William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

Where love and duty lead, shall be

  My portion and my praise.

  Joy in Martyrdom

  Sweet tenants of this grove!

  Who sing without design,

  A song of artless love,

  In unison with mine:

  These echoing shades return

  Full many a note of ours,

  That wise ones cannot learn,

  With all their boasted powers.

  O thou! whose sacred charms

  These hearts so seldom love,

  Although thy beauty warms

  And blesses all above;

  How slow are human things,

  To choose their happiest lot!

  All-glorious King of kings,

  Say why we love thee not?

  This heart, that cannot rest,

  Shall thine for ever prove;

  Though bleeding and distress’d,

  Yet joyful in thy love:

  ’Tis happy though it breaks

  Beneath thy chastening hand;

  And speechless, yet it speaks,

  What thou canst understand.

  Simple Trust

  Still, still, without ceasing,

  I feel it increasing,

  This fervour of holy desire;

  And often exclaim,

  Let me die in the flame

  Of a love that can never expire!

  Had I words to explain

  What she must sustain

  Who dies to the world and its ways;

  How joy and affright,

  Distress and delight,

  Alternately chequer her days:

  Thou, sweetly severe!

  I would make thee appear,

  In all thou art pleased to award.

  Not more in the sweet

  Than the bitter I meet

  My tender and merciful Lord.

  This faith, in the dark,

  Pursuing its mark,

  Through many sharp trials of love,

  Is the sorrowful waste

  That is to be pass’d

  On the way to the Canaan above.

  The Necessity of Self-abasement

  Source of love, my brighter sun,

  Thou alone my comfort art;

  See, my race is almost run;

  Hast thou left this trembling heart?

  In my youth thy charming eyes

  Drew me from the ways of men;

  Then I drank unmingled joys;

  Frown of thine saw never then.

  Spouse of Christ was then my name;

  And, devoted all to thee,

  Strangely jealous I became,

  Jealous of this self in me.

  Thee to love, and none beside,

  Was my darling, sole employ;

  While alternately I died,

  Now of grief, and now of joy.

  Through the dark and silent night

  On thy radiant smiles I dwelt;

  And to see the dawning light

  Was the keenest pain I felt.

  Thou my gracious teacher wert;

  And thine eye, so close applied,

  While it watch’d thy pupil’s heart,

  Seem’d to look at none beside.

  Conscious of no evil drift,

  This, I cried, is love indeed —

  ’Tis the giver, not the gift,

  Whence the joys I feel proceed.

  But, soon humbled and laid low,

  Stript of all thou hast conferr’d,

  Nothing left but sin and woe,

  I perceived how I had err’d.

  Oh, the vain conceit of man,

  Dreaming of a good his own,

  Arrogating all he can,

  Though the Lord is good alone!

  He the graces thou hast wrought

  Makes subservient to his pride;

  Ignorant that one such thought

  Passes all his sin beside.

  Such his folly — proved, at last

  By the loss of that repose,

  Self-complacence cannot taste,

  Only love divine bestows.

  ’Tis by this reproof severe,

  And by this reproof alone,

  His defects at last appear,

  Man is to himself made known.

  Learn, all earth! that feeble man,

  Sprung from this terrestrial clod,

  Nothing is, and nothing can;

  Life and power are all in God.

  Love Increased by Suffering

  “I love the Lord,” is still the strain

  This heart delights to sing:

  But I reply — your thoughts are vain,

  Perhaps ’tis no such thing.

  Before the power of love divine

  Creation fades away;

  Till only God is seen to shine

  In all that we survey.

  In gulfs of awful night we find

  The God of our desires;

  ’Tis there he stamps the yielding mind,

  And doubles all its fires.

  Flames of encircling love invest,

  And pierce it sweetly through;

  ’Tis fill’d with sacred joy, yet press’d

  With sacred sorrow too.

  Ah love! my heart is in the right —

  Amidst a thousand woes,

  To thee, its ever new delight,

  And all its peace it owes.

  Fresh causes of distress occur

  Where’er I look or move;

  The comforts I to all prefer

  Are solitude and love.

  Nor exile I nor prison fear;

  Love makes my courage great;

  I find a Saviour every where,

  His grace in every state.

  Nor castle walls, nor dungeons deep,

  Exclude his quickening beams;

  There I can sit, and sing, and weep,

  And dwell on heavenly themes.

  There sorrow, for his sake, is found

  A joy beyond compare;

  There no presumptuous thoughts abound,

  No pride can enter there.

  A Saviour doubles all my joys,

  And sweetens all my pains,

  His strength in my defence employs,

  Consoles me and sustains.

  I fear no ill, resent no wrong;

  Nor feel a passion move,

  When malice whets her slanderous tongue;

  Such patience is in love.

  Scenes Favourable to Meditation

  Wilds horrid and dark with o’er shadowing trees,

  Rocks that ivy and briers infold,

  Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees,

  But I with a pleasure untold;

  Though awfully silent, and shaggy, and rude,

  I am charm’d with the peace ye afford;

  Your shades are a temple where none will intrude,

  The abode of my lover and Lord.

  I am sick of thy splendour, O fountain of day,

  And here I am hid from its beams,

  Here safely contemplate a brighter display

  Of the noblest and holiest of themes.

  Ye forests, that yield me my sweetest repose,

  Where stillness and solitude reign,

  To you I securely and boldly disclose

  The dear anguish of which I complain.

  Here, sweetly forgetting and wholly forgot

  By the world and its turbulent throng,

  The birds and the streams lend me many a note

  That aids meditation and song.

  Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night,

  Love wears me and wastes me away,

  And often the sun has spent much of his light

  Ere yet I perceive it is day.

  While a mantle of darkness envelops the sphere,

  My sorrows are sadly rehearsed,

  To me the dark hours are all equally dear,

  And the last is as sweet as the first.

  Here I and the beasts of the deserts agree,


  Mankind are the wolves that I fear,

  They grudge me my natural right to be free,

  But nobody questions it here.

  Though little is found in this dreary abode

  That appetite wishes to find,

  My spirit is soothed by the presence of God,

  And appetite wholly resign’d.

  Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude led,

  My life I in praises employ,

  And scarce know the source of the tears that I shed,

  Proceed they from sorrow or joy.

  There’s nothing I seem to have skill to discern,

  I feel out my way in the dark,

  Love reigns in my bosom, I constantly burn,

  Yet hardly distinguish the spark.

  I live, yet I seem to myself to be dead,

  Such a riddle is not to be found,

  I am nourish’d without knowing how I am fed,

  I have nothing, and yet I abound.

  Oh, love! who in darkness art pleased to abide,

  Though dimly, yet surely I see

  That these contrarieties only reside

  In the soul that is chosen of thee.

  Ah! send me not back to the race of mankind,

  Perversely by folly beguiled,

  For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find

  The spirit and heart of a child?

  Here let me, though fix’d in a desert, be free;

  A little one whom they despise,

  Though lost to the world, if in union with thee,

  Shall be holy, and happy, and wise.

  Translations from the Latin Classics

  CONTENTS

  THE FIFTH SATIRE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE : A HUMOROUS DESCRIPTION OF THE AUTHOR’S JOURNEY FROM ROME TO BRUNDUSIUM

  THE NINTH SATIRE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE: THE DESCRIPTION OF AN IMPERTINENT. ADAPTED TO THE PRESENT TIMES

  HORACE, BOOK I. ODE IX.

  HORACE, BOOK I. ODE XXXVIII.

  HORACE, BOOK II. ODE XVI.

  TRANSLATION FROM VIRGIL. ÆNEID, BOOK VIII. LINE 18.

  THE SALAD BY VIRGIL

  OVID. TRIST. LIB. V. ELEGY XII.

  THE FIFTH SATIRE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE : A HUMOROUS DESCRIPTION OF THE AUTHOR’S JOURNEY FROM ROME TO BRUNDUSIUM

  ’Twas a long journey lay before us,

  When I and honest Heliodorus,

  Who far in point of rhetoric

  Surpasses every living Greek,

  Each leaving our respective home

  Together sallied forth from Rome.

  First at Aricia we alight,

  And there refresh and pass the night,

  Our entertainment rather coarse

  Than sumptuous, but I’ve met with worse.

  Thence o’er the causeway soft and fair

  To Apii Forum we repair.

  But as this road is well supplied

  (Temptation strong!) on either side

  With inns commodious, snug, and warm,

  We split the journey, and perform

  In two days’ time what’s often done

  By brisker travellers in one.

  Here rather choosing not to sup

  Than with bad water mix my cup,

  After a warm debate in spite

  Of a provoking appetite,

  I sturdily resolved at last

  To balk it, and pronounce a fast,

  And in a moody humour wait,

  While my less dainty comrades bait.

  Now o’er the spangled hemisphere

  Diffused the starry train appear,

  When there arose a desperate brawl;

  The slaves and bargemen, one and all,

  Rending their throats (have mercy on us!)

  As if they were resolved to stun us.

  ‘Steer the barge this way to the shore!

  I tell you we’ll admit no more!

  Plague! will you never be content?’

  Thus a whole hour at least is spent,

  While they receive the several fares,

  And kick the mule into his gears.

  Happy, these difficulties past,

  Could we have fallen asleep at last!

  But, what with humming, croaking, biting,

  Gnats, frogs, and all their plagues uniting,

  These tuneful natives of the lake

  Conspired to keep us broad awake.

  Besides, to make the concert full,

  Two maudlin wights, exceeding dull,

  The bargeman and a passenger,

  Each in his turn, essayed an air

  In honour of his absent fair.

  At length the passenger, opprest

  With wine, left off, and snored the rest.

  The weary bargeman too gave o’er,

  And hearing his companion snore,

  Seized the occasion, fixed the barge,

  Turned out his mule to graze at large,

  And slept forgetful of his charge.

  And now the sun o’er eastern hill,

  Discovered that our barge stood still;

  When one, whose anger vexed him sore,

  With malice fraught, leaps quick on shore,

  Plucks up a stake, with many a thwack

  Assails the mule and driver’s back.

  Then slowly moving on with pain,

  At ten Feronia’s stream we gain,

  And in her pure and glassy wave

  Our hands and faces gladly lave.

  Climbing three miles, fair Anxur’s height

  We reach, with stony quarries white.

  While here, as was agreed, we wait,

  Till, charged with business of the state,

  Maecenas and Cocceius come,

  The messengers of peace from Rome.

  My eyes, by watery humours blear

  And sore, I with black balsam smear.

  At length they join us, and with them

  Our worthy friend Fonteius came;

  A man of such complete desert,

  Antony loved him at his heart.

  At Fundi we refused to bait,

  And laughed at vain Aufidius’ state,

  A praetor now, a scribe before,

  The purple-bordered robe he wore,

  His slave the smoking censer bore.

  Tired at Muraena’s we repose,

  At Formia sup at Capito’s.

  With smiles the rising morn we greet,

  At Sinuessa pleased to meet

  With Plotius, Varius, and the bard

  Whom Mantua first with wonder heard.

  The world no purer spirits knows;

  For none my heart more warmly glows.

  Oh! what embraces we bestowed,

  And with what joy our breasts o’erflowed!

  Sure while my sense is sound and clear,

  Long as I live, I shall prefer

  A gay, good-natured, easy friend,

  To every blessing heaven can send.

  At a small village, the next night,

  Near the Vulturnus we alight;

  Where, as employed on state affairs,

  We were supplied by the purveyors

  Frankly at once, and without hire,

  With food for man and horse, and fire;

  Capua next day betimes we reach,

  Where Virgil and myself, who each

  Laboured with different maladies,

  His such a stomach, — mine such eyes, —

  As would not bear strong exercise,

  In drowsy mood to sleep resort;

  Maecenas to the tennis-court.

  Next at Cocceius’ farm we’re treated,

  Above the Caudian tavern seated;

  His kind and hospitable board

  With choice of wholesome food was stored.

  Now, O ye Nine, inspire my lays!

  To nobler themes my fancy raise!

  Two combatants, who scorn to yield

  The noisy, tongue-disputed field,

  Sarmentus and Cicirrus,
claim

  A poet’s tribute to their fame;

  Cicirrus of true Oscian breed,

  Sarmentus, who was never freed,

  But ran away. We don’t defame him,

  His lady lives, and still may claim him.

  Thus dignified, in harder fray

  These champions their keen wit display,

  And first Sarmentus led the way.

  ‘Thy locks, (quoth he), so rough and coarse,

  Look like the mane of some wild horse.’

  We laugh : Cicirrus undismayed —

  ‘Have at you!’ — cries, and shakes his head.

  ‘’Tis well (Sarmentus says) you’ve lost

  That horn your forehead once could boast;

  Since maimed and mangled as you are,

  You seem to butt.’ A hideous scar

  Improved (’tis true) with double grace

  The native horrors of his face.

  Well. After much jocosely said

  Of his grim front, so fiery red,

  (For carbuncles had blotched it o’er,

  As usual on Campania’s shore)

  ‘Give us, (he cried), since you’re so big,

  A sample of the Cyclops’ jig!

  Your shanks methinks no buskins ask,

  Nor does your phiz require a mask.’

  To this Cicirrus. ‘In return

  Of you, sir, now I fain would learn,

  When ’twas, no longer deemed a slave,

  Your chains you to the Lares gave.

  For though a scrivener’s right you claim,

  Your lady’s title is the same.

  But what could make you run away,

  Since, pigmy as you are, each day

  A single pound of bread would quite

  O’erpower your puny appetite?’

  Thus joked the champions, while we laughed,

  And many a cheerful bumper quaffed.

  To Beneventum next we steer;

  Where our good host by over care

  In roasting thrushes lean as mice

  Had almost fallen a sacrifice.

  The kitchen soon was all on fire,

  And to the roof the flames aspire.

  There might you see each man and master

  Striving, amidst this sad disaster,