William Cowper

His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock it never is at home.

The solemn fop; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.

I cannot talk with civet in the room, A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.

Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys, Unfriendly to society's chief joys, Thy worst effect is banishing for hours The sex whose presence civilizes ours.

The pipe, with solemn interposing puff, Makes half a sentence at a time enough; The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain, Then pause, and puff—and speak, and pause again.

A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; The language plain, and incidents well link’d; Tell not as new what ev’ry body knows; And, new or old, still hasten to a close.

A moral, sensible, and well-bred man Will not affront me, and no other can.

He would not, with a peremptory tone, Assert the nose upon his face his own.

'Tis hard if all is false that I advance, A fool must now and then be right by chance.

Laugh at all you trembled at before.

How much a dunce that has been sent to roam Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.

As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon; So sophistry cleaves close to and protects Sin’s rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid.

Himself a wanderer from the narrow way, His silly sheep, what wonder if they stray?

Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest, A cassock’d huntsman and a fiddling priest!

Lights of the world, and stars of human race.

Nature, exerting an unwearied power, Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower; Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.

But he (his musical finesse was such, So nice his ear, so delicate his touch) Made poetry a mere mechanic art, And ev'ry warbler has his tune by heart.

Low ambition and the thirst of praise.

Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstasy.

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.

Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

I play with syllables and sport in song.

Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made, To turn a penny in the way of trade.