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Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.

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
May
Contrast
Ever
Mood
Wrote
Seem
Strange
Lines
Written
Ludicrous
Seems
Saddest

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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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How readily we wish time spent revoked, that we might try the ground again where once--through inexperience, as we now perceive--we missed that happiness we might have found!
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Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold but, though theirs they have enroll'd me, minds are never to be sold.
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Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
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Man on the dubious waves of error toss'd.
William Cowper
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Not to understand a treasure's worth till time has stole away the slighted good, is cause of half the poverty we feel, and makes the world the wilderness it is.
William Cowper
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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.
William Cowper
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All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.
William Cowper
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Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa around, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in
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Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
William Cowper
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But poverty, with most who whimper forth Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe The effect of laziness, or sottish write.
William Cowper
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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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Th' embroid'ry of poetic dreams.
William Cowper
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Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
William Cowper
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The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
William Cowper
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But many a crime deemed innocent on earth Is registered in Heaven and these no doubt Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
William Cowper
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How various his employments whom the world Calls idle and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
William Cowper
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As if the world and they were hand and glove.
William Cowper
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And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within?
William Cowper
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Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing, Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.
William Cowper