William Cowper - The Task (1785)

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Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells.

William Cowper
Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.

William Cowper
O Popular Applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?

William Cowper
His head,
Not yet by time completely silvered o'er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpaired.

William Cowper
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.

William Cowper
Some must be great. Great offices will have
Great talents. And God gives to every man
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,
That lifts him into life, and lets him fall
Just in the niche he was ordain'd to fill.

William Cowper
Gloriously drunk, obey th' important call.

William Cowper
Some say that in the origin of things, When all creation started into birth, The infant elements receiv'd a law From which they swerve not since.

William Cowper
Nature is a name for an effect, Whose cause is God.

William Cowper
The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.

William Cowper
And in that hour,
The seeds of cruelty, that since have swell'd
To such gigantic and enormous growth,
Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil.
Hence date the persecution and the pain
That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
Regardless of their plaints.

William Cowper
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.

William Cowper
But, oh, Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art, of all Thy gifts, Thyself thy crown!

William Cowper
Not a flower
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odors, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains as countless as the seaside sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth
Happy who walks with him!

William Cowper
Some drill and bore
The solid earth, and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn,
That he who made it, and reveal'd its date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

William Cowper
Transforms old print
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.

William Cowper
Newton, childlike sage!
Sagacious reader of the works of God.

William Cowper
Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.

William Cowper
United yet divided, twain at once:
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.

William Cowper
What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?

William Cowper
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.

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

William Cowper
Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor;
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.

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

William Cowper
Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.

William Cowper
The slope of faces, from the floor to th' roof,
(As if one master-spring controlled them all),
Relaxed into a universal grin.
Of the theatre

William Cowper
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.

William Cowper
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.

William Cowper
Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.

William Cowper
Then liberty, like day, Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.

William Cowper