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An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.

William Cowper

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William Cowper
Age: 68 †
Born: 1731
Born: November 26
Died: 1800
Died: April 25
Hymnwriter
Poet
Poet Lawyer
Translator
Writer
Berkhamsted
Hertfordshire
Straws
Feeble
Tail
Tails
Stuck
Epigram
Thing
Epigrams
Way
Straw
Sting

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This fond attachment to the well-known place Whence first we started into life's long race, Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.
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Then liberty, like day, Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
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Absence of occupation is not rest.
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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.
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Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.
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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.
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The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue the only lasting treasure, truth.
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The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again, pronounce a text, Cry hem and reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!
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Religion does not censure or exclude Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued.
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The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to bear the insupportable fatigue of thinking.
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Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world to see the stir Of the Great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
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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.
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If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one.
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In man or woman, but far most in man, And most of all in man that ministers, And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn: Object of my implacable disgust.
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But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.
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O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
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We bear our shades about us self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.
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Misses! the tale that I relate This lesson seems to carry-- Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper time to marry.
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Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.
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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.
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