William Cowper
If hindrances obstruct the way, Thy magnanimity display. And let thy strength be seen: But O, if Fortune fill thy sail With more than a propitious gale, Take half thy canvas in.Collection: Half
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away.Collection: Giving
That good diffused may more abundant grow.Collection: May
But truths on which depends our main concern, That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a lustre he that runs may read.Collection: Running
All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.Collection: Giving
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed, / Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost.Collection: Compassion
Toil for the brave! The brave that are no more.Collection: Bravery
The man that hails you Tom or Jack, and proves by thumps upon your back how he esteems your merit, is such a friend, that one had need be very much his friend indeed to pardon or to bear it.Collection: Friendship
Lights of the world, and stars of human race.Collection: Stars
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,- A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Swans
Unmissed but by his dogs and by his groom.Collection: Friendship
The solemn fop; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judgeCollection: Judging
Great offices will have great talents.Collection: Greatness
The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.Collection: Sports
Religion! what treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!Collection: Religion
Heaven speed the canvas, gallantly unfurl'd, To furnish and accommodate a world, To give the Pole the produce of the sun, And knit the unsocial climates into one.Collection: Giving
To trace in Nature's most minute design The signature and stamp of power divine. ... The Invisible in things scarce seen revealed, To whom an atom is an ample field.Collection: Science
Some write a narrative of wars and feats, Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history.Collection: War
How shall I speak thee, or thy power address Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. . . . . Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.Collection: Eden
Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.Collection: And Love
How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!Collection: Idlers
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.Collection: Crush
Philologists, who chase A painting syllable through time and space Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's Ark.Collection: Home
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; he does not feel for man.Collection: Heart
Folly ends where genuine hope begins.Collection: Hope
Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.Collection: Lines
When I thinkof my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair.Collection: Hands