William Cowper (विलियम काउपर)

Sometimes a light surprises,The Christian while he sings.

It is the Lord who rises,With healing on His wings.

When comforts are declining,He grants the soul again.

A season of clear shining,To cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation,We sweetly then pursue.

The theme of God's salvation,And find it ever new.

Set free from present sorrow,We cheerfully can say.

E'en let the unknown to-morrow,Bring with it what it may!.

It can bring with it nothing,But He will bear us through.

Who gives the lilies clothing,Will clothe His people too.

Beneath the spreading heavens,No creature but is fed.

And He who feeds the ravens,Will give His children bread.

Though vine nor fig tree neither,Their wonted fruit shall bear.

Though all the field should wither,Nor flocks nor herds be there.

Yet God the same abiding,His praise shall tune my voice.

For, while in Him confiding,I cannot but rejoice.

'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb,Ascending, fires th' horizon: while the clouds.

That crowd away before the driving wind,More ardent as the disk emerges more.

Resemble most some city in a blaze,Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray.

Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,And, tinging all with his own rosy hue.

From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade,Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.

Mine, spindling into longitude immense,In spite of gravity, and sage remark.

That I myself am but a fleeting shade,Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance.

I view the muscular proportion'd limb,Transform'd to a lean shank. The shapeless pair.

As they design'd to mock me, at my side,Take step for step; and, as I near approach.

The cottage, walk along the plaster'd wall,Prepost'rous sight! the legs without the man.

The verdure of the plain lies buried deep,Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents.

And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine.

Conspicuous, and, in bright apparel clad,And fledg'd with icy feathers, nod superb.

The cattle mourn in corners where the fence,Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep.

In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait,Their wonted fodder; not like hung'ring man.

Fretful if unsupply'd; but silent, meek,And patient of the slow-pac'd swain's delay.

He from the stack carves out th' accustom'd load,Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft.

His broad keen knife into the solid mass,Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands.

With such undeviating and even force,He severs it away: no needless care.

Lest storms should overset the leaning pile,Deciduous, or its own unbalanc'd weight.

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower,Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume.

And we are weeds without it. All constraint,Except what wisdom lays on evil men.

Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes,Their progress in the road of science; blinds.

The eyesight of discovery, and begets,In those that suffer it, a sordid mind.

Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit,To be the tenant of man's noble form.

Thee therefore, still, blameworthy as thou art,With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez'd.

By public exigence till annual food,Fails for the craving hunger of the state.

Thee I account still happy, and the chief,Among the nations, seeing thou art free.

My native nook of earth!,But there is yet a liberty unsung.

By poets, and by senators unprais'd,Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the pow'rs.

Of earth and hell confederate take away,A liberty which persecution, fraud.

Oppression, prisons, have no pow'r to bind,Which whoso tastes can be enslav'd no more.

'Tis liberty of heart, deriv'd from Heav'n,Bought with his blood who gave it to mankind.

And seal'd with the same token. It is held,By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure.

By th' unimpeachable and awful oath,And promise of a God. His other gifts.

All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his,And are august, but this transcends them all.

My song shall bless the Lord of all,My praise shall climb to His abode.

Thee, Saviour, by that name I call,The great Supreme, the mighty God.

Without beginning or decline,Object of faith and not of sense.

Eternal ages saw Him shine,He shines eternal ages hence.

As much when in the manger laid,Almighty Ruler of the sky.

As when the six days' work He made,Fill'd all the morning stars with joy.

Of all the crowns Jehovah bears,Salvation is His dearest claim.

That gracious sound well pleased He hears,And owns Emmanuel for His name.

A cheerful confidence I feel,My well placed hopes with joy I see.

My bosom glows with heavenly zeal,To worship Him who died for me.

As man He pities my complaint,His power and truth are all divine.

He will not fail, He cannot faint,Salvation's sure, and must be mine.

Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,From strife and tumult far.

From scenes where Satan wages still,His most successful war.

The calm retreat, the silent shade,With prayer and praise agree.

And seem, by Thy sweet bounty made,For those who follow Thee.

There if Thy Spirit touch the soul,And grace her mean abode.

Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,She communes with her God!.

There like the nightingale she pours,Her solitary lays.

Nor asks a witness of her song,Nor thirsts for human praise.

Author and Guardian of my life,Sweet source of light Divine.

And, -- all harmonious names in one, --,My Saviour! Thou art mine.

What thanks I owe Thee, and what love,A boundless, endless store.

Shall echo through the realms above,When time shall be no more.

Thus heav'nward all things tend. For all were once,Perfect, and all must be at length restor'd.

So God has greatly purpos'd; who would else,In his dishonour'd works himself endure.

Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress,Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world.

Ye slow-revolving seasons! We would see,(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet).

A world that does not dread and hate his laws,And suffer for its crime: would learn how fair.

The creature is that God pronounces good,How pleasant in itself what pleases him.

Here ev'ry drop of honey hides a sting,Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flow'rs.

And ev'n the joy, that haply some poor heart,Derives from heav'n, pure as the fountain is.

Is sully'd in the stream; taking a taint,From touch of human lips, at best impure.

Oh for a world in principle as chaste,As this is gross and selfish! over which.

Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway,That govern all things here, should'ring aside.

The meek and modest truth, and forcing her,To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife.

In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men,Where violence shall never lift the sword.

Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong,Leaving the poor no remedy but tears.

Where he that fills an office shall esteem,The occasion it presents of doing good.

More than the perquisite; where law shall speak,Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts.

And equity; not jealous more to guard,A worthless form, than to decide aright.

Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse,Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace).

With lean performance ape the work of love,He is the happy man, whose life ev'n now.

Shows somewhat of that happier life to come,Who, doom'd to an obscure but tranquil state.

Is pleas'd with it, and, were he free to choose,Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit.

Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one.

Content indeed to sojourn while he must,Below the skies, but having there his home.

The world o'eriooks him in her busy search,Of objects more illustrious in her view.

And occupied as earnestly as she,Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.