William Cowper
William Cowper
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem Yardley-Oak. He was a nephew of the poet Judith Madan...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth26 November 1731
charge meanings mind
Charge / His mind with meanings that he never had.
heaven held likeness
Heaven held his hand, the likeness must be true.
exterior happiness less nature suppose
Happiness depends, as Nature shows, Less on exterior things than most suppose
contest dust great involves learned
Great contest follows, and much learned dust / Involves the combatants.
fast golden haunt holds lives pinch rich wants
He that holds fast the golden mean,And lives contently betweenThe little and the great,Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.
fleet glance
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
busy calls various whom
How various his employments, whom the world / Calls idle; and who justly, in return, / Esteems that busy world an idler too!
intervals music soft village
How soft the music of those village bellsFalling at intervals upon the earIn cadence sweet!
art infinitely thou
I know that Thou art infinitely gracious, but what will become of me?
hat worse
A hat not much the worse for wear.
art magic themselves thy wound
All thy threads with magic art / Have wound themselves about this heart.
dinner
The dinner waits, and we are tired: / Said Gilpin - So am I!
base blessings born fire heroic man moved takes
The man that is not moved with what he reads,That takes not fire at their heroic deeds,Unworthy of the blessings of the brave,Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
bear friend indeed man pardon proves tom
The man that hails you Tom or Jack, / And proves by thumps upon your back / How he esteems your merit, / Is such a friend, that one had need / Be very much his friend indeed / To pardon or to bear it.