L

ADY! it cannot be but that thine eyes

Must be my sun, such radiance they display,
And strike me even as Phoebus him whose way
Through horrid Libya's sandy desert lies.
Meantime, on that side steamy vapours rise
Where most I suffer. Of what kind are they,
New as to me they are, I cannot say,

But deem them, in the lover's language-sighs.
Some, though with pain, my bosom close conceals,
Which, if in part escaping thence they tend
To soften thine, thy coldness soon congeals.
While others to my tearful eyes ascend,

Whence my sad nights in showers are ever drowned,
Till my Aurora come, her brow with roses bound.

COWPER'S TRANSLATION

TO HIS FATHER

HOU hatest not the gentle Muse,

TH

My Father! for thou never bad'st me tread The beaten path and broad that leads right on To opulence, nor didst condemn thy son To the insipid clamours of the bar, To laws voluminous and ill observed; But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill My mind with treasure, led'st me far away From city din to deep retreats, to banks And streams Aonian, and with free consent Didst place me happy at Apollo's side. I speak not now, on more important themes Intent, of common benefits, and such As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts, My Father! who when I had opened once The stores of Roman rhetoric, and learned The full-toned language of the eloquent Greeks, Whose lofty music graced the lips of Jove, Thyself didst counsel me to add the flowers

That Gallia boasts; those too with which the smooth

Italian his degenerate speech adorns,

That witnesses his mixture with the Goth;

And Palestine's prophetic songs divine.

To sum the whole, whate'er the heaven contains,
The earth beneath it, and the air between,
The rivers and the restless deep, may all
Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish
Concurring with thy will; science herself,
All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head,
And offers me the lip, if dull of heart,

I shrink not, and decline her gracious boon.

COWPER'S TRANSLATION

CYF

TO CYRIACK SKINNER

“YRIACK, whose grandsire on the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause, Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench; To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth that after no repenting draws;

Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause,

And what the Swede intends, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know

Toward solid good what leads the nearest way;

For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day,

And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

ON THE DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF ELY

(Written in the Author's seventeenth year)

FAME, whose tales of saddest sound,

Alas! are ever truest found,

The news through all our cities spread
Of yet another mitred head

By ruthless fate to death consigned,
Ely, the honour of his kind!

At once, a storm of passion heaved
My boiling bosom; much I grieved,
But more I raged, at every breath
Devoting Death himself to death.

But lo! while thus I execrate,
Incensed, the minister of fate,
Wondrous accents, soft yet clear,
Wafted on the gale I hear.

Ah, much deluded! lay aside

Thy threats, and anger misapplied!

Art not afraid with sounds like these
To offend where thou canst not appease?
Death is not (wherefore dream'st thou thus ?)
The son of Night and Erebus;

Nor was of fell Erinnys born

On gulfs where Chaos rules forlorn :
But, sent from God, His presence leaves
To gather home his ripened sheaves,
To call encumbered souls away
From fleshly bonds to boundless day,
(As when the winged hours excite
And summon forth the morning light)
And each to convoy to her place
Before the Eternal Father's face."

COWPER'S TRANSLATION

THE COTTAGER AND HIS LANDLORD

A

A Fable

PEASANT to his lord paid yearly court, Presenting pippins of so rich a sort That he, displeased to have a part alone, Removed the tree, that all might be his own. The tree, too old to travel, though before So fruitful, withered, and would yield no more. The squire, perceiving all his labour void, Cursed his own pains, so foolishly employed. And "Oh," he cried, "That I had lived content With tribute, small indeed, but kindly meant ! My avarice has expensive proved to me,Has cost me both my pippins and my tree."

COWPER'S TRANSLATION