William Cowper (1731 – 1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
Low ambition and the thirst of praise.
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute;
From the center all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
Misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall!
As dreadful as the Manichean god,
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.
Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain.
Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion, Knowledge dwells
in heads replete with thoughts of other men,
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.
Beware of desp'rate steps! The darkest day
(Live till tomorrow) will have passed away.
Toll for the brave —
The brave! that are no more;
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!
Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God.
Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor;
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.
There is a fountain fill'd with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
Though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change
And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.
In indolent vacuity of thought.
No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,
Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.
Variety 's the very spice of life.