William Cowper Quotes

Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour.

O Popular Applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?

Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not.

Reading what they never wrote, Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.

Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know.

Praise enough To fill the ambition of a private man, That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.

Presume to lay their hand upon the ark Of her magnificent and awful cause.

England, with all thy faults, I love thee still— My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free! They touch our country, and their shackles fall.

We have no slaves at home. ─ Then why abroad?

I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.

Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more.

God made the country, and man made the town.