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But still remember, if you mean to please, To press your point with modesty and ease.
William Cowper -
His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.
William Cowper
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But many a crime deemed innocent on earth Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
William Cowper -
Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste His works. Admitted once to his embrace, Thou shalt perceive that thou was blind before: Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart Made pure shall relish with divine delight Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
William Cowper -
I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
William Cowper -
Th' embroid'ry of poetic dreams.
William Cowper -
Absence of occupation is not rest.
William Cowper -
What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
William Cowper
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Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.
William Cowper -
Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
William Cowper -
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed, / Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost.
William Cowper -
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
William Cowper -
A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.
William Cowper -
Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.
William Cowper
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Religion! what treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!
William Cowper -
How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
William Cowper -
A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; The language plain, and incidents well link'd; Tell not as new what ev'ry body knows; and, new or old, still hasten to a close.
William Cowper -
It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
William Cowper -
Tea - the cups that cheer but not inebriate.
William Cowper -
But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.
William Cowper
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Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid, In every bosom where her nest is made, Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
William Cowper -
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again, pronounce a text, Cry hem; and reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!
William Cowper -
Fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
William Cowper -
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.
William Cowper