• OBSCUREST night involv'd the sky,

       Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,

    When such a destin'd wretch as I,

       Wash'd headlong from on board,

    Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,

    His floating home forever left.


    No braver chief could Albion boast

       Than he with whom he went

    Nor ever...

  • Hackney'd in business, wearied at the oar

    Which thousands, once fast chain'd to, quit no more,

    But which when life at ebb runs weak and low,

    All wish, or seem to wish they could forego,

    The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,

    Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,

    Where all his long anxieties...

  • I sing the Sofa. I, who lately sang

    Truth, Hope, and Charity, and touch'd with awe

    The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand,

    Escap'd with pain from that advent'rous flight,

    Now seek repose upon an humbler theme;

    The theme though humble, yet august and proud

    Th' occasion ─ for the Fair commands the...

  • Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,

    Some boundless contiguity of shade,

    Where rumour of oppression and deceit,

    Of unsuccessful or successful war,

    Might never reach me more. My ear is pain'd,

    My soul is sick, with ev'ry day's report

    Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.

    There is...

  • As one who, long in thickets and in brakes

    Entangled, winds now this way and now that

    His devious course uncertain, seeking home;

    Or, having long in miry ways been foil'd,

    And sore discomfited, from slough to slough

    Plunging, and half despairing of escape;

    If chance at length he finds a greensward smooth...

  • Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,

    That with its wearisome but needful length

    Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon

    Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright; —

    He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

    With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks;

    News from all nations lumb'...

  • 'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb

    Ascending, fires th' horizon: while the clouds,

    That crowd away before the driving wind,

    More ardent as the disk emerges more,

    Resemble most some city in a blaze,

    Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray

    Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
    ...

  • There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;

    And, as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleas'd

    With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave:

    Some chord in unison with what we hear

    Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

    How soft the music of those village bells,

    Falling at intervals upon the ear
    ...

  • THE twentieth year is well-nigh past,

    Since first our sky was overcast;

    Ah would that this might be the last!
    My Mary!


    Thy spirits have a fainter flow,

    I see thee daily weaker grow —

    'Twas my distress that brought thee...


  • William Cowper Esqre


    For this is being a Friend just in the nick

    Not when hes well but waiting till hes sick

    He calls you to his help be you not movd

    Untill by being Sick his wants are provd

    5...