Quote

When one that holds communion with the skies Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings.

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
Rise
Mingles
Wings
Meaner
Sky
Shook
Angel
Skies
Pure
Waters
Water
Communion
Things
Holds
Fill

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I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.
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My soul is sick with every day's report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
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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.
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Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
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Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn, That he who made it, and reveal'd its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age.
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Made poetry a mere mechanic art.
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The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them on the side of virtue.
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As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon, So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.
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Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.
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Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid, In every bosom where her nest is made, Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
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They fix attention, heedless of your pain, With oaths like rivets forced into the brain And e'en when sober truth prevails throughout, They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt.
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Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.
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A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.
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Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
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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.
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A fool must now and then be right, by chance
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In a fleshly tomb, I am buried above ground.
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What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
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Dejection of spirits, which may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant employment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly employed. . . . When I can find no other occupation, I think and when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme.
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A noisy man is always in the right.
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