Nugae Canorae :: :: University of Virginia Library

Detested sport,
That owes its pleasure to another's pain;
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued
With eloquence that agonies inspire
Of silent tears, and heart-distending sighs;
Vain tears, alas! and sighs that never find
A corresponding tone in jovial souls.
COWPER'S TASK.

1798.

Oh stay thy hand—thou hast a power to kill
But none to bring forth life! Impressive truth,
Sounding to wisdom like a warning voice,
And teaching that our feebleness to work
The least good thing, should guard us tremblingly
From aught that looks like evil; lest we wrench
From her retired seat the better soul,
The sense which God hath lent us, which that God

Sees not polluted with a slumbering eye;
But vexes him that sets his gift at nought
With aweful darkness, and a fearful wandering!

Thou seest athwart this grove of trembling trees,
Trembling and glistening with the morning light,
Thou seest yon lavrock rise!—to the great sun
He seems to hasten:—save the burning orb
That lives above, nought but this little bird
Varies the mighty solitude of Heaven!
Art thou assur'd the Almighty doth not speak
To that same little bird?—that morning's glories
Are not discourses of his watchful love
Gladd'ning this innocent creature? Could'st thou seek
To stop his song of gratulation, quench
His sense of joy, and all those living powers
That dance so cheerly in him? They serve Heaven
Who love his works! and they most feel a God
Who hold each bodily sense a holy thing,
Communicating measurably to all
The influxes of that eternal Spirit
Whose countenance to man are day-light hues,
And sky, and sea, and forests, lakes, and hills,
And lightnings, thunders, and prodigious storms,
And suns, and all the company of worlds!

I would not kill one bird in wanton sport,
I would not mingle jocund mirth with death,
For all the smoking board, the savoury feast
Can yield most exquisite to pamper'd sense!

Since nature wills that every living thing
Should gratify the purposes of man,
And wait his proud disposal, let him prove,
E'en in this delegated function, prove,
A deep humility, which fears to tread
Where the all-perfect, and unquestion'd God
Hath wrought strange imperfection—perhaps to bend,
And by the influence of an holy sadness,
To tame the o'erweening soul! not give a cause
For riotous Dominion, and for Power
Sweeping with mad career from off this world
Its fair inhabitants!

My friend, I knew
A man who liv'd in solitude: a dell
A mossy dell, green, woody, hung around
With various forest growth, was his abode.
And in the forest many a gleaming plot
Of tenderest grass, its island circlet spread!

This man did rear a hut, and lived and died
In that lone dell! He had no friend on earth,
Nor wanted one—For much he lov'd his God,
And much those works which e'en the lonely man
May taste abundantly! And he did think
So oft on life's great Author, that at last
He worshipp'd him in all things, and believ'd
His poorest creatures holy, and could see
“Religious meanings in the forms of nature,”
Dreaming he saw, e'en in the passing bird,
The crawling worm, or serpent on the grass,
An emanation of his Maker—so
That a new presence stung him into thought
And made him kneel and weep!

Well! this poor man
Liv'd on the scanty fruits this little dell
Afforded. Never did a dying writhe,
Or dying gasp, war with his sense of good.
At last he died, and such had been his life,
That when he yielded up his animal frame,
It only seem'd as if he went to sleep
More quietly than ever!