William Cowper
William Cowper
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem Yardley-Oak. He was a nephew of the poet Judith Madan...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth26 November 1731
drawing common-sense buckets
Defend me, therefore, common sense, say From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up.
tears flow distress
When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, ah! why forbid the willing tears to flow?
daughter eye sky
Sends Nature forth the daughter of the skies... To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
church dukes enough
The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.
reform begets remorse
Remorse begets reform.
charity and-love journalism
Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.
swans giving age
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
eagles flew invincible
Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.
judgment should mischief
It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.
golden truth-is girdles
Truth is the golden girdle of the globe.
despair purpose purses
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.
beneath blood drawn filled fountain guilty lose
There is a fountain filled with blood / Drawn from Emmanuel's veins; / And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, / Lose all their guilty stains.
cool farewell sound whispering
The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade,/ And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade!
lies lies-and-lying silent
When this poor, lisping, stammering tongue/ Lies silent in the grave.