I was a grovelling creature once, And basely cleaved to earth: I wanted spirit to renounce The clod that gave me birth. But God hath breathed upon a worm…

Hermocratia named—save only one— Twice fifteen births I bore, and… For neither Phoebus pierced my th… Nor Dian—she my girls, or he my b… But Dian rather, when my daughter…

The Birds put off their every hue… To dress a room for Montagu. The peacock sends his heavenly dye… His rainbows and his starry eyes; The pheasant plumes, which round e…

It is not from his form, in which… Strength join’d with beauty, digni… That man, the master of this globe… His right of empire over all that… That form, indeed, the associate o…

I thirst, but not as once I did, The vain delights of earth to shar… Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid That I should seek my pleasures t… It was the sight of Thy dear cros…

’Tis my happiness below Not to live without the cross, But the Saviour’s power to know, Sanctifying every loss; Trials must and will befall;

Thracian parents, at his birth, Mourn their babe with many a tear, But, with undissembled mirth, Place him breathless on his bier. Greece and Rome, with equal score…

Silent I sat, dejected, and alone… Making in thought the public woes… When, first, arose the image in my… Of England’s sufferings by that s… How death, his fun’ral torch and s…

Hic etiam jacet, Qui totum novennium vixit, Puss. Siste paulisper, Qui præteriturus es,

Eldest born of powers divine! Bless’d Hygeia! be it mine To enjoy what thou canst give, And henceforth with thee to live: For in power if pleasure be

(Zecheriah, XIII.1) There is a fountain fill’d with bl… Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that… Lose all their guilty stains.

Take to thy bosom, gentle earth, a… With much hard labor in thy servic… He set the vines that clothe yon a… And he these olives that the vale… He fill’d with grain the glebe; th…

Cowper had sinned with some excuse… If, bound in rhyming tethers, He had committed this abuse Of changing ewes for wethers; But, male for female is a trope,

’Twas my purpose, on a day, To embark, and sail away. As I climbed the vessel’s side, Love was sporting in the tide; ‘Come,’ he said, ‘ascend—make hast…

My dear friend, If reading verse be your delight, ’Tis mine as much, or more, to wri… But what we would, so weak is man, Lies oft remote from what we can.