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
dread drink endless evil god good spring thou
Thou god of our idolatry, the press. . . .Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise;Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies;Like Eden's dread probationary tree,Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.
beneath brave fast native toll
Toll for the brave - / The brave! that are no more: / All sunk beneath the wave, / Fast by their native shore.
careless damning kiss outside sin
Thousands, careless of the damning sin, / Kiss the book's outside who ne'er look within.
land leads path sorrow
The path of sorrow and that path alone, leads to a land where sorrow is unknown.
enter fine foot list manners polished sets wanting
I would not enter on my list of friends / (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, / Yet wanting sensibility) the man / Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
crush enter evening foot list public sets snail step tread
I would not enter in my list of friends, Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path, But he has the humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
aware deceive happy human laborious loan studious waste
Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,Not slothful, happy to deceive the time,Not waste it, and aware that human lifeIs but a loan to be repaid with use.
bleeding british counsel indignant roman warrior
When the British warrior queen, / Bleeding from the Roman rods, / Sought, with an indignant mien, / Counsel of her country's gods.
hidden oil wasted
Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.
chase hunt start syllable time
Philologists who chase / A panting syllable through time and space, / Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, / To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.
english-poet wisdom
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
bell repair unto
To-morrow is our wedding-day, / And we will then repair / Unto the Bell at Edmonton, / All in a chaise and pair.
great stir tis
Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, / To peep at such a world; to see the stir / Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
chance false fool fools-and-foolishness hard tis
Tis hard if all is false that I advance, A fool must now and then be right, by chance