William Cowper - Sound Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

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There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet!

William Cowper
Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.

William Cowper
A kick that scarce would move a horse
May kill a sound divine.

William Cowper
The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade.

William Cowper
Silently as a dream the fabric rose —
No sound of hammer or of saw was there.

William Cowper
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard;
Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.

William Cowper
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.

William Cowper
I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.

William Cowper
I am out of humanity's reach.
I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own.

William Cowper
Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame.

William Cowper
Where thou art gone, adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.

William Cowper
I was a poet too; but modern taste
Is so refined and delicate and chaste,
That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms,
Without a creamy smoothness has no charms.
Thus, all success depending on an ear,
And thinking I might purchase it too dear,
If sentiment were sacrific'd to sound,
And truth cut short to make a period round,
I judg'd a man of sense could scarce do worse
Than caper in the morris-dance of verse.

William Cowper