William Cowper

Not a flowerOf his unrivall'd pencil.

— William Cowper

But many a crime deem'd innocent on earthBut God will never.

— William Cowper

I would not enter on my list of friends,Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.

— William Cowper

Forced from home and all its pleasuresMinds are never to be sold.

— William Cowper

Fleecy locks and black complexionDwells in white and black the same.

— William Cowper

Deem our nation brutes no longer,Than the colour of our kind.

— William Cowper

Prove that you have human feelings,Ere you proudly question ours!

— William Cowper

Survivor sole, and hardly such, of allthat once lived here

— William Cowper

It seems idolatry with some excuse,Imagined sanctity.

— William Cowper

Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,But fate thy growth decreed.

— William Cowper

So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can,Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!

— William Cowper

Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,—A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.

— William Cowper

The sounding jargon of the schools.

— William Cowper

When one that holds communion with the skies'T is e'en as if an angel shook his wings.

— William Cowper

A kick that scarce would move a horseMay kill a sound divine.

— William Cowper

But the sound of the church-going bellOr smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.

— William Cowper

How fleet is a glance of the mind!And the swift-winged arrows of light.

— William Cowper

There goes the parson, O illustrious spark!And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.

— William Cowper

And the tear that is wiped with a little address,May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.

— William Cowper

'T is Providence alone securesIn every change both mine and yours.

— William Cowper

God moves in mysterious ways

— William Cowper

I shall not ask Jean Jacques RousseauIf birds confabulate or no.

— William Cowper

The path of sorrow, and that path alone,Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

— William Cowper

Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'dWith me but roughly since I heard thee last.

— William Cowper

The son of parents pass'd into the skies.

— William Cowper

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,To pardon or to bear it.

— William Cowper

A worm is in the bud of youth,And at the root of age.

— William Cowper

There is a bird who by his coat,Might be supposed a crow.

— William Cowper

He sees that this great roundaboutAnd says—what says he?—Caw.

— William Cowper

For 't is a truth well known to most,In every cranny but the right.

— William Cowper

He that holds fast the golden mean, 22Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.

— William Cowper

But strive still to be a man before your mother.

— William Cowper

Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.

— William Cowper

How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.

— William Cowper

Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.

— William Cowper

Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

— William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.

— William Cowper

Absence from whom we love is worse than death, And frustrate hope severer than despair.

— William Cowper

But oars alone can ne'er prevail Or all the toil is lost.

— William Cowper

Reasoning at every step he treads, Are rarely known to stray.

— William Cowper

Fate steals along with silent tread, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

— William Cowper

True Charity, a plant divinely nurs'd.

— William Cowper

Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade, And Heaven reflected in her face.

— William Cowper

Candid, and generous, and just,Is most to be suspected?

— William Cowper

Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.

— William Cowper

I believe no man was ever scolded out of his sins.

— William Cowper

An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.

— William Cowper

Shine by the side of every path we treadWith such a luster, he that runs may read.

— William Cowper

Toll for the brave —Fast by their native shore!

— William Cowper

And still to love, though prest with ill,My Mary!

— 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

As when around the clear bright moon, the starsAll glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd.

— William Cowper

My soulI have learned patience, having much endured.

— William Cowper

Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.

— William Cowper

Beware of desp'rate steps! The darkest day(Live till tomorrow) will have passed away.

— William Cowper

Misses! the tale that I relateBut proper time to marry.

— William Cowper

Misery still delights to traceIts semblance in another's case.

— William Cowper

No voice divine the storm allay'd,And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he.

— William Cowper

A knave, when tried on honesty's plain rule,And, when by that of reason, a mere fool

— William Cowper

Oh! for a closer walk with God,That leads me to the Lamb!

— William Cowper

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!The world can never fill.

— William Cowper

And Satan trembles when he seesThe weakest saint upon his knees.

— William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way, And rides upon the storm.

— William Cowper

Behind a frowning providenceHe hides a smiling face.

— William Cowper

Deep in unfathomable mines And works his sovereign will.

— William Cowper

His purposes will ripen fast, But sweet will be the flower.

— William Cowper

Blind unbelief is sure to err, And he will make it plain.

— William Cowper

There is a fountain fill'd with bloodLose all their guilty stains.

— William Cowper

I play with syllables and sport in song

— William Cowper

Glory, builtOn selfish principles, is shame and guilt.

— William Cowper

Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.

— William Cowper

As if the world and they were hand and glove.

— William Cowper

Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows,Less on exterior things than most suppose.

— William Cowper

Freedom has a thousand charms to show,That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.

— William Cowper

Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

— William Cowper

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.

— William Cowper

Elegant as simplicity, and warmAs ecstasy.

— William Cowper

Low ambition and the thirst of praise.

— William Cowper

Made poetry a mere mechanic art.

— William Cowper

Nature, exerting an unwearied power,The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.

— William Cowper

Lights of the world, and stars of human race.

— William Cowper

Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid.

— William Cowper

How much a dunce that has been sent to roamExcels a dunce that has been kept at home!

— William Cowper

No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.

— William Cowper

Tis hard if all is false that I advance,A fool must now and then be right by chance.

— William Cowper

He would not, with a peremptory tone,Assert the nose upon his face his own.

— William Cowper

A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.

— William Cowper

Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,The sex whose presence civilizes ours.

— William Cowper

I cannot talk with civet in the room,A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.

— William Cowper

The solemn fop; significant and budge;A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.

— William Cowper

His wit invites you by his looks to come,But when you knock it never is at home.

— William Cowper

I pity bashful men, who feel the painOf needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.

— William Cowper

Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.

— William Cowper

That good diffused may more abundant grow.

— William Cowper

But that disease when soberly definedIs the false fire of an o'erheated mind.

— William Cowper

But Conversation, choose what theme we may,Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.

— William Cowper

A business with an income at its heelsFurnishes always oil for its own wheels.

— William Cowper

Absence of occupation is not rest,A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.

— William Cowper

An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless when it goes as when it stands.

— William Cowper

Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn.

— William Cowper

Philologists, who chaseTo Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.

— William Cowper

I praise the Frenchman [Voltaire], his remark was shrewd —Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.

— William Cowper

I am monarch of all I survey, I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

— William Cowper

O solitude! where are the charms Than reign in this horrible place.

— William Cowper

I am out of humanity's reach. I start at the sound of my own.

— William Cowper

Society friendship and love How soon I would taste you again!

— William Cowper

Religion! what treasure untoldResides in that heavenly word!

— William Cowper

My friends, do they now and then send Though a friend I am never to see.

— William Cowper

There is mercy in every place, And reconciles man to his lot.

— William Cowper

Though on pleasure she was bent,She had a frugal mind.

— William Cowper

The dogs did bark, the children screamed,As loud as he could bawl.

— William Cowper

A hat not much the worse for wear.

— William Cowper

Now let us sing — Long live the king,May I be there to see!

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,The tone of languid nature.

— William Cowper

The earth was made so various, that the mindAnd pleased with novelty, might be indulged.

— William Cowper

God made the country, and man made the town.

— William Cowper

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,Might never reach me more.

— William Cowper

Mountains interposedLike kindred drops, been mingled into one.

— William Cowper

I would not have a slave to till my ground,That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.

— William Cowper

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungsThey touch our country, and their shackles fall.

— William Cowper

Fast-anchor'd isle.

— William Cowper

England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—Shall be constrained to love thee.

— William Cowper

Presume to lay their hand upon the arkOf her magnificent and awful cause.

— William Cowper

Praise enoughThat Chatham's language was his mother tongue.

— William Cowper

There is a pleasure in poetic painsWhich only poets know.

— William Cowper

Transforms old printOf gallery critics by a thousand arts.

— William Cowper

Reading what they never wrote,And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.

— William Cowper

Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not.

— William Cowper

Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.

— William Cowper

O Popular Applause! what heart of manIs proof against thy sweet seducing charms?

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper

She that asksHer dear five hundred friends.

— William Cowper

His head,But strong for service still, and unimpaired.

— William Cowper

Domestic happiness, thou only blissOf Paradise that has survived the fall!

— William Cowper

I was a stricken deer that left the herdLong since.

— William Cowper

Dream after dream ensues;And still are disappointed.

— William Cowper

Great contest follows, and much learned dustAnd truth disclaiming both.

— William Cowper

From reveries so airy, from the toilAnd growing old in drawing nothing up.

— William Cowper

Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.

— William Cowper

Detested sport,That owes its pleasures to another's pain.

— William Cowper

How various his employments whom the worldEsteems that busy world an idler too!

— William Cowper

Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.

— William Cowper

So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,Runs round; still ending, and beginning still.

— William Cowper

I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

— William Cowper

Which not even critics criticise.

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper

And Katerfelto, with his hair on endOf the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.

— William Cowper

While fancy, like the finger of a clock,Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.

— William Cowper

O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!

— William Cowper

With spots quadrangular of diamond form,And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.

— William Cowper

In indolent vacuity of thought.

— William Cowper

It seems the part of wisdom.

— William Cowper

All learned, and all drunk!

— William Cowper

Gloriously drunk, obey the important call.

— William Cowper

Those golden timesAnd Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.

— William Cowper

The Frenchman's darling.

— William Cowper

Some must be great. Great offices will haveJust in the niche he was ordain'd to fill.

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper

But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,Kings would not play at.

— William Cowper

The beggarly last doit.

— William Cowper

As dreadful as the Manichean god,Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.

— William Cowper

The still small voice is wanted.

— William Cowper

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.

— William Cowper

With filial confidence inspired,And smiling say, My Father made them all!

— William Cowper

Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;In cadence sweet!

— William Cowper

Here the heartAnd Learning wiser grow without his books.

— William Cowper

Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.

— William Cowper

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,Books are not seldom talismans and spells.

— William Cowper

Some to the fascination of a nameSurrender judgment hoodwink'd.

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper