William Cowper (1731 – 1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
She that asks
Her dear five hundred friends.
Which not even critics criticise.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands;
As useless when it goes as when it stands.
Reasoning at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way,
While meaner things, whom instinct leads,
Are rarely known to stray.
The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.
The solemn fop; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.
Glory, built
On selfish principles, is shame and guilt.
United yet divided, twain at once:
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.
From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up.
Gloriously drunk, obey the important call.
True Charity, a plant divinely nurs'd.
A business with an income at its heels
Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own.
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard:
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
But many a crime deem'd innocent on earth
Is register'd in Heaven; and these no doubt
Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,
But God will never.
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrained to love thee.