Tuesday, March 19, 2024 Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.

William Cowper (1731 – 1800)


English poet and hymnodist.
William Cowper
O Popular Applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?
Cowper quotes
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.
Cowper
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.




Cowper William quotes
While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
Cowper William
The dogs did bark, the children screamed,
Up flew the windows all;
And every soul cried out, "Well done!"
As loud as he could bawl.
William Cowper quotes
What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
William Cowper
Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid.
Cowper William quotes
Made poetry a mere mechanic art.
Cowper
Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.
Cowper William
The still small voice is wanted.
William Cowper
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.




William Cowper quotes
Now let us sing — Long live the king,
And Gilpin, long live he;
And, when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!
William Cowper
Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread,
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
Cowper quotes
A hat not much the worse for wear.
Cowper William
Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
Cowper William quotes
Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not.
William Cowper
Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn.
William Cowper quotes
'Tis hard if all is false that I advance,
A fool must now and then be right by chance.
William Cowper
Some must be great. Great offices will have
Great talents. And God gives to every man
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,
That lifts him into life, and lets him fall
Just in the niche he was ordain'd to fill.
Cowper William
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.


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