Book IV
God seen, and adored, in the works of Nature:
Not a flow'r But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues, And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes, In grains as countless as the sea-side sands, The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Book VI
His fondness for retirement:
Since then, with few associates, in remote And silent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene; With few associates, and not wishing more. Here much I ruminate, as much I may, With other views of men and manners now Than once, and others of a life to come. I see that all are wand'rers, gone astray, Each in his own delusions; they are lost In chace of fancied happiness, still woo'd And never won. Dream after dream ensues; And still they dream that they shall still succeed, And still are disappointed. Rings the world With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind, And add two-thirds of the remaining half, And find the total of their hopes and fears Dreams, empty dreams.
Book III
His love for his country:
England, with all thy faults I love thee still-- My country! and, while yet a nook is left, Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Tho' thy clime Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies, And fields without a flower, for warmer France With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.
Book II
His humane and generous feelings:
I was born of woman, and drew milk As sweet as charity from human breasts. I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, And exercise all functions of a man. How then should I and any man that lives Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein, Take of the crimson stream meand'ring there, And catechise it well; apply thy glass, Search it, and prove now if it be not blood Congenial with thine own.
Book III
His love of liberty:
Oh Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream, The poet's muse, his passion and his theme; Genius is thine, and thou art fancy's nurse; Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse; Heroic song from thy free touch acquires Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires: Place me where winter breathes his keenest air, And I will sing, if liberty be there; And I will sing at liberty's dear feet, In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat.
Table Talk.
'Tis liberty alone, that gives the flow'r Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.
Task, book v.
His depressive malady, and the source of its cure:
I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since; with many an arrow deep infix'd My panting side was charg'd, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. There was I found by One, who had himself Been hurt by th' archers. In his side he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.[777] With gentle force soliciting the darts He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live.
Book III
[777] The Saviour.
The employment of his time, and design of his life and writings:
Me therefore studious of laborious ease, Not slothful, happy to deceive the time, Not waste it, and aware that human life Is but a loan to be repaid with use, When He shall call his debtors to account, From whom are all our blessings; business finds E'en here: while sedulous I seek t' improve, At least neglect not, or leave unemploy'd, The mind he gave me; driving it, though slack Too oft, and much impeded in its work By causes not to be divulg'd in vain, To its just point--the service of mankind.
Book III
But all is in his hand, whose praise I seek. In vain the poet sings, and the world hears, If he regard not, though divine the theme. 'Tis not in artful measures, in the chime And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre, To charm his ear whose eye is on the heart, Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, Whose approbation prosper--even mine.
Book VI
The office of doing justice to the poetical genius of Cowper has been assigned to an individual so well qualified to execute it with taste and ability, that the Editor begs thus publicly to record his acknowledgements and his unmingled satisfaction. The bowers of the Muses are not unknown to the Rev. John Cunningham, and, in contemplating the poetical labours of others, he might, with a small variation, justly apply to himself the well-known exclamation, "Ed anch'io son pittore."[778]
[778] Attributed to Correggio, after contemplating the works of Raphael.
All therefore that seems necessary, is simply to illustrate the beauties of Cowper's poetry in the same manner as we have exhibited his personal character. We shall present a brief series of poetical portraits.
* * * * *
The following portrait of Lord Chatham is drawn with great force and spirit:
In him Demosthenes was heard again; And freedom taught him her Athenian strain. She clothed him with authority and awe, Spoke from his lips, and in his books gave law. His speech, his form, his action, full of grace, And all his country beaming in his face, He stood, as some inimitable hand Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand. No sycophant or slave, that dared oppose Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose; And every venal stickler for the yoke Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke.
Table Talk.
Sir Joshua Reynolds:
There, touch'd by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes A lucid mirror, in which Natures sees All her reflected features.
Bacon the sculptor:
Bacon there Gives more than female beauty to a stone, And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.[779]
[779] Alluding to the monument of Lord Chatham, in Westminster Abbey.
John Thornton, Esq.:
Some men make gain a fountain, whence proceeds A stream of liberal and heroic deeds; The swell of pity, not to be confined Within the scanty limits of the mind, Disdains the bank, and throws the golden sands, A rich deposit, on the bordering lands: These have an ear for his paternal call, Who make some rich for the supply of all; God's gift with pleasure in his praise employ, And Thornton is familiar with the joy.
Charity.
The martyrs of the Reformation:
Their blood is shed In confirmation of the noblest claim, Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the skies. Yet few remember them. They liv'd unknown, Till persecution dragg'd them into fame, And chas'd them up to heav'n. Their ashes flew --No marble tells us whither. With their names No bard embalms and sanctifies his song: And history, so warm on meaner themes, Is cold on this. She execrates indeed The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire, But gives the glorious suff'rers little praise.
Task, book v.
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress:
O thou, whom, borne on fancy's eager wing Back to the season of life's happy spring, I pleas'd remember, and, while mem'ry yet Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget; Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail; Whose hum'rous vein, strong sense, and simple style, May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile; Witty, and well-employ'd, and, like thy Lord, Speaking in parables his slighted word: I name thee not, lest so despis'd a name Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame: Yet, e'en in transitory life's late day, That mingles all my brown with sober grey, Revere the man, whose Pilgrim marks the road, And guides the Progress of the soul to God.
Tirocinium.
Brown, the rural designer:[780]
[780] Brown, in Cowper's time, was the great designer in the art of laying out grounds for the nobility and gentry.
Lo! he comes-- Th' omnipotent magician, Brown appears. Down falls the venerable pile, th' abode Of our forefathers, a grave whisker'd race, But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead, But in a distant spot; where more expos'd It may enjoy th' advantage of the north, And agueish east, till time shall have transform'd Those naked acres to a shelt'ring grove. He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn, Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise, And streams, as if created for his use, Pursue the track of his directing wand, Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow, Now murm'ring soft, now roaring in cascades, E'en as he bids. Th' enraptur'd owner smiles. 'Tis finish'd. And yet, finished as it seems. Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show, A mine to satisfy the enormous cost.
The Task, book iii.
London:
Oh! thou resort and mart of all the earth, Chequer'd with all complexions of mankind, And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see Much that I love and much that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair, That pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh, And I can weep, can hope, and yet despond, Feel wrath and pity when I think on thee! Ten righteous would have sav'd a city once, And thou hast many righteous.--Well for thee-- That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else, And therefore more obnoxious at this hour, Than Sodom in her day had power to be, For whom God heard his Abram plead in vain.
THE CONTRAST.
Where finds Philosophy her eagle eye, With which she gazes at yon burning disk Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots? In London. Where her implements exact, With which she calculates, computes, and scans, All distance, motion, magnitude, and now Measures an atom, and now girds a world? In London. Where has commerce such a mart, So rich, so throng'd, so drain'd, and so supplied, As London--opulent, enlarg'd, and still Increasing, London? Babylon of old Not more the glory of the earth than she, A more accomplish'd world's chief glory now.