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Spare feast! a radish and an egg.

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
Eggs
Radish
Radishes
Feast
Spare
Spares

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I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.
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Some to the fascination of a name, Surrender judgment hoodwinked.
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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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He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not color'd like his own, and having pow'r T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
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A noisy man is always in the right.
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Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die
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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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They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.
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Learning itself, received into a mind By nature weak, or viciously inclined, Serves but to lead philosophers astray, Where children would with ease discern the way.
William Cowper
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Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.
William Cowper
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Some write a narrative of wars and feats, Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history.
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I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted ev'ning, know.
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Oh, popular applause! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms? The wisest and the best feel urgent need Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales But swell'd into a gust--who then, alas! With all his canvas set, and inexpert, And therefore, heedless, can withstand thy power?
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There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
William Cowper
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Necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs, And luxury the accomplish'd Sofa last.
William Cowper
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Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
William Cowper
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How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at interval upon the ear In cadence sweet now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where Memory slept.
William Cowper
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Knowledge is proud that it knows so much wisdom is humble that it knows no more.
William Cowper
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Go, mark the matchless working of the power That shuts within the seed the future flower Bids these in elegance of form excel. In color these, and those delight the smell Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies, To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
William Cowper
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Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.
William Cowper