William Cowper, The Poetical Works

 

William Cowper, The Poetical Works of William Cowper with Memoir and Notes, Rand McNally, Chicago 1900

 

This heart, a fountain of vile thoughts, (Jehovah our Righteousness, Olney Hymns XI)

 

Restraining prayer, we cease to fight:

Prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright;

And Satan trembles when he sees

The weakest saint upon his knees. (Exhortation to Prayer, Olney Hynms XXIX)

 

Ah! were I buffeted all day,

Mock’d, crown’d with thorns, and spit upon,

I yet should have no right to say,

My great distress is mine alone.

/

Let me not angrily declare

No pain was ever sharp like mine,

Nor murmur at the cross I bear,

But rather weep, remembering Thine. (Mourning and Longing, Olney Hymns XLI)

 

Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,

From strife and tumult far;

From scenes where Satan wages still

His most successful war.

/

The calm retreat, the silent shade,

With prayer and praise agree;

And seem, by Thy sweet bounty made,

For those who follow Thee.

/

There if Thy Spirit touch the soul,

And grace her mean abode,

Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,

She communes with her God;

/

There like the nightingale she pours

Her solitary lays;

Nor asks a witness of her song,

Nor thirsts for human praise.

/

Author and Guardian of my life,

Sweet source of light Divine,

And,—all harmonious names in one,—

My Saviour! Thou art mine.

/

What thanks I owe Thee, and what love,

A boundless, endless store,

Shall echo through the realms above,

When time shall be no more. (Complete, Retirement, Olney Hymns XLVI)

 

When Hagar found the bottle spent

And wept o’er Ishmael,

A message from the Lord was sent

To guide her to a well.

Should not Elijah’s cake and cruse

Convince us at this day,

A gracious God will not refuse

Provisions by the way?

/

His saints and servants shall be fed,

The promise is secure;

“Bread shall be given them,” as He said,

“Their water shall be sure.”

Repasts far richer they shall prove,

Than all earth’s dainties are;

‘Tis sweet to taste a Saviour’s love,

Though in the meanest fare.

/

To Jesus then your trouble bring,

Nor murmur at your lot;

While you are poor and He is King,

You shall not be forgot. (Complete, For the Poor, Olney Hymns LII)

 

To see the law by Christ fulfilled

And hear his pardoning voice,

Changes a salve into a child,

And duty into a choice. (Love Constrained to Obedience, Olney Hymns LIV)

 

 

One sin, unslain, within my breast,

Would make that heaven as dark as hell,

/

The prisoner sent to breathe fresh air,

And blest with liberty again,

Would mourn were he condemne’d to wear

One link of all his former chian.

/

But, oh! no foe invades the bliss,

When glory crowns the Christian’s head;

One view of Jesus as He is

Will strike all sin forever dead. (Hatred of Sin, Onley Hymn LVI)

 

‘Tis joy enough, my All in All,

At thy dear feet to lie;

Thou wilt not let me lower fall,

And none can higher fly. (True and False Comforts, Olney Hymns LVIII)

 

Grace, triumphant in the throne,

Scorns a rival, reigns alone;

Come and bow beneath her sway;

Cast your idol works away1

Works of man, when made his pleas,

Never shall accepted be;

Fruits of pride (vainglorious worm!)

Are the best he can perform.

Self, the God his soul adored,

/

Influences all his powers;

Jesus is a slighted name,

Self-advancement all his aim:

But when God the Judge shall come,

To pronounce the final doom,

Then for rocks and hills to hide

All his works and all his pride!

/

Still the boasting heart replies,

What the worthy and the wise,

Friends to temperance and peace,

Have not these a righteousness?

Banish every vain pretence

Built on human excellence;

Perish everything in man,

But the grace that never can. (Complete, Not Works, Olney Hymns LXIII)

 

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

/

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill,

He treasures up his bright designs,

And works His soverign will.

/

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessings on your head.

/

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

/

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

/

Blind unbelief is sure to err,

And scan his work in vain:

God is his own interpreter.

And he will make it plain. (Complete, Light Shining out of Darkness, LXVIII)

 

Her wooed Sir Airy, by meandering streams,

In daily musings and in nightly dreams;

With all the flowers he found, he wove in haste

Wreaths for her brow, and girdles for her waist;

His time, his talents, and his ceaseless care

All consecrated to adorn the fair;

No pastime, but with her he deign’d to take.

And,—if he studied, studied for her sake.

And, for Hypothesis was somewhat long,

Nor soft enough to suit a lover’s tongue,

He call’d her Posy, with an amourous art,

And graved it on a gem, and wore it next his heart.

But she, inconstant as the beams that play

On ripping waters in an April day,

With many a freakish trick deceived his pains,

To pathless wilds and unfrequented plains

Enticed him from his oaths of knighthood far,

Forgetful of the glorious toils of war. (Anti-Thelyphthora)

 

Occidus is a pastor of renown;

When he has prayed and preached the Sabbath down,

With wire and catgut he concludes the day,

Quavering and semiquavering care away.

The full concerto swells upon your ear;

All elbow shake. Look in, and you would swear

The Babylonian tyrant with a nod

Had summoned them to serve his golden god;

So well that thought the employment seems to suit,

Psaltery and sackbut, dulcimer and flute,

Of fie! ‘Tis evangelical and pure;

Observe each face, how sober and demure!

Ecstasy sets her stamp on every miem,

Chins fallen, and not an eyeball to be seen.

Still I insist, though music heretofore

Has charmed me much (not even Occiduus more,

Love, joy, and peace make harmony more meet

For sabbath evenings, and perhaps as sweet.

   Will not the sickliest sheep of every flock

Resort to this example as a rock,

There stand, and justify the foul abuse

Of sabbath hours with plausible excuse!

To play the fool on Sundays, why not we?

If he the tinkling harpsichord regards

As inoffensive, what offence in cards?

Strike up the fiddles, let us all be gay!

Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play. (The Progress of Error)

 

Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast,

The rank debauch suits Clodio’s filthy taste,

Rufillus, exquisitely formed by rule,

Not of the moral, but the dancing school,

Wonders at Clodio’s follies, in a tone

As tragical, as others at his own.

He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,

Then kill a constable, and drink five more,

But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,

And has the Ladies’ Etiquette by heart. (The Progress of Error)

 

Ye writers of what none with safety reads,

…

Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend,

…

Ye pimps, who, under virtue’s fair pretence

Steal to the closet of young innocence,

And teach her, inexperienced yet and green,

To scribble as you scribble at fifteen;

Who, kindling a combustion of desire,

With some cold moral think to quench the fire; (The Progress of Error)

 

Now, while the poison all high life pervades,

Write, if thou canst, one letter from the shades,

One, and one only, charged with deep regret,

That thy worse part, thy principles, live yet;

One sad epistle thence, may cure mankind

Of the plague spread by bundles left behind. (The Progress of Error)

 

And without discipline the favorite child,

Like a neglected forester, runs wild.

But we, as if good qualities would grow

Spontaneous, take but little pains to sow;

We give some Latin, and a smatch of Greek,

Teach him to fence and figure twice a week,

And having done, we think, the best we can,

Praise his proficiency, and dub him man.

   From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home,

And thence with all convenient speed to Rome,

With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay,

To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day;

With memorandum-book for every town,

And every post, and where the chaise brown down;

His stock, a few French phrases got by heart,

With much to learn, but nothing to impart,

The youth, obedient to his sire’s commands,

Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands;

Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair,

With awkward gate, stretched neck, and silly stare,

Discover huge cathedrals built with stone,

And steeples towering high, much like our own,

But show peculiar light, by many a grin

At Popish practices observed within. (The Progress of Error)

 

A just deportment, manners graced with ease,

Elegant phrase, and figure formed to please,

Are qualities that seem to comprehend

Whatever parents, guardian, or schools intend. (The Progress of Error)

 

Learning itself, received into the mind

By nature weak, or viciously inclined,

Serves but to lead philosophers astray,

Where children would with ease discern the way;

And to all arts sagacious dupes invent,

To cheat themselves and gain the world’s assent,

The worst is—Scripture warped from its intent. (The Progress of Error)

 

Oh, how unlike the complex works of man,

Heaven’s easy, artless, unencumber’d plan!

No meretricious graces to beguile,

No clustering ornaments to clog the pile;

From ostentation as from weakness free,

It stands like the ceruclean arch we see,

Majestic in its own simplicity.

Inscribed above the portal, from afar

Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,

Legible only by the light they give,

Stand the soul-quickening words—Believe and Live.

Too many, shock’d at what should charm them most,

Despise the plain direction and are lost.

Heaven on such terms! they cry with proud disdain,

Incredible, impossible, and vain!—

Rebel because ‘tis easy to obey,

And scorn from its own sake the gracious way. (Truth)

 

The self-applauding bird, the peacock, see—

Mark what a sumptuous Pharisee is he!

Meridian sunbeam tempt him to unfold

His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold:

He treads as if, some solemn music near,

His measured step were goveren’d by his ear,

And seems to say—“Ye meaner fowl, give place:

I am all splendor , dignity, and grace!” (Truth)

 

See the sage hermit, by mankind, admired,

With all that bigotry adopts inspired,

Wearing out life in his religious whim,

Till his religious whimsy wears out him.

His works, his abstinence, his zeal allow’d,

You think him humble—God accounts him proud.

High in demand, though lowly in pretence,

Of all his conduct this the genuine sense—

My penitential stripes, my streaming blood,

Have purchased stripes, my streaming blood,

Have purchased heaven, and prove my title good.” (The Truth)

 

The free-born Christian has no chains to prove,

Of if a chain, the golden one of love:

No fear attends to quench his glowing fires,

What fear he feels his gratitude inspired.

Shall he, for sch deliverance freely wrought,

Recompense ill? He trembles at the thought.

His master’s interest and his own combined

Prompt every movement of his heart and mind:

Thought, word, and deed, his liberty evince,

His freedom is the freedom of a prince. (Truth)

 

See where it smokes along the sounding plain,

Blown all aslant, a driving, dashing rain,

Peal upon peal redoubling all around,

Shakes it again and faster to the ground;

Now, flashing wide, now glancing as in play,

Swift beyond thought the lightings dart away.

Ere yet it came the traveller urged his steed,

And hurried, but with unsuccessful speed;

Now drench’d throughout, and hopeless of his case,

He drops the rein, and leaves him to his pace.

Suppose, unlook’d for in a scene so rude,

Long hid by interposing hill or wood,

Some mansion neat and elegantly dress’d,

By some kind hospitable heart possess’d,

Offer him warmth, security, and rest;

Think, with what pleasure, safe, and at his easy,

He hears the tempest howling in the trees.

What glowing thanks his lips and heart employ,

While danger past is turn’d to present joy.

So fares it with the sinner, when he feels

A growing dread of vengeance at his heels: (Truth)

 

Some lead a life unblameable and just,

Their own dear virtue their unshaken trust:

They never sin—or if (as all offend)

Some trivial slips their daily walk attend,

The poor are near at hand, the charge small,

A light gratuity atones for all.

For though the Pope has lost his interest here,

And pardons are not sold as once they were,

No Papist more desirous to compound,

Than some grave sinners upon English ground.

They plea refuted, other quirks they seek—

Mercy is infinite, and man is weak;

The future shall obliterate the past,

And Heaven no doubt shall be their home at last.

   Come, then—a still, small whisper in your ear—

He has no hope who never had a fear;

And he that never doubted of his state,

He may perhaps—perhaps he may—too late. (Truth)

 

The Frenchman, first in literary fame,

(Mention him, is you please. Voltaire? The same,)

With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied,

Lived long, wrote much laugh’d heartily, and died;

The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew

Bon-mots to gall the Christian and the Jew;

An infidel in health, but what when sick?

Oh—then a text would touch him to the quick;

View him at Paris in his last career,

Surrounding throngs the demigod revere;

Exalted on his pedestal of pride,

And fumed with frankincense on every side,

He begs their flattery with his latest breath,

And smother’d in’t at last, is praised to death.

   Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,

Pillow and bobbins all her little store;

Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,

Shuffling her threads about the livelong day,

Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night

Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light;

She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,

Has little understand, and no wit;

Receives no praise, but, though her lot be such,

(Toilsome and indigent,) she renders much;

Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true—

A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew;

And in that Charter reads, with sparkling eyes,

Her title to a treasure in the skies. (Truth)

 

No—the voluptuaries, who ne’er forget

One pleasure lost, lose heaven without regret; (Truth)

 

Not so—the silver trumpet’s heavenly call

Sounds for the poor but sounds alike for all;

Kings are invited, and would kings obey,

No slaves on earth more welcome were than they

But royalty, nobility, and state,

Are such a dead preponderating weight,

That endless bliss, (how strange soe’er it seem,)

In counterpoise flies up and kicks the beam. (Truth)

 

No soil like poverty for growth divine,

As leanest land supplies the richest wine. (Truth)

 

But what is man in his own proud esteem/

Hear him, himself the poet and the theme:

A monarch clothed with majesty and awe,

His mind, his kingdom, and his will hist law;

Grace in his mien, and glory in his eyes,

Supreme on earth, and worthy of the skies,

Strength in his heart, dominion in his nod,

And, thunderbolts excepted, quite a god! (Truth)

 

His books well trim’d and in the gayest style,

Like regimental coxcombs rank and file,

Adorn his intellects as well as shelves,

And teach him notions splendid as themselves:

The Bible only stands neglected there,

Though that of all most worthy of his care;

And, like an infant troublesome awake,

Is left to sleep for peace and quiet sake. (Truth)

 

Where should the living weeping o’er his woes,

The dying, trembling at the awful close,

Where the betray’d, forsaken, and oppress’d,

The thousands whom the world forbids to rest,

Where should they find, (those comforts at an end

The Scriptures yields,) or hope to find a friend? (Truth)

 

Let heathen worthies, whose exalted mind

Left sensuality and dross behind.

Possess for me their undisputed lot,

And take unenvied the reward they sought.

But still in virtue of a Saviour’s plea,

Not blind by choice, but destined not to see

Their fortitude and wisdom were a flame,

Celestial, though they knew not whence it came,

Derived from the same source of light and grace,

That guides the Christian in his swifter race,

Their judge was conscience, and her rule their law;

That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe,

Led them, however faltering, faint and slow,

From what they knew to what they wish’d to know.

But let not him that shares a brighter day,

Traduce the splendor of a moontide ray,

Prefer the twilight of a darker time,

And deem his base stupidity no crime;

The wretch, who slights the bounty of the skies,

And sinks while favor’d with the means to rise,

Shall find them rated at their full amount,

The good he scorn’d all carried to account. (Truth)

 

All joy to the believer! He can speak,

Trembling yet happy, confident yet meek.

“Since the dear hour that brought me to Thy foot,

And cut up all my follies by the root,

I never trusted in an arm but Thine,

Nor hoped but in Thy righteousness divine:

My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled

Were but the feeble efforts of a child;

Were but the feeble efforts of a child;

Howe’er perform’d, it was their brightest part,

That they proceeded from a grateful heart;

Cleansed in thine own all-purifying blood,

Forgive their evil, and accept their good:

I cast them at thy feet—my only plea

Is what it was, dependence upon Thee:

While struggling in the vale of tears below,

That never-fail’d, nor shall it fail me now.” (Truth)

 

A monarch’s errors are forbidden game!

Thus, free from censure, overawed by fear,

And praised for virtues that they scorn to wear, (Table Talk)

 

Leave kingly backs to cope with kingly cares,

They have their weights to carry, subjects theirs;

Poets of all men, every least regret

Increasing taxes and the nation’s debt. (Table Talk)

 

Born in a climate softer far than ours,

Not form’d like us, with such Herculean powers,

The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk,

Give him his lass, his fiddle and his frisk,

Is always happy, reign whoever may,

And laughs the sense of misery far away.

He drinks his simple beverage with a gust,

And feasting on an onion and a crust,

We never feel the alacrity and joy

With which he shouts and carols, Vive le Roi!

Fill’d with as much true merriment and glee

As if he heard his king say—“Slave be free!” (Table Talk)

 

Thus reputation is a spur to wit,

And some wits flag through fear of losing it.

Give me the line that ploughs its stately course,

Like a proud swan, conquering the stream by force;

That like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart,

Quite unindebted to the tricks of art. (Table Talk)

 

But when the second Charles assumed the sway,

And arts revived beneath a softer day,

Then, like a bow long forced into a curve,

The mind, released from too constrain’d a nerve

Flew to its first position with a spring

That made the vaulted roofs of pleasure ring.

His court, the dissolute and hateful school

Of wantonness, where vice was taught by rule,

Swarm’d with a scribbling herd, as deep inlaid

With brutal lust as every Circe made.

From these a long succession in the rage

Of rank obscenity debauch’d their age,

Nor ceased till, ever anxious to redress

The abuses of her sacred charge, the Press,

The Muse instructed a well-nurtured train

Of abler votaries to cleanse the stain,

And claim the palm for purity of song,

That lewdness had usurp’d and worn so long. (Table Talk)

 

The prophet wept for Israel, wish’d his eyes

Were fountains fed with infinite supplies;

…

Her women, …

…

Curl’d scented, furbelow’d, and flounced around,

With feet too delicate to touch the ground,

They stretch’d the neck and roll’d the wanton eye

And sigh’d for every fool that flutter’d by. (Expostulation)

 

He judged them with as terrible a frown,

As if not love, but wrath had brought Him down:

Yet He was gentle as soft summer airs,

Had grace for other’s sins, but none for theirs;

Through all He spoke a noble plainness ran—

Through all He spoke a noble plainness ran—

Rhetoric is artifice, the work of man;

The tricks and turns that fancy may devise,

Are far too mean for Him that rules the skies. (Expostulation)

 

Stand now and judge thyself—Hast thou incurr’d

His anger who can waste thee with a word,

Who poises and proportions sea and land,

Weighing them in the hollow of His hand,

And in whose awful sight all nations seem

As grasshoppers, as dust, a drop, a dream? (Expostulation)

 

Thy language at this distant moment shows

How much the country to the conqueror owes;

Expressive, energetic, and refined,

It sparkles with the gens he left behind. (Expostulation)

 

Our years, a fruitless race without a prize,

Too many yet too few to make us wise.” (Hope)

 

For lift thy palsied head, shake off the gloom

That overhanged the borders of thy tomb,

See Nature gay as when she first began,

With smiles alluring her admirer, man;

She spreads the morning over eastern hills,

Earth glitters with the drops the night distils,

The sun obedient at her call appears,

The fling his glories o’er the robe she wears;

…

Man feels the spur of passions and desires,

And she gives largely more than he requires;

Not that his hours devoted all to care,

Hollow-eyed 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 awkward 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 absurdist dream,

That Heaven’s intentions are not what they seem,

That only shadows are dispensed below,

And earth has no reality but woe. (Hope)

 

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 gray,

To spend two hours in dressing for the day;

To make the Sun a bauble without use,

Saved for the fruits his heavenly beams produce

Quite to forget, or deem it worth no thought,

Who bids him shine, or if he shine or not; (Hope)

 

Had he the gems, the spices, and the land

That boasts the treasure, all at his command, (Hope) [caesura]

 

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

He shines 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 watery 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,

Forward 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,

Dare step across his arbitrary views,

An Illiad, only not in verse, ensues: (Hope)

 

To men of pedigree; their nobler race,

Emulous always of the nearest place

To any throne, except the throne of grace;

Let cottagers and unenlighten’d swains

Revere the laws they dream that Heaven ordains,

Resort on Sundays to the house of prayer,

And ask, and fancy they find, blessings there;

Themselves, perhaps, when weary they retreat

To enjoy cool nature in a country seat,

To exchange the centre 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: (Hope)

 

Sweet music is no longer music here,

And laughter sounds like madness in his ear;

His grief the world of all her power disarms,

Wine has no taste, and beauty has no charms:

God’s holy word, once trivial in his view,

Now by the voice of his experience true,

Seems, as it is, the fountain whence alone

Must spring that hope he pants to make his own. (Hope)

 

Let just restraint, for public peace design’d,

Chain up the wolves and tigers of mankind; (Charity)

 

…Howard’s name

Blest with all wealth can give thee, to resign

Joys doubly sweet to feelings quick as thine,

To quit the bliss thy rural scene bestow,

To seek a nobler amidst scenes and woe,

To traverse seas, range kingdoms, and bring home,

Not the proud monuments of Greece or Rome,

But knowledge such as only dungeons teach,

And only sympathy like think could reach;

That grief, sequester’d from the public stage,

Might smooth her feathers and enjoy her cage;

Speaks a divine ambition, and a zeal,

The boldest patriot might be proud to feel.

On that the voice of clamor and debate,

That pleads for peace till it disturbs the state,

Were hush’d in favor of thy generous plea.

The poor thy clients, the Heaven’s smile thy fee; (Charity) [John Howard, the celebrated philanthropist and visitor of prisons]

 

Though fair without, and luminous within,

Is still the progeny and heir of sin. (Charity)

 

Through constant dread of giving truth offence,

He ties up all his hearers in suspense;

Knows what he knows as if he knew it not;

What he remembers seems to have forgot;

His sole opinion, whatsoe’er befall,

Centering at last in having none at all. (Conversation)

 

The pipe, with solemn interposing puff,

Makes half a sentence at a time enough;

…

Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,

Unfriendly to society’s chief joys,

Thy worse effect is banishing for hours

The sex whose presence civilizes ours; (Conversation)

 

Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish (Conversation)

 

What, always dreaming over heavenly things,

Like angel heads in stone with pigeon-wings?

Canting and whining out all day the word,

And half the night? Fantastic and absurd!

Mine be the friend less frequent in his prayers,

Who makes no bustle with his soul’s affairs,

Whose wit can brighten up a wintry day,

And chase the splenetic dull hours away,

Content on earth in earthly things to shine,

Who waits for heaven ere he becomes divine,

Leaves saints to enjoy those altitudes they teach,

And plucks the fruit placed more within his reach. (Conversation)

 

A Christian’s wit is inoffensive light,

A beam that aids but never grieves the sight, (Conversation)

 

Bad men, profaning friendship’s hallow’d name,

Form, in its stead, a covenant of shame,

A dark confederacy against the laws

Of virtue, and religion’s glorious cause: (Conversation)

 

The Christian in whose soul, though now distress’d,

Lives the dear thought of joys he once possess’d,

When all his glowing language issued forth

With God’s deep stamp upon its current worth,

Will speak without disguise, and must impart,

Sad as it is, his undissembling heart,

Abhors constraint, and dares not feign a zeal,

Or seem to boast a fire he does not feel. (Conversation)

 

Perhaps, however, as some years have pass’d

Since she and I conversed together last,

And I have lived recluse in rural shades,

Which seldom a distinct report pervades,

Great changes and new manners have occurr’d,

And bless’d reforms that I have never heard,

And she may now be as discreet and wise,

As once absurd in all discerning eyes.

Sobriety perhaps may now be found

Where once intoxication press’d the ground;

The subtle and injurious may be just,

And he grown chaste that was the salve of lust;

Arts once esteem’d may be with shame dismiss’d,

Charity may relax the miser’s fist,

The gamester may have cast his cards away,

Forgot to curse, and only kneel to pray.

It has indeed been told me (with what weight

How credibly, ‘tis hard for me to state),

That fables old, that seemed forever mute,

Revived, are hastening into fresh repute,

And gods and goddesses discarded long,

Like useless lumber or a stroller’s song,

Are bringing into vogue their heathen train,

And Jupiter bids fair to rule again:

…

And whether Roman rites may not produce

The virtues of old Rome for English use.

May much success attend the pious plan,

May Mercury once more embellish man,

Grace him again with long-forgotten arts,

Reclaim his taste and brighten up his parts,

Make him athletic as in days of old,

Learn’d at the bar, in the palaestra bold,

Divest the rougher sex of female airs,

And teach the softer not to copy theirs. (Conversation)

 

Happy if full of days—but happier far,

If ere we yet discern life’s evening star,

Sick of the service of a world that feeds

Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds,

We can escape from custom’s idiot sway,

To serve the Sovereign we were born to obey. (Retirement)

 

But leisure, silence, and a mind released

From anxious thoughts how wealth may be increased,

How to secure in some propitious hour,

The point of interest or the post of power,

A soul serene, and equally retired

From objects too much dreaded or desired,

Safe from the clamors of perverse dispute,

At least are friendly to the great pursuit.

   Opening the map of God’s extensive plan,

We find a little isle, this life of man;

Eternity’s unknown expanse appears

Circling around and limiting his years;

The busy race examine and explore

Each creek and cavern of the dangerous shore,

With care collect what in their eyes excels,

Some shining pebbles, and some weeds and shells;

And happiest he that groans beneath his weight.

The waves o’ertake them in their serious play,

And every hour sweeps multitudes away;

They shriek and sink, survivors start and weep,

Pursue their sport, and follow to the deep. (Retirement)

 

Man is a harp, whose chords elude the sight,

Each yielding a harmony, disposed aright;

The screws reversed, (a task which if He please

God in a moment executes with ease,)

Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose,

Lost, till he tune them, all their power and use. (Retirement)

 

Thus some retire to nourish hopeless woe;

Some seeking happiness not found below;

Some to comply with humor, and a mind

To social scenes by nature disinclined;

Some sway’d by fashion, some by deep disgust;

Some self-impoverish’d, and because they must;

But few, that court retirement, are aware

Of half the toils they must encounter there. (Retirement)

 

Thought, to the man that never thinks, may seem

As natural as when asleep to dream;

But reveries (for human minds will act)

Specious in show, impossible in fact,

Those flimsy webs that break as soon as wrought,

Attain not to the dignity of thought: (Retirement)

 

Luxury gives the mind a childish cast, (Retirement)

 

I praise the Frenchman; his remark was shrewd—

“How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

But grant me still a friend in my retreat,

Whom I may whisper—Solitude is sweet.”

Yet neither these delights, nor aught beside

That appetite can ask, or wealth provide,

Can save us always from a tedious day,

Or shine the dullness of still life away;

Divine communion carefully enjoy’d,

Or sought with energy, must fill the void.

O sacred art! to which alone life owes

Its happiest seasons, and a peaceful close, (Retirement) [La Bruyere]

 

Those humors tart as wines upon the fret,

Which idleness and weariness beget; (Retirement)

 

Religion does not censure or exclude

Unnumber’d pleasures harmlessly pursued.

To study culture, and with artful toil

To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil;

To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands

The gain, or herb, or plant that each demands;

To cherish virtue in an humble state,

And share the joys your bounty may create; (Retirement)

 

I sing the Sofa. I who lately sang

Truth, Hope, and Charity, and touch’d with awe

The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand,

Escaped with pain from that adventurous flight,

Now seek repose upon an humbler theme;

The theme thought humble, yet august and proud

The occasion—for the Fair commands the song. (The Task, 1)

 

Hard fare! But such as boyish appetite

Disdains not, nor the palate undepraved

By culinary arts unsavory deems. (The Task, 1)

 

And not a year but pilfers as he goes

Some youthful grace that age would gladly keep, (The Task, 1)

 

Nor less composure waits upon the roar

Of distant floods, or on the softer voice

Of neighboring fountain, or of rills that slip

Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall

Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length

In matter grass, that, with a livelier green,

Betrays the secret of their silent course. (The Task, 1)

 

Once went I forth, and found, till then unknown,

A cottage, whither oft we since repair:

‘Tis perch’d upon the green hill-top, but close

Environ’d with a ring of branching elms

That overhang the thatch, itself unseen

Peeps at the vale below; so thick beset

With foliage of such dark redundant growth,

I call’d the low-roof’d lodge the peasant’s nest.

And hidden as it is, and far remote

From such unpleasing sounds as haunt the ear

In village or in town, the bay of curs

Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels,

And infants clamourous whether pleas’d or pain’d,

Oft have I wish’d the peaceful covert mine.

Here, I have said, at least I should possess

The post’s treasure, silence, and indulge

The dreams of fancy, tranquil and secure.

Vain thought! the dweller in that still retreat

Dearly obtains the refuge it affords.

Its elevated site forbids the wretch

To drink sweet waters of the crystal well;

He dips his bowl into the weedy ditch,

And, heavy-laden, brings his beverage home,

Far-fetch’d and little worth; nor seldom waits,

Dependent on the baker’s punctual call,

To hear his creaking panniers at the door,

Angry and sad, and his last crust consumed.

So farwell envy of the peasant’s nest.

If solitude make scant the means of life,

Society for me!—Thou seeming sweet,

Be still a pleasing object in my view,

My visit still, but never mind abode. (The Task, 1)

 

…cities. Thither flow,

As to a common and most noisome sewer,

The dregs and feculence of every land.

In cities foul example on most minds

Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds

In gross and pamper’d cities sloth and lust,

And wantonness and gluttonous excess. (The Task, 1)

 

Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about

In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue

But that of idleness, and taste no scenes

But such as art contrives, possess ye still

Your element; there only ye can shine,

There only minds like yours can do no harm.

Our groves were planted to console at noon

The pensive wandered in their shades. At eve

The moonbeams, sliding softly in between

The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,

Birds warbling all the music. We can spare

The splendor of your lamps, they but eclipse

Our softer satellite. Your songs confound

Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs

Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute. (The Task, 1)

 

But loose in morals and in manners vain,

In conversation frivolous, in dress

Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse,

Frequent in park, with lady at his side,

Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes,

But rare at home, and never at his books,

Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card;

Constant at routs, familiar with a round

Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor;

Ambitious of preferment for its gold,

And well prepared by ignorance and sloth,

By infidelity and love of the world,

To make God’s work a sinecure; a slave

To his own pleasures and his patron’s pride:—

From such apostles, O ye mitred heads,

Preserve the Church! … (The Task, 2)

 

Some, decent in demeanor while they preach,

That task perform’d, relapse into themselves,

And having spoken wisely, at the close

Grow wanton, and give proof to every eye—

Whoe’er was edified, themselves were not.

Forth comes the pocket mirror. First we stroke

An eyebrow; next, compose a straggling lock;

Then with an air, most gracefully perform’d,

Fall back into our seat, extend an arm,

And lay it at its ease with gentle care,

With handkerchief in hand, depending low.

The better hand more busy, gives the nose

Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye

With opera-glass to watch the moving scene

And recognize the slow-retiring fair.

Now this is fulsome, and offends me more

Than in a Churchman slovenly neglect

And rustic coarseness would. … (The Task, 2)

 

All truth is from the sempiternal source

Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece and Rome,

Drew from the stream below. More favor’d, we

Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain-head.

To them it flow’d much mingled and defiled

With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams

Illusive of philosophy, so-call’d,

But falsely. Sages after sages strove

In vain to filter off a crystal draught

Pure from the lees, which often more enhanced

The thirst than slaked it, and not seldom bred

Intoxicated and delirium wild. (The Task, 2)

 

 

As nations, ignorant of God, contrive

A wooden one, so we, no longer taught

By monitors that mother Church supplies,

Now make our own. Prosperity will ask,

(If e’er prosperity see verse of mine,)

Some fifty or a hundred lustrums hence,

What was a monitor in George’s days?

My very gentle reader, yet unborn,

Of whom I needs must augur better things,

Since Heaven would sure grow weary of a world.

Productive only of a race like ours,

A monitor is wood. Plankshaven thinn.

We war it at our backs. There closely braced

And neatly fitted, it compresses hard

The prominent and most unsightly bones,

And binds the shoulders flat. We prove its use

Sovereign and most effectual to secure

A form not now gymnastics as of yore,

From rickets and distortion, else, our lot.

But thus admonish’d we can walk erect,

One proof at least of manhood; while the friend

Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge.

Our habits costlier than Lucullus wore,

And by caprice as multiplied as his,

Just please us while the fashion is at full,

But change with every moon. The sychophant

Who waits to dress us, arbitrates their date,

Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye;

Finds one ill made, another obsolete,

This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived,

And making prize of all that he condemns,

With our expenditure, defrays his own.

Variety’s the very spice of life,

That gives it all its flavor. We have run

Through every change that fancy at the loom

Exhausted, has had genius to supply,

And studious of mutation still, discard

A real elegance, a little used,

For monstrous novelty and strange disguise

We sacrifice to dress, till household joys

And comforts cease. … (The Task, 2)

 

The only amaranthine flower on earth

Is virtue; the only thing lasting treasure, truth.

But what is truth? ‘Twas Pilate’s question put

To Truth itself, that deign’d him no reply.

And wherefore? Will not God impart His light

To them that ask it?—Freely—‘tis His joy,

His glory, and His nature to impart.

But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,

Or negligent enquirer, not a spark. (The Task, 3)

 

…Detested sport,

That owes its pleasures to another’s pain,

That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks

Of harmless nature…

…One shelter’d hare

Has never heard the sanguinary yell

Of cruel men, exulting in her woes.

Innocent partner of my peaceful home,

Whom ten long years’ experience of my care

Has made at last familiar, she has lost

Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,

Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.

Yes—thou mayest eat thy bread, and lick the hand

That feeds thee; thou mayest frolic on the floor

At evening, and at night retire secure

To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarm’d;

For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged

All that is human in me to protect

Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.

If I survive thee I will dig thy grave;

And when I place thee in it, sighing say,

I knew at least one hare that had a friend. (The Task, 3)

 

Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,

Not slothful, happy to deceive the time,

Not waste it, and aware that human life

Is but a loan to be repaid with use,

When he shall call his debtors to account,

From whom are all our blessings, business finds

Even here, while sedulous I seek to improve,

At least neglected not, or leave unemploy’d

The mind he gave me; … (The Task, 3)

 

A life all turbulence and noise may seem,

To him that leads it, wise and to be praised’

But wisdom is a pearl with most success

Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies. (The Task, 3)

 

The morning finds the self-sequestered man

Fresh for his task, intend what task he may.

Whether inclement seasons recommend

His warm but simple home, where he enjoys,

With her who shares his pleasures and his heart

Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymph

Which neatly she prepares; then to his book

Well chosen, and not sullenly perused

In selfish silence, but imparted oft

As ought occurs that she may smile to hear,

Or turn to nourishment digested well. (The Task, 3)

 

…Strength may wield the ponderous spade,

May turn the cold, and wheel the compost home,

But elegance, chief grace the garden shows,

And most attractive, is the fairest result

Of thought, the creature of a polish’d mind. (The Task, 3)

 

Oh, blest seclusion from a jarring world,

Which he, thus occupied, enjoyed! Retreat

Cannot indeed to guilty man restore

Lost innocence, or cancel follies past;

But it has peace, and much secures the mind

From all assaults of evil, … (The Task, 3)

 

What could I wish, that I possess not here?

Health, leisure, means to improve, friendship, piece;

No loose or wanton, though a wandering muse,

And constant occupation without care. (The Task, 3)

 

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups

That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in. (The Task, 4)

 

I crown thee King of intimate delights,

Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness,

And all the comforts that the lowly roof                       

Of undisturb’d retirement, and the hours

Of long uninterrupted evening know. (The Task, 4)

 

Not undelightful is an hour to me

So spent in parlor twilight; such a gloom

Suits well the thoughtful of unthinking mind, (The Task 4)

 

The verdue of the plain lies buried deep

Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,

And coarser grass upspearing o’er the rest,

Of late unsightly and unseen, now shrine

Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad,

And fledged with ice feathers, nod superb. (The Task, 5)

 

…Resign’d

To sad necessity, the cock forgoes

His wonted strut, and wading at their head

With well-consider’d steps, seems to resent

His alter’d gait and stateliness retreanch’d.

How find the myriads, that in summer cheer

The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,

Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?

Earth yields them naught: the imprison’d worm is safe

Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs

Lie cover’d close, and berry-bearing thorns

Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.

The long protracted rigor of the year

Thins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and holes

Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,

As instinct prompts, self-buried ere they die. (The Task, 5)

 

…The crystal drops

That trickle down the branches, fast congeal’d,

Shoot into pillars of pellucid length, (The Task, 5)