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William Cowper Quotes

1731–1800 England

William Cowper (26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and hymnodist.

England
Hymnwriters
Poets
Translators

Also known as: Cowper, William

Random William Cowper quote

289 quotes

Thy morning bounties ere I left my home,
The biscuit, or confectionary plum.

We bear our shades about us; self-deprived
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,
And range an Indian waste without a tree.

The Task (1785)

What is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife,
When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?

We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works
Die too.

The Task (1785)

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.

Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782)

As if the world and they were hand and glove.

Table Talk (1782)

Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark,
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.

Retirement (1782)

I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain,
And bear the marks upon a blushing face,
Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.

Conversation (1782)

Unless a love of virtue light the flame,
Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame;
He hides behind a magisterial air
His own offences, and strips others' bare.

Charity (1781)

The pipe, with solemn interposing puff,
Makes half a sentence at a time enough;
The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain,
Then pause, and puff—and speak, and pause again.

Conversation (1782)

Mr. Grenville squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed upon the whole a most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman.

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

On Observing Some Names of Little Note Recorded in the Biographica Britannica (1782)

Toll for the brave —
The brave! that are no more;
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!

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

The Task (1785)

He found it inconvenient to be poor.

An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path.
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will turn aside and let the reptile live.

The Task (1785)

There is a bird who by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow.

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

The Task (1785)

Whoever keeps an open ear
For tattlers will be sure to hear
The trumpet of contention.

Folly such as yours,
Grac'd with a sword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made what enemies could ne'er have done.

The Task (1785)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Cowper (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.