Quote

Necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs, And luxury the accomplish'd Sofa last.

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
Last
Convenience
Next
Furniture
Chairs
Stools
Invented
Elbow
Necessity
Sofa
Luxury
Sofas
Accomplish
Elbows
Lasts
Suggested

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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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They best can judge a poet's worth, Who oft themselves have known The pangs of a poetic birth By labours of their own.
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Pleasure admitted in undue degree, enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
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This cabin, Mary, in my sight appears, Built as it has been in our waning years, A rest afforded to our weary feet, Preliminary to - the last retreat.
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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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Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
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Hast thou not learnd what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that the battle is the Lords?
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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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Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.
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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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Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
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They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.
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Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.
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Absence of occupation is not rest A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
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Call'd to the temple of impure delight He that abstains, and he alone, does right. If a wish wander that way, call it home He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.
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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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What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.
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Not a flower But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain, Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires Their balmy odors, and imparts their hues, And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes In grains as countless as the seaside sands, The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth Happy who walks with him!
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Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home.
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Still ending, and beginning still.
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