he learn, ere sixteen winters old,

  That authors are most useful pawn’d or sold;

  That pedantry is all that schools impart,

  But taverns teach the knowledge of the heart;

  There waiter Dick, with bacchanalian lays,

  Shall win his heart, and have his drunken praise,

  His counsellor and bosom friend shall prove,

  And some street-pacing harlot his first love.

  Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong,

  Detain their adolescent charge too long;

  The management of tyros of eighteen

  Is difficult, their punishment obscene.

  The stout tall captain, whose superior size

  The minor heroes view with envious eyes,

  Becomes their pattern, upon whom they fix

  Their whole attention, and ape all his tricks.

  His pride, that scorns to obey or to submit,

  With them is courage; his effrontery wit.

  His wild excursions, window-breaking feats,

  Robbery of gardens, quarrels in the streets,

  His hairbreadth ‘scapes, and all his daring schemes,

  Transport them, and are made their favourite themes.

  In little bosoms such achievements strike

  A kindred spark: they burn to do the like.

  Thus, half accomplish’d ere he yet begin

  To show the peeping down upon his chin;

  And, as maturity of years comes on,

  Made just the adept that you design’d your son;

  To ensure the perseverance of his course,

  And give your monstrous project all its force,

  Send him to college. If he there be tamed,

  Or in one article of vice reclaim’d,

  Where no regard of ordinances is shown

  Or look’d for now, the fault must be his own.

  Some sneaking virtue lurks in him, no doubt,

  Where neither strumpets’ charms, nor drinking bout,

  Nor gambling practices can find it out.

  Such youths of spirit, and that spirit too,

  Ye nurseries of our boys, we owe to you:

  Though from ourselves the mischief more proceeds,

  For public schools ’tis public folly feeds.

  The slaves of custom and establish’d mode,

  With packhorse constancy we keep the road,

  Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,

  True to the jingling of our leader’s bells.

  To follow foolish precedents, and wink

  With both our eyes, is easier than to think;

  And such an age as ours balks no expense,

  Except of caution and of common sense;

  Else sure notorious fact, and proof so plain,

  Would turn our steps into a wiser train.

  I blame not those who, with what care they can,

  O’erwatch the numerous and unruly clan;

  Or, if I blame, ’tis only that they dare

  Promise a work of which they must despair.

  Have ye, ye sage intendants of the whole,

  A ubiquarian presence and control,

  Elisha’s eye, that, when Gehazi stray’d,

  Went with him, and saw all the game he play’d?

  Yes — ye are conscious; and on all the shelves

  Your pupils strike upon have struck yourselves.

  Or if, by nature sober, ye had then,

  Boys as ye were, the gravity of men,

  Ye knew at least, by constant proofs address’d

  To ears and eyes, the vices of the rest.

  But ye connive at what ye cannot cure,

  And evils not to be endured endure,

  Lest power exerted, but without success,

  Should make the little ye retain still less.

  Ye once were justly famed for bringing forth

  Undoubted scholarship and genuine worth;

  And in the firmament of fame still shines


  A glory, bright as that of all the signs,

  Of poets raised by you, and statesmen, and divines.

  Peace to them all! those brilliant times are fled,

  And no such lights are kindling in their stead.

  Our striplings shine indeed, but with such rays

  As set the midnight riot in a blaze;

  And seem, if judged by their expressive looks,

  Deeper in none than in their surgeons’ books.

  Say, muse (for education made the song,

  No muse can hesitate, or linger long),

  What causes move us, knowing, as we must,

  That these mémenageries all fail their trust,

  To send our sons to scout and scamper there,

  While colts and puppies cost us so much care?

  Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise,

  We love the play-place of our early days;

  The scene is touching, and the heart is stone

  That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.

  The wall on which we tried our graving skill,

  The very name we carved subsisting still;

  The bench on which we sat while deep employ’d,

  Though mangled, hack’d, and hew’d, not yet destroy’d;

  The little ones, unbutton’d, glowing hot,

  Playing our games, and on the very spot;

  As happy as we once, to kneel and draw

  The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw;

  To pitch the ball into the grounded hat,

  Or drive it devious with a dexterous pat;

  The pleasing spectacle at once excites

  Such recollection of our own delights,

  That, viewing it, we seem almost to obtain

  Our innocent sweet simple years again.

  This fond attachment to the well-known place,

  Whence first we started into life’s long race,

  Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway,

  We feel it e’en in age, and at our latest day.

  Hark! how the sire of chits, whose future share

  Of classic food begins to be his care,

  With his own likeness placed on either knee,

  Indulges all a father’s heartfelt glee;

  And tells them, as he strokes their silver locks,

  That they must soon learn Latin, and to box;

  Then turning, he regales his listening wife

  With all the adventures of his early life;

  His skill in coachmanship, or driving chaise,

  In bilking tavern-bills, and spouting plays;

  What shifts he used, detected in a scrape,

  How he was flogg’d, or had the luck to escape;

  What sums he lost at play, and how he sold

  Watch, seals, and all — till all his pranks are told.

  Retracing thus his frolics (’tis a name

  That palliates deeds of folly and of shame),

  He gives the local bias all its sway;

  Resolves that where he play’d his sons shall play,

  And destines their bright genius to be shown

  Just in the scene where he display’d his own.

  The meek and bashful boy will soon be taught

  To be as bold and forward as he ought;

  The rude will scuffle through with ease enough,

  Great schools suit best the sturdy and the rough.

  Ah, happy designation, prudent choice,

  The event is sure; expect it, and rejoice!

  Soon see your wish fulfill’d in either child,

  The pert made perter, and the tame made wild.

  The great indeed, by titles, riches, birth,

  Excused the incumbrance of more solid worth,

  Are best disposed of where with most success

  They may acquire that confident address,

  Those habits of profuse and lewd expense,

  That scorn of all delights but those of sense,

  Which, though in plain plebeians we condemn,

  With so much reason, all expect from them.

  But families of less illustrious fame,

  Whose chief distinction is their spotless name,

  Whose heirs, their honours none, their income small,

  Must shine by true desert, or not at all,

  What dream they of, that, with so little care

  They risk their hopes, their dearest treasure, there?

  They dream of little Charles or William graced

  With wig prolix, down flowing to his waist;

  They see the attentive crowds his talents draw,

  They hear him speak — the oracle of law.

  The father, who designs his babe a priest,

  Dreams him episcopally such at least;

  And, while the playful jockey scours the room

  Briskly, astride upon the parlour broom,

  In fancy sees him more superbly ride

  In coach with purple lined, and mitres on its side.

  Events improbable and strange as these,

  Which only a parental eye foresees,

  A public school shall bring to pass with ease.

  But how? resides such virtue in that air,

  As must create an appetite for prayer?

  And will it breathe into him all the zeal

  That candidates for such a prize should feel,

  To take the lead and be the foremost still

  In all true worth and literary skill?

  “Ah, blind to bright futurity, untaught

  The knowledge of the World, and dull of thought!

  Church-ladders are not always mounted best

  By learned clerks and Latinists profess’d.

  The exalted prize demands an upward look,

  Not to be found by poring on a book.

  Small skill in Latin, and still less in Greek,

  Is more than adequate to all I seek.

  Let erudition grace him, or not grace,

  I give the bauble but the second place;

  His wealth, fame, honours, all that I intend,

  Subsist and centre in one point — a friend.

  A friend, whate’er he studies or neglects,

  Shall give him consequence, heal all defects.

  His intercourse with peers and sons of peers —

  There dawns the splendour of his future years:

  In that bright quarter his propitious skies

  Shall blush betimes, and there his glory rise.

  Your Lordship, and Your Grace! what school can teach

  A rhetoric equal to those parts of speech?

  What need of Homer’s verse or Tully’s prose,

  Sweet interjections! if he learn but those?

  Let reverend churls his ignorance rebuke,

  Who starve upon a dog’s-ear’d Pentateuch,

  The parson knows enough who knows a duke.”

  Egregious purpose! worthily begun

  In barbarous prostitution of your son;

  Press’d on his part by means that would disgrace

  A scrivener’s clerk, or footman out of place,

  And ending, if at last its end be gain’d,

  In sacrilege, in God’s own house profaned.

  It may succeed; and, if his sins should call

  For more than common punishment, it shall;

  The wretch shall rise, and be the thing on earth

  Least qualified in honour, learning, worth,

  To occupy a sacred, awful post,

  In which the best and worthiest tremble most.

  The royal letters are a thing of course,

  A king, that would, might recommend his horse;

  And deans, no doubt, and chapters, with one voice,

  As bound in duty, would confirm the choice.

  Behold your bishop! well he plays his part,

  Christian in name, and infidel in heart,

  Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan,

  A slave at court, elsewhere a lady’s man.

/>   Dumb as a senator, and as a priest

  A piece of mere church furniture at best;

  To live estranged from God his total scope,

  And his end sure, without one glimpse of hope.

  But, fair although and feasible it seem,

  Depend not much upon your golden dream;

  For Providence, that seems concern’d to exempt

  The hallow’d bench from absolute contempt,

  In spite of all the wrigglers into place,

  Still keeps a seat or two for worth and grace;

  And therefore ’tis, that, though the sight be rare,

  We sometimes see a Lowth or Bagot there.

  Besides, school friendships are not always found,

  Though fair in promise, permanent and sound;

  The most disinterested and virtuous minds,

  In early years connected, time unbinds,

  New situations give a different cast

  Of habit, inclination, temper, taste;

  And he, that seem’d our counterpart at first,

  Soon shows the strong similitude reversed.

  Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are warm,

  And make mistakes for manhood to reform.

  Boys are, at best, but pretty buds unblown,

  Whose scent and hues are rather guess’d than known;

  Each dreams that each is just what he appears,

  But learns his error in maturer years,

  When disposition, like a sail unfurl’d,

  Shows all its rents and patches to the world.

  If, therefore, e’en when honest in design,

  A boyish friendship may so soon decline,

  ‘Twere wiser sure to inspire a little heart

  With just abhorrence of so mean a part,

  Than set your son to work at a vile trade

  For wages so unlikely to be paid.

  Our public hives of puerile resort,

  That are of chief and most approved report,

  To such base hopes, in many a sordid soul,

  Owe their repute in part, but not the whole.

  A principle, whose proud pretensions pass

  Unquestion’d, though the jewel be but glass —

  That with a world, not often over-nice,

  Ranks as a virtue, and is yet a vice;

  Or rather a gross compound, justly tried,

  Of envy, hatred, jealousy, and pride —

  Contributes most, perhaps, to enhance their fame;

  And emulation is its specious name.

  Boys, once on fire with that contentious zeal,

  Feel all the rage that female rivals feel;

  The prize of beauty in a woman’s eyes

  Not brighter than in theirs the scholar’s prize.

  The spirit of that competition burns

  With all varieties of ill by turns;

  Each vainly magnifies his own success,

  Resents his fellow’s, wishes it were less,