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  WRITINGS OF WILLIAM COWPER
  by William Cowper
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A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by William Cowper,
compiled for study and devotional reading.

  Chapters: 9

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 01.00     Hymns on Occasional Subjects
    2. 01.01     Hymns on The Christian Life
    3. 01.02     The Scripture Hymns
    4. S. Charity
    5. S. Expostulation
    6. S. Hope
    7. S. The Life of William Cowper
    8. S. The Progress of Error
    9. Truth

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  CHAPTER 1: 01.00     HYMNS ON OCCASIONAL SUBJECTS
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Hymns on Occasional Subjects by William Cowper The following hymns by William
Cowper appear in The works of The Rev. John Newton (New Haven, CT: Nathan
Whiting, 1826), vol. 2. In the preface to the Olney Hymns, Newton himself
remarks that all the hymns marked with a "C" indicate that they were written by
his friend and associate William Cowper. This file contains all of Cowper’s
hymns that appear in Book II of the Olney hymns (a section titled: Hymns on
Occasional Subjects). This electronic edition was made available by Shane
Rosenthal for Reformation Ink. Original pagination has been retained for
purposes of reference.

HYMNS BEFORE ANNUAL SERMONS TO YOUNG PEOPLE ON NEW YEAR’S EVENINGS Prayer for a
Blessing (Book II, Hymn 8, page 528) Bestow, dear Lord, upon our youth, The gift
of saving grace; And let the seed of sacred truth Fall in a fruitful place.

Grace is a plant, where’er it grows, Of pure and heavenly root; But fairest in
the youngest shows, And yields the sweetest fruit.

Ye careless ones, O hear betimes The voice of sovereign love! Your youth is
stain’d with many crimes, But mercy reigns above.

True, you are young, but there’s a stone Within the youngest breast; Or half the
crimes which you have done Would rob you of your rest. For you the public prayer
is made; Oh! Join the public prayer! For you the secret tear is shed: Oh shed
yourselves a tear!

We pray that you may early prove The Spirit’s power to teach; You cannot be too
young to love That Jesus whom we preach.

Pleading for and with Youth (Book II, Hymn 11, page 529) Sin has undone our
wretched race; But Jesus has restored, And brought the sinner face to face With
his forgiving Lord. This we repeat from year to year And press upon our youth;
Lord, give them an attentive ear, Lord, save them by Thy truth!

Blessings upon the rising race! Make this a happy hour, According to Thy richest
grace, And thine Almighty power.

We feel for your unhappy state (May you regard it too), And would a while
ourselves forget To pour our prayer for you.

We see, though you perceive it not, The approaching awful doom; Oh tremble at
the solemn thought, And flee the wrath to come!

Dear Saviour, let this new-born year Spread an alarm abroad; And cry in every
careless ear, "Prepare to meet thy God!"

Prayer for Children (Book II, Hymn 12, page 529)

Gracious Lord, our children see, By Thy mercy we are free; But shall these,
alas! remain Subjects still of Satan’s reign? Israel’s young ones, when of old
Pharaoh threaten’d to withhold, Then Thy messenger said, "No; Let the children
also go!" When the angel of the Lord, Drawing forth his dreadful sword, Slew
with an avenging hand, All the first-born of the land; Then Thy people’s door he
pass’d, Where the bloody sign was placed: Hear us, now, upon our knees, Plead
the blood of Christ for these!

Lord, we tremble, for we know How the fierce malicious foe, Wheeling round his
watchful flight, Keeps them ever in his sight: Spread Thy pinions, King of
kings! Hide them safe beneath Thy wings; Lest the ravenous bird of prey Stoop
and bear the brood away. A CHRISTMAS HYMN Jehovah-Jesus (Book II, Hymn 38, page
540) My song shall bless the Lord of all, My praise shall climb to His abode;
Thee, Saviour, by that name I call, The great Supreme, the mighty God.

Without beginning or decline, Object of faith and not of sense; Eternal ages saw
Him shine, He shines eternal ages hence. As much when in the manger laid,
Almighty Ruler of the sky, As when the six days’ work He made, Fill’d all the
morning stars with joy. Of all the crowns Jehovah bears, Salvation is His
dearest claim; That gracious sound well pleased He hears And owns Emmanuel for
His name. A cheerful confidence I feel, My well placed hopes with joy I see; My
bosom glows with heavenly zeal, To worship Him who died for me. As man He pities
my complaint, His power and truth are all divine; He will not fail, He cannot
faint; Salvation’s sure, and must be mine. On opening a Place for Social Prayer
(Book II, Hymn 44, page 542)

Jesus! where’er Thy people meet, There they behold Thy mercy seat; Where’er they
seek Thee, Thou art found, And every place is hallow’d ground. For Thou, within
no walls confined, Inhabitest the humble mind; Such ever bring Thee where they
come And going, take Thee to their home.

Dear Shepherd of Thy chosen few! Thy former mercies here renew; Her to our
waiting hearts proclaim The sweetness of Thy saving name.

Here may we prove the power of prayer, To strengthen faith, and sweeten care; To
teach our faint desires to rise, And bring all Heaven before our eyes.

Behold, at Thy commanding word We stretch the curtain and the cord; Come Thou,
and fill this wider space, And bless us with a large increase.

Lord, we are few, but Thou art near: Nor short Thine arm, nor deaf Thine ear; Oh
rend the heavens, come quickly down, And make a thousand hearts Thine own.

Welcome to the Table (Book II, Hymn 53, page 547) This is the feast of heavenly
wine, And God invites to sup; The juices of the living Vine Were press’d to fill
the cup.

Oh! bless the Saviour, ye that eat, With royal dainties fed; Not heaven affords
a costlier treat, For Jesus is the bread. The vile, the lost, He calls to them;
Ye trembling souls, appear! The righteous in their own esteem Have no acceptance
here.

Approach, ye poor, nor dare refuse The banquet spread for you; Dear Saviour,
this is welcome news, Then I may venture too.

If guilt and sin afford a plea, And may obtain a place, Surely the Lord will
welcome me, And I shall see his face.

Jesus hasting to suffer (Book II, Hymn 55, page 547) The Saviour, what a noble
flame Was kindled in his breast, When hasting to Jerusalem, He march’d before
the rest.

Good will to men, and zeal for God, His every thought engross; He longs to be
baptized with blood, He pants to reach the cross! With all His suffering full in
view, And woes to us unknown, Forth to the task His spirit flew, ’Twas love that
urged Him on.

Lord, we return Thee what we can: Our hearts shall sound abroad, Salvation to
the dying Man, And to the rising God! And while Thy bleeding glories here Engage
our wondering eyes, We learn our lighter cross to bear, And hasten to the skies.

Exhortation to Prayer (Book II, Hymn 60, page 549)

What various hindrances we meet In coming to a mercy seat! Yet who that knows
the worth of prayer, But wishes to be often there?

Prayer makes the darken’d cloud withdraw, Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw,
Gives exercise to faith and love, Brings every blessing from above.

Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; Prayer makes the Christian’s armour
bright; And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.

While Moses stood with arms spread wide, Success was found on Israel’s side; But
when through weariness they fail’d, That moment Amalek prevail’d. Have you no
words? Ah, think again, Words flow apace when you complain, And fill your
fellow-creature’s ear With the sad tale of all your care. Were half the breath
thus vainly spent To heaven in supplication sent, Your cheerful song would
oftener be, "Hear what the Lord has done for me." The Light and Glory of the
Word (Book II, Hymn 62, page 550) The Spirit breathes upon the word, And brings
the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford A sanctifying light. A glory
gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun; It gives a light to every age, It
gives, but borrows none. The hand that gave it still supplies The gracious light
and heat; His truths upon the nations rise, They rise, but never set.

Let everlasting thanks be thine, For such a bright display, As makes a world of
darkness shine With beams of heavenly day. My soul rejoices to pursue The steps
of Him I love, Till glory break upon my view In brighter worlds above. On The
Death of a Minister (Book II, Hymn 73, page 554) His master taken from his head,
Elisha saw him go; And in desponding accents said, "Ah, what must Israel do?"
But he forgot the Lord who lifts The beggar to the throne; Nor knew that all
Elijah’s gifts Would soon be made his own.

What! when a Paul has run his course, Or when Apollos dies, Is Israel left
without resource, And have we no supplies?

Yes, while the dear Redeemer lives, We have a boundless store, And shall be fed
with what He gives, Who lives for evermore.


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  CHAPTER 2: 01.01     HYMNS ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
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Hymns on The Christian Life

by William Cowper The following hymns by William Cowper appear in The works of
The Rev. John Newton (New Haven, CT: Nathan Whiting, 1826), vol. 2. In the
preface to the Olney Hymns, Newton himself remarks that all the hymns marked
with a "C" indicate that they were written by his friend and associate William
Cowper. This file contains all of Cowper’s hymns that appear in Book III of the
Olney hymns (a section titled: Olney Hymns on the Rise, Progress, Changes, and
Comforts of the Spiritual Life). This electronic edition was made available by
Shane Rosenthal for Reformation Ink. Original pagination has been retained for
purposes of reference. The shining Light (Book III, Hymn 8, page 568) My former
hopes are fled, My terror now begins; I feel, alas! that I am dead In trespasses
and sins.

Ah, whither shall I fly? I hear the thunder roar; The Law proclaims Destruction
nigh, And Vengeance at the door. When I review my ways, I dread impending doom:
But sure a friendly whisper says, "Flee from the wrath to come."

I see, or think I see, A glimmering from afar; A beam of day, that shines for
me, To save me from despair.

Forerunner of the sun, It marks the pilgrim’s way; I’ll gaze upon it while I
run, And watch the rising day.

Light shining out of Darkness (Book III, Hymn 15, page 571) God moves in a
mysterious way, His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill, He treasures up his bright
designs, And works his sov’reign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with
mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace;

Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen
fasts, Unfolding ev’ry hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be
the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain;

God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.

Welcome Cross (Book III, Hymn 16, page 571-72)

’Tis my happiness below Not to live without the cross, But the Saviour’s power
to know, Sanctifying every loss; Trials must and will befall; But with humble
faith to see Love inscribed upon them all, This is happiness to me.

God in Israel sows the seeds Of affliction, pain, and toil; These spring up and
choke the weeds Which would else o’erspread the soil: Trials make the promise
sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low,
and keep me there. Did I meet no trials here, No chastisement by the way, Might
I not with reason fear I should prove a castaway? Bastards may escape the rod,
Sunk in earthly vain delight; But the true-born child of God Must not, would
not, if he might.

Afflictions sanctified by the Word (Book III, Hymn 17, page 572)

Oh how I love Thy holy Word, Thy gracious covenant, O Lord! It guides me in the
peaceful way; I think upon it all the day.

What are the mines of shining wealth, The strength of youth, the bloom of
health! What are all joys compared with those Thine everlasting Word bestows!

Long unafflicted, undismay’d, In pleasure’s path secure I stray’d; Thou mad’st
me feel thy chast’ning rod, And straight I turned unto my God.

What though it pierced my fainting heart, I bless’d Thine hand that caused the
smart: It taught my tears awhile to flow, But saved me from eternal woe.

Oh! hadst Thou left me unchastised, Thy precepts I had still despised; And still
the snare in secret laid Had my unwary feet betray’d.

I love Thee, therefore, O my God, And breathe towards Thy dear abode; Where, in
Thy presence fully blest, Thy chosen saints for ever rest.

Temptation (Book III, Hymn 18, page 572) The billows swell, the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky; Out of the depths to Thee I call, My fears are
great, my strength is small.

O Lord, the pilot’s part perform, And guard and guide me through the storm;
Defend me from each threatening ill, Control the waves, say, "Peace! be still."

Amidst the roaring of the sea My soul still hangs her hope on Thee; Thy constant
love, thy faithful care, Is all that saves me from despair.

Dangers of every shape and name Attend the followers of the Lamb, Who leave the
world’s deceitful shore, And leave it to return no more.

Though tempest-toss’d and half a wreck, My Saviour through the floods I seek;
Let neither winds nor stormy main Force back my shatter’d bark again.

Looking upwards in a Storm (Book III, Hymn 19, page 573)

God of my life, to Thee I call, Afflicted at Thy feet I fall; When the great
water-floods prevail, Leave not my trembling heart to fail!

Friend of the friendless and the faint, Where should I lodge my deep complaint,
Where but with Thee, whose open door Invites the helpless and the poor! Did ever
mourner plead with Thee, And Thou refuse the mourner’s plea? Does not the word
still fix’d remain, That none shall seek Thy face in vain? That were a grief I
could not bear, Didst Thou not hear and answer prayer: But a prayer-hearing,
answering God Supports me under every load.

Fair is the lot that’s cast for me; I have an Advocate with Thee; They whom the
world caresses most Have no such privilege to boast.

Poor though I am, despised, forgot, Yet God, my God, forgets me not: And he is
safe, and must succeed, For whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead. The Valley of the
Shadow of Death (Book III, Hymn 20, page 573) My soul is sad, and much dismay’d;
See, Lord, what legions of my foes, With fierce Apollyon at their head, My
heavenly pilgrimage oppose.

See, from the ever-burning lake, How like a smoky cloud they rise! With horrid
blasts my soul they shake, With storms of blasphemies and lies. Their fiery
arrows reach the mark, My throbbing heart with anguish tear; Each lights upon a
kindred spark, And finds abundant fuel there.

I hate the thought that wrongs the Lord; Oh! I would drive it from my breast,
With Thy own sharp two-edged sword, Far as the east is from the west.

Come, then, and chase the cruel host, Heal the deep wounds I have received! Nor
let the power of darkness boast That I am foil’d, and Thou art grieved!

Peace after a Storm (Book III, Hymn 23, page 574) When darkness long has veil’d
my mind, And smiling day once more appears, Then, my Redeemer, then I find The
folly of my doubts and fears.

Straight I upbraid my wandering heart, And blush that I should ever be Thus
prone to act so base a part, Or harbour one hard thought of Thee!

Oh! let me then at length be taught What I am still so slow to learn, That God
is love, and changes not, Nor knows the shadow of a turn.

Sweet truth, and easy to repeat! But when my faith is sharply tried, I find
myself a learner yet, Unskilful, weak, and apt to slide.

But, O my Lord, one look from Thee Subdues the disobedient will, Drives doubt
and discontent away, And Thy rebellious worm is still.

Thou art as ready to forgive As I am ready to repine; Thou, therefore, all the
praise receive; Be shame and self-abhorrence mine.

Mourning and Longing (Book III, Hymn 24, page 575) The Saviour hides His face;
My spirit thirsts to prove Renew’d supplies of pardoning grace, And never-fading
love. The favor’d souls who know What glories shine in Him, Pant for His
presence as the roe Pants for the living stream.

What trifles tease me now! They swarm like summer flies! They cleave to
everything I do, And swim before my eyes.

How dull the Sabbath day, Without the Sabbath’s Lord! How toilsome then to sing
and pray, And wait upon the Word! Of all the truths I hear, How few delight my
taste! I glean a berry here and there, But mourn the vintage past.

Yet let me (as I ought) Still hope to be supplied; No pleasure else is worth a
thought, Nor shall I be denied.

Though I am but a worm, Unworthy of His care, The Lord will my desire perform,
And grant me all my prayer.

Self-acquaintance (Book III, Hymn 26, page 576)

Dear Lord! accept a sinful heart, Which of itself complains, And mourns, with
much and frequent smart, The evil it contains.

There fiery seeds of anger lurk, Which often hurt my frame; And wait but for the
tempter’s work, To fan them to a flame.

Legality holds out a bribe To purchase life from Thee; And Discontent would fain
prescribe How Thou shalt deal with me.

While Unbelief withstands Thy grace, And puts the mercy by, Presumption, with a
brow of brass, Says, "Give me, or I die!"

How eager are my thoughts to roam, In quest of what they love! But ah! when duty
calls them home, How heavily they move!

Oh, cleanse me in a Saviour’s blood, Transform me by Thy power, And make me Thy
beloved abode, And let me roam no more.

Prayer for Patience (Book III, Hymn 28, page 576-77)

Lord, who hast suffer’d all for me, My peace and pardon to procure, The lighter
cross I bear for Thee, Help me with patience to endure. The storm of loud
repining hush; I would in humble silence mourn; Why should the unburnt, though
burning bush, Be angry as the crackling thorn?

Man should not faint at Thy rebuke, Like Joshua falling on his face, When the
cursed thing that Achan took Brought Israel into just disgrace.

Perhaps some golden wedge suppress’d, Some secret sin offends my God; Perhaps
that Babylonish vest, Self-righteousness, provokes the rod.

Ah! were I buffeted all day, Mock’d, crown’d with thorns and spit upon, I yet
should have no right to say, My great distress is mine alone.

Let me not angrily declare No pain was ever sharp like mine, Nor murmur at the
cross I bear, But rather weep, remembering Thine.

Submission (Book III, Hymn 28, page 577) O Lord, my best desire fulfil, And help
me to resign Life, health, and comfort to Thy will, And make Thy pleasure mine.

Why whould I shrink at Thy command, Whose love forbids my fears? Or tremble at
the gracious hand That wipes away my tears?

No, rather let me freely yield What most I prize to Thee; Who never hast a good
withheld, Or wilt withhold, from me.

Thy favor, all my journey through, Thou art engaged to grant; What else I want,
or think I do, ’Tis better still to want.

Wisdom and mercy guide my way, Shall I resist them both? A poor blind creature
of day, And crush’d before the moth! But ah! my inward spirit cries, Still binds
me to Thy sway; Else the next cloud that veils the skies Drives all these
thoughts away. The Happy Change (Book III, Hymn 44, page 583)

How bless’d Thy creature is, O God, When with a single eye, He views the lustre
of Thy Word, The dayspring from on high!

Through all the storms that veil the skies And frown on earthly things, The Sun
of Righteousness he eyes, With healing on His wings.

Struck by that light, the human heart, A barren soil no more, Sends the sweet
smell of grace abroad, Where serpents lurk’d before. The soul, a dreary province
once Of Satan’s dark domain, Feels a new empire form’d within, And owns a
heavenly reign. The glorious orb whose golden beams The fruitful year control,
Since first obedient to Thy WOrd, He started from the goal, Has cheer’d the
nations with the joys His orient rays impart; But, Jesus, ’tis Thy light alone
Can shine upon the heart.

Retirement (Book III, Hymn 45, page 583)

Far from the world, O Lord, I flee, From strife and tumult far; From scenes
where Satan wages still His most successful war. The calm retreat, the silent
shade, With prayer and praise agree; And seem, by Thy sweet bounty made, For
those who follow Thee.

There if Thy Spirit touch the soul, And grace her mean abode, Oh, with what
peace, and joy, and love, She communes with her God!

There like the nightingale she pours Her solitary lays; Nor asks a witness of
her song, Nor thirsts for human praise.

Author and Guardian of my life, Sweet source of light Divine, And, -- all
harmonious names in one, -- My Saviour! Thou art mine.

What thanks I owe Thee, and what love, A boundless, endless store, Shall echo
through the realms above, When time shall be no more. The Hidden Life (Book III,
Hymn 47, page 584) To tell the Saviour all my wants, How pleasing is the task!
Nor less to praise Him when He grants Beyond what I can ask. My laboring spirit
vainly seeks To tell but half the joy, With how much tenderness He speaks, And
helps me to reply. Nor were it wise, nor should I choose, Such secrets to
declare; Like precious wines their taste they lose, Exposed to open air. But
this with boldness I proclaim, Nor care if thousands hear, Sweet is the ointment
of His name, Not life is half so dear. And can you frown, my former friends, Who
knew what once I was, And blame the song that thus commends The Man who bore the
cross?

Trust me, I draw the likeness true, And not as fancy paints; Such honor may He
give to you, For such have all His saints.

True Pleasures (Book III, Hymn 49, page 585)

Lord, my soul with pleasure springs When Jesu’s name I hear: And when God the
Spirit brings The word of promise near: Beauties too, in holiness, Still
delighted I perceive; Nor have words that can express The joys Thy precepts
give.

Clothed in sanctity and grace, How sweet it is to see Those who love Thee as
they pass, Or when they wait on Thee. Pleasant too to sit and tell What we owe
to love Divine; Till our bosoms grateful swell, And eyes begin to shine.

Those the comforts I possess, Which God shall still increase, All His ways are
pleasantness, And all His paths are peace. Nothing Jesus did or spoke,
Henceforth let me ever slight; For I love His easy yoke, And find His burden
light. The Christian (Book III, Hymn 50, page 585)

Honor and happiness unite To make the Christian’s name a praise; How fair the
scene, how clear the light, That fills the remnant of His days! A kingly
character He bears, No change His priestly office knows; Unfading is the crown
He wears, His joys can never reach a close.

Adorn’d with glory from on high, Salvation shines upon His face; His robe is of
the ethereal dye, His steps are dignity and grace.

Inferior honors He disdains, Nor stoops to take applause from earth; The King of
kings Himself maintains The expenses of His heavenly birth. The noblest creature
seen below, Ordain’d to fill a throne above; God gives him all He can bestow,
His kingdom of eternal love! My soul is ravished at the thought! Methinks from
earth I see Him rise! Angels congratulate His lot, And shout Him welcome to the
skies.

Lively Hope and Gracious Fear (Book III, Hymn 51, page 585-86) I was a
grovelling creature once, And basely cleaved to earth: I wanted spirit to
renounce The clod that gave me birth. But God hath breathed upon a worm, And
sent me from above Wings such as clothe an angel’s form, The wings of joy and
love. With these to Pisgah’s top I fly And there delighted stand, To view,
beneath a shining sky, The spacious promised land. The Lord of all the vast
domain Has promised it to me, The length and breadth of all the plain As far as
faith can see.

How glorious is my privilege! To Thee for help I call; I stand upon a mountain’s
edge, O save me, lest I fall!

Though much exalted in the Lord, My strength is not my own; Then let me tremble
at His word, And none shall cast me down. For the Poor (Book III, Hymn 57, page
588) When Hagar found the bottle spent, And wept o’er Ishmael; A message from
the Lord was sent To guide her to a well. Should not Elijah’s cake and cruse
Convince us at this day, A gracious God will not refuse Provisions by the way?
His saints and servants shall be fed, The promise is secure; "Bread shall be
given them," as He said, "Their water shall be sure."

Repasts far richer they shall prove, Than all earth’s dainties are; ’Tis sweet
to taste a Saviour’s love, Though in the meanest fare. To Jesus then your
trouble bring, Nor murmur at your lot; While you are poor and He is King, You
shall not be forgot. My Soul thirsteth for God (Book III, Hymn 61, page 589-90)

I thirst, but not as once I did, The vain delights of earth to share; Thy
wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid That I should seek my pleasures there.

It was the sight of Thy dear cross First wean’d my soul from earthly things; And
taught me to esteem as dross The mirth of fools and pomp of kings.

I want that grace that springs from Thee, That quickens all things where it
flows, And makes a wretched thorn like me Bloom as the myrtle, or the rose.

Dear fountain of delight unknown! No longer sink below the brim; But overflow,
and pour me down A living and life-giving stream! For sure of all the plants
that share The notice of thy Father’s eye, None proves less grateful to His
care, Or yields him meaner fruit than I.

Love constrained to Obedience (Book III, Hymn 62, page 590) No strength of
nature can suffice To serve the Lord aright: And what she has she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.

How long beneath the law I lay In bondage and distress; I toll’d the precept to
obey, But toil’d without success.

Then, to abstain from outward sin Was more than I could do; Now, if I feel its
power within, I feel I hate it too.

Then all my servile works were done A righteousness to raise; Now, freely chosen
in the Son, I freely choose His ways.

"What shall I do," was then the word, "That I may worthier grow?" "What shall I
render to the Lord?" Is my inquiry now. To see the law by Christ fulfilled And
hear His pardoning voice, Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.
The Heart healed and changed by Mercy (Book III, Hymn 63, page 590)

Sin enslaved me many years, And led me bound and blind; Till at length a
thousand fears Came swarming o’er my mind. "Where," said I, in deep distress,
"Will these sinful pleasures end? How shall I secure my peace And make the Lord
my friend?"

Friends and ministers said much The gospel to enforce; But my blindness still
was such, I chose a legal course: Much I fasted, watch’d, and strove, Scarce
would shew my face abroad, Fear’d almost to speak or move, A stranger still to
God.

Thus afraid to trust His grace, Long time did I rebel; Till despairing of my
case, Down at His feet I fell: Then my stubborn heart He broke, And subdued me
to His sway; By a simple word He spoke, "Thy sins are done away."

Hatred of Sin (Book III, Hymn 64, page 590-91)

Holy Lord God! I love Thy truth, Nor dare Thy least commandment slight; Yet
pierced by sin the serpent’s tooth, I mourn the anguish of the bite. But though
the poison lurks within, Hope bids me still with patience wait; Till death shall
set me free from sin, Free from the only thing I hate. Had I a throne above the
rest, Where angels and archangels dwell, One sin, unslain, within my breast,
Would make that heaven as dark as hell. The prisoner sent to breathe fresh air,
And blest with liberty again, Would mourn were he condemn’d to wear One link of
all his former chain.

But, oh! no foe invades the bliss, When glory crowns the Christian’s head; One
look at Jesus as he is, Will strike all sin forever dead. The New Convert (Book
III, Hymn 68, page 592) The new-born child of gospel grace, Like some fair tree
when summer’s nigh, Beneath Emmanuel’s shining face Lifts up his blooming branch
on high. No fears he feels, he sees no foes, No conflict yet his faith employs,
Nor has he learnt to whom he owes The strength and peace his soul enjoys. But
sin soon darts its cruel sting, And comforts sinking day by day, What seem’d his
own, a self-fed spring, Proves but a brook that glides away. When Gideon arm’d
his numerous host, The Lord soon made his numbers less; And said, "Lest Israel
vainly boast, My arm procured me this success!"

Thus will He bring our spirits down, And draw our ebbing comforts low, That
saved by grace, but not our own, We may not claim the praise we owe.

True and False Comforts (Book III, Hymn 69, page 592) O God, whose favorable
eye, The sin-sick soul revives, Holy and heavenly is the joy Thy shining
presence gives. Not such as hypocrites suppose, Who with a graceless heart,
Taste not of Thee, but drink a dose Prepared by Satan’s art.

Intoxicating joys are theirs, Who while they boast their light, And seem to soar
above the stars, Are plunging into night.

Lull’d in a soft and fatal sleep, They sin and yet rejoice; Were they indeed the
Saviour’s sheep, Would they not hear His voice? Be mine the comforts that
reclaim The soul from Satan’s power; That make me blush for what I am, And hate
my sin the more.

’Tis joy enough, my All in All, At Thy dear feet to lie; Thou wilt not let me
lower fall, And none can higher fly. A living and dead Faith (Book III, Hymn 71,
page 593) The Lord receives his highest praise From humble minds and hearts
sincere; While all the loud professor says Offends the righteous Judge’s ear. To
walk as children of the day, To mark the precepts’ holy light, To wage the
warfare, watch, and pray, Show who are pleasing in His sight. Not words alone it
cost the Lord, To purchase pardon for His own; Nor will a soul by grace
restor’d, Return the Saviour words alone. With golden bells, the priestly vest,
And rich pomegranates border’d round, The need of holiness express’d, And called
for fruit as well as sound.

Easy indeed it were to reach A mansion in the courts above, If swelling words
and fluent speech Might serve instead of faith and love. But none shall gain the
blissful place, Or God’s unclouded glory see, Who talks of free and sov’reign
grace, Unless that grace has made him free!

Abuse of the Gospel (Book III, Hymn 72, page 593-94)

Too many, Lord, abuse Thy grace In this licentious day, And while they boast
they see Thy face, They turn their own away.

Thy book displays a gracious light That can the blind restore; But these are
dazzled by the sight, And blinded still the more. The pardon such presume upon,
They do not beg but steal; And when they plead it at Thy throne, Oh! where’s the
Spirit’s seal? Was it for this, ye lawless tribe, The dear Redeemer bled? Is
this the grace the saints imbibe From Christ the living head?

Ah, Lord, we know Thy chosen few Are fed with heavenly fare; But these, -- the
wretched husks they chew, Proclaim them what they are. The liberty our hearts
implore Is not to live in sin; But still to wait at Wisdom’s door, Till Mercy
calls us in. The Narrow Way (Book III, Hymn 73, page 594)

What thousands never knew the road! What thousands hate it when ’tis known! None
but the chosen tribes of God Will seek or choose it for their own. A thousand
ways in ruin end, One only leads to joys on high; By that my willing steps
ascend, Pleased with a journey to the sky. No more I ask or hope to find Delight
or happiness below; Sorrow may well possess the mind That feeds where thorns and
thistles grow. The joy that fades is not for me, I seek immortal joys above;
There glory without end shall be The bright reward of faith and love.

Cleave to the world, ye sordid worms, Contented lick your native dust! But God
shall fight with all his storms, Against the idol of your trust.

Dependence (Book III, Hymn 74, page 594) To keep the lamp alive, With oil we
fill the bowl; ’Tis water makes the willow thrive, And grace that feeds the
soul. The Lord’s unsparing hand Supplies the living stream; It is not at our own
command, But still derived from Him.

Beware of Peter’s word, Nor confidently say, "I never will deny Thee, Lord," --
But, -- "Grant I never may."

Man’s wisdom is to seek His strength in God alone; And e’en an angel would be
weak, Who trusted in his own.

Retreat beneath his wings, And in His gace confide! This more exalts the King of
kings Than all your works beside. In Jesus is our store, Grace issues from His
throne; Whoever says, "I want no more," Confesses he has done. Not of Works
(Book III, Hymn 75, page 594-95)

Grace, triumphant in the throne, Scorns a rival, reigns alone; Come and bow
beneath her sway; Cast your idol works away! Works of man, when made his plea,
Never shall accepted be; Fruits of pride (vainglorious worm!) Are the best he
can perform.

Self, the god his soul adores, Influences all his powers; Jesus is a slighted
name, Self-advancement all his aim: But when God the Judge shall come, To
pronounce the final doom, Then for rocks and hills to hide All his works and all
his pride!

Still the boasting heart replies, What the worthy and the wise, Friends to
temperance and peace, Have not these a righteousness? Banish every vain pretence
Built on human excellence; Perish everything in man, But the grace that never
can.

Praise for Faith (Book III, Hymn 80, page 596) Of all the gifts Thine hand
bestows, Thou Giver of all good! Not heaven itself a richer knows Than my
Redeemer’s blood.

Faith too, the blood-receiving grace, From the same hand we gain; Else, sweetly
as it suits our case, That gift had been in vain.

Till Thou Thy teaching power apply, Our hearts refuse to see, And weak, as a
distemper’d eye, Shut out the view of Thee.

Blind to the merits of Thy Son, What misery we endure! Yet fly that Hand from
which alone We could expect a cure.

We praise Thee, and would praise Thee more, To Thee our all we owe: The precious
Saviour, and the power That makes Him precious too.

Grace and Providence (Book III, Hymn 81, page 597)

Almighty King! whose wondrous hand Supports the weight of sea and land; Whose
grace is such a boundless store, No heart shall break that sighs for more.

Thy providence supplies my food, And ’tis Thy blessing makes it good; My soul is
nourish’d by Thy Word, Let soul and body praise the Lord! My streams of outward
comfort came From Him who built this earthly frame; Whate’er I want His bounty
gives, By whom my soul forever lives.

Either His hand preserves from pain, Or, if I feel it, heals again; From Satan’s
malice shields my breast, Or overrules it for the best.

Forgive the song that falls so low Beneath the gratitude I owe! It means Thy
praise: however poor, An angel’s song can do no more.

I will praise the Lord at all Times (Book III, Hymn 83, page 597-98)

Winter has a joy for me, While the Saviour’s charms I read, Lowly, meek, from
blemish free, In the snowdrop’s pensive head.

Spring returns, and brings along Life-invigorating suns: Hark! the turtle’s
plaintive song Seems to speak His dying groans!

Summer has a thousand charms, All expressive of His worth; ’Tis His sun that
lights and warms, His the air the cools the earth.

What! has autumn left to say Nothing of a Saviour’s grace? Yes, the beams of
milder day Tell me of his smiling face.

Light appears with early dawn, While the sun makes haste to rise; See His
bleeding beauties drawn On the blushes of the skies.

Evening with a silent pace, Slowly moving in the west, Shews an emblem of His
grace, Points to an eternal rest. This article was made available on the
internet via REFORMATION INK (www.markers.com/ink). Refer any correspondence to
Shane Rosenthal: Rosenthal2000@aol.com


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: 01.02     THE SCRIPTURE HYMNS
========================================================================

The Scripture Hymns of William Cowper The following hymns by William Cowper
appear in The works of The Rev. John Newton (New Haven, CT: Nathan Whiting,
1826), vol. 2. In the preface to the Olney Hymns, Newton himself remarks that
all the hymns marked with a "C" indicate that they were written by his friend
and associate William Cowper. This file contains all of Cowper’s hymns that
appear in Book I of the Olney hymns (a section titled: Hymns on Selected
Passages of Scripture). This electronic edition was made available by Shane
Rosenthal for Reformation Ink. Original pagination has been retained for
purposes of reference.

Walking with God (Genesis 5:24) Oh! for a closer walk with God, A calm and
heavenly frame; A light to shine upon the road That leads me to the Lamb! Where
is the blessedness I knew When first I saw the Lord? Where is the
soul-refershing view Of Jesus and his word?

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed! How sweet their memory still! But they have
left an aching void, The world can never fill.

Return, O holy Dove, return! Sweet the messenger of rest! I hate the sins that
made thee mourn And drove thee from my breast. The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be, Help me to tear it from thy throne, And worship only
thee. So shall my walk be close with God, Calm and serene my frame; So purer
light shall mark the road That leads me to the Lamb.

Book I, Hymn 3, page 468 Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord will provide (Genesis 22:14)
The saints should never be dismay’d, Nor sink in hopeless fear; For when they
least expect His aid, The Saviour will appear. This Abraham found: he raised the
knife; God saw, and said, "Forbear! Yon ram shall yield his meaner life; Behold
the victim there."

Once David seem’d Saul’s certain prey; But hark! the foe’s at hand; Saul turns
his arms another way, To save the invaded land. When Jonah sunk beneath the
wave, He thought to rise no more; But God prepared a fish to save, And bear him
to the shore.

Blest proofs of power and grace divine, That meet us in His word! May every
deep-felt care of mine Be trusted with the Lord.

Wait for His seasonable aid, And though it tarry, wait: The promise may be long
delay’d, But cannot come too late.

Book I, Hymn 6, page 469 Jehovah Rophi, ­I am the Lord that healeth thee (Exodus
15:1-27) Heal us, Emmanuel! here we are, Waiting to feel Thy touch: Deep-wounded
souls to Thee repair And, Saviour, we are such. Our faith is feeble, we confess,
We faintly trust Thy word; But wilt Thou pity us the less? Be that far from
Thee, Lord!

Remember him who once applied, With trembling, for relief; "Lord, I believe,"
with tears he cried, "Oh, help my unbelief!"

She too, who touch’d Thee in the press, And healing virtue stole, Was answer’d,
"Daughter, go in peace, Thy faith hath made thee whole."

Conceal’d amid the gathering throng, She would have shunn’d Thy view; And if her
faith was firm and strong, Had strong misgivings too.

Like her, with hopes and fears we come, To touch Thee, if we may; Oh! send us
not despairing home, Send none unheal’d away!

Book I, Hymn 14, page 472 Jehovah Nissi, ­The Lord my banner (Exodus 17:15) By
whom was David taught To aim the deadly blow, When he Goliath fought, And laid
the Gittite low? Nor sword nor spear the stripling took, But chose a pebble from
the brook.

’Twas Israel’s God and King Who sent him to the fight; Who gave him strength to
sling, And skill to aim aright. Ye feeble saints, your strength endures, Because
young David’s God is yours. Who order’d Gideon forth, To storm the invaders’
camp. With arms of little worth, A pitcher and a lamp? The trumpets made his
coming known And all the host was overthrown.

Oh! I have seen the day, When with a single word, God helping me to say, "My
trust is in the Lord," My soul hath quell’d a thousand foes Fearless of all that
could oppose. But unbelief, self-will, Self-righteousness, and pride, How often
do they steal My weapon from my side! Yet David’s Lord, and Gideon’s friend,
Will help his servant to the end.

Book I, Hymn 17, page 473 Jehovah Shalem, ­The Lord send peace (Judges 6:25)

Jesus! whose blood so freely stream’d To satisfy the law’s demand; By Thee from
guilt and wrath redeem’d, Before the Father’s face I stand. To reconcile
offending man, Make Justice drop her angry rod; What creature could have form’d
the plan, Or who fulfil it but a God? No drop remains of all the curse, For
wretches who deserved the whole; No arrows dipt in wrath to pierce The guilty,
but returning soul.

Peace by such means so dearly bought, What rebel could have hoped to see? Peace
by his injured Sovereign wrought, His Sovereign fasten’d to a tree.

Now, Lord, Thy feeble worm prepare! For strife with earth and hell begins;
Conform and gird me for the war; They hate the soul that hates his sins.

Let them in horrid league agree! They may assault, they may distress; But cannot
quench Thy love to me, Nor rob me of the Lord my peace.

Book I, Hymn 22, page 475 Wisdom (Proverbs 8:22-31)

Ere God had built the mountains, Or raised the fruitful hills; Before he fill’d
the fountains That feed the running rills; In me from everlasting, The wonderful
I am, Found pleasures never wasting, And Wisdom is my name.

When, like a tent to dwell in, He spread the skies abroad, And swathed about the
swelling Of Ocean’s mighty flood; He wrought by weight and measure, And I was
with Him then: Myself the Father’s pleasure, And mine, the sons of men.

Thus Wisdom’s words discover Thy glory and Thy grace, Thou everlasting lover Of
our unworthy race! Thy gracious eye survey’d us Ere stars were seen above; In
wisdom thou hast made us, And died for us in love. And couldst thou be delighted
With creatures such as we, Who, when we saw Thee, slighted, And nail’d Thee to a
tree? Unfathomable wonder, And mystery divine! The voice that speaks in thunder,
Says, "Sinner, I am thine!"

Book I, Hymn 52, page 487 Vanity of the World (Ecclesiastes)

God gives his mercies to be spent; Your hoard will do your soul no good. Gold is
a blessing only lent, Repaid by giving others food. The world’s esteem is but a
bribe, To buy their peace you sell your own; The slave of a vainglorious tribe,
Who hate you while they make you known. The joy that vain amusements give, Oh!
sad conclusion that it brings! The honey of a crowded hive, Defended by a
thousand stings.

’Tis thus the world rewards the fools That live upon her treacherous smiles: She
leads them blindfold by her rules, And ruins all whom she beguiles.

God knows the thousands who go down From pleasure into endless woe; And with a
long despairing groan Blaspheme the Maker as they go.

Oh fearful thought! be timely wise; Delight but in a Saviour’s charms, And God
shall take you to the skies, Embraced in everlasting arms.

Book I, Hymn 55, page 488 O Lord, I will praise thee (Isaiah , 12i)

I will praise Thee every day Now Thine anger’s turn’d away; Comfortable thoughts
arise From the bleeding sacrifice.

Here, in the fair gospel-field, Wells of free salvation yield Stream of life, a
plenteous store, And my soul shall thirst no more.

Jesus is become at length My salvation and my strength; And His praises shall
prolong, While I live, my pleasant song.

Praise ye, then, His glorious name, Publish His exalted fame! Still His worth
your praise exceeds; Excellent are all His deeds.

Raise again the joyful sound. Let the nations roll it round! Zion, shout! for
this is He; God the Saviour dwells in thee.

Book I, Hymn 58, page 489 The Contrite Heart (Isaiah 57:15) The Lord will
happiness divine On contrite hearts bestow; Then tell me, gracious God, is mine
A contrite heart or no?

I hear, but seem to hear in vain, Insensible as steel; If aught is felt, ’tis
only pain, To find I cannot feel.

I sometimes think myself inclined To love Thee if I could; But often feel
another mind, Averse to all that’s good. My best desires are faint and few, I
fain would strive for more; But when I cry, "My strength renew!" Seem weaker
than before.

Thy saints are comforted, I know, And love Thy house of prayer; I therefore go
where others go, But find no comfort there.

Oh make this heart rejoice or ache; Decide this doubt for me; And if it be not
broken, break, And heal it, if it be.

Book I, Hymn 64, page 491 The future Peace and Glory of the Church (Isaiah
60:15-20)

Hear what God the Lord hath spoken, "O my people, faint and few, Comfortless,
afflicted, broken, Fair abodes I build for you. Thorns of heartfelt tribulation
Shall no more perplex your ways; You shall name your walls, Salvation, And your
gates shall all be Praise.

"There, like streams that feed the garden, Pleasures without end shall flow, For
the Lord, your faith rewarding, All His bounty shall bestow; Still in
undisturb’d possession Peace and righteousness shall reign; Never shall you feel
oppression, Hear the voice of war again.

"Ye no more your suns descending, Waning moons no more shall see; But your
griefs forever ending, Find eternal noon in me: God shall rise, and shining o’er
ye, Change to day the gloom of night; He, the Lord, shall be your glory, God
your everlasting light."

Book I, Hymn 65, page 492 Jehovah our Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6) My God, how
perfect are Thy ways! But mine polluted are; Sin twines itself about my praise,
And slides into my prayer. When I would speak what Thou hast done To save me
from my sin, I cannot make Thy mercies known, But self-applause creeps in.

Divine desire, that holy flame Thy grace creates in me; Alas! impatience is its
name, When it returns to Thee. This heart, a fountain of vile thoughts. How does
it overflow, While self upon the surface floats, Still bubbling from below.

Let others in the gaudy dress Of fancied merit shine; The Lord shall be my
righteousness, The Lord forever mine.

Book I, Hymn 67, page 492-93 Ephraim repenting (Jeremiah 31:18-20) My God, till
I received Thy stroke, How like a beast was I! So unaccustom’d to the yoke, So
backward to comply. With grief my just reproach I hear; Shame fills me at the
thought, How frequent my rebellions were, What wickedness I wrought.

Thy merciful restraint I scorn’d, And left the pleasant road; Yet turn me, and I
shall be turn’d; Thou art the Lord my God.

"Is Ephraim banish’d from my thoughts, Or vile in my esteem? No," saith the
Lord, "with all his faults, I still remember him.

"Is he a dear and pleasant child? Yes, dear and pleasant still; Though sin his
foolish heart beguiled, And he withstood my will.

"My sharp rebuke has laid him low, He seeks my face again; My pity kindles at
his woe, He shall not seek in vain."

Book I, Hymn 68, page 493 The Covenant (Ezekiel 36:25-28) The Lord proclaims His
grace abroad! "Behold, I change your hearts of stone; Each shall renounce his
idol-god, And serve, henceforth, the Lord alone.

"My grace, a flowing stream, proceeds To wash your filthiness away; Ye shall
abhor your former deeds, And learn my statutes to obey.

"My truth the great design ensures, I give myself away to you; You shall be
mine, I will be yours, Your God unalterably true.

"Yet not unsought or unimplored, The plenteous grace I shall confer; No­­your
whole hearts shall seek the Lord, I’ll put a praying spirit there.

"From the first breath of life divine Down to the last expiring hour, The
gracious work shall all be mine, Begun and ended in my power."

Book I, Hymn 71, page 494 Jehovah-Shammah (Ezekiel 48:35) As birds their infant
brood protect, And spread their wings to shelter them, Thus saith the Lord to
His elect, "So will I guard Jerusalem." And what then is Jerusalem, This darling
object of His cares? Where is its worth in God’s esteem? Who built it? who
inhabits there?

Jehovah founded it in blood, The blood of His incarnate Son; There dwell the
saints, once foes to God The sinners whom He calls His own.

There, though besieged on every side, Yet much beloved and guarded well, From
age to age they have defied The utmost force of earth and hell.

Let earth repent, and hell despair, This city has a sure defence; Her name is
call’d, "The Lord is there," And who has power to drive him hence?

Book I, Hymn 72, page 494 Jehovah-Shammah (Zechariah 13:1)

There is a fountain fill’d with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners,
plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief
rejoiced to see That fountain in his day; And there have I, as vile as he,
Wash’d all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till all the
ransom’d church of God Be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love
has been my theme, And shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save; When this poor
lisping stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared (Unworthy though I be) For me a blood-bought
free reward, A golden harp for me!

’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, And form’d by power divine, To sound in
God the Father’s ears No other name but Thine.

Book I, Hymn 79, page 497 The Sower (Matthew 13:3)

Ye sons of earth prepare the plough, Break up your fallow ground; The sower is
gone forth to sow, And scatter blessings round. The seed that finds a stony soil
Shoots forth a hasty blade; But ill repays the sower’s toil, Soon wither’d,
scorch’d, and dead. The thorny ground is sure to balk All hopes of harvest
there; We find a tall and sickly stalk, But not the fruitful ear. The beaten
path and highway side, Receive the trust in vain; The watchful birds the spoil
divide, And pick up all the grain. But where the Lord of grace and power Has
bless’d the happy field, How plenteous is the golden store The deep-wrought
furrows yield!

Father of mercies, we have need Of thy preparing grace; Let the same Hand that
give me seed Provide a fruitful place!

Book I, Hymn 85, page 499-500 The House of Prayer (Mark 11:17)

Thy mansion is the Christian’s heart, O Lord, Thy dwelling place secure! Bid the
unruly throng depart, And leave the consecrated door.

Devoted as it is to Thee, A thievish swarm frequents the place, They steal away
my hopes from me, And rob my Saviour of His praise.

There, too, a sharp designing trade Sin, Satan, and the World maintain; Nor
cease to press me, and persuade To part with ease, and purchase pain.

I know them, and I hate their din; And weary of the bustling crowd; But while
their voice is heard within, I cannot serve Thee as I would.

Oh! for the joy thy presence gives, What peace shall reign when Thou art there;
Thy presence makes this den of thieves A calm delightful house of prayer. And if
Thou make Thy temple shine, Yet self-abased, will I adore; The gold and silver
are not mine; I give Thee waht was Thine before.

Book I, Hymn 96, page 504 Lovest thou me? (John 21:16)

Hark my soul! it is the Lord; ’Tis Thy Saviour, hear His word; Jesus speaks and
speaks to thee, "Say poor sinner, lovst thou me?

"I deliver’d thee when bound, And when bleeding, heal’d thy wound; Sought thee
wandering, set thee right, Turn’d thy darkness into light.

"Can a woman’s tender care Cease towards the child she bare? Yes, she may
forgetful be, Yet will I remember thee.

"Mine is an unchanging love, Higher than the heights above, Deeper than the
depths beneath, Free and faithful, strong as death.

"Thou shalt see my glory soon, When the work of grace is done; Partner of my
throne shalt be; Say, poor sinner, lovst thou me?"

Lord it is my chief complaint, That my love is weak and faint; Yet I love Thee
and adore, Oh! for grace to love Thee more!

Book I, Hymn 118, page 513-14 Contentment (Php 4:11)

Fierce passions discompose the mind, As tempests vex the sea, But calm, content
and peace we find, When, Lord, we turn to Thee. In vain by reason and by rule We
try to bend the will; For none but in the Saviour’s school Can learn the
heavenly skill.

Since at His feet my soul has sate, His gracious words to hear, Contented with
my present state, I cast on Him my care.

"Art thou a sinner, soul?" He said, "Then how canst thou complain? How light thy
troubles here, if weigh’d With everlasting pain!

"If thou of murmuring wouldst be cured, Compare thy griefs with mine! Think what
my love for thee endured, And thou wilt not repine.

"’Tis I appoint thy daily lot, And I do all things well; Thou soon shalt leave
this wretched spot, And rise with me to dwell.

"In life my grace shall strength supply, Proportion’d to thy day; At death thou
still shalt find me nigh, To wipe thy tears away."

Thus I, who once my wretched days In vain repinings spent, Taught in my
Saviour’s school of grace, Have learn’d to be content.

Book I, Hymn 131, page 519-20 Old Testament Gospel (Hebrews 4:2)

Israel in ancient days Not only had a view Of Sinai in a blaze, But learn’d the
Gospel too; The types and figures were a glass, In which thy saw a Saviour’s
face. The paschal sacrifice And blood-besprinkled door, Seen with enlighten’d
eyes, And once applied with power, Would teach the need of other blood, To
reconcile an angry God. The Lamb, the Dove, set forth His perfect innocence,
Whose blood of matchless worth Whould be the soul’s defence; For he who can for
sin atone, Must have no failings of His own. The scape-goat on his head The
people’s trespass bore, And to the desert led, Was to be seen no more: In him
our Surety seem’d to say, "Behold, I bear your sins away."

Dipt in his fellow’s blood, The living bird went free; The type, well
understood, Express’d the sinner’s plea; Described a guilty soul enlarged, And
by a Saviour’s death discharged.

Jesus, I love to trace, Throughout the sacred page, The footsteps of Thy grace,
The same in every age! Oh, grant that I may faithful be To clearer light,
vouchsaf’d to me!

Book I, Hymn 132, page 520 Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6)

"Write to Sardis," saith the Lord, "And write what He declares, He whose Spirit,
and whose word, Upholds the seven stars: All thy works and ways I search, Find
thy zeal and love decay’d; Thou art call’d a living church, But thou art cold
and dead.

"Watch, remember, seek, and strive, Exert thy former pains; Let thy timely care
revive, And strengthen what remains; Cleanse thine heart, thy works amend,
Former times to mind recall, Lest my sudden stroke descend, And smite thee once
for all.

"Yet I number now in thee A few that are upright; These my Father’s face shall
see, And walk with me in white. When in judgment I appear, They for mine shall
be confess’d; Let my faithful servants hear, And woe be to the rest!"

Book I, Hymn 138, page 522-23 This article was made available on the internet
via REFORMATION INK (www.markers.com/ink). Refer any correspondence to Shane
Rosenthal: Rosenthal2000@aol.com


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: S. CHARITY
========================================================================

Charity By William Cowper

CHARITY.

’’’’’’’’’’’’_____________ Qua nihil majus meliusve terris Fata donav?re, bonique
divi;

Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum Tempora priscum.

-Hor. Lib. iv. Ode 2.

’’’’’’’’’’’’_____________ Fairest and foremost of the train that wait On man’s
most dignified and happiest state, Whether we name thee Charity or Love, Chief
grace below, and all in all above, Prosper (I press thee with a powerful plea) A
task I venture on, impell’d by thee:

Oh never seen but in thy blest effects, Or felt but in the soul that Heaven
selects; Who seeks to praise thee, and to make thee known To other hearts, must
have thee in his own.

Come, prompt me with benevolent desires, Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires,
And, though disgraced and slighted, to redeem A poet’s name, by making thee the
theme.

God, working ever on a social plan, By various ties attaches man to man:

He made at first, though free and unconfined, One man the common father of the
kind; That every tribe, though placed as he sees best, Where seas or deserts
part them from the rest, Differing in language, manners, or in face, Might feel
themselves allied to all the race. When Cook-lamented, and with tears as just As
ever mingled with heroic dust- Steer’d Britain’s oak into a world unknown, And
in his country’s glory sought his own, Wherever he found man to nature true, The
rights of man were sacred in his view;

He soothed with gifts, and greeted with a smile, The simple native of the
new-found isle;

He spurn’d the wretch that slighted or withstood The tender argument of kindred
blood; Nor would endure that any should control His freeborn brethren of the
southern pole.

But, though some nobler minds a law respect, That none shall with impunity
neglect, In baser souls unnumber’d evils meet, To thwart its influence, and its
end defeat.

While Cook is loved for savage lives he saved, See Cortez odious for a world
enslaved! Where wast thou then, sweet Charity? where then, Thou tutelary friend
of helpless men?

Wast thou in monkish cells and nunneries found, Or building hospitals on English
ground?

No.-Mammon makes the world his legatee Through fear, not love; and Heaven abhors
the fee.

Wherever found (and all men need thy care), Nor age, nor infancy could find thee
there. The hand that slew till it could slay no more, Was glued to the
sword-hilt with Indian gore. Their prince, as justly seated on his throne As
vain imperial Philip on his own, Trick’d out of all his royalty by art, That
stripp’d him bare, and broke his honest heart, Died, by the sentence of a shaven
priest, For scorning what they taught him to detest.

How dark the veil that intercepts the blaze Of Heaven’s mysterious purposes and
ways!

God stood not, though he seem’d to stand, aloof; And at this hour the conqueror
feels the proof: The wreath he won drew down an instant curse, The fretting
plague is in the public purse, The canker’d spoil corrodes the pining state,
Starved by that indolence their mines create.

Oh, could their ancient Incas rise again, How would they take up Israel’s
taunting strain!

Art thou too fallen, Iberia? Do we see The robber and the murderer weak as we?

Thou that hast wasted earth, and dared despise Alike the wrath and mercy of the
skies, Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid Low in the pits thine avarice
has made.

We come with joy from our eternal rest To see the oppressor in his turn
oppress’d.

Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand Roll’d over all our desolated land,
Shook principalities and kingdoms down, And made the mountains tremble at his
frown? The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers, And waste them, as thy
sword has wasted ours.

?Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils, And vengeance executes what justice
wills.

Again-the band of commerce was design’d To associate all the branches of
mankind; And if a boundless plenty be the robe, Trade is the golden girdle of
the globe.

Wise to promote whatever end he means, God opens fruitful Nature’s various
scenes:

Each climate needs what other climes produce, And offers something to the
general use; No land but listens to the common call, And in return receives
supply from all. This genial intercourse, and mutual aid, Cheers what were else
a universal shade, Calls nature from her ivy-mantled den, And softens human
rock-work into men.

Ingenious Art, with her expressive face, Steps forth to fashion and refine the
race; Not only fills necessity’s demand, But overcharges her capacious hand:

Capricious taste itself can crave no more Than she supplies from her abounding
store:

She strikes out all that luxury can ask, And gains new vigour at her endless
task.

Hers is the spacious arch, the shapely spire, The painter’s pencil, and the
poet’s lyre; From her the canvas borrows light and shade, And verse, more
lasting, hues that never fade.

She guides the finger o’er the dancing keys, Gives difficulty all the grace of
ease, And pours a torrent of sweet notes around Fast as the thirsting ear can
drink the sound.

These are the gifts of art; and art thrives most Where Commerce has enrich’d the
busy coast;

He catches all improvements in his flight, Spreads foreign wonders in his
country’s sight, Imports what others have invented well, And stirs his own to
match them, or excel.

?Tis thus, reciprocating each with each, Alternately the nations learn and
teach;

While Providence enjoins to ev’ry soul A union with the vast terraqueous whole.

Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurl’d To furnish and accommodate a world,
To give the pole the produce of the sun, And knit the unsocial climates into
one.

Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave Impel the fleet, whose errand is to
save, To succour wasted regions, and replace The smile of opulence in sorrow’s
face.

Let nothing adverse, nothing unforeseen, Impede the bark that ploughs the deep
serene, Charged with a freight transcending in its worth The gems of India,
Nature’s rarest birth, That flies, like Gabriel on his Lord’s commands, A herald
of God’s love to pagan lands! But ah! what wish can prosper, or what prayer, For
merchants rich in cargoes of despair, Who drive a loathsome traffic, gauge, and
span, And buy the muscles and the bones of man? The tender ties of father,
husband, friend, All bonds of nature in that moment end; And each endures, while
yet he draws his breath, A stroke as fatal as the scythe of death. The sable
warrior, frantic with regret Of her he loves, and never can forget, Loses in
tears the far-receding shore, But not the thought that they must meet no more;

Deprived of her and freedom at a blow, What has he left that he can yet forego?

Yes, to deep sadness sullenly resign’d, He feels his body’s bondage in his mind;

Puts off his generous nature, and to suit His manners with his fate, puts on the
brute.

Oh most degrading of all ills that wait On man, a mourner in his best estate!

All other sorrows virtue may endure, And find submission more than half a cure;

Grief is itself a medicine, and bestow’d To improve the fortitude that bears the
load; To teach the wanderer, as his woes increase, The path of wisdom, all whose
paths are peace; But slavery!-Virtue dreads it as her grave:

Patience itself is meanness in a slave;

Or, if the will and sovereignty of God Bid suffer it a while, and kiss the rod,
Wait for the dawning of a brighter day, And snap the chain the moment when you
may.

Nature imprints upon whate’er we see, That has a heart and life in it, Be free!
The beasts are charter’d-neither age nor force Can quell the love of freedom in
a horse:

He breaks the cord that held him at the rack;

And, conscious of an unencumber’d back, Snuffs up the morning air, forgets the
rein;

Loose fly his forelock and his ample mane;

Responsive to the distant neigh, he neighs; Nor stops, till, overleaping all
delays, He finds the pasture where his fellows graze.

Canst thou, and honour’d with a Christian name, Buy what is woman-born, and feel
no shame?

Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead Expedience as a warrant for the deed?
So may the wolf, whom famine has made bold To quit the forest and invade the
fold: So may the ruffian, who with ghostly glide, Dagger in hand, steals close
to your bedside; Not he, but his emergence forced the door, He found it
inconvenient to be poor. Has God then given its sweetness to the cane, Unless
his laws be trampled on-in vain?

Built a brave world, which cannot yet subsist, Unless his right to rule it be
dismiss’d?

Impudent blasphemy! So folly pleads, And, avarice being judge, with ease
succeeds. But grant the plea, and let it stand for just, That man make man his
prey, because he must;

Still there is room for pity to abate And soothe the sorrows of so sad a state.
A Briton knows, or if he knows it not, The Scripture placed within his reach, he
ought, That souls have no discriminating hue, Alike important in their Maker’s
view; That none are free from blemish since the fall, And love divine has paid
one price for all. The wretch that works and weeps without relief Has One that
notices his silent grief.

He, from whose hand alone all power proceeds, Ranks its abuse among the foulest
deeds, Considers all injustice with a frown; But marks the man that treads his
fellow down.

Begone!-the whip and bell in that hard hand Are hateful ensigns of usurp’d
command. Not Mexico could purchase kings a claim To scourge him, weariness his
only blame.

Remember, Heaven has an avenging rod, To smite the poor is treason against God!

Trouble is grudgingly and hardly brook’d, While life’s sublimest joys are
overlook’d:

We wander o’er a sunburnt thirsty soil, Murmuring and weary of our daily toil,
Forget to enjoy the palm-tree’s offer’d shade, Or taste the fountain in the
neighbouring glade:

Else who would lose, that had the power to improve The occasion of transmuting
fear to love?

Oh, ?tis a godlike privilege to save! And he that scorns it is himself a slave.

Inform his mind; one flash of heavenly day Would heal his heart, and melt his
chains away.

’Beauty for ashes’ is a gift indeed, And slaves, by truth enlarged, are doubly
freed.

Then would he say, submissive at thy feet, While gratitude and love made service
sweet, My dear deliverer out of hopeless night, Whose bounty bought me but to
give me light, I was a bondman on my native plain, Sin forged, and ignorance
made fast, the chain;

Thy lips have shed instruction as the dew, Taught me what path to shun, and what
pursue;

Farewell my former joys! I sigh no more For Africa’s once loved, benighted
shore;

Serving a benefactor, I am free; At my best home, if not exiled from thee.

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.

Oh, could I worship aught beneath the skies That earth has seen, or fancy can
devise, Thine altar, sacred Liberty, should stand, Built by no mercenary vulgar
hand, With fragrant turf, and flowers as wild and fair As ever dress’d a bank,
or scented summer air.

Duly, as ever on the mountain’s height The peep of morning shed a dawning light,
Again, when evening in her sober vest Drew the grey curtain of the fading west,
My soul should yield thee willing thanks and praise For the chief blessings of
my fairest days; But that were sacrilege-praise is not thine, But his who gave
thee, and preserves thee mine:

Else I would say, and as I spake bid fly A captive bird into the boundless sky,
This triple realm adores thee-thou art come From Sparta hither, and art here at
home.

We feel thy force still active, at this hour Enjoy immunity from priestly power,
While conscience, happier than in ancient years, Owns no superior but the God
she fears.

Propitious spirit! yet expunge a wrong Thy rights have suffer’d, and our land,
too long.

Teach mercy to ten thousand hearts, that share The fears and hopes of a
commercial care.

Prisons expect the wicked, and were built To bind the lawless, and to punish
guilt; But shipwreck, earthquake, battle, fire, and flood, Are mighty mischiefs,
not to be withstood; And honest merit stands on slippery ground, Where covert
guile and artifice abound.

Let just restraint, for public peace design’d, Chain up the wolves and tigers of
mankind; The foe of virtue has no claim to thee, But let insolvent innocence go
free.

Patron of else the most despised of men, Accept the tribute of a stranger’s pen;

Verse, like the laurel, its immortal meed, Should be the guerdon of a noble
deed;

I may alarm thee, but I fear the shame (Charity chosen as my theme and aim) I
must incur, forgetting Howard’s name.

Blest with all wealth can give thee, to resign Joys doubly sweet to feelings
quick as thine, To quit the bliss thy rural scenes bestow, To seek a nobler
amidst scenes of woe, To traverse seas, range kingdoms, and bring home, Not the
proud monuments of Greece or Rome, But knowledge such as only dungeons teach,
And only sympathy like thine could reach; That grief, sequester’d from the
public stage, Might smooth her feathers, and enjoy her cage;

Speaks a divine ambition, and a zeal, The boldest patriot might be proud to
feel.

Oh that the voice of clamour and debate, That pleads for peace till it disturbs
the state, Were hush’d in favour of thy generous plea, The poor thy clients, and
Heaven’s smile thy fee!

Philosophy, that does not dream or stray, Walks arm in arm with nature all his
way;

Compasses earth, dives into it, ascends Whatever steep inquiry recommends, Sees
planetary wonders smoothly roll Round other systems under her control, Drinks
wisdom at the milky stream of light, That cheers the silent journey of the
night, And brings at his return a bosom charged With rich instruction, and a
soul enlarged. The treasured sweets of the capacious plan, That Heaven spreads
wide before the view of man.

All prompt his pleased pursuit, and to pursue Still prompt him, with a pleasure
always new;

He too has a connecting power, and draws Man to the centre of the common cause,
Aiding a dubious and deficient sight With a new medium and a purer light.

All truth is precious, if not all divine; And what dilates the powers must needs
refine.

He reads the skies, and, watching every change, Provides the faculties an ampler
range; And wins mankind, as his attempts prevail, A prouder station on the
general scale. But reason still, unless divinely taught, Whate’er she learns,
learns nothing as she ought; The lamp of revelation only shews, What human
wisdom cannot but oppose, That man, in nature’s richest mantle clad, And graced
with all philosophy can add, Though fair without, and luminous within, Is still
the progeny and heir of sin.

Thus taught, down falls the plumage of his pride;

He feels his need of an unerring guide, And knows that falling he shall rise no
more, Unless the power that bade him stand restore. This is indeed philosophy;
this known Makes wisdom, worthy of the name, his own; And without this, whatever
he discuss;

Whether the space between the stars and us;

Whether he measure earth, compute the sea, Weigh sunbeams, carve a fly, or spit
a flea; The solemn trifler with his boasted skill Toils much, and is a solemn
trifler still:

Blind was he born, and his misguided eyes Grown dim in trifling studies, blind
he dies.

Self-knowledge truly learn’d of course implies The rich possession of a nobler
prize; For self to self, and God to man, reveal’d (Two themes to nature’s eye
for ever seal’d), Are taught by rays, that fly with equal pace From the same
centre of enlightening grace.

Here stay thy foot; how copious, and how clear, The o’erflowing well of Charity
springs here!

Hark! ?tis the music of a thousand rills, Some through the groves, some down the
sloping hills, Winding a secret or an open course, And all supplied from an
eternal source. The ties of nature do but feebly bind, And commerce partially
reclaims mankind;

Philosophy, without his heavenly guide, May blow up self-conceit, and nourish
pride;

But, while his province is the reasoning part, Has still a veil of midnight on
his heart:

?Tis truth divine, exhibited on earth, Gives Charity her being and her birth.

Suppose (when thought is warm, and fancy flows, What will not argument sometimes
suppose?) An isle possess’d by creatures of our kind, Endued with reason, yet by
nature blind.

Let supposition lend her aid once more, And land some grave optician on the
shore:

He claps his lens, if haply they may see, Close to the part where vision ought
to be; But finds that, though his tubes assist the sight, They cannot give it,
or make darkness light.

He reads wise lectures, and describes aloud A sense they know not to the
wondering crowd;

He talks of light and the prismatic hues, As men of depth in erudition use; But
all he gains for his harangue is-Well,- What monstrous lies some travellers will
tell! The soul, whose sight all-quickening grace renews, Takes the resemblance
of the good she views, As diamonds, stripp’d of their opaque disguise, Reflect
the noonday glory of the skies.

She speaks of Him, her author, guardian, friend, Whose love knew no beginning,
knows no end, In language warm as all that love inspires;

And, in the glow of her intense desires, Pants to communicate her noble fires.

She sees a world stark blind to what employs Her eager thought,and feeds her
flowing joys;

Though wisdom hail them, heedless of her call, Flies to save some, and feels a
pang for all:

Herself as weak as her support is strong, She feels that frailty she denied so
long;

And, from a knowledge of her own disease, Learns to compassionate the sick she
sees.

Here see, acquitted of all vain pretence, The reign of genuine Charity commence.

Though scorn repay her sympathetic tears, She still is kind, and still she
perseveres; The truth she loves a sightless world blaspheme, ?Tis childish
dotage, a delirious dream! The danger they discern not they deny;

Laugh at their only remedy, and die. But still a soul thus touch’d can never
cease, Whoever threatens war, to speak of peace.

Pure in her aim, and in her temper mild, Her wisdom seems the weakness of a
child:

She makes excuses where she might condemn, Reviled by those that hate her, prays
for them;

Suspicion lurks not in her artless breast, The worst suggested, she believes the
best; Not soon provoked, however stung and teased, And, if perhaps made angry,
soon appeased;

She rather waives than will dispute her right;

And, injured, makes forgiveness her delight.

Such was the portrait an apostle drew, The bright original was one he knew;

Heaven held his hand, the likeness must be true. When one, that holds communion
with the skies, Has fill’d his urn where these pure waters rise, And once more
mingles with us meaner things, ?Tis e’en as if an angel shook his wings;

Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, That tells us whence his treasures
are supplied. So when a ship, well freighted with the stores The sun matures on
India’s spicy shores, Has dropp’d her anchor, and her canvas furl’d, In some
safe haven of our western world, ?Twere vain inquiry to what port she went, The
gale informs us, laden with the scent.

Some seek, when queasy conscience has its qualms, To lull the painful malady
with alms; But charity not feign’d intends alone Another’s good-theirs centres
in their own;

And, too short-lived to reach the realms of peace, Must cease for ever when the
poor shall cease.

Flavia, most tender of her own good name, Is rather careless of her sister’s
fame: Her superfluity the poor supplies, But, if she touch a character, it dies.
The seeming virtue weigh’d against the vice, She deems all safe, for she has
paid the price: No charity but alms aught values she, Except in porcelain on her
mantel-tree.

How many deeds, with which the world has rung, From pride, in league with
ignorance, have sprung! But God o’errules all human follies still, And bends the
tough materials to his will. A conflagration, or a wintry flood, Has left some
hundreds without home or food:

Extravagance and avarice shall subscribe, While fame and self-complacence are
the bribe. The brief proclaim’d, it visits every pew, But first the squire’s, a
compliment but due: With slow deliberation he unties His glittering purse, that
envy of all eyes!

And, while the clerk just puzzles out the psalm, Slides guinea behind guinea in
his palm;

Till finding, what he might have found before, A smaller piece amidst the
precious store, Pinch’d close between his finger and his thumb, He half
exhibits, and then drops the sum.

Gold, to be sure!-Throughout the town ?tis told How the good squire gives never
less than gold. From motives such as his, though not the best, Springs in due
time supply for the distress’d; Not less effectual than what love bestows,
Except that office clips it as it goes. But lest I seem to sin against a friend,
And wound the grace I mean to recommend (Though vice derided with a just design
Implies no trespass against love divine), Once more I would adopt the graver
style, A teacher should be sparing of his smile.

Unless a love of virtue light the flame, Satire is, more than those he brands,
to blame:

He hides behind a magisterial air His own offences, and strips others bare;

Affects indeed a most humane concern, That men, if gently tutor’d, will not
learn; That mulish folly, not to be reclaim’d By softer methods, must be made
ashamed; But (I might instance in St. Patrick’s dean) Too often rails to gratify
his spleen.

Most satirists are indeed a public scourge; Their mildest physic is a farrier’s
purge; Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr’d, The milk of their good
purpose all to curd. Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, By lean
despair upon an empty purse, The wild assassins start into the street, Prepared
to poniard whomsoe’er they meet, No skill in swordmanship, however just, Can be
secure against a madman’s thrust; And even virtue, so unfairly match’d, Although
immortal, may be prick’d or scratch’d. When scandal has new minted an old lie,
Or tax’d invention for a fresh supply, ?Tis call’d a satire, and the world
appears Gathering around it with erected ears: A thousand names are toss’d into
the crowd;

Some whisper’d softly, and some twang’d aloud, Just as the sapience of an
author’s brain Suggests it safe or dangerous to be plain.

Strange! how the frequent interjected dash Quickens a market, and helps off the
trash; The important letters that include the rest, Serve as key to those that
are suppress’d;

Conjecture gripes the victims in his paw, The world is charm’d, and Scrib
escapes the law.

So, when the cold damp shades of night prevail, Worms may be caught by either
head or tail;

Forcibly drawn from many a close recess, They meet with little pity, no redress;

Plunged in the stream, they lodge upon the mud, Food for the famish’d rovers of
the flood.

All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere
pretence: A bold remark; but which, if well applied, Would humble many a
towering poet’s pride.

Perhaps the man was in a sportive fit, And had no other play-place for his wit;

Perhaps, enchanted with the love of fame, He sought the jewel in his neighbour’s
shame;

Perhaps-whatever end he might pursue, The cause of virtue could not be his view.
At every stroke wit flashes in our eyes; The turns are quick, the polish’d
points surprise, But shine with cruel and tremendous charms, That, while they
please, possess us with alarms; So have I seen (and hasten’d to the sight On all
the wings of holiday delight), Where stands that monument of ancient power,
Named with emphatic dignity, the Tower, Guns, halberts, swords, and pistols,
great and small, In starry forms disposed upon the wall:

We wonder, as we gazing stand below, That brass and steel should make so fine a
show;

But, though we praise the exact designer’s skill, Account them implements of
mischief still. No works shall find acceptance in that day, When all disguises
shall be rent away, That square not truly with the Scripture plan, Nor spring
from love to God, or love to man. As he ordains things sordid in their birth To
be resolved into their parent earth;

And, though the soul shall seek superior orbs, Whate’er this world produces, it
absorbs; So self starts nothing, but what tends apace Home to the goal, where it
began the race.

Such as our motive is our aim must be;

If this be servile, that can ne’er be free:

If self employ us, whatsoe’er is wrought, We glorify that self, not Him we
ought;

Such virtues had need prove their own reward, The Judge of all men owes them no
regard.

True Charity, a plant divinely nursed, Fed by the love from which it rose at
first, Thrives against hope, and, in the rudest scene, Storms but enliven its
unfading green;

Exuberant is the shadow it supplies, Its fruit on earth, its growth above the
skies. To look at Him, who form’d us and redeem’d, So glorious now, though once
so disesteem’d; To see a God stretch forth his human hand, To uphold the
boundless scenes of his command: To recollect that, in a form like ours, He
bruised beneath his feet the infernal powers, Captivity led captive, rose to
claim The wreath he won so dearly in our name;

That, throned above all height, he condescends To call the few that trust in him
his friends;

That, in the heaven of heavens, that space he deems Too scanty for the exertion
of his beams, And shines, as if impatient to bestow Life and a kingdom upon
worms below; That sight imparts a never-dying flame, Though feeble in degree, in
kind the same.

Like him the soul, thus kindled from above, Spreads wide her arms of universal
love;

And, still enlarged as she receives the grace, Includes creation in her close
embrace.

Behold a Christian!-and without the fires The Founder of that name alone
inspires, Though all accomplishment, all knowledge meet; To make the shining
prodigy complete, Whoever boast that name-behold a cheat! Were love, in these
the world’s last doting years, As frequent as the want of it appears, The
churches warm’d, they would no longer hold Such frozen figures, stiff as they
are cold;

Relenting forms would lose their power, or cease; And e’en the dipp’d and
sprinkled live in peace:

Each heart would quit its prison in the breast, And flow in free communion with
the rest. And statesman, skill’d in projects dark and deep, Might burn his
useless Machiavel, and sleep: His budget, often fill’d, yet always poor, Might
swing at ease behind his study door, No longer prey upon our annual rents, Or
scare the nation with its big contents:

Disbanded legions freely might depart, And slaying man would cease to be an art.
No learned disputants would take the field, Sure not to conquer, and sure not to
yield;

Both sides deceived, if rightly understood, Pelting each other for the public
good. Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and
love; And I might spare myself the pains to shew What few can learn, and all
suppose they know.

Thus have I sought to grace a serious lay With many a wild, indeed, but flowery
spray, In hopes to gain, what else I must have lost, The attention pleasure has
so much engross’d. But if unhappily deceived I dream, And prove too weak for so
divine a theme, Let Charity forgive me a mistake, That zeal, not vanity, has
chanced to make, And spare the poet for his subject’s sake.


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  CHAPTER 5: S. EXPOSTULATION
========================================================================

Expostulation By William Cowper

EXPOSTULATION.

’’’’’’’’’’’’_____________ Tantane, tam patiens, nullo certamine tolli

Dona sines?

-Virg.

’’’’’’’’’’’’_____________ Why, weeps the muse for England? What appears In
England’s case to move the muse to tears? From side to side of her delightful
isle Is she not clothed with a perpetual smile? Can Nature add a charm, or Art
confer A new-found luxury, not seen in her? Where under heaven is pleasure more
pursued, Or where does cold reflection less intrude? Her fields a rich expanse
of wavy corn, Pour’d out from Plenty’s overflowing horn;

Ambrosial gardens, in which art supplies The fervour and the force of Indian
skies; Her peaceful shores, where busy Commerce waits To pour his golden tide
through all her gates; Whom fiery suns, that scorch the russet spice Of eastern
groves, and oceans floor’d with ice, Forbid in vain to push his daring way To
darker climes, or climes of brighter day; Whom the winds waft where’er the
billows roll, From the World’s girdle to the frozen pole; The chariots bounding
in her wheel-worn streets, Her vaults below, where every vintage meets; Her
theatres, her revels, and her sports; The scenes to which not youth alone
resorts, But age, in spite of weakness and of pain, Still haunts, in hope to
dream of youth again;

All speak her happy: let the muse look round From East to West, no sorrow can be
found; Or only what, in cottages confined, Sighs unregarded to the passing wind.

Then wherefore weep for England? What appears In England’s case to move the muse
to tears? The prophet wept for Israel; wish’d his eyes Were fountains fed with
infinite supplies; For Israel dealt in robbery and wrong;

There were the scorner’s and the slanderer’s tongue;

Oaths, used as playthings or convenient tools, As interest biass’d knaves, or
fashion fools;

Adultery, neighing at his neighbour’s door;

Oppression labouring hard to grind the poor; The partial balance and deceitful
weight; The treacherous smile, a mask for secret hate;

Hypocrisy, formality in prayer, And the dull service of the lip were there. Her
women, insolent and self-carress’d, By Vanity’s unwearied finger dress’d, Forgot
the blush that virgin fears impart To modest cheeks, and borrow’d one from art;
Were just such trifles, without worth or use, As silly pride and idleness
produce;

Curl’d, scented, furbelow’d, and flounced around, With feet too delicate to
touch the ground, They stretch’d the neck, and roll’d the wanton eye, And sigh’d
for every fool that flutter’d by.

He saw his people slaves to every lust, Lewd, avaricious, arrogant, unjust;

He heard the wheels of an avenging God Groan heavily along the distant road;

Saw Babylon set wide her two-leaved brass To let the military deluge pass;

Jerusalem a prey, her glory soil’d, Her princes captive, and her treasures
spoil’d;

Wept till all Israel heard his bitter cry, Stamp’d with his foot, and smote upon
his thigh; But wept, and stamp’d, and smote his thigh in vain, Pleasure is deaf
when told of future pain, And sounds prophetic are too rough to suit Ears long
accustom’d to the pleasing lute:

They scorn’d his inspiration and his theme, Pronounc’d him frantic, and his
fears a dream; With self-indulgence wing’d the fleeting hours, Till the foe
found them, and down fell the towers.

Long time Assyria bound them in her chain, Till penitence had purged the public
stain, And Cyrus, with relenting pity moved, Return’d them happy to the land
they loved;

There, proof against prosperity, a while They stood the test of her ensnaring
smile, And had the grace in scenes of peace to shew The virtue they had learn’d
in scenes of woe. But man is frail, and can but ill sustain A long immunity from
grief and pain;

And, after all the joys that Plenty leads, With tiptoe step Vice silently
succeeds. When he that ruled them with a shepherd’s rod, In form a man, in
dignity a God, Came, not expected in that humble guise, To sift and search them
with unerring eyes, He found conceal’d beneath a fair outside, The filth of
rottenness, and worm of pride; Their piety a system of deceit, Scripture
employ’d to sanctify the cheat; The Pharisee the dupe of his own art,
Self-idolised, and yet a knave at heart. When nations are to perish in their
sins, ?Tis in the church the leprosy begins; The priest, whose office is, with
zeal sincere, To watch the fountain and preserve it clear, Carelessly nods and
sleeps upon the brink, While others poison what the flock must drink;

Or, waking at the call of lust alone, Infuses lies and errors of his own: His
unsuspecting sheep believe it pure;

And, tainted by the very means of cure, Catch from each other a contagious spot,
The foul forerunner of a general rot.

Then truth is hush’d, that Heresy may preach; And all is trash that reason
cannot reach;

Then God’s own image on the soul impress’d Becomes a mockery and a standing
jest; And faith, the root whence only can arise The graces of a life that wins
the skies, Loses at once all value and esteem, Pronounced by graybeards a
pernicious dream:

Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth, Prepared to fight for shadows of no worth;

While truths, on which eternal things depend, Find not, or hardly find, a single
friend: As soldiers watch the signal of command, They learn to bow, to kneel, to
sit, to stand;

Happy to fill religion’s vacant place, With hollow form, and gesture, and
grimace.

Such, when the Teacher of his church was there, People and priest, the sons of
Israel were;

Stiff in the letter, lax in the design And import of their oracles divine; Their
learning legendary, false, absurd, And yet exalted above God’s own word;

They drew a curse from an intended good, Puff’d up with gifts they never
understood.

He judged them with as terrible a frown, As if not love, but wrath, had brought
him down:

Yet he was gentle as soft summer airs, Had grace for others’ sins, but none for
theirs;

Through all he spoke a noble plainnness ran- Rhetoric is artifice, the work of
man; And tricks and turns, that fancy may devise, Are far too mean for Him that
rules the skies. The astonish’d vulgar trembled while he tore The mask from
faces never seen before;

He stripp’d the impostors in the noonday sun, Shew’d that they follow’d all they
seem’d to shun; Their prayers made public, their excesses kept As private as the
chambers where they slept; The temple and its holy rites profaned By mummeries
He that dwelt in it disdain’d;

Uplifted hands, that at convenient times Could act extortion and the worst of
crimes, Wash’d with a neatness scrupulously nice, And free from every taint but
that of vice.

Judgment, however tardy, mends her pace When obstinacy once has conquer’d grace.

They saw distemper heal’d, and life restored, In answer to the fiat of his word;

Confess’d the wonder, and with daring tongue Blasphemed the authority from which
it sprung.

They knew, by sure prognostics seen on high, The future tone and temper of the
sky;

But, grave dissemblers! could not understand That sin let loose speaks
punishment at hand.

Ask now of history’s authentic page, And call up evidence from every age;

Display with busy and laborious hand The blessings of the most indebted land;

What nation will you find, whose annals prove So rich an interest in Almighty
love? Where dwell they now, where dwelt in ancient day A people planted,
water’d, blest, as they?

Let Egypt’s plagues and Canaan’s woes proclaim The favours pour’d upon the
Jewish name; Their freedom purchased for them at the cost Of all their hard
oppressors valued most: Their title to a country not their own Made sure by
prodigies till then unknown; For them the states they left made waste and void;
For them the states to which they went destroy’d; A cloud to measure out their
march by day, By night a fire to cheer the gloomy way; That moving signal
summoning, when best, Their host to move, and, when it stay’d, to rest. For them
the rocks dissolved into a flood, The dews condensed into angelic food, Their
very garments sacred, old yet new, And Time forbid to touch them as he flew;

Streams, swell’d above the bank, enjoin’d to stand While they pass’d through to
their appointed land; Their leader arm’d with meekness, zeal, and love, And
graced with clear credentials from above;

Themselves secured beneath the Almighty wing; Their God their captain,[1]
lawgiver, and king;

Crown’d with a thousand victories, and at last Lords of the conquer’d soil,
there rooted fast, In peace possessing what they won by war, Their name far
publish’d, and revered as far; Where will you find a race like theirs, endow’d
With all that man e’er wish’d, or heaven bestow’d?

They, and they only, amongst all mankind, Received the transcript of the Eternal
Mind; Were trusted with his own engraven laws, And constituted guardians of his
cause;

Theirs were the prophets, theirs the priestly call, And theirs by birth the
Saviour of us all. In vain the nations, that had seen them rise With fierce and
envious, yet admiring, eyes, Had sought to crush them, guarded as they were By
power divine and skill that could not err. Had they maintain’d allegiance firm
and sure, And kept the faith immaculate and pure, Then the proud eagles of
all-conquering Rome Had found one city not to be o’ercome; And the twelve
standards of the tribes unfurl’d Had bid defiance to the warring world. But
grace abused brings forth the foulest deeds, As richest soil the most luxuriant
weeds.

Cured of the golden calves, their fathers’ sin, They set up self, that idol god
within;

View’d a Deliverer with disdain and hate, Who left them still a tributary state;

Seized fast his hand, held out to set them free From a worse yoke, and nail’d it
to the tree:

There was the consummation and the crown, The flower of Israel’s infamy full
blown;

Thence date their sad declension, and their fall, Their woes, not yet repeal’d,
thence date them all.

Thus fell the best instructed in her day, And the most favour’d land, look where
we may.

Philosophy indeed on Grecian eyes Had pour’d the day, and clear’d the Roman
skies; In other climes perhaps creative art, With power surpassing theirs,
perform’d her part; Might give more life to marble, or might fill The glowing
tablets with a juster skill, Might shine in fable, and grace idle themes With
all the embroidery of poetic dreams;

?Twas theirs alone to dive into the plan That truth and mercy had reveal’d to
man;

And, while the world beside, that plan unknown, Deified useless wood or
senseless stone, They breathed in faith their well-directed prayers, And the
true God, the God of truth, was theirs. Their glory faded, and their race
dispersed, The last of nations now, though once the first, They warn and teach
the proudest, would they learn, Keep wisdom, or meet vengeance in your turn:

If we escaped not, if Heaven spared not us, Peel’d, scatter’d, and exterminated
thus;

If vice received her retribution due, When we were visited, what hope for you?
When God arises with an awful frown, To punish lust, or pluck presumption down;
When gifts perverted, or not duly prized, Pleasure o’ervalued, and his grace
despised, Provoke the vengeance of his righteous hand, To pour down wrath upon a
thankless land:

He will be found impartially severe, Too just to wink, or speak the guilty
clear.

Oh Israel, of all nations most undone!

Thy diadem displaced, thy sceptre gone;

Thy temple, once thy glory, fallen and razed, And thou a worshipper e’en where
thou mayst, They services, once holy without spot, Mere shadows now, their
ancient pomp forgot;

Thy Levites, once a consecrated host, No longer Levites, and their lineage lost,
And thou thyself o’er every country sown, With none on earth that thou canst
call thine own;

Cry aloud, thou that sittest in the dust, Cry to the proud, the cruel, and
unjust;

Knock at the gates of nations, rouse their fears;

Say wrath is coming, and the storm appears; But raise the shrillest cry in
British ears.

What ails thee, restless as the waves that roar, And fling their foam against
thy chalky shore?

Mistress, at least while Providence shall please, And trident-bearing queen of
the wide seas- Why, having kept good faith, and often shewn Friendship and truth
to others, find’st thou none?

Thou that hast set the persecuted free, None interposes now to succour thee.

Countries indebted to thy power, that shine With light derived from thee, would
smother thine.

Thy very children watch for thy disgrace, A lawless brood, and curse thee to thy
face.

Thy rulers load thy credit, year by year, With sums Peruvian mines could never
clear; As if, like arches built with skilful hand, The more ?twere press’d the
firmer it would stand. The cry in all thy ships is still the same, Speed us away
to battle and to fame.

Thy mariners explore the wild expanse, Impatient to descry the flags of France:

But, though they fight as thine have ever fought, Return ashamed without the
wreaths they sought.

Thy senate is a scene of civil jar, Chaos of contrarieties at war; Where sharp
and solid, phlegmatic and light, Discordant atoms meet, ferment, and fight;
Where obstinacy takes his sturdy stand, To disconcert what policy has plann’d;
Where policy is busied all night long In setting right what faction has set
wrong; Where flails of oratory thresh the floor, That yields them chaff and
dust, and nothing more.

Thy rack’d inhabitants repine, complain, Tax’d till the brow of labour sweats in
vain;

War lays a burden on the reeling state, And peace does nothing to relieve the
weight;

Successive loads succeeding broils impose, And sighing millions prophesy the
close. Is adverse Providence, when ponder’d well, So dimly writ, or difficult to
spell, Thou canst not read with readiness and ease Providence adverse in events
like these?

Know then that heavenly wisdom on this ball Creates, gives birth to, guides,
consummates all;

That, while laborious and quick-thoughted man Snuffs up the praise of what he
seems to plan, He first conceives, then perfects his design, As a mere
instrument in hands divine:

Blind to the working of that sacred power That balances the wings of every hour,
The busy trifler dreams himself alone, Frames many a purpose, and God works his
own.

States thrive or wither as moons wax and wane, E’en as his will and his decrees
ordain;

While honour, virtue, piety, bear sway, They flourish; and, as these decline,
decay: In just resentment of his injured laws, He pours contempt on them and on
their cause;

Strikes the rough thread of error right athwart The web of every scheme they
have at heart;

Bids rottenness invade and bring to dust The pillars of support, in which they
trust, And do his errand of disgrace and shame On the chief strength and glory
of the frame.

None ever yet impeded what he wrought, None bars him out from his most secret
thought;

Darkness itself before his eye is light, And hell’s close mischief naked in his
sight.

Stand now and judge thyself-Hast thou incurr’d His anger who can waste thee with
a word, Who poises and proportions sea and land, Weighing them in the hollow of
his hand, And in whose awful sight all nations seem As grasshoppers, as dust, a
drop, a dream?

Hast thou (a sacrilege his soul abhors) Claim’d all the glory of thy prosperous
wars?

Proud of thy fleets and armies, stolen the gem Of his just praise, to lavish it
on them?

Hast thou not learn’d, what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and
believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that
the battle is the Lord’s? That courage is his creature; and dismay The post,
that at his bidding speeds away, Ghastly in feature, and his stammering tongue
With doleful humour and sad presage hung, To quell the valour of the stoutest
heart, And teach the combatant a woman’s part? That he bids thousands fly when
none pursue, Saves as he will by many or by few, And claims for ever, as his
royal right, The event and sure decision of the fight?

Hast thou, though suckled at fair freedom’s breast, Exported slavery to the
conquer’d East?

Pull’d down the tyrants India served with dread, And raised thyself, a greater,
in their stead?

Gone thither, arm’d and hungry, return’d full, Fed from the richest veins of the
Mogul, A despot big with power obtain’d by wealth, And that obtain’d by rapine
and by stealth? With Asiatic vices stored thy mind, But left their virtues and
thine own behind?

And, having truck’d thy soul, brought home the fee, To tempt the poor to sell
himself to thee?

Hast thou by statue shoved from its design, The Saviour’s feast, his own blest
bread and wine, And made the symbols of atoning grace An office-key, a picklock
to a place, That infidels may prove their title good By an oath dipp’d in
sacramental blood? A blot that will be still a blot, in spite Of all that grave
apologists may write; And though a bishop toil’d to cleanse the stain, He wipes
and scours the silver cup in vain. And hast thou sworn, on every slight
pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of
the damning sin, Kiss the book’s outside, who ne’er look within?

Hast thou, when Heaven has clothed thee with disgrace, And, long provoked,
repaid thee to thy face (For thou hast known eclipses, and endured Dimness and
anguish, all thy beams obscured, When sin has shed dishonour on thy brow; And
never of a sabler hue than now), Hast thou, with heart perverse and conscience
sear’d, Despising all rebuke, still persevered, And, having chosen evil, scorn’d
the voice That cried, Repent!-and gloried in thy choice?

Thy fastings, when calamity at last Suggests the expedient of a yearly fast,
What mean they? Canst thou dream there is a power In lighter diet at a later
hour, To charm to sleep the threatening of the skies, And hide past folly from
all-seeing eyes? The fast that wins deliverance, and suspends The stroke that a
vindictive God intends, Is to renounce hypocrisy; to draw Thy life upon the
pattern of the law; To war with pleasure, idolized before; To vanquish lust, and
wear its yoke no more.

All fasting else, whate’er be the pretence, Is wooing mercy by renew’d offence.

Hast thou within thee sin, that in old time Brought fire from heaven, the
sex-abusing crime, Whose horrid perpetration stamps disgrace, Baboons are free
from, upon human race?

Think on the fruitful and well-water’d spot That fed the flocks and herds of
wealthy Lot, Where Paradise seem’d still vouchsafed on earth, Burning and
scorch’d into perpetual dearth, Or, in his words who damn’d the base desire,
Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire:

Then nature, injured, scandalized, defiled, Unveil’d her blushing cheek, look’d
on, and smiled;

Beheld with joy the lovely scene defaced, And praised the wrath that laid her
beauties waste.

Far be the thought from any verse of mine, And farther still the form’d and
fix’d design, To thrust the charge of deeds that I detest Against an innocent
unconscious breast; The man that dares traduce, because he can With safety to
himself, is not a man: An individual is a sacred mark, Not to be pierced in
play, or in the dark; But public censure speaks a public foe, Unless a zeal for
virtue guide the blow. The priestly brotherhood, devout, sincere, From mean
self-interest and ambition clear, Their hope in heaven, servility their scorn,
Prompt to persuade, expostulate, and warn, Their wisdom pure, and given them
from above, Their usefulness ensured by zeal and love, As meek as the man Moses,
and withal As bold as in Agrippa’s presence Paul, Should fly the world’s
contaminating touch, Holy and unpolluted:-are thine such?

Except a few with Eli’s spirit blest, Hophni and Phineas may describe the rest.
Where shall a teacher look, in days like these, For ears and hearts that he can
hope to please?

Look to the poor-the simple and the plain Will hear perhaps thy salutary strain:

Humility is gentle, apt to learn, Speak but the word, will listen and return.

Alas! not so; the poorest of the flock Are proud, and set their faces as a rock;

Denied that earthly opulence they choose, God’s better gift they scoff at and
refuse. The rich, the produce of a nobler stem, Are more intelligent, at
least-try them.

Oh vain inquiry! they without remorse Are altogether gone a devious course;
Where beckoning pleasure leads them, wildly stray; Have burst the bands, and
cast the yoke away.

Now borne upon the wings of truth sublime, Review thy dim original and prime.
This island, spot of unreclaim’d rude earth, The cradle that received thee at
thy birth, Was rock’d by many a rough Norwegian blast, And Danish howlings
scared thee as they pass’d; For thou wast born amid the din of arms, And suck’d
a breast that panted with alarms.

While yet thou wast a grovelling, puling chit, Thy bones not fashion’d, and thy
joints not knit, The Roman taught thy stubborn knee to bow, Though twice a
Caesar could not bend thee now. His victory was that of orient light, When the
sun’s shafts disperse the gloom of night.

Thy language at this distant moment shews How much the country to the conqueror
owes;

Expressive, energetic, and refined, It sparkles with the gems he left behind;

He brought thy land a blessing when he came, He found thee savage, and he left
thee tame;

Taught thee to clothe thy pink’d and painted hide, And grac’d thy figure with a
soldier’s pride;

He sow’d the seeds of order where he went, Improved thee far beyond his own
intent, And, while he ruled thee by the sword alone, Made thee at last a warrior
like his own.

Religion, if in heavenly truths attired, Needs only to be seen to be admired;
But thine, as dark as witcheries of the night, Was form’d to harden hearts and
shock the sight;

Thy druids struck the well-hung harps they bore With fingers deeply dyed in
human gore; And while the victim slowly bled to death, Upon the rolling chords
rung out his dying breath. Who brought the lamp that with awaking beams
Dispell’d thy gloom, and broke away thy dreams, Tradition now decrepit and worn
out, Babbler of ancient fables, leaves a doubt: But still light reach’d thee:
and those gods of thine, Woden and Thor, each tottering in his shrine, Fell
broken and defaced at their own door, As Dagon in Philistia long before. But
Rome with sorceries and magic wand Soon raised a cloud that darken’d every land;
And thine was smother’d in the stench and fog Of Tiber’s marshes and the papal
bog.

Then priests with bulls and briefs, and shaven crowns, And griping fists and
unrelenting frowns, Legates and delegates with powers from hell, Though heavenly
in pretension, fleeced thee well; And to this hour, to keep it fresh in mind,
Some twigs of that old scourge are left behind.[2] Thy soldiery, the Pope’s
well-managed pack, Were train’d beneath his lash, and knew the smack, And, when
he laid them on the scent of blood, Would hunt a Saracen through fire and flood.

Lavish of life, to win an empty tomb, That proved a mint of wealth, a mine to
Rome.

They left their bones beneath unfriendly skies, His worthless absolution all the
prize.

Thou wast the veriest slave, in days of yore, That ever dragg’d a chain or
tugg’d an oar;

Thy monarchs arbitrary, fierce, unjust, Themselves the slaves of bigotry or
lust, Disdain’d thy counsels, only in distress Found thee a goodly sponge for
power to press.

Thy chiefs, the lords of many a petty fee, Provoked and harass’d, in return
plagued thee;

Call’d thee away from peaceable employ, Domestic happiness and rural joy, To
waste thy life in arms, or lay it down In causeless feuds and bickerings of
their own.

Thy parliaments adored, on bended knees, The sovereignty they were convened to
please;

Whate’er was ask’d, too timid to resist, Complied with, and were graciously
dismiss’d; And if some Spartan soul a doubt express’d, And, blushing at the
tameness of the rest, Dared to suppose the subject had a choice, He was a
traitor by the general voice.

Oh, slave! with powers thou didst not dare exert, Verse cannot stoop so low as
thy desert;

It shakes the sides of splenetic disdain, Thou self-entitled ruler of the main,
To trace thee to the date, when yon fair sea, That clips thy shores, had no such
charms for thee; When other nations flew from coast to coast, And thou hadst
neither fleet nor flag to boast.

Kneel now, and lay thy forehead in the dust;

Blush if thou canst; not petrified, thou must;

Act but an honest and a faithful part;

Compare what then thou wast with what thou art; And God’s disposing providence
confess’d, Obduracy itself must yield the rest.- Then thou art bound to serve
him, and to prove, Hour after hour, thy gratitude and love. Has he not hid thee
and thy favour’d land, For ages, safe beneath his sheltering hand, Given thee
his blessing on the clearest proof, Bid nations leagued against thee stand
aloof, And charged hostility and hate to roar Where else they would, but not
upon thy shore? His power secured thee when presumptuous Spain Baptized her
fleet invincible in vain; Her gloomy monarch, doubtful and resign’d To every
pang that racks an anxious mind, Ask’d of the waves that broke upon his coast,
What tidings? and the surge replied-All lost! And when the Stuart, leaning on
the Scot, Then too much fear’d, and now too much forgot, Pierced to the very
centre of the realm, And hoped to seize his abdicated helm, ?Twas but to prove
how quickly, with a frown, He that had raised thee could have pluck’d thee down.

Peculiar is the grace by thee possess’d, Thy foes implacable, thy land at rest;

Thy thunders travel over earth and seas, And all at home is pleasure, wealth,
and ease.

?Tis thus, extending his tempestuous arm, Thy Maker fills the nations with
alarm, While his own heaven surveys the troubled scene, And feels no change,
unshaken and serene.

Freedom, in other lands scarce known to shine, Pours out a flood of splendour
upon thine;

Thou hast as bright an interest in her rays As ever Roman had in Rome’s best
days.

True freedom is where no restraint is known That Scripture, justice, and good
sense disown. Where only vice and injury are tied, And all from shore to shore
is free beside.

Such freedom is-and Windsor’s hoary towers Stood trembling at the boldness of
thy powers, That won a nymph on that immortal plain, Like her the fabled Phoebus
woo’d in vain;

He found the laurel only-happier you The unfading laurel, and the virgin too![3]
Now think, if pleasure have a thought to spare;

If God himself be not beneath her care;

If business, constant as the wheels of time, Can pause an hour to read a serious
rhyme;

If the new mail thy merchants now receive, Or expectation of the next, give
leave;

Oh think, if chargeable with deep arrears For such indulgence gilding all thy
years, How much, though long neglected, shining yet, The beams of heavenly truth
have swell’d the debt. When persecuting zeal made royal sport With tortured
innocence in Mary’s court, And Bonner, blithe as shepherd at a wake, Enjoy’d the
show, and danced about the stake, The sacred book, its value understood,
Received the seal of martyrdom in blood.

Those holy men, so full of truth and grace, Seem to reflection of a different
race, Meek, modest, venerable, wise, sincere, In such a cause they could not
dare to fear;

They could not purchase earth with such a prize, Or spare a life too short to
reach the skies. From them to thee convey’d along the tide, Their streaming
hearts pour’d freely when they died;

Those truths, which neither use nor years impair, Invite thee, woo thee, to the
bliss they share.

What dotage will not vanity maintain?

What web too weak to catch a modern brain? The moles and bats in full assembly
find, On special search, the keen-eyed eagle blind. And did they dream, and art
thou wiser now?

Prove it-if better, I submit and bow.

Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart Must hold both sisters, never seen
apart. So then-as darkness overspread the deep, Ere nature rose from her eternal
sleep, And this delightful earth, and that fair sky, Leap’d out of nothing,
call’d by the Most High; By such a change thy darkness is made light, Thy chaos
order, and thy weakness might; And He, whose power mere nullity obeys, Who found
thee nothing, form’d thee for his praise. To praise him is to serve him , and
fulfil, Doing and suffering, his unquestion’d will;

?Tis to believe what men inspired of old, Faithful, and faithfully inform’d,
unfold;

Candid and just, with no false aim in view, To take for truth what cannot but be
true; To learn in God’s own school the Christian part, And bind the task
assign’d thee to thine heart:

Happy the man there seeking and there found:

Happy the nation where such men abound!

How shall a verse impress thee? by what name Shall I adjure thee not to court
thy shame? By theirs whose bright example, unimpeach’d, Directs thee to that
eminence they reach’d, Heroes and worthies of days past, thy sires? Or his, who
touch’d their hearts with hallow’d fires? Their names, alas! in vain reproach an
age, Whom all the vanities they scorn’d engage; And his, that seraphs tremble
at, is hung Disgracefully on every trifler’s tongue, Or serves the champion in
forensic war, To flourish and parade with at the bar.

Pleasure herself perhaps suggests a plea, If interest move thee, to persuade
e’en thee; By every charm that smiles upon her face, By joys possess’d, and joys
still held in chase, If dear society be worth a thought, And if the feast of
freedom cloy thee not, Reflect that these, and all that seems thine own, Held by
the tenure of his will alone, Like angels in the service of their Lord, Remain
with thee, or leave thee at his word; That gratitude, and temperance in our use
Of what he gives, unsparing and profuse, Secure the favour, and enhance the joy,
That thankless waste and wild abuse destroy.

But, above all, reflect how cheap soe’er Those rights, that millions envy thee,
appear, And though resolved to risk them, and swim down The tide of pleasure,
heedless of his frown, That blessings truly sacred, and when given Mark’d with
the signature and stamp of Heaven, The word of prophecy, those truths divine,
Which make that heaven, if thou desire it, thine (Awful alternative! believe,
beloved, Thy glory, and thy shame if unimproved), Are never long vouchsafed, if
push’d aside With cold disgust or philosophic pride; And that, judicially
withdrawn, disgrace, Error, and darkness, occupy their place. A world is up in
arms, and thou, a spot Not quickly found, if negligently sought, Thy soul as
ample as thy bounds are small, Endur’st the brunt, and dar’st defy them all; And
wilt thou join to this bold enterprise A bolder still, a contest with the skies?

Remember, if He guard thee and secure, Whoe’er assails thee, thy success is
sure; But if He leave thee, though the skill and power Of nations sworn to spoil
thee and devour, Were all collected in thy single arm, And thou couldst laugh
away the fear of harm, That strength would fail, opposed against the push And
feeble onset of a pigmy rush.

Say not (and if the thought of such defence Should spring within thy bosom,
drive it thence) What nation amongst all my foes is free From crimes as base as
any charged on me? Their measure fill’d, they too shall pay the debt, Which God,
though long forborne, will not forget. But know that wrath divine, when most
severe, Makes justice still the guide of his career, And will not punish, in one
mingled crowd, Them without light, and thee without a cloud.

Muse, hang this harp upon yon aged beech, Still murmuring with the solemn truths
I teach;

And, while at intervals a cold blast sings Through the dry leaves, and pants
upon the strings, My soul shall sigh in secret, and lament A nation scourged,
yet tardy to repent.

I know the warning song is sung in vain; That few will hear, and fewer heed the
strain; But if a sweeter voice, and one design’d A blessing to my country and
mankind, Reclaim the wandering thousands, and bring home A flock so scatter’d
and so wont to roam, Then place it once again between my knees; The sound of
truth will then be sure to please; And truth alone, where’er my life be cast, In
scenes of plenty, or the pining waste, Shall be my chosen theme, my glory to the
last.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Vide Josh. v. 14.

[2] Which may be found at Doctor’s Commons.

[3] Alluding to the grant of the Magna Charta, which was extorted from King John
by the barons at Runnymede near Windsor.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: S. HOPE
========================================================================

Hope By William Cowper

HOPE.

’’’’’’’’’’’’_____________ ....Doceas iter, et sacra ostia pandas.-Virg. Aen. 6.

’’’’’’’’’’’’_____________ Ask what is human life-the sage replies, With
disappointment lowering in his eyes, A painful passage o’er a restless flood, A
vain pursuit of fugitive false good, A scene of fancied bliss and heartfelt
care, Closing at last in darkness and despair. The poor, inured to drudgery and
distress, Act without aim, think little, and feel less, And nowhere, but in
feign’d Arcadian scenes, Taste happiness, or know what pleasure means.

Riches are pass’d away from hand to hand, As fortune, vice, or folly may
command; As in a dance the pair that take the lead Turn downward, and the lowest
pair succeed, So shifting and so various is the plan By which Heaven rules the
mix’d affairs of man;

Vicissitude wheels round the motley crowd, The rich grow poor, the poor become
purse-proud;

Business is labour, and man’s weakness such, Pleasure is labour too, and tires
us much, The very sense of it foregoes its use, By repetition pall’d, by age
obtuse.

Youth lost in dissipation we deplore, Through life’s sad remnant, what no sighs
restore; Our years, a fruitless race without a prize, Too many, yet too few to
make us wise.

Dangling his cane about, and taking snuff, Lothario cries, What philosophic
stuff- O querulous and weak!-whose useless brain Once thought of nothing, and
now thinks in vain; Whose eye reverted weeps o’er all the past, Whose prospect
shews thee a disheartening waste; Would age in thee resign his wintry reign, And
youth invigorate that frame again, Renew’d desire would grace with other speech
Joys always prized, when placed within our reach. For lift thy palsied head,
shake off the gloom That overhangs the borders of thy tomb, See nature gay, as
when she first began With smiles alluring her admirer man;

She spreads the morning over eastern hills, Earth glitters with the drops the
night distils; The sun, obedient, at her call appears To fling his glories o’er
the robe she wears;

Banks clothed with flowers, groves fill’d with sprightly sounds, The yellow
tilth, green meads, rocks, rising grounds, Streams, edged with osiers, fattening
every field Where’er they flow, now seen, and now conceal’d; From the blue rim,
where skies and mountains meet, Down to the very turf beneath thy feet, Ten
thousand charms, that only fools despise, Or pride can look at with indifferent
eyes, All speak one language, all with one sweet voice Cry to her universal
realm, Rejoice!

Man feels the spur of passions and desires, And she gives largely more than he
requires; Not that, his hours devoted all to care, Hollow-eyed abstinence, and
lean despair, The wretch may pine, while to his smell, taste, sight, She holds a
paradise of rich delight; But gently to rebuke his awkward fear, To prove that
what she gives she gives sincere, To banish hesitation, and proclaim His
happiness her dear, her only aim.

?Tis grave philosophy’s absurdest dream, That Heaven’s intentions are not what
they seem, That only shadows are dispensed below, And earth has no reality but
woe.

Thus things terrestrial wear a different hue, As youth or age persuades; and
neither true.

So, Flora’s wreath through colour’d crystal seen, The rose or lily appears blue
or green, But still the imputed tints are those alone The medium represents, and
not their own. To rise at noon, sit slipshod and undress’d, To read the news, or
fiddle, as seems best, Till half the world comes rattling at his door, To fill
the dull vacuity till four;

And, just when evening turns the blue vault gray, To spend two hours in dressing
for the day; To make the sun a bauble without use, Save for the fruits his
heavenly beams produce;

Quite to forget, or deem it worth no thought, Who bids him shine, or if he shine
or not;

Through mere necessity to close his eyes Just when the larks and when the
shepherds rise; Is such a life, so tediously the same, So void of all utility or
aim, That poor Jonquil, with almost every breath, Sighs for his exit, vulgarly
called death: For he, with all his follies, has a mind Not yet so blank, or
fashionably blind, But now and then perhaps a feeble ray Of distant wisdom
shoots across his way; By which he reads, that life without a plan, As useless
as the moment it began, Serves merely as a soil for discontent To thrive in; an
encumbrance ere half spent.

Oh! weariness beyond what asses feel, That tread the circuit of the cistern
wheel; A dull rotation, never at a stay, Yesterday’s face twin image of to-day;

While conversation, an exhausted stock, Grows drowsy as the clicking of a clock.
No need, he cries, of gravity stuff’d out With academic dignity devout, To read
wise lectures, vanity the text:

Proclaim the remedy, ye learned, next; For truth self-evident, with pomp
impress’d, Is vanity surpassing all the rest. That remedy, not hid in deeps
profound, Yet seldom sought where only to be found, While passion turns aside
from its due scope The inquirer’s aim, that remedy is Hope.

Life is his gift, from whom whate’er life needs, With every good and perfect
gift, proceeds;

Bestow’d on man, like all that we partake, Royally, freely, for his bounty’s
sake;

Transient indeed, as is the fleeting hour, And yet the seed of an immortal
flower;

Design’d, in honour of his endless love, To fill with fragrance his abode above;
No trifle, howsoever short it seem, And, howsoever shadowy, no dream; Its value,
what no thought can ascertain, Nor all an angel’s eloquence explain.

Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast
their toys away;

Live to no sober purpose, and contend That their Creator had no serious end.
When God and man stand opposite in view, Man’s disappointment must, of course,
ensue. The just Creator condescends to write, In beams of inextinguishable
light, His names of wisdom, goodness, power, and love, On all that blooms below,
or shines above; To catch the wandering notice of mankind, And teach the world,
if not perversely blind, His gracious attributes, and prove the share His
offspring hold in his paternal care.

If, led from earthly things to things divine, His creature thwart not his august
design, Then praise is heard instead of reasoning pride, And captious cavil and
complaint subside.

Nature, employ’d in her allotted place, Is handmaid to the purposes of grace; By
good vouchsafed makes known superior good, And bliss not seen by blessings
understood: That bliss, reveal’d in Scripture, with a glow Bright as the
covenant-insuring bow, Fires all his feelings with a noble scorn Of sensual
evil, and thus Hope is born.

Hope sets the stamp of vanity on all That men have deem’d substantial since the
fall, Yet has the wondrous virtue to educe From emptiness itself a real use; And
while she takes, as at a father’s hand, What health and sober appetite demand,
From fading good derives, with chemic art, That lasting happiness, a thankful
heart.

Hope, with uplifted foot, set free from earth, Pants for the place of her
ethereal birth, On steady wings sails through the immense abyss, Plucks
amaranthine joys from bowers of bliss, And crowns the soul, while yet a mourner
here, With wreaths like those triumphant spirits wear.

Hope, as an anchor, firm and sure, holds fast The Christian vessel, and defies
the blast.

Hope! nothing else can nourish and secure His new-born virtues, and preserve him
pure.

Hope! let the wretch, once conscious of the joy, Whom now despairing agonies
destroy, Speak, for he can, and none so well as he, What treasures centre, what
delights, in thee. Had he the gems, the spices, and the land, That boasts the
treasure, all at his command; The fragrant grove, the inestimable mine, Were
light, when weigh’d against one smile of thine.

Though clasp’d and cradled in his nurse’s arms, He shines with all a cherub’s
artless charms, Man is the genuine offspring of revolt, Stubborn and sturdy, a
wild ass’s colt; His passions, like the watery stores that sleep Beneath the
smiling surface of the deep, Wait but the lashes of a wintry storm, To frown and
roar, and shake his feeble form. From infancy through childhood’s giddy maze,
Froward at school, and fretful in his plays, The puny tyrant burns to subjugate
The free republic of the whip-gig state.

If one, his equal in athletic frame, Or, more provoking still, of nobler name,
Dare step across his arbitrary views, An Iliad, only not in verse, ensues: The
little Greeks look trembling at the scales, Till the best tongue or heaviest
hand prevails.

Now see him launch’d into the world at large;

If priest, supinely droning o’er his charge, Their fleece his pillow, and his
weekly drawl, Though short, too long, the price he pays for all.

If lawyer, loud whatever cause he plead, But proudest of the worst, if that
succeed.

Perhaps a grave physician, gathering fees, Punctually paid for lengthening out
disease; No Cotton, whose humanity sheds rays, That make superior skill his
second praise.

If arms engage him, he devotes to sport His date of life so likely to be short;
A soldier may be anything, if brave, So may a tradesman, if not quite a knave.

Such stuff the world is made of; and mankind To passion, interest, pleasure,
whim, resign’d, Insist on, as if each were his own pope, Forgiveness, and the
privilege of hope; But conscience, in some awful silent hour, When captivating
lusts have lost their power, Perhaps when sickness, or some fearful dream,
Reminds him of religion, hated theme!

Starts from the down, on which she lately slept, And tells of laws despised, at
least not kept;

Shews with a pointing finger, but no noise, A pale procession of past sinful
joys, All witnesses of blessings foully scorn’d, And life abused, and not to be
suborn’d.

Mark these, she says; these, summon’d from afar, Begin their march to meet thee
at the bar;

There find a Judge inexorably just, And perish there, as all presumption must.

Peace be to those (such peace as earth can give) Who live in pleasure, dead e’en
while they live;

Born capable indeed of heavenly truth; But down to latest age, from earliest
youth, Their mind a wilderness through want of care, The plough of wisdom never
entering there.

Peace (if insensibility may claim A right to the meek honours of her name) To
men of pedigree, their noble race.

Emulous always of the nearest place To any throne, except the throne of grace.

Let cottagers and unenlighten’d swains Revere the laws they dream that Heaven
ordains;

Resort on Sundays to the house of prayer, And ask, and fancy they find,
blessings there.

Themselves, perhaps, when weary they retreat To enjoy cool nature in a country
seat, To exchange the centre of a thousand trades, For clumps, and lawns, and
temples, and cascades, May now and then their velvet cushions take, And seem to
pray for good example sake;

Judging, in charity no doubt, the town Pious enough, and having need of none.

Kind souls! to teach their tenantry to prize What they themselves, without
remorse, despise: Nor hope have they, nor fear, of aught to come, As well for
them had prophecy been dumb;

They could have held the conduct they pursue, Had Paul of Tarsus lived and died
a Jew; And truth, proposed to reasoners wise as they, Is a pearl cast-completely
cast away.

They die.-Death lends them, pleased, and as in sport, All the grim honours of
his ghastly court.

Far other paintings grace the chamber now, Where late we saw the mimic landscape
glow: The busy heralds hang the sable scene With mournful ?scutcheons, and dim
lamps between;

Proclaim their titles to the crowd around, But they that wore them move not at
the sound; The coronet, placed idly at their head, Adds nothing now to the
degraded dead, And e’en the star, that glitters on the bier, Can only
say-Nobility lies here.

Peace to all such-’twere pity to offend, By useless censure, whom we cannot
mend, Life without hope can close but in despair, ?Twas there we found them, and
must leave them there. As when two pilgrims in a forest stray, Both may be lost,
yet each in his own way; So fares it with the multitudes beguiled In vain
opinion’s waste and dangerous wild;

Ten thousand rove the brakes and thorns among, Some eastward, and some westward,
and all wrong. But here, alas! the fatal difference lies, Each man’s belief is
right in his own eyes; And he that blames what they have blindly chose, Incurs
resentment for the love he shews.

Say, botanist, within whose province fall The cedar and the hyssop on the wall,
Of all that deck the lanes, the fields, the bowers, What parts the kindred
tribes of weeds and flowers?

Sweet scent, or lovely form, or both combined, Distinguish every cultivated
kind; The want of both denotes a meaner breed, And Chloe from her garland picks
the weed.

Thus hopes of every sort, whatever sect Esteem them, sow them, rear them, and
protect, If wild in nature, and not duly found, Gethsemane! in thy dear hallow’d
ground, That cannot bear the blaze of Scripture light, Nor cheer the spirit, nor
refresh the sight, Nor animate the soul to Christian deeds, (Oh cast them from
thee!) are weeds, arrant weeds.

Ethelred’s house, the centre of six ways, Diverging each from each, like equal
rays, Himself as bountiful as April rains, Lord paramount of the surrounding
plains, Would give relief of bed and board to none, But guests that sought it in
the appointed One; And they might enter at his open door, E’en till his spacious
hall would hold no more.

He sent a servant forth by every road, To sound his horn and publish it abroad,
That all might mark-knight, menial, high, and low- An ordinance it concern’d
them much to know.

If, after all, some headstrong, hardy lout Would disobey, though sure to be shut
out, Could he with reason murmur at his case, Himself sole author of his own
disgrace?

No! the decree was just and without flaw; And he that made had right to make the
law; His sovereign power and pleasure unrestrain’d, The wrong was his who
wrongfully complain’d.

Yet half mankind maintain a churlish strife With him the Donor of eternal life,
Because the deed, by which his love confirms The largess he bestows, prescribes
the terms.

Compliance with his will your lot insures, Accept it only, and the boon is
yours. And sure it is as kind to smile and give, As with a frown to say, Do
this, and live.

Love is not pedlar’s trumpery, bought and sold;

He will give freely, or he will withhold; His soul abhors a mercenary thought,
And him as deeply who abhors it not;

He stipulates indeed, but merely this, That man will freely take an unbought
bliss, Will trust him for a faithful, generous part, Nor set a price upon a
willing heart. Of all the ways that seem to promise fair, To place you where his
saints his presence share, This only can; for this plain cause, express’d In
terms as plain-himself has shut the rest. But oh the strife, the bickering, and
debate, The tidings of unpurchased heaven create! The flirted fan, the bridle,
and the toss, All speakers, yet all language at a loss. From stucco’d walls
smart arguments rebound; And beaus, adepts in everything profound, Die of
disdain, or whistle off the sound.

Such is the clamour of rooks, daws, and kites, The explosion of the levell’d
tube excites. Where mouldering abbey walls o’erhang the glade, And oaks coeval
spread a mournful shade, The screaming nations, hovering in mid air, Loudly
resent the stranger’s freedom there, And seem to warn him never to repeat His
bold intrusion on their dark retreat.

Adieu, Vinosa cries, ere yet he sips The purple bumper trembling at his lips,
Adieu to all morality! if grace Make works a vain ingredient in the case. The
Christian hope is-Waiter, draw the cork- If I mistake not-Blockhead! with a
fork!

Without good works, whatever some may boast, Mere folly and delusion-Sir, your
toast. My firm persuasion is, at least sometimes, That Heaven will weigh man’s
virtues and his crimes With nice attention in a righteous scale, And save or
damn as these or those prevail.

I plant my foot upon this ground of trust, And silence every fear with-God is
just. But if perchance, on some dull, drizzling day, A thought intrude, that
says, or seems to say, If thus the important cause is to be tried, Suppose the
beam should dip on the wrong side;

I soon recover from these needless frights, And-God is merciful-sets all to
rights.

Thus between justice, as my prime support, And mercy, fled to as the last
resort, I glide and steal along with heaven in view, And,-pardon me, the bottle
stands with you.

I never will believe, the Colonel cries, The sanguinary schemes that some
devise, Who make the good Creator, on their plan, A being of less equity than
man.

If appetite, or what divines call lust, Which men comply with, e’en because they
must, Be punish’d with perdition, who is pure?

Then theirs, no doubt, as well as mine, is sure.

If sentence of eternal pain belong To every sudden slip and transient wrong,
Then Heaven enjoins the fallible and frail A hopeless task, and damns them if
they fail. My creed (whatever some creed-makers mean By Athanasian nonsense, or
Nicene), My creed is, he is safe that does his best, And death’s a doom
sufficient for the rest.

Right, says an ensign; and for aught I see, Your faith and mine substantially
agree; The best of every man’s performance here Is to discharge the duties of
his sphere. A lawyer’s dealings should be just and fair, Honesty shines with
great advantage there.

Fasting and prayer sit well upon a priest, A decent caution and reserve at
least. A soldier’s best is courage in the field, With nothing here that wants to
be conceal’d;

Manly deportment, gallant, easy, gay; A hand as liberal as the light of day. The
soldier thus endow’d, who never shrinks, Nor closets up his thoughts, whate’er
he thinks, Who scorns to do an injury by stealth, Must go to heaven-and I must
drink his health.

Sir Smug, he cries (for lowest at the board, Just made fifth chaplain of his
patron lord, His shoulders witnessing by many a shrug, How much his feelings
suffer’d, sat Sir Smug), Your office is to winnow false from true;

Come, prophet, drink, and tell us, What think you?

Sighing and smiling as he takes his glass, Which they that woo preferment rarely
pass, Fallible man, the church-bred youth replies, Is still found fallible,
however wise; And differing judgments serve but to declare, That truth lies
somewhere, if we knew but where. Of all it ever was my lot to read, Of critics
now alive or long since dead, The book of all the world that charm’d me most
Was,-well-a-day, the title-page was lost; The writer well remarks, a heart that
knows To take with gratitude what Heaven bestows, With prudence always ready at
our call, To guide our use of it, is all in all.

Doubtless it is. To which, of my own store, I superadd a few essentials more;
But these, excuse the liberty I take, I wave just now, for conversation’s sake.

Spoke like an oracle, they all exclaim, And add Right Reverend to Smug’s
honour’d name. And yet our lot is given us in a land Where busy arts are never
at a stand; Where science points her telescopic eye, Familiar with the wonders
of the sky; Where bold inquiry, diving out of sight, Brings many a precious
pearl of truth to light; Where nought eludes the persevering quest, That
fashion, taste, or luxury suggest. But above all, in her own light array’d, See
Mercy’s grand apocalypse display’d! The sacred book no longer suffers wrong,
Bound in the fetters of an unknown tongue; But speaks with plainness art could
never mend, What simplest minds can soonest comprehend.

God gives the word, the preachers throng around, Live from his lips, and spread
the glorious sound: That sound bespeaks salvation on her way, The trumpet of a
life-restoring day;

?Tis heard where England’s eastern glory shines, And in the gulfs of her
Cornubian mines. And still it spreads. See Germany send forth Her sons[1] to
pour it on the farthest north:

Fired with a zeal peculiar, they defy The rage and rigour of a polar sky, And
plant successfully sweet Sharon’s rose On icy plains, and in eternal snows.

O blest within the inclosure of your rocks, Not herds have ye to boast, nor
bleating flocks; Nor fertilizing streams your fields divide, That shew,
reversed, the villas on their side; No groves have ye; no cheerful sound of
bird, Or voice of turtle in your land is heard; Nor grateful eglantine regales
the smell Of those that walk at evening where ye dwell; But Winter, arm’d with
terrors here unknown, Sits absolute on his unshaken throne;

Piles up his stores amidst the frozen waste, And bids the mountains he has built
stand fast;

Beckons the legions of his storms away From happier scenes, to make your land a
prey;

Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won, And scorns to share it with the
distant sun.

-Yet truth is yours, remote, unenvied isle! And peace the genuine offspring of
her smile; The pride of letter’d ignorance that binds In chains of error our
accomplish’d minds, That decks, with all the splendour of the true, A false
religion, is unknown to you.

Nature indeed vouchsafes for our delight The sweet vicissitudes of day and
night:

Soft airs and genial moisture feed and cheer Field, fruit, and flower, and every
creature here; But brighter beams than his who fires the skies Have risen at
length on your admiring eyes, That shoot into your darkest caves the day, From
which our nicer optics turn away.

Here see the encouragement grace gives to vice, The dire effect of mercy without
price!

What were they? what some fools are made by art, They were by nature, atheists,
head and heart. The gross idolatry blind heathens teach Was too refined for
them, beyond their reach. Not e’en the glorious sun, though men revere The
monarch most that seldom will appear, And though his beams, that quicken where
they shine, May claim some right to be esteem’d divine, Not e’en the sun,
desirable as rare, Could bend one knee, engage one votary there;

They were, what base credulity believes True Christians are, dissemblers,
drunkards, thieves. The full-gorged savage, at his nauseous feast, Spent half
the darkness, and snored out the rest, Was one, whom justice, on an equal plan,
Denouncing death upon the sins of man, Might almost have indulged with an
escape, Chargeable only with a human shape.

What are they now?-Morality may spare Her grave concern, her kind suspicions
there; The wretch who once sang wildly, danced, and laugh’d, And suck’d in dizzy
madness with his draught, Has wept a silent flood, reversed his ways, Is sober,
meek, benevolent, and prays, Feeds sparingly, communicates his store, Abhors the
craft he boasted of before, And he that stole has learn’d to steal no more.

Well spake the prophet, Let the desert sing, Where sprang the thorn, the spiry
fir shall spring, And where unsightly and rank thistles grew, Shall grow the
myrtle and luxuriant yew.

Go now, and with important tone demand On what foundation virtue is to stand, If
self-exalting claims be turn’d adrift, And grace be grace indeed, and life a
gift; The poor reclaim’d inhabitant, his eyes Glistening at once with pity and
surprise, Amazed that shadows should obscure the sight Of one, whose birth was
in a land of light, Shall answer, Hope, sweet Hope, has set me free, And made
all pleasures else mere dross to me.

These, amidst scenes as waste as if denied The common care that waits on all
beside, Wild as if nature there, void of all good, Play’d only gambols in a
frantic mood (Yet charge not heavenly skill with having plann’d A plaything
world, unworthy of his hand), Can see his love, though secret evil lurks In all
we touch, stamp’d plainly on his works;

Deem life a blessing with its numerous woes, Nor spurn away a gift a God
bestows.

Hard task indeed o’er arctic seas to roam! Is hope exotic? grows it not at home?

Yes, but an object, bright as orient morn, May press the eye too closely to be
borne; A distant virtue we can all confess, It hurts our pride, and moves our
envy, less.

Leuconomus (beneath well-sounding Greek I slur a name a poet must not speak)
Stood pilloried on infamy’s high stage, And bore the pelting scorn of half an
age, The very butt of slander, and the blot For every dart that malice ever
shot. The man that mention’d him at once dismiss’d All mercy from his lips, and
sneer’d and hiss’d; His crimes were such as Sodom never knew, And perjury stood
up to swear all true; His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretence, His speech
rebellion against common sense; A knave, when tried on honesty’s plain rule; And
when by that of reason, a mere fool; The world’s best comfort was, his doom was
pass’d;

Die when he might, he must be damn’d at last.

Now, Truth, perform thine office; waft aside The curtain drawn by prejudice and
pride, Reveal (the man is dead) to wondering eyes This more than monster in his
proper guise.

He loved the world that hated him: the tear That dropp’d upon his Bible was
sincere;

Assail’d by scandal and the tongue of strife, His only answer was a blameless
life; And he that forged, and he that threw the dart, Had each a brother’s
interest in his heart.

Paul’s love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed, Were copied close in him and
well transcribed.

He followed Paul; his zeal a kindred flame, His apostolic charity the same.

Like him, cross’d cheerfully tempestuous seas, Forsaking country, kindred,
friends, and ease;

Like him he labour’d, and like him content To bear, it, suffer’d shame where’er
he went.

Blush, calumny! and write upon his tomb, If honest eulogy can spare thee room,
Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies, Which, aim’d at him, have pierced the
offended skies; And say, Blot out my sin, confess’d, deplored, Against thine
image, in thy saint, O Lord! No blinder bigot, I maintain it still, Than he who
must have pleasure, come what will;

He laughs, whatever weapon Truth may draw, And deems her sharp artillery mere
straw;

Scripture indeed is plain; but God and he On Scripture ground are sure to
disagree;

Some wiser rule must each him how to live, Than this his Maker has seen fit to
give;

Supple and flexible as Indian cane, To take the bend his appetites ordain;

Contrived to suit frail nature’s crazy case, And reconcile his lusts with saving
grace. By this, with nice precision of design, He draws upon life’s map a
zig-zag line, That shews how far ?tis safe to follow sin, And where his danger
and God’s wrath begin. By this he forms, as pleased he sports along, His
well-poised estimate of right and wrong; And finds the modish manners of the
day, Though loose, as harmless as an infant’s play.

Build by whatever plan caprice decrees, With what materials, on what ground you
please, Your hope shall stand unblamed, perhaps admired, If not that hope the
Scripture has required. The strange conceits, vain projects, and wild dreams,
With which hypocrisy for ever teems (Though other follies strike the public eye,
And raise a laugh), pass unmolested by; But if, unblameable in word and thought,
A man arise, a man whom God has taught, With all Elijah’s dignity of tone, And
all the love of the beloved John, To storm the citadels they build in air, And
smite the untemper’d wall; ?tis death to spare. To sweep away all refuges of
lies, And place, instead of quirks themselves devise, Lama sabachthani before
their eyes; To prove that without Christ all gain is loss, All hope despair,
that stands not on his cross;

Except the few his God may have impress’d, A tenfold frenzy seizes all the rest.

Throughout mankind, the Christian kind at least, There dwells a consciousness in
every breast, That folly ends where genuine hope begins, And he that finds his
heaven must lose his sins.

Nature opposes, with her utmost force, This riving stroke, this ultimate
divorce, And, while Religion seems to be her view, Hates with a deep sincerity
the true: For this, of all that ever influenced man, Since Abel worshipp’d, or
the world began, This only spares no lust, admits no plea, But makes him, if at
all, completely free;

Sounds forth the signal, as she mounts her car, Of an eternal, universal war;

Rejects all treaty, penetrates all wiles, Scorns with the same indifference
frowns and smiles;

Drives through the realms of sin, where riot reels, And grinds his crown beneath
her burning wheels!

Hence all that is in man, pride, passion, art, Powers of the mind, and feelings
of the heart, Insensible of Truth’s almighty charms, Starts at her first
approach, and sounds to arms!

While Bigotry, with well-dissembled fears, His eyes shut fast, his fingers in
his ears, Mighty to parry and push by God’s Word With senseless noise, his
argument the sword, Pretends a zeal for godliness and grace, And spits
abhorrence in the Christian’s face.

Parent of Hope, immortal Truth! make known Thy deathless wreaths and triumphs
all thine own. The silent progress of thy power is such, Thy means so feeble,
and despised so much, That few believe the wonders thou hast wrought, And none
can teach them but whom thou hast taught.

Oh see me sworn to serve thee, and command A painter’s skill into a poet’s hand!

That, while I trembling trace a work divine, Fancy may stand aloof from the
design, And light and shade, and every stroke, be thine.

If ever thou hast felt another’s pain, If ever when he sigh’d hast sigh’d again,
If ever on thy eyelid stood the tear That pity had engender’d, drop one here.
This man was happy-had the world’s good word, And with it every joy it can
afford;

Friendship and love seem’d tenderly at strife, Which most should sweeten his
untroubled life;

Politely learn’d, and of a gentle race, Good breeding and good sense gave all a
grace, And whether at the toilet of the fair He laugh’d and trifled, made him
welcome there, Or, if in masculine debate he shared, Ensured him mute attention
and regard.

Alas! how changed! Expressive of his mind, His eyes are sunk, arms folded, head
reclined;

Those awful syllables, hell, death, and sin, Though whisper’d, plainly tell what
works within; That conscience there performs her proper part, And writes a
doomsday sentence on his heart!

Forsaking and forsaken of all friends, He now perceives where earthly pleasure
ends;

Hard task! for one who lately knew no care, And harder still as learnt beneath
despair! His hours no longer pass unmark’d away, A dark importance saddens every
day;

He hears the notice of the clock, perplex’d, And cries, Perhaps eternity strikes
next!

Sweet music is no longer music here, And laughter sounds like madness in his
ear: His grief the world of all her power disarms;

Wine has no taste, and beauty has no charms:

God’s holy Word, once trivial in his view, Now by the voice of his experience
true, Seems, as it is, the fountain whence alone Must spring that hope he pants
to make his own.

Now let the bright reverse be known abroad;

Say man’s a worm, and power belongs to God. As when a felon, whom his country’s
laws Have justly doom’d for some atrocious cause, Expects in darkness and
heart-chilling fears, The shameful close of all his misspent years;

If chance, on heavy pinions slowly borne, A tempest usher in the dreaded morn,
Upon his dungeon walls the lightning play, The thunder seems to summon him away;
The warder at the door his key applies, Shoots back the bolt, and all his
courage dies:

If then, just then, all thoughts of mercy lost, When Hope, long lingering, at
last yields the ghost, The sound of pardon pierce his startled ear, He drops at
once his fetters and his fear; A transport glows in all he looks and speaks, And
the first thankful tears bedew his cheeks.

Joy, far superior joy, that much outweighs The comfort of a few poor added days,
Invades, possesses, and o’erwhelms the soul Of him, whom Hope has with a touch
made whole.

?Tis heaven, all heaven, descending on the wings Of the glad legions of the King
of kings;

?Tis more-’tis God diffused through every part, ?Tis God himself triumphant in
his heart.

O welcome now the sun’s once hated light, His noonday beams were never half so
bright. Not kindred minds alone are call’d to employ Their hours, their days, in
listening to his joy;

Unconscious nature, all that he surveys, Rocks, groves, and streams must join
him in his praise.

These are thy glorious works, eternal Truth, The scoff of wither’d age and
beardless youth;

These move the censure and the illiberal grin Of fools that hate thee and
delight in sin: But these shall last when night has quench’d the pole, And
heav’n is all departed as a scroll. And when, as justice has long since decreed,
This earth shall blaze, and a new world succeed, Then these thy glorious works,
and they who share That hope which can alone exclude despair, Shall live exempt
from weakness and decay, The brightest wonders of an endless day.

Happy the bard (if that fair name belong To him that blends no fable with his
song) Whose lines, uniting, by an honest art, The faithful monitor’s and poet’s
part, Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind, And, while they captivate,
inform the mind:

Still happier, if he till a thankful soil, And fruit reward his honourable toil:
But happier far, who comfort those that wait To hear plain truth at Judah’s
hallow’d gate: Their language simple, as their manners meek, No shining
ornaments have they to seek; Nor labour they, nor time, nor talents, waste, In
sorting flowers to suit a fickle taste;

But, while they speak the wisdom of the skies, Which art can only darken and
disguise, The abundant harvest, recompence divine, Repays their work-the
gleaning only mine.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] The Moravian missionaries in Greenland.-See Krantz.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: S. THE LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER
========================================================================

The Life of William Cowper By William Cowper

William Cowper was born on the 26th of November 1731, at Berkhampstead,
Hertfordshire, of which village his father, the Rev. John Cowper, was rector. He
was of noble ancestry, and many of his immediate relatives moved in the upper
ranks of life. His mother, Ann Donne, a daughter of Roger Donne, Esq., of Ludham
Hall in Norfolk, died when he was only six years of age, leaving two
children,-William, the subject of this memoir, and a younger brother, John. Her
affection and tenderness made a deep impression on his young mind. Fifty years
afterwards, on receiving her picture, he dwells as fondly on the cherished
features as if he had just mourned her death. He writes to his cousin, Mrs.
Bodham, who had sent him the portrait-’I received it the night before last, and
viewed it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I
should have felt had the dear original presented herself to my embraces. I
kissed it, and hung it where it is the last object that I see at night, and, of
course, the first on which I open my eyes in the morning.’ His feelings, indeed,
were all of the intense kind. ’I never received a little pleasure from anything
in my life,’ he writes; ’if I am pleased, it is in the extreme.’

Few incidents of his early life have been preserved, and much obscurity rests on
the circumstances which made him a stranger from his father’s house almost
immediately after his mother’s death. Though his father lived to the year 1756,
Cowper appears never to have lived at home, excepting for a brief period of nine
months, when he was eighteen years of age. When only six years of age, he was
sent to the school of Dr. Pitman, in Market Street, on the borders of
Hertfordshire. Here he continued two years-a period embittered by the cruelty of
a boy of fifteen years of age, ’whose savage treatment,’ says Cowper, ’impressed
such a dread of his figure upon my mind, that I well remember being afraid to
lift up my eyes upon him higher than his knees; and that I knew him by his
shoe-buckles better than any other part of his dress.’ It is characteristic of
the gentle spirit of the poet, that he refrains from mentioning the name of his
persecutor. In consequence of an affection in the eyes which threatened to
deprive him of sight, he was sent to an eminent oculist in London, in whose
house he remained until he was ten years of age, when he had so far recovered as
to be able to attend Westminster School. An attack of small-pox, three years
afterwards, completed the restoration of his eyesight. At Westminster he
continued till he was eighteen, having acquired a considerable knowledge of the
Latin and Greek classics. He was then apprenticed for three years to an
attorney; but, in an uncongenial employment, and under a careless master, he
derived few advantages from his situation. ’I was bred to the law,’ he writes;
’a profession to which I was never much inclined, and in which I engaged, rather
because I was desirous to gratify a most indulgent father, than because I had
any hope of success in it myself.’ ’I did actually live three years with Mr.
Chapman, a solicitor,’ he says; ’there was I and the future Lord Chancellor’
(Thurlow) ’constantly employed, from morning to night, in giggling and making
giggle, instead of studying the law.’ It was at this period that he formed an
attachment to his cousin, Theodora Cowper, the sister of Lady Hesketh, to whom
so many of his letters are addressed. Though this affection was returned,
obstacles, arising from her father’s aversion to the marriage of parties so
nearly related, and from his own limited income, prevented their union. She was
never married, and lived until the year 1824. On leaving Mr. Chapman, he took
chambers in the Inner Temple, London, where he lived for twelve years. Here,
instead of devoting himself to the study of the law, he yielded to the natural
bent of his disposition, and amused himself with literature, and occasionally
contributed verses and essays (none of which are now known) to the periodicals
of the day.

Shortly after entering the Temple, the first symptoms of that malady appeared
from which he was destined to suffer so dreadfully. ’I was struck,’ he says,
’with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can
have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying down in
horror, and rising up in despair.’ This despondency lasted for nearly twelve
months. Cowper’s melancholy has been attributed to his religious views; but at
this time he was entirely ignorant of true religion. Men of science in modern
times will not hazard the unphilosophical opinions which were once entertained
on this subject; derangement is now understood to be a disease which has its
principal seat in the nervous system, and in which accident determines the
particular mental delusion by which the patient is oppressed. When thirty-one
years of age, he was appointed reading-clerk and clerk of the private committees
of the House of Lords, a situation which he resigned for the inferior post of
clerk of the journals in the same house of parliament. This appointment seemed
at first to afford him considerable pleasure. ’If I succeed,’ he writes to Lady
Hesketh, ’in this doubtful piece of promotion, I shall have at least this
satisfaction to reflect upon, that the volumes I write will be treasured up with
the utmost care for ages, and will last as long as the English constitution, a
duration which ought to satisfy the vanity of any author who has a spark of love
for his country.’ These prospects were destroyed by a party dispute, regarding
the right of appointment, which rendered it necessary that he should appear at
the bar of the House of Lords. The idea of appearing in such a situation
entirely unhinged his mind, and drove him to repeated attempts to commit
suicide. His friends, on learning his condition, immediately surrendered the
appointment; and, as his malady still continued, put him under the care of Dr.
Cotton, in St. Alban’s, a physician equally fitted to minister to the mind and
the body. With him he remained for two years. It is from this period he dates
his conversion. His religious education had been almost entirely neglected. He
had made himself acquainted with the evidences of Christianity, but was ignorant
of Christianity itself. So early as his schoolboy days at Market Street, indeed,
he had serious impressions on his mind, which returned very vividly at intervals
while in the Temple; but until now, he was without any clear understanding of
the nature of the gospel as a proclamation of mercy from God to sinners through
Christ Jesus, and had no personal experience of its power to confer peace. From
St. Alban’s he removed to lodgings in Huntingdon. The chief recommendation of
Huntingdon was, that being within fifteen miles of Cambridge, he was enabled to
meet once a week with his brother John, a young man of great excellence; but it
was too dull a residence to detain him long, had Providence not thrown in his
way the family of the Unwins, whose friendship proved the greatest happiness of
his life. To their mutual satisfaction, he became a boarder in the family, which
at this time consisted of Mr. Unwin and his wife, their son and daughter. Cowper
thus describes his first impressions of them:-’The old gentleman is a man of
learning and good sense, and as simple as Parson Adams. His wife has a very
uncommon understanding, has read much to good purpose, and is more polite that a
duchess. The son, who belongs to Cambridge, is a most amiable young man; and the
daughter quite of a piece with the rest of the family.’ There must have been
something remarkably attractive about Cowper, for, with all his shyness, he had
more and better friends than almost any poet we could name. To know him was to
love him, and few loved him by halves; indeed, the devotion paid to him partook
more of the mingled respect and affection which is rendered to an accomplished
female than what are enjoyed by his sex. With the Unwins he live on the most
cordial terms. ’I am much happier,’ he writes to Major Cowper, ’than the day is
long, and sunshine and candle-light alike see me perfectly contented.’ No
certain information has been obtained of his means of subsistence. He inherited
some money from his father; and a subscription made at this time by his friends
placed him in comfortable circumstances. It is believed that Miss Theodora
Cowper privately contributed fifty pounds a year. He does not seem to have
obtained much for the copyright of his poems. The crown granted him ?300 a year
in 1794; but too late to be of much advantage. The sudden death of Mr. Unwin, by
a fall from his horse, caused the removal of the Unwins from Huntingdon; and
Cowper removed with them. The Rev. John Newton, whose acquaintance they had
recently made, engaged for them a house in Olney, to which they removed in
October 1767. The warmest friendship grew out of this connexion; there was a
private passage between the vicarage and the house in which they lived, and
seven hours, we are told, rarely passed without the two families being together.
Here Cowper spent two or three years in great comfort. His employments were
various,-he learned to draw, he cultivated flowers, and he handled the tools of
the carpenter with considerable address. ’There is not a squire in all the
country,’ he writes, ’who can boast of having made better squirrel-houses,
hutches for rabbits, or bird-cages, than myself. I had even the hardiness to
take in hand the pencil. Many figures were the fruit of my labours, which had at
least the merit of being unparallelled by any production of art or nature.’ And
he talks of sending ’tables, such as they were, and joint-stools, such as never
were.’ Three hares which he tamed afforded him much amusement. His account of
them, which was inserted in the Gentleman’s Magazine, has often been reprinted.
He also visited the houses of the villagers, administering spiritual counsel and
relieving the wants of the poor, which he was the better enabled to do from a
fund placed at his disposal by the benevolent Thornton, so celebrated for his
philanthropy. At the suggestion of Newton, he began his contributions to that
collection so well known as the ’Olney Hymns.’ These were commenced in the year
1771, but, owing to a return of the melancholy disease under which he laboured,
not completed till 1779. The death of his brother, to whom he was warmly
attached, and which took place in 1770, has been supposed to furnish the cause
of the new attack of his malady; but he never was entirely free from it,-his
mind was like the coast of Holland, which requires the embankments to be
constantly renewed to exclude the encroachments of the tide; and it is scarcely
worth while, when so many causes were in operation, to ask which was the
greatest. The attack lasted for four years, during which he was watched by Mrs.
Unwin with a self-devotion and tenderness which happily found its reward in
seeing him restored to the full measure of his former powers, though it left him
with weakened nerves and a constant tendency to relapse into moodiness. Thus,
after Newton had left Olney for London, he writes-’It is no attachment to the
place that binds me here, but an unfitness for every other. I lived in it once,
but now I am buried in it, and have no business with the world on the outside of
my sepulchre.’ Cowper had now reached the age of fifty, and was as yet unknown
to the world. ’A few light and agreeable poems, two hymns written at Huntingdon,
with about sixty others composed at Olney, are almost the only known poetical
productions of his pen between the years 1749 and 1780.’ The long pent-up stream
of his genius was now to break out. At the suggestion of Mrs. Unwin, he wrote
’Table Talk,’ the first poem in the present collection of his works, to which
were afterwards added, ’The Progress of Error,’ ’Truth,’ ’Expostulation,’
’Hope,’ ’Charity,’ ’Conversation,’ and ’Retirement.’ These were all written in
little more than a year, and were published in one volume in 1781. It met with a
favourable reception from the critics of the day, and slowly found its way into
the esteem of the public. The vein thus opened was not allowed to remain
unwrought. ’Dejection of spirits,’ he informs Lady Hesketh, ’which may have
prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant
employment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly employed.’ ’When
I can find no other occupation, I think; and when I think, I am very apt to do
it in rhyme. Hence it comes to pass, that the season of the year which generally
pinches off the flowers of poetry unfolds mine, such as they are, and crowns me
with a wintry garland.’ About this time he formed an acquaintance with a
highly-accomplished woman, Lady Austen; she was wealthy, had seen much of the
world, and possessed a liveliness of manner which charmed away his melancholy.
After three years’ intimacy, this friendship was unfortunately broken up by the
not unnatural jealousy of Mrs. Unwin, who was afraid it might end in a nearer
connexion. To Lady Austen we owe the amusing ballad of ’John Gilpin,’ and his
great poem the ’Task.’ A merry tale which she told to amuse the poet was the
groundwork of the first; it soon became a universal favourite, though few
suspected the melancholy Cowper to be the author. Surprise has been expressed
that it should have been written while suffering from despondency; but it is the
very nature of this disease to admit of violent alternations from the liveliest
gaiety to the deepest gloom. The ’Task’ was begun in the summer of 1783, and
completed before the close of 1784. Lady Austen, who, as an admirer of Milton,
was partial to blank verse, had often solicited Cowper to try his power in that
species of composition. To his objection that he knew of no suitable subject,
she replied, ’Oh, you can never be in want of a subject-you can write upon any;
write upon this sofa.’ The idea struck him, he took up the pen and began,- ’I
sing the Sofa, I who lately sung Faith, Hope, and Charity.’ The poem thus
casually suggested grew into six books, and is deservedly the most popular of
his larger poems. Many passages in his first volume are not inferior to the best
pieces of the ’Task;’ but in the ’task’ he takes a wider range, and flies with
freer and bolder wing. This work brought him into immediate notice, and drew
attention to his former publications. His attached cousin, Lady Hesketh, who had
been abroad, hastened to renew her correspondence. His letters to her are the
most finished and delightful specimens of epistolary writing in the language.
The strong aversion which John Foster expressed to composition was unknown to
Cowper. He wrote from choice, and was quite capable of extracting amusement from
the most trivial incidents of daily life; so that, though he was almost a
recluse in his habits, and his letters sometimes embraced no other subjects than
the death of a viper, or the loss of one of his hares, or the overturning of a
market-woman’s cart, they are full of wit and sensibility. Lady Hesketh proved a
most valuable friend. Finding his residence at Olney neither commodious nor
cheerful, she rented and furnished for him a house bordering on a handsome park
at the neighbouring village of Western Underwood, and throughout his life her
purse and her services were always at his disposal. He says touchingly, on
leaving Olney-’I found that I not only had a tenderness for that ruinous abode,
because it had once known me happy in the presence of God, but that even the
distress I had suffered for so long time on account of His absence, had endeared
it to me as much.’ In 1785 he began a translation of Homer’s Poems, and worked
with great assiduity and pleasure at the task. It was finished in 1790, and
published in two quarto volumes in 1791. He next undertook to edit an edition of
Milton’s Poetical Works, and with this view translated his Latin Poems; but the
work was never completed. A poem, entitled ’The Seven Ages,’ was begun, but only
a few lines were written. His beautiful lines to Mrs. Unwin, beginning- ’The
twentieth year is well nigh past Since first our sky was overcast;

Ah, that this might be the last, My Mary’- and his lines ’On Receipt of his
Mother’s Picture,’ were written at this period, and exhibit the unabated force
of his mind and imagination. Of the remainder of his life we have little to
record. Mrs. Unwin fell into an infirm state of health, and his own mind became
extremely depressed. Lady Hesketh flew to his help, and he rallied so far as to
be able to visit his biographer, Hayley; but soon he relapsed. His relation, Dr.
Johnson, removed him from Weston to North Tudderham in Norfolk, and from thence
to various places, for change of air and scene, but without perceptible
advantage to his health. In 1796, Mrs. Unwin died. ’In the dusk of the evening
of her death, he attended Dr. Johnson to survey the corpse, and after looking a
very few moments, he started suddenly away, with a vehement but unfinished
sentence of passionate sorrow. He spoke of her no more.’ Dr. Johnson’s
attentions to him were never surpassed in delicacy and self-denial. Any other
man would have shrunk from undertaking the charge of an infirm hypochondriac,
who rarely spoke, and seemed to derive no pleasure from either the world or
religion. The cloud which had now settled over his intellect was never removed.
He had long lived under the delusion, that the mercy of God, which is free to
all the world besides, was denied to him. There were momentary intervals in
which a ray of hope gleamed upon his mind, but they were transitory; and it is
melancholy to record, that that hope of which he had sung so sweetly to others
was denied to himself in his last hours. But though the nature of his disease
had banished hope from his mind, his life and writings prove that he had long
rested his faith on Christ Jesus as his Saviour, and warrant the assurance that
death translated him to eternal glory. His death took place on the 25th April
1800. He was buried in St. Edmund’s Chapel, in the Church of East Dereham. Lady
Hesketh erected a marble tablet to his memory. ’Cowper,’ says Hayley, ’was of a
middle stature, rather strong than delicate in the form of his limbs; the colour
of his hair was a light brown, that of his eyes a bluish-gray, and his
complexion ruddy.’ In manner he was reserved, but to females he was extremely
engaging. His character was a singular compound of strength and delicacy. Manly
in his thoughts and writings, he was almost a woman in the readiness with which
he surrendered himself to the direction of others in matters of business. With a
keen sense of the ludicrous and a sharp pen, he never willingly wounded a single
human being; and, rigid himself in his attention to virtue and piety, he judged
the actions of other men in a spirit of the most liberal charity. Cowper’s Poems
need no panegyric of ours; they have taken a permanent place among the literary
treasures of the English language. They were the genuine utterance of his own
heart; and their manly thought, vigour, and simplicity, their mingled humour and
pathos, the variety and the felicity of their descriptions of men and things,
and the elevated strain of Christian sentiment by which they are pervaded, have
secured their popularity while our language endures. Edinburgh, June 1, 1853.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: S. THE PROGRESS OF ERROR
========================================================================

The Progress of Error By William Cowper THE PROGRESS OF ERROR.

Sing, muse (if such a theme, so dark, so long May find a muse to grace it with a
song), By what unseen and unsuspected arts The serpent Error twines round human
hearts;

Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades, That not a glimpse of genuine
light pervades, The poisonous, black, insinuating worm Successfully conceals her
loathsome form.

Take, if ye can, ye careless and supine, Counsel and caution from a voice like
mine!

Truths, that the theorist could never reach, And observation taught me, I would
teach. Not all, whose eloquence the fancy fills, Musical as the chime of
tinkling rills, Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend, Can trace her mazy
windings to their end;

Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure, Prevent the danger, or prescribe
the cure. The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear, Falls soporific on the
listless ear;

Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they display Shines as it runs, but, grasp’d at,
slips away.

Placed for his trial on this bustling stage, From thoughtless youth to
ruminating age, Free in his will to choose or to refuse, Man may improve the
crisis, or abuse;

Else, on the fatalist’s unrighteous plan, Say, to what bar amenable were man?
With nought in charge he could betray no trust:

And, if he fell, would fall because he must;

If love reward him, or if vengeance strike, His recompence in both unjust alike.

Divine authority within his breast Brings every thought, word, action, to the
test;

Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains, As reason, or as passion, takes
the reins.

Heaven from above, and conscience from within, Cries in his startled ear-Abstain
from sin! The world around solicits his desire, And kindles in his soul a
treacherous fire;

While, all his purposes and steps to guard, Peace follows virtue as its sure
reward; And pleasure brings as surely in her train Remorse, and sorrow, and
vindictive pain.

Man, thus endued with an elective voice, Must be supplied with objects of his
choice, Where’er he turns, enjoyment and delight, Or present or in prospect,
meet his sight:

Those open on the spot their honey’d store;

These call him loudly to pursuit of more. His unexhausted mine the sordid vice
Avarice shews, and virtue is the price.

Here various motives his ambition raise- Power, pomp, and splendour, and the
thirst of praise;

There beauty woos him with expanded arms;

E’en bacchanalian madness has its charms. Nor these alone, whose pleasures less
refined Might well alarm the most unguarded mind, Seek to supplant his
inexperienced youth, Or lead him devious from the path of truth;

Hourly allurements on his passions press, Safe in themselves, but dangerous in
the excess!

Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air!

O what a dying, dying close was there!

?Tis harmony, from yon sequester’d bower, Sweet harmony, that soothes the
midnight hour!

Long ere the charioteer of day had run His morning course the enchantment was
begun; And he shall gild yon mountain’s height again, Ere yet the pleasing toil
becomes a pain. Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent, That virtue points
to? Can a life thus spent Lead to the bliss she promises the wise, Detach the
soul from earth, and speed her to the skies?

Ye devotees to your adored employ, Enthusiasts, drunk with an unreal joy, Love
makes the music of the blest above, Heaven’s harmony is universal love; And
earthly sounds, though sweet and well combined, And lenient as soft opiates to
the mind, Leave vice and folly unsubdued behind.

Gray dawn appears; the sportsman and his train Speckle the bosom of the distant
plain;

?Tis he, the Nimrod of the neighbouring lairs;

Save that his scent is less acute than theirs, For persevering chase, and
headlong leaps, True beagle as the stanchest hound he keeps.

Charged with the folly of his life’s mad scene, He takes offence, and wonders
what you mean; The joy the danger and the toil o’erpays- ?Tis exercise, and
health, and length of days.

Again impetuous to the field he flies;

Leaps every fence but one, there falls and dies;

Like a slain deer, the tumbrel brings him home, Unmiss’d but by his dogs and by
his groom.

Ye clergy, while your orbit is your place, Lights of the world and stars of
human race;

But, if eccentric ye forsake your sphere, Prodigies ominous and view’d with
fear: The comet’s baneful influence is a dream;

Yours real, and pernicious in the extreme.

What then! are appetites and lusts laid down With the same ease that man puts on
his gown? Will avarice and concupiscence give place, Charm’d by the sounds-Your
Reverence, or your Grace?

No. But his own engagement binds him fast;

Or, if it does not, brands him to the last What atheists call him-a designing
knave, A mere church juggler, hypocrite, and slave.

Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest, A cassock’d huntsman and a fiddling
priest!

He from Italian songsters takes his cue:

Set Paul to music, he shall quote him too.

He takes the field. The master of the pack Cries-Well done, saint! and claps him
on the back. Is this the path of sanctity? Is this To stand a waymark on the
road to bliss?

Himself a wanderer from the narrow way, His silly sheep, what wonder if they
stray?

Go, cast your orders at your bishop’s feet, Send your dishonour’d gown to
Monmouth-street! The sacred function in your hands is made- Sad sacrilege-no
function, but a trade!

Occiduus is a pastor of renown; When he has pray’d and preach’d the Sabbath
down, With wire and catgut he concludes the day, Quavering and semiquavering
care away. The full concerto swells upon your ear;

All elbows shake. Look in, and you would swear The Babylonian tyrant with a nod
Had summon’d them to serve his golden god. So well that thought the employment
seems to suit, Psaltery and sackbut, dulcimer and flute.

O fie! ?tis evangelical and pure:

Observe each face, how sober and demure!

Ecstasy sets her stamp on every mien;

Chins fallen, and not an eyeball to be seen.

Still I insist, though music heretofore Has charm’d me much (not e’en Occiduus
more), Love, joy, and peace make harmony more meet For Sabbath evenings, and
perhaps as sweet. Will not the sickliest sheep of every flock Resort to this
example as a rock;

There stand, and justify the foul abuse Of Sabbath hours with plausible excuse?

If apostolic gravity be free To play the fool on Sundays, why not we?

If he the tinkling harpsichord regards As inoffensive, what offence in cards?

Strike up the fiddles, let us all be gay!

Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play.

O Italy!-Thy Sabbaths will be soon Our Sabbaths, closed with mummery and
buffoon.

Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene, Ours parcelled out, as thine
have ever been, God’s worship and the mountebank between.

What says the prophet? Let that day be blest With holiness and consecrated rest.

Pastime and business, both it should exclude, And bar the door the moment they
intrude;

Nobly distinguish’d above all the six By deeds in which the world must never
mix.

Hear him again. He calls it a delight, A day of luxury observed aright, When the
glad soul is made Heaven’s welcome guest, Sits banqueting, and God provides the
feast. But triflers are engaged and cannot come; Their answer to the call is-Not
at home.

O the dear pleasures of the velvet plain, The painted tablets, dealt and dealt
again!

Cards, with what rapture, and the polish’d die, The yawning chasm of indolence
supply!

Then to the dance, and make the sober moon Witness of joys that shun the sight
of noon.

Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball, The snug close party, or the
splendid hall, Where Night, down stooping from her ebon throne, Views
constellations brighter than her own.

?Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined, The balm of care, Elysium of the mind.

Innocent! Oh, if venerable Time Slain at the foot of Pleasure be no crime, Then,
with his silver beard and magic wand, Let Comus rise archbishop of the land;

Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe, Grand metropolitan of all the
tribe. Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast, The rank debauch suits
Clodio’s filthy taste.

Rufillus, exquisitely form’d by rule, Not of the moral but the dancing school,
Wonders at Clodio’s follies, in a tone As tragical as others at his own.

He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score, Then kill a constable, and drink
five more; But he can draw a pattern, make a tart, And has the ladies’ etiquette
by heart.

Go, fool; and, arm in arm with Clodio, plead Your cause before a bar you little
dread; But know, the law that bids the drunkard die Is far too just to pass the
trifler by.

Both baby-featured, and of infant size, View’d from a distance, and with
heedless eyes, Folly and Innocence are so alike, The difference, though
essential, fails to strike.

Yet Folly ever has a vacant stare, A simpering countenance, and a trifling air;
But Innocence, sedate, serene, erect, Delights us, by engaging our respect.

Man, Nature’s guest by invitation sweet, Receives from her both appetite and
treat;

But, if he play the glutton and exceed, His benefactress blushes at the deed.
For Nature, nice, as liberal to dispense, Made nothing but a brute the slave of
sense.

Daniel ate pulse by choice-example rare!

Heaven bless’d the youth, and made him fresh and fair.

Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan, Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan:

He snuffs far off the anticipated joy;

Turtle and venison all his thoughts employ;

Prepares for meals as jockeys take a sweat, Oh, nauseous!-an emetic for a whet!
Will Providence o’erlook the wasted good?

Temperance were no virtue if he could. That pleasures, therefore, or what such
we call, Are hurtful, is a truth confess’d by all. And some, that seem to
threaten virtue less Still hurtful in the abuse, or by the excess. Is man, then,
only for his torment placed The centre of delights he may not taste?

Like fabled Tantalus, condemn’d to hear The precious stream still purling in his
ear, Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curst With prohibition and perpetual
thirst?

No, wrangler-destitute of shame and sense; The precept, that enjoins him
abstinence, Forbids him none but the licentious joy, Whose fruit, though fair,
tempts only to destroy.

Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid In every bosom where her nest is made,
Hatch’d by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in
his breast. No pleasure? Are domestic comforts dead? Are all the nameless sweets
of friendship fled? Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame, Good sense, good
health, good conscience, and good fame?

All these belong to virtue, and all prove That virtue has a title to your love.
Have you no touch of pity, that the poor Stand starved at your inhospitable
door? Or if yourself, too scantily supplied, Need help, let honest industry
provide.

Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart:

These both are pleasures to the feeling heart. No pleasure? Has some sickly
eastern waste Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast? Can British Paradise no
scenes afford To please her sated and indifferent lord? Are sweet philosophy’s
enjoyments run Quite to the lees? And has religion none?

Brutes capable would tell you ?tis a lie, And judge you from the kennel and the
stye.

Delights like these, ye sensual and profane, Ye are bid, begg’d, besought , to
entertain;

Call’d to these crystal streams, do ye turn off Obscene to swill and swallow at
a trough?

Envy the beast, then, on whom Heaven bestows Your pleasures, with no curses at
the close.

Pleasure admitted in undue degree Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment
free.

?Tis not alone the grape’s enticing juice Unnerves the moral powers, and mars
their use;

Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame, And woman, lovely woman, does the same.
The heart, surrender’d to the ruling power Of some ungovern’d passion every
hour, Finds by degrees the truths that once bore sway, And all their deep
impressions, wear away; So coin grows smooth, in traffic current pass’d, Till
Caesar’s image is effaced at last. The breach, though small at first, soon
opening wide, In rushes folly with a full-moon tide, Then welcome errors, of
whatever size, To justify it by a thousand lies. As creeping ivy clings to wood
or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon; So sophistry cleaves close to
and protects Sin’s rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care, First wish to be imposed on, and
then are. And lest the fulsome artifice should fail, Themselves will hide its
coarseness with a veil. Not more industrious are the just and true To give to
Virtue what is Virtue’s due- The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth, And
call her charms to public notice forth- Than Vice’s mean and disingenuous race
To hide the shocking features of her face. Her form with dress and lotion they
repair;

Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair. The sacred implement I now employ
Might prove a mischief, or at best a toy; A trifle, if it move but to amuse;

But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse, Worse than a poniard in the basest
hand, It stabs at once the morals of a land.

Ye writers of what none with safety reads, Footing it in the dance that Fancy
leads;

Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend, Snivelling and drivelling folly
without end; Whose corresponding misses fill the ream With sentimental frippery
and dream, Caught in a delicate soft silken net By some lewd earl, or rake-hell
baronet:

Ye pimps, who, under virtue’s fair pretence, Steal to the closet of young
innocence, And teach her, inexperienced yet and green, To scribble as you
scribbled at fifteen;

Who, kindling a combustion of desire, With some cold moral think to quench the
fire;

Though all your engineering proves in vain, The dribbling stream ne’er puts it
out again:

O that a verse had power, and could command Far, far away, these flesh-flies of
the land, Who fasten without mercy on the fair, And suck, and leave a craving
maggot there!

Howe’er disguised the inflammatory tale, And cover’d with a fine-spun specious
veil;

Such writers, and such readers, owe the gust And relish of their pleasure all to
lust. But the muse, eagle-pinion’d, has in view A quarry more important still
than you;

Down, down the wind she swims, and sails away, Now stoops upon it, and now
grasps the prey.

Petronius! all the muses weep for thee; But every tear shall scald thy memory:
The graces too, while Virtue at their shrine Lay bleeding under that soft hand
of thine, Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast, Abhorr’d the sacrifice, and
cursed the priest.

Thou polish’d and high-finish’d foe to truth, Graybeard corrupter of our
listening youth, To purge and skim away the filth of vice, That so refined it
might the more entice, Then pour it on the morals of thy son, To taint his
heart, was worthy of thine own!

Now, while the poison all high life pervades, Write, if thou canst, one letter
from the shades, One, and one only, charged with deep regret, That thy worst
part, thy principles, live yet;

One sad epistle thence may cure mankind Of the plague spread by bundles left
behind.

?Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears, Our most important are our earliest
years; The mind, impressible and soft, with ease Imbibes and copies what she
hears and sees, And through life’s labyrinth holds fast the clue That Education
gives her, false or true.

Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;

Man’s coltish disposition asks the thong; And without discipline the favourite
child, Like a neglected forester, runs wild. But we, as if good qualities would
grow Spontaneous, take but little pains to sow:

We give some Latin and a smatch of Greek;

Teach him to fence and figure twice a week; And having done, we think, the best
we can, Praise his proficiency, and dub him man. From school to Cam or Isis, and
thence home; And thence with all convenient speed to Rome, With reverend tutor,
clad in habit lay, To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day; With
memorandum-book for every town, And every post, and where the chaise broke down;
His stock, a few French phrases got by heart, With much to learn, but nothing to
impart; The youth, obedient to his sire’s commands, Sets off a wanderer into
foreign lands.

Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair, With awkward gait, stretch’d neck,
and silly stare, Discover huge cathedrals built with stone, And steeples
towering high, much like our own; But shew peculiar light by many a grin At
Popish practices observed within.

Ere long some bowing, smirking, smart abb?

Remarks two loiterers that have lost their way;

And, being always primed with politesse For men of their appearance and address,
With much compassion undertakes the task To tell them more than they have wit to
ask;

Points to inscriptions wheresoe’er they tread, Such as, when legible, were never
read, But being canker’d now and half worn out, Craze antiquarian brains with
endless doubt;

Some headless hero, or some Caesar shews- Defective only in his Roman nose;

Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans, Models of Herculaneum pots and pans; And
sells them medals, which, if neither rare Nor ancient, will be so, preserved
with care.

Strange the recital! from whatever cause His great improvement and new lights he
draws, The squire, once bashful, is shamefaced no more, But teems with powers he
never felt before;

Whether increased momentum, and the force With which from clime to clime he sped
his course (As axles sometimes kindle as they go), Chafed him, and brought dull
nature to a glow; Or whether clearer skies and softer air, That make Italian
flowers so sweet and fair, Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran, Unfolded
genially, and spread the man;

Returning, he proclaims, by many a grace, By shrugs and strange contortions of
his face, How much a dunce, that has been sent to roam, Excels a dunce that has
been kept at home.

Accomplishments have taken virtue’s place, And wisdom falls before exterior
grace:

We slight the precious kernel of the stone, And toil to polish its rough coat
alone. A just deportment, manners graced with ease, Elegant phrase, and figure
form’d to please, Are qualities that seem to comprehend Whatever parents,
guardians, schools, intend;

Hence an unfurnish’d and a listless mind, Though busy, trifling; empty, though
refined;

Hence all that interferes, and dares to clash With indolence and luxury, is
trash;

While learning, once the man’s exclusive pride, Seems verging fast towards the
female side.

Learning itself, received into a mind By nature weak, or viciously inclined,
Serves but to lead philosophers astray, Where children would with ease discern
the way. And of all arts sagacious dupes invent, To cheat themselves and gain
the world’s assent, The worst is-Scripture warp’d from its intent. The carriage
bowls along, and all are pleased If Tom be sober, and the wheels well greased;
But if the rogue be gone a cup too far, Left out his linchpin, or forgot his
tar, It suffers interruption and delay, And meets with hindrance in the
smoothest way. When some hypothesis absurd and vain Has fill’d with all its
fumes a critic’s brain, The text that sorts not with his darling whim, Though
plain to others, is obscure to him. The will made subject to a lawless force,
All is irregular, and out of course; And Judgment drunk, and bribed to lose his
way, Winks hard, and talks of darkness at noonday. A critic on the sacred book
should be Candid and learn’d, dispassionate and free;

Free from the wayward bias bigots feel, From fancy’s influence, and intemperate
zeal; But above all (or let the wretch refrain, Nor touch the page he cannot but
profane), Free from the domineering power of lust; A lewd interpreter is never
just.

How shall I speak thee, or thy power address, Thou god of our idolatry, the
Press? By thee religion, liberty, and laws, Exert their influence and advance
their cause: By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh’s land befell, Diffused, make
Earth the vestibule of Hell;

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

Philosophers, who darken and put out Eternal truth by everlasting doubt;

Church quacks, with passions under no command, Who fill the world with doctrines
contraband, Discoverers of they know not what, confined Within no bounds-the
blind that lead the blind; To streams of popular opinion drawn, Deposit in those
shallows all their spawn. The wriggling fry soon fill the creeks around,
Poisoning the waters where their swarms abound.

Scorn’d by the nobler tenants of the flood, Minnows and gudgeons gorge the
unwholesome food. The propagated myriads spread so fast, E’en Leuwenhoeck
himself would stand aghast, Employ’d to calculate the enormous sum, And own his
crab-computing powers o’ercome. Is this hyperbole? The world well known, Your
sober thoughts will hardly find it one.

Fresh confidence the speculatist takes From every hair-brain’d proselyte he
makes; And therefore prints: himself but half deceived, Till others have the
soothing tale believed.

Hence comment after comment, spun as fine As bloated spiders draw the flimsy
line.

Hence the same word that bids our lusts obey Is misapplied to sanctify their
sway.

If stubborn Greek refuse to be his friend, Hebrew or Syriac shall be forced to
bend;

If languages and copies all cry, No- Somebody proved it centuries ago.

Like trout pursued, the critic in despair Darts to the mud, and finds his safety
there:

Women, whom custom has forbid to fly The scholar’s pitch (the scholar best knows
why), With all the simple and unletter’d poor, Admire his learning, and almost
adore.

Whoever errs, the priest can ne’er be wrong, With such fine words familiar to
his tongue.

Ye ladies! (for, indifferent in your cause, I should deserve to forfeit all
applause) Whatever shocks or gives the least offence To virtue, delicacy, truth,
or sense (Try the criterion, ?tis a faithful guide), Nor has, nor can have,
Scripture on its side.

None but an author knows an author’s cares, Or Fancy’s fondness for the child
she bears.

Committed once into the public arms, The baby seems to smile with added charms.

Like something precious ventured far from shore, ?Tis valued for the danger’s
sake the more.

He views it with complacency supreme, Solicits kind attention to his dream; And
daily, more enamour’d of the cheat, Kneels, and asks Heaven to bless the dear
deceit. So one, whose story serves at least to shew Men loved their own
productions long ago, Woo’d an unfeeling statue for his wife, Nor rested till
the gods had given it life.

If some mere driveller suck the sugar’d fib, One that still needs his
leading-string and bib, And praise his genius, he is soon repaid In praise
applied to the same part-his head; For ?tis a rule that holds for ever true,
Grant me discernment, and I grant it you.

Patient of contradiction as a child, Affable, humble, diffident, and mild;

Such was Sir Isaac, and such Boyle and Locke; Your blunderer is as sturdy as a
rock. The creature is so sure to kick and bite, A muleteer’s the man to set him
right.

First Appetite enlists him Truth’s sworn foe, Then obstinate Self-will confirms
him so.

Tell him he wanders; that his error leads To fatal ills; that, though the path
he treads Be flowery, and he see no cause of fear, Death and the pains of hell
attend him there: In vain; the slave of arrogance and pride, He has no hearing
on the prudent side. His still refuted quirks he still repeats;

New raised objections with new quibbles meets;

Till, sinking in the quicksand he defends, He dies disputing, and the contest
ends- But not the mischiefs; they, still left behind, Like thistle-seeds, are
sown by every wind.

Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill;

Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will;

And, with a clear and shining lamp supplied, First put it out, then take it for
a guide.

Halting on crutches of unequal size, One leg by truth supported, one by lies,
They sidle to the goal with awkward pace, Secure of nothing-but to lose the
race.

Faults in the life breed errors in the brain, And these reciprocally those
again. The mind and conduct mutually imprint And stamp their image in each
other’s mint;

Each, sire and dam of an infernal race, Begetting and conceiving all that’s
base.

None sends his arrow to the mark in view, Whose hand is feeble, or his aim
untrue. For though, ere yet the shaft is on the wind, Or when it first forsakes
the elastic string, It err but little from the intended line, It falls at last
far wide of his design; So he who seeks a mansion in the sky, Must watch his
purpose with a steadfast eye; That prize belongs to none but the sincere, The
least obliquity is fatal here. With caution taste the sweet Circean cup;

He that sips often, at last drinks it up.

Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive To strip them off, ?tis being flay’d
alive.

Call’d to the temple of impure delight, He that abstains, and he alone, does
right.

If a wish wander that way, call it home;

He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam. But if you pass the threshold, you are
caught;

Die then, if power Almighty save you not.

There hardening by degrees, till double steel’d, Take leave of nature’s God, and
God reveal’d;

Then laugh at all you trembled at before;

And, joining the freethinkers’ brutal roar, Swallow the two grand nostrums they
dispense- That Scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense.

If clemency revolted by abuse Be damnable, then damn’d without excuse.

Some dream that they can silence, when they will, The storm of passion, and say,
Peace, be still: But ’Thus far and no farther,’ when address’d To the wild wave,
or wilder human breast, Implies authority that never can, That never ought to be
the lot of man.

But, muse, forbear; long flights forebode a fall;

Strike on the deep-toned chord the sum of all.

Hear the just law-the judgment of the skies!

He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies; And he that will be cheated to
the last, Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast. But if the wanderer his
mistake discern, Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return, Bewilder’d once,
must he bewail his loss For ever and for ever? No-the cross!

There and there only (though the deist rave, And atheist, if Earth bear so base
a slave);

There and there only is the power to save.

There no delusive hope invites despair; No mockery meets you, no deception
there. The spells and charms, that blinded you before, All vanish there, and
fascinate no more.

I am no preacher, let this hint suffice- The cross once seen is death to every
vice;

Else He that hung there suffer’d all his pain, Bled, groan’d, and agonised, and
died, in vain.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: TRUTH
========================================================================

Truth By William Cowper

TRUTH.

’’’’’’’’’’’’_____________ Pensantur trutin’-Hor. Lib. ii. Ep. 1.

’’’’’’’’’’’’_____________ Man, on the dubious waves of error toss’d, His ship
half founder’d, and his compass lost, Sees, far as human optics may command, A
sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land;

Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies;

Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies!

Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes, His well-built systems, philosophic
dreams;

Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell!

He reads his sentence at the flames of hell.

Hard lot of man-to toil for the reward Of virtue, and yet lose it! Wherefore
hard?- He that would win the race must guide his horse Obedient to the customs
of the course;

Else, though unequall’d to the goal he flies, A meaner than himself shall gain
the prize.

Grace leads the right way: if you choose the wrong, Take it and perish; but
restrain your tongue;

Charge not, with light sufficient and left free, Your wilful suicide on God’s
decree.

O how unlike the complex works of man, Heav’n’s easy, artless, unencumber’d
plan! No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clog the
pile; From ostentation, as from weakness, free, It stands like the cerulian arch
we see, Majestic in its own simplicity.

Inscribed above the portal, from afar Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,
Legible only by the light they give, Stand the soul-quickening words-believe,
and live.

Too many, shock’d at what should charm them most, Despise the plain direction,
and are lost.

Heaven on such terms! (they cry with proud disdain) Incredible, impossible, and
vain!- Rebel, because ?tis easy to obey; And scorn, for its own sake, the
gracious way.

These are the sober, in whose cooler brains Some thought of immortality remains;
The rest too busy or too gay to wait On the sad theme, their everlasting state,
Sport for a day, and perish in a night; The foam upon the waters not so light.
Who judged the Pharisee? What odious cause Exposed him to the vengeance of the
laws? Had he seduced a virgin, wrong’d a friend, Or stabb’d a man to serve some
private end? Was blasphemy his sin? Or did he stray From the strict duties of
the sacred day?

Sit long and late at the carousing board?

(Such were the sins with which he charged his Lord.) No-the man’s morals were
exact. What then?

?Twas his ambition to be seen of men; His virtues were his pride; and that one
vice Made all his virtues gewgaws of no price;

He wore them as fine trappings for a show, A praying, synagogue-frequenting
beau. The self-applauding bird, the peacock, see- Mark what a sumptuous pharisee
is he!

Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfold His radiant glories, azure, green, and
gold:

He treads as if, some solemn music near, His measured step were govern’d by his
ear; And seems to say-Ye meaner fowl give place;

I am all splendour, dignity, and grace! Not so the pheasant on his charms
presumes, Though he, too, has a glory in his plumes.

He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mien To the close copse or far
sequester’d green, And shines without desiring to be seen. The plea of works, as
arrogant and vain, Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain; Not more
affronted by avow’d neglect, Than by the mere dissembler’s feign’d respect.

What is all righteousness that men devise?

What-but a sordid bargain for the skies! But Christ as soon would abdicate his
own, As stoop from heaven to sell the proud a throne. His dwelling a recess in
some rude rock;

Book, beads, and maple dish, his meagre stock; In shirt of hair and weeds of
canvas dress’d, Girt with a bell-rope that the Pope has bless’d;

Adust with stripes told out for every crime, And sore tormented, long before his
time; His prayer preferr’d to saints that cannot aid, His praise postponed, and
never to be paid;

See the sage hermit, by mankind admired, With all that bigotry adopts inspired,
Wearing out life in his religious whim, Till his religious whimsy wears out him.
His works, his abstinence, his zeal allow’d, You think him humble-God accounts
him proud.

High in demand, though lowly in pretence, Of all his conduct this the genuine
sense- My penitential stripes, my streaming blood, Have purchased heaven, and
proved my title good.

Turn eastward now, and fancy shall apply To your weak sight her telescopic eye.
The Bramin kindles on his own bare head The sacred fire, self-torturing his
trade! His voluntary pains, severe and long, Would give a barbarous air to
British song; No grand inquisitor could worse invent, Than he contrives to
suffer well content. Which is the saintlier worthy of the two?

Past all dispute, yon anchorite, say you. Your sentence and mine differ. What’s
a name?

I say the Bramin has the fairer claim.

If sufferings Scripture nowhere recommends, Devised by self, to answer selfish
ends, Give saintship, then all Europe must agree Ten starveling hermits suffer
less than he. The truth is (if the truth may suit your ear, And prejudice have
left a passage clear) Pride has attain’d a most luxuriant growth, And poison’d
every virtue in them both.

Pride may be pamper’d while the flesh grows lean;

Humility may clothe an English dean; That grace was Cowper’s-his, confess’d by
all- Though placed in golden Durham’s second stall. Not all the plenty of a
bishop’s board, His palace, and his lacqueys, and ’My Lord,’

More nourish pride, that condescending vice, Than abstinence, and beggary, and
lice;

It thrives in misery, and abundant grows: In misery fools upon themselves
impose. But why before us Protestants produce An Indian mystic or a French
recluse? Their sin is plain; but what have we to fear, Reform’d and well
instructed? You shall hear.

Yon ancient prude, whose wither’d features shew She might be young some forty
years ago, Her elbows pinion’d close upon her hips, Her head erect, her fan upon
her lips, Her eyebrows arch’d, her eyes both gone astray To watch yon amorous
couple in their play, With bony and unkerchief’d neck defies The rude inclemency
of wintry skies, And sails with lappet head and mincing airs Duly at clink of
bell to morning prayers. To thrift and parsimony much inclined, She yet allows
herself that boy behind; The shivering urchin, bending as he goes, With slipshod
heels and dewdrop at his nose, His predecessor’s coat advanced to wear, Which
future pages yet are doom’d to share, Carries her Bible tuck’d beneath his arm,
And hides his hands to keep his fingers warm.

She, half an angel in her own account, Doubts not hereafter with the saints to
mount, Though not a grace appears on strictest search, But that she fasts, and
item, goes to church.

Conscious of age, she recollects her youth, And tells, not always with an eye to
truth, Who spann’d her waist, and who, where’er he came, Scrawl’d upon glass
Miss Bridget’s lovely name; Who stole her slipper, fill’d it with tokay, And
drank the little bumper every day. Of temper as envenom’d as an asp, Censorious,
and her every word a wasp; In faithful memory she records the crimes, Or real,
or fictitious, of the times;

Laughs at the reputations she has torn, And holds them dangling at arm’s length
in scorn.

Such are the fruits of sanctimonious pride, Of malice fed while flesh is
mortified:

Take, madam, the reward of all your prayers, Where hermits and where Bramins
meet with theirs; Your portion is with them.-Nay, never frown, But, if you
please, some fathoms lower down.

Artist, attend-your brushes and your paint- Produce them-take a chair-now draw a
saint.

Oh, sorrowful and sad! the streaming tears Channel her cheeks-a Niobe appears!
Is this a saint? Throw tints and all away- True piety is cheerful as the day,
Will weep indeed and heave a pitying groan For others’ woes, but smiles upon her
own.

What purpose has the King of saints in view?

Why falls the gospel like a gracious dew? To call up plenty from the teeming
earth, Or curse the desert with a tenfold dearth? Is it that Adam’s offspring
may be saved From servile fear, or be the more enslaved? To loose the links that
gall’d mankind before. Or bind them faster on, and add still more? The freeborn
Christian has no chains to prove, Or, if a chain, the golden one of love: No
fear attends to quench his glowing fires, What fear he feels his gratitude
inspires. Shall he, for such deliverance freely wrought, Recompense ill? He
trembles at the thought. His Master’s interest and his own combined Prompt every
movement of his heart and mind:

Thought, word, and deed, his liberty evince, His freedom is the freedom of a
prince.

Man’s obligations infinite, of course His life should prove that he perceives
their force; His utmost he can render is but small- The principle and motive all
in all.

You have two servants-Tom, an arch, sly rogue, From top to toe the Geta now in
vogue, Genteel in figure, easy in address, Moves without noise, and swift as an
express, Reports a message with a pleasing grace, Expert in all the duties of
his place;

Say, on what hinge does his obedience move? Has he a world of gratitude and
love?

No, not a spark-’tis all mere sharper’s play;

He likes your house, your housemaid, and your pay;

Reduce his wages, or get rid of her, Tom quits you, with-Your most obedient,
sir. The dinner served, Charles takes his usual stand, Watches your eye,
anticipates command;

Sighs, if perhaps your appetite should fail;

And, if he but suspects a frown, turns pale;

Consults all day your interest and your ease, Richly rewarded if he can but
please;

And, proud to make his firm attachment known, To save your life would nobly risk
his own.

Now which stands highest in your serious thought?

Charles, without doubt, say you-and so he ought;

One act, that from a thankful heart proceeds, Excels ten thousand mercenary
deeds.

Thus Heaven approves as honest and sincere The work of generous love and filial
fear; But with averted eyes the omniscient Judge Scorns the base hireling and
the slavish drudge. Where dwell these matchless saints? old Curio cries.

E’en at your side, sir, and before your eyes, The favour’d few-the enthusiasts
you despise.

And, pleased at heart because on holy ground, Sometimes a canting hypocrite is
found, Reproach a people with his single fall, And cast his filthy raiment at
them all.

Attend! an apt similitude shall shew Whence springs the conduct that offends you
so.

See where it smokes along the sounding plain, Blown all aslant, a driving,
dashing rain, Peal upon peal redoubling all around, Shakes it again and faster
to the ground;

Now flashing wide, now glancing as in play, Swift beyond thought the lightnings
dart away.

Ere yet it came the traveller urged his steed, And hurried, but with
unsuccessful speed;

Now drench’d throughout, and hopeless of his case, He drops the rein, and leaves
him to his pace.

Suppose, unlook’d-for in a scene so rude, Long hid by interposing hill or wood,
Some mansion, neat and elegantly dress’d, By some kind hospitable heart
possess’d, Offer him warmth, security, and rest;

Think with what pleasure, safe, and at his ease, He hears the tempest howling in
the trees;

What glowing thanks his lips and heart employ, While danger past is turn’d to
present joy. So fares it with the sinner, when he feels A growing dread of
vengeance at his heels: His conscience like a glassy lake before, Lash’d into
foaming waves, begins to roar; The law, grown clamorous, though silent long,
Arraigns him, charges him with every wrong- Asserts the right of his offended
Lord, And death, or restitution, is the word: The last impossible, he fears the
first, And, having well deserved, expects the worst.

Then welcome refuge and a peaceful home;

O for a shelter from the wrath to come!

Crush me, ye rocks; ye falling mountains, hide, Or bury me in ocean’s angry
tide!- The scrutiny of those all-seeing eyes I dare not-And you need not, God
replies; The remedy you want I freely give; The Book shall teach you-read,
believe, and live!

?Tis done-the raging storm is heard no more, Mercy receives him on her peaceful
shore: And Justice, guardian of the dread command, Drops the red vengeance from
his willing hand. A soul redeem’d demands a life of praise;

Hence the complexion of his future days, Hence a demeanour holy and unspeck’d,
And the world’s hatred, as its sure effect.

Some lead a life unblameable and just, Their own dear virtue their unshaken
trust:

They never sin-or if (as all offend) Some trivial slips their daily walk attend,
The poor are near at hand, the charge is small, A slight gratuity atones for
all. For though the Pope has lost his interest here, And pardons are not sold as
once they were, No Papist more desirous to compound, Than some grave sinners
upon English ground. That plea refuted, other quirks they seek- Mercy is
infinite, and man is weak; The future shall obliterate the past, And heaven, no
doubt, shall be their home at last.

Come, then-a still, small whisper in your ear- He has no hope who never had a
fear; And he that never doubted of his state, He may perhaps-perhaps he may-too
late. The path to bliss abounds with many a snare;

Learning is one, and wit, however rare. The Frenchman, first in literary fame
(Mention him, if you please. Voltaire?-The same), With spirit, genius,
eloquence, supplied, Lived long, wrote much, laugh’d heartily, and died; The
Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew Bon-mots to gall the Christian and
the Jew; An infidel in health, but what when sick?

Oh-then a text would touch him at the quick;

View him at Paris in his last career, Surrounding throngs the demi-god revere;

Exalted on his pedestal of pride, And fumed with frankincense on every side, He
begs their flattery with his latest breath, And, smother’d in’t at last, is
praised to death!

Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door, Pillow and bobbins all her little
store;

Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads about the
live-long day, Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her
heart and pocket light;

She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding, and no wit,
Receives no praise; but though her lot be such (Toilsome and indigent), she
renders much;

Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true- A truth the brilliant Frenchman
never knew; And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes, Her title to a
treasure in the skies.

Oh, happy peasant! Oh, unhappy bard! His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward;

He praised perhaps for ages yet to come, She never heard of half a mile from
home:

He, lost in errors, his vain heart prefers, She, safe in the simplicity of hers.
Not many wise, rich, noble, or profound In science win one inch of heavenly
ground. And is it not a mortifying thought The poor should gain it, and the rich
should not?

No-the voluptuaries, who ne’er forget One pleasure lost, lose heaven without
regret;

Regret would rouse them, and give birth to prayer, Prayer would add faith, and
faith would fix them there. Not that the Former of us all in this, Or aught he
does, is govern’d by caprice; The supposition is replete with sin, And bears the
brand of blasphemy burnt in. Not so-the silver trumpet’s heavenly call Sounds
for the poor, but sounds alike for all:

Kings are invited, and would kings obey, No slaves on earth more welcome were
than they; But royalty, nobility, and state, Are such a dead preponderating
weight, That endless bliss (how strange soe’er it seem), In counterpoise, flies
up and kicks the beam.

?Tis open, and ye cannot enter-why?

Because ye will not, Conyers would reply- And he says much that many may dispute
And cavil at with ease, but none refute.

Oh, bless’d effect of penury and want, The seed sown there, how vigorous is the
plant! No soil like poverty for growth divine, As leanest land supplies the
richest wine.

Earth gives too little, giving only bread, To nourish pride, or turn the weakest
head: To them the sounding jargon of the schools Seems what it is-a cap and
bells for fools: The light they walk by, kindled from above, Shews them the
shortest way to life and love:

They, strangers to the controversial field, Where deists, always foil’d, yet
scorn to yield, And never check’d by what impedes the wise, Believe, rush
forward, and possess the prize.

Envy, ye great, the dull unletter’d small:

Ye have much cause for envy-but not all.

We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways, And one who wears a coronet, and
prays;

Like gleanings of an olive-tree, they shew Here and there one upon the topmost
bough.

How readily, upon the Gospel plan, That question has its answer-What is man?

Sinful and weak, in every sense a wretch; An instrument, whose chords, upon the
stretch, And strain’d to the last screw that he can bear, Yield only discord in
his Maker’s ear;

Once the blest residence of truth divine, Glorious as Solyma’s interior shrine,
Where, in his own oracular bode, Dwelt visibly the light-creating God; But made
long since, like Babylon of old, A den of mischiefs never to be told: And she,
once mistress of the realms around, Now scatter’d wide and nowhere to be found,
As soon shall rise and re-ascend the throne, By native power and energy her own,
As nature, at her own peculiar cost, Restore to man the glories he has lost.

Go-bid the winter cease to chill the year, Replace the wandering comet in his
sphere.

Then boast (but wait for that unhoped-for hour) The self-restoring arm of human
power. But what is man in his own proud esteem?

Hear him-himself the poet and the theme: A monarch clothed with majesty and awe,
His mind his kingdom, and his will his law;

Grace in his mien, and glory in his eyes, Supreme on earth, and worthy of the
skies, Strength in his heart, dominion in his nod, And, thunderbolts excepted,
quite a God! So sings he, charm’d with his own mind and form, The song
magnificent-the theme a worm!

Himself so much the source of his delight, His Maker has no beauty in his sight.

See where he sits, contemplative and fix’d, Pleasure and wonder in his features
mix’d, His passions tamed and all at his control, How perfect the composure of
his soul!

Complacency has breathed a gentle gale O’er all his thoughts, and swell’d his
easy sail: His books well trimm’d, and in the gayest style, Like regimental
coxcombs, rank and file, Adorn his intellects as well as shelves, And teach him
notions splendid as themselves: The Bible only stands neglected there, Though
that of all most worthy of his care;

And, like an infant troublesome awake, Is left to sleep for peace and quiet
sake.

What shall the man deserve of human kind, Whose happy skill and industry
combined Shall prove (what argument could never yet) The Bible an imposture and
a cheat? The praises of the libertine profess’d, The worst of men, and curses of
the best. Where should the living, weeping o’er his woes; The dying, trembling
at the awful close; Where the betray’d, forsaken, and oppress’d; The thousands
whom the world forbids to rest; Where should they find (those comforts at an
end, The Scripture yields), or hope to find, a friend?

Sorrow might muse herself to madness then, And, seeking exile from the sight of
men, Bury herself in solitude profound, Grow frantic with her pangs, and bite
the ground.

Thus often Unbelief, grown sick of life, Flies to the tempting pool, or felon
knife. The jury meet, the coroner is short, And lunacy the verdict of the court.

Reverse the sentence, let the truth be known, Such lunacy is ignorance alone;

They knew not, what some bishops may not know, That Scripture is the only cure
of woe. That field of promise how it flings abroad Its odour o’er the
Christian’s thorny road! The soul, reposing on assured relief, Feels herself
happy amidst all her grief, Forgets her labour as she toils along, Weeps tears
of joy, and bursts into a song. But the same word, that, like the polish’d
share, Ploughs up the roots of a believer’s care, Kills too the flowery weeds,
where’er they grow, That bind the sinner’s Bacchanalian brow.

Oh, that unwelcome voice of heavenly love, Sad messenger of mercy from above!

How does it grate upon his thankless ear, Crippling his pleasures with the cramp
of fear! His will and judgment at continual strife, That civil war embitters all
his life; In vain he points his powers against the skies, In vain he closes or
averts his eyes, Truth will intrude-she bids him yet beware; And shakes the
sceptic in the scorner’s chair.

Though various foes against the Truth combine, Pride above all opposes her
design;

Pride of a growth superior to the rest, The subtlest serpent with the loftiest
crest, Swells at the thought, and, kindling into rage, Would hiss the cherub
Mercy from the stage. And is the soul indeed so lost?-she cries, Fallen from her
glory, and too weak to rise?

Torpid and dull, beneath a frozen zone, Has she no spark that may be deem’d her
own?

Grant her indebted to what zealots call Grace undeserved, yet surely not for
all!

Some beams of rectitude she yet displays, Some love of virtue, and some power to
praise; Can lift herself above corporeal things, And, soaring on her own
unborrow’d wings, Possess herself of all that’s good or true, Assert the skies,
and vindicate her due.

Past indiscretion is a venial crime; And if the youth, unmellow’d yet by time,
Bore on his branch, luxuriant then and rude, Fruits of a blighted size, austere
and crude, Maturer years shall happier stores produce, And meliorate the
well-concocted juice.

Then, conscious of her meritorious zeal, To justice she may make her bold
appeal; And leave to Mercy, with a tranquil mind, The worthless and unfruitful
of mankind, Hear then how Mercy, slighted and defied, Retorts the affront
against the crown of pride.

Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorr’d, And the fool with it, who insults his
Lord. The atonement a Redeemer’s love has wrought Is not for you-the righteous
need it not.

Seest thou yon harlot, wooing all she meets, The worn-out nuisance of the public
streets, Herself from morn to night, from night to morn, Her own abhorrence, and
as much your scorn? The gracious shower, unlimited and free, Shall fall on her,
when Heaven denies it thee. Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift- That
man is dead in sin, and life a gift. Is virtue, then, unless of Christian
growth, Mere fallacy, or foolishness, or both?

Ten thousand sages lost in endless woe, For ignorance of what they could not
know?- That speech betrays at once a bigot’s tongue, Charge not a God with such
outrageous wrong!

Truly, not I-the partial light men have, My creed persuades me, well employ’d,
may save;

While he that scorns the noon-day beam, perverse, Shall find the blessing,
unimproved, a curse.

Let heathen worthies, whose exalted mind Left sensuality and dross behind,
Possess, for me, their undisputed lot, And take, unenvied, the reward they
sought, But still in virtue of a Saviour’s plea, Not blind by choice, but
destined not to see. Their fortitude and wisdom were a flame Celestial, though
they knew not whence it came, Derived from the same source of light and grace,
That guides the Christian in his swifter race; Their judge was conscience, and
her rule their law; That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe, Led them,
however faltering, faint, and slow, From what they knew to what they wish’d to
know. But let not him that shares a brighter day Traduce the splendour of a
noontide ray, Prefer the twilight of a darker time, And deem his base stupidity
no crime; The wretch, who slights the bounty of the skies, And sinks, while
favour’d with the means to rise, Shall find them rated at their full amount, The
good he scorn’d all carried to account.

Marshalling all his terrors as he came, Thunder, and earthquake, and devouring
flame, From Sinai’s top Jehovah gave the law- Life for obedience-death for every
flaw. When the great Sovereign would his will express, He gives a perfect rule,
what can he less? And guards it with a sanction as severe As vengeance can
inflict, or sinners fear:

Else his own glorious rights he would disclaim, And man might safely trifle with
his name.

He bids him glow with unremitting love To all on earth, and to himself above;

Condemns the injurious deed, the slanderous tongue, The thought that meditates a
brother’s wrong:

Brings not alone the more conspicuous part, His conduct, to the test, but tries
his heart.

Hark! universal nature shook and groan’d, ?Twas the last trumpet-see the Judge
enthroned:

Rouse all your courage at your utmost need, Now summon every virtue, stand and
plead.

What! silent? Is your boasting heard no more? That self-renouncing wisdom,
learn’d before, Had shed immortal glories on your brow, That all your virtues
cannot purchase now.

All joy to the believer! He can speak- Trembling yet happy, confident yet meek.

Since the dear hour that brought me to thy foot, And cut up all my follies by
the root, I never trusted in an arm but thine, Nor hoped, but in thy
righteousness divine: My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled, Were but the
feeble efforts of a child;

Howe’er perform’d, it was their brightest part, That they proceeded from a
grateful heart:

Cleansed in thine own all-purifying blood, Forgive their evil and accept their
good:

I cast them at thy feet-my only plea Is what it was, dependence upon thee:

While struggling in the vale of tears below, That never fail’d, nor shall it
fail me now.

Angelic gratulations rend the skies, Pride fall unpitied, never more to rise,
Humility is crown’d, and Faith receives the prize.


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-william-cowper/
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