WILLIAM COWPER,

ONE of the finest religious, meditative, and descriptive English poets. was born at Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire, in 1731. After being some time at Westminster, he was articled to an attorney, and at the end of three years, entered himself of the Middle Temple. His temperament quite unfitted him for the legal profession, and the inter est of his friends secured for him the place of clerk to the House of Lords, but his nervousness compelled him to resign it, and he fell into a condition of mental debility which made it necessary to place him in a lunatic asylum. Recovering his powers, he retired to Huntingdon, where he became acquainted with the family of the Rev. Mr. Unwin, and after that gentleman's death, he removed with his widow to Olney, where he formed a lasting intimacy with the Rev. John Newton and with Lady Austen. Here, though afflicted with continual ill health, and a constitutional melancholy, he made his admirable translation of Homer, and wrote those noble original poems which have secured for him a rank among the great authors of his age and country. His principal work, "The Task," in six books, is so well known to the lovers of religious poetry, that any account of it is scarcely necessary; and his “Tirocinium," "Hymns," &c., are all in their kind of the first class in English literature. "He is, after Thomson," says Mr. Hazlitt, "the best of our descriptive poets,--but with less warmth of feeling and natural enthusiasm than the author of 'The Seasons.' He has also fine manly sense, a pensive and interesting turn of thought, tenderness, occasionally running into the most touching pathos, and a patriotic or religious zeal, mounting almost into sublimity. He had great simplicity with terseness of style: his occasional copies of verses have great elegance, and his John Gilpin' is one of the most humorous pieces in the language." The piety, genius, and learning of Cowper have of late years been fitly commemorated in the careful and beautiful editions of all his works by Dr. Southey, the Rev. T. Grimshawe, and the Rev. Thomas Dale.

If ever thou hast felt another's pain,
If ever, when he sighed, hast sighed again,
If ever on thy eyelid stood the tear
That pity had engendered, drop one here.

This man was happy-had the world's good word, And with it every joy it can afford;

Friendship and love seemed tenderly at strife,
Which most should sweeten his untroubled life;
Politely learned, and of a gentle race,

Good breeding and good sense gave all a grace,
And whether at the toilet of the fair

He laughed and trifled, made him welcome there;
Or if in masculine debate he shared,
Ensured him mute attention, and regard.

Alas, how changed! expressive of his mind,
His eyes are sunk, arms folded, head reclined;
Those awful syllables, hell, death, and sin,
Though whispered, plainly tell what works within ;
That conscience there performs her proper part,
And writes a doomsday sentence on his heart.
Forsaking and forsaken of all friends,

He now perceives where earthly pleasure ends ;
Hard task for one who lately knew no care,
And harder still, as learned beneath despair;
His hours no longer pass unmarked away,
A dark importance saddens every day;
He hears the notice of the clock perplexed,
And cries, "Perhaps eternity strikes next."
Sweet music is no longer music here,

And laughter sounds like madness in his car;
His grief the world of all her power disarms,
Wine has no taste, and beauty has no charms;
God's holy word, once trivial in his view,
Now by the voice of his experience true,
Seems as it is, the fountain, whence alone
Must spring that hope he pants to make his own.
Now let the bright reverse be known abroad;
Say man's a worm, and power belongs to God.
As when a felon, whom his country's laws
Have justly doomed for some atrocious cause,
Expects in darkness and heart-chilling fears
The shameful close of all his misspent years,

If chance, on heavy pinions slowly borne,
A tempest usher in the dreadful morn,
Upon his dungeon walls the lightnings play,
The thunder seems to summon him away,
The warder at the door his key applies,
Shoots back the bolt, and all his courage dies:
If then, just then, all thoughts of mercy lost,
When hope, long lingering, at last yields the ghost,
The sound of pardon pierce his startled ear,
He drops at once his fetters, and his fear:
A transport glows in all he looks and speaks,
And the first thankful tears bedew his cheeks.
Joy, far superior joy, that much outweighs
The comfort of a few poor added days,
Invades, possesses, and o'erwhelms the soul
Of him whom hope has with a touch made whole.
'Tis heaven, all heaven, descending on the wings
Of the glad regions of the King of kings;
"Tis more -'tis God diffused through every part,
"Tis God Himself triumphant in his heart;
Oh! welcome now, the sun's once hated light,
His noonday beams were never half so bright!
Not kindred minds alone are called to employ
Their hours, their days, in listening to his joy;
Unconscious nature! all that he surveys,

Rocks, groves, and streams, must join him in his praise.

THE groans of nature in this nether world,
Which heaven has heard for ages, have an end;

Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung,
Whose fire was kindled at the prophets' lamp,
The time of rest, the promised Sabbath comes.
Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh
Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course
Over a sinful world; and what remains
Of this tempestuous state of human things

Is merely as the working of a sea

Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest :

For He whose car the winds are, and the clouds
The dust that waits upon his sultry march,
When sin hath moved Him, and his wrath is hot,
Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend
Propitious in his chariot paved with love;
And what his storms have blasted and defaced
For man's revolt, shall with a smile repair.
Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet
Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch:
Nor can the wonders it records be sung
To meaner music, and not suffer loss.
But when a poet, or when one like me,
Happy to rove among poetic flowers,
Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last
On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair,
Such is the impulse and the spur he feels
To give it praise proportioned to its worth,
That not to attempt it, arduous as he deems
The labor, were a task more arduous still.

Oh! scenes surpassing fable, and yet true,
Scenes of accomplished bliss, which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?
Rivers of gladness water all the earth,

And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach
Of barrenness is passed. The fruitful field
Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean,
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,
Exults to see its thistly curse repealed.
The various seasons woven into one,
And that one season an eternal spring,

The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence,
For there is none to covet, all are full.
The lion, and the libbard, and the bear,
Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon
Together, or all gambol in the shade

Of the same grove, and drink one common stream.
Antipathies are none. No foe to man

Lurks in the serpent now; the mother sees,
And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand
Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm,
To stroke his azure neck, or to receive
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue.
All creatures worship man, and all mankind
One Lord, one Father. Error has no place;
That creeping pestilence is driven away;

The breath of heaven has chased it. In the heart
No passion touches a discordant string,

But all is harmony and love. Disease

Is not the pure and uncontaminated blood
Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age.

One song employs all nations, and all cry,

Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain for us!" The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy; Till, nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round. Behold the measure of the promise filled; See Salem built, the labor of a God! Bright as a sun the sacred city shines ; All kingdoms and all princes of the earth Flock to that light! the glory of all lands Flows into her; unbounded is her joy, And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there ; The looms of Ormuz, and the mines of Ind, And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there. Praise is in all her gates: upon her walls, And in her streets, and in her spacious courts, Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there Kneels with the native of the furthest west, And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, And worships. Her report has travelled forth