William Cowper (1731 – 1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
Elegant as simplicity, and warm
As ecstasy.
I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain,
And bear the marks upon a blushing face,
Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause.
Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste
His works. Admitted once to his embrace,
Thou shalt perceive that thou was blind before:
Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart
Made pure shall relish with divine delight
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free!
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
I would not enter on my list of friends,
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose.
I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
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.
Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
Misses! the tale that I relate
This lesson seems to carry —
Choose not alone a proper mate,
But proper time to marry.
Low ambition and the thirst of praise.
Dream after dream ensues;
And still they dream that they shall still succeed;
And still are disappointed.
My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.
God made the country, and man made the town.
I believe no man was ever scolded out of his sins.
Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.
Variety 's the very spice of life.