William Cowper Quotes

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

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

How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.

But the sound of the church-going bell These valleys and rocks never heard; Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell, Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.

A kick that scarce would move a horse May kill a sound divine.

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, 'T is e'en as if an angel shook his wings.

The sounding jargon of the schools.

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

So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can,
Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search
Of argument, employed too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!

Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,
Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloined
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs
And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp.
But fate thy growth decreed.

It seems idolatry with some excuse,
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagined sanctity.

Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all
that once lived here

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

Deem our nation brutes no longer, Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard and stronger Than the colour of our kind.

Fleecy locks and black complexion Cannot forfeit nature's claim; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.