William Cowper (1731 – 1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at.
Dream after dream ensues;
And still they dream that they shall still succeed;
And still are disappointed.
Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.
I believe no man was ever scolded out of his sins.
God made the country, and man made the town.
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.
Candid, and generous, and just,
Boys care but little whom they trust,
An error soon corrected—
For who but learns in riper years
That man, when smoothest he appears
Is most to be suspected?
Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
Unfriendly to society's chief joys,
Thy worst effect is banishing for hours
The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
How various his employments whom the world
Calls idle, and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!
So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,
All healthful, are the employs of rural life,
Reiterated as the wheel of time,
Runs round; still ending, and beginning still.