William Cowper Quotes
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To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, And hear His pardoning voice Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.
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Misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case.
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Heaven's harmony is universal love.
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Ten thousand casks, Forever dribbling out their base contents, Touch'd by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. Drink, and be mad then; 'tis your country bids!
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The fall of waters and the song of birds, And hills that echo to the distant berds, Are luxuries excelling all the glare The world can boast, and her chief favorites share.
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The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all; And every soul bawled out, Well done! As loud as he could bawl.
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But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts, The surest presage of the good they seek.
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Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa around, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in
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Man in society is like a flow'r, Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone His faculties expanded in full bloom Shine out, there only reach their proper use.
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Fashion, leader of a chatt'ring train, Whom man for his own hurt permits to reign Who shifts and changes all things but his shape, And would degrade her vot'ry to an ape, The fruitful parent of abuse and wrong, Holds a usurp'd dominion o'er his tongue, There sits and prompts him with his own disgrace, Prescribes the theme, the tone, and the grimace, And when accomplish'd in her wayward school, Calls gentleman whom she has made a fool.
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Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstasy.
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For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not?
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Hast thou not learnd 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 Lords?
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I seem forsaken and alone, / I hear the lion roar; / And every door is shut but one, / And that is Mercy's door.
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Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours.
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The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
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The proud are ever most provoked by pride.
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Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll'd me, minds are never to be sold.
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Strength may wield the ponderous spade, May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home; But elegance, chief grace the garden shows, And most attractive, is the fair result Of thought, the creature of a polished mind.
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Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ills that checker life.
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The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to bear the insupportable fatigue of thinking.
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The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade Pants for the refuge of some rural shade, Where all his long anxieties forgot Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot, Or recollected only to gild o'er And add a smile to what was sweet before, He may possess the joys he thinks he sees, Lay his old age upon the lap of ease, Improve the remnant of his wasted span. And having lived a trifler, die a man.
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Would I describe a preacher, I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.
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How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at interval upon the ear In cadence sweet; now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where Memory slept.