Poetry.
ANGEL HELP.[217]
This rare Tablet doth include
Poverty with Sanctitude.
Past midnight this poor Maid hath spun,
And yet the work not half is done,
Which must supply from earnings scant
A feeble bed-rid parent’s want.
Her sleep-charged eyes exemption ask,
And Holy hands take up the task;
Unseen the rock and spindle ply,
And do her earthly drudgery.
Sleep, saintly Poor One, sleep, sleep on,
And, waking, find thy labours done.
Perchance she knows it by her dreams;
Her eye hath caught the golden gleams
(Angelic Presence testifying,)
That round her everywhere are flying;
Ostents from which she may presume
That much of Heaven is in the room.
Skirting her own bright hair they run,
And to the Sunny add more Sun:
Now on that aged face they fix,
Streaming from the Crucifix;
The flesh-clogg’d spirit disabusing.
Death-disarming sleeps infusing,
Prelibations, foretastes high,
And equal thoughts to live or die.
Gardener bright from Eden’s bower,
Tend with care that Lily Flower;
To its leaves and root infuse
Heaven’s sunshine, Heaven’s dews;
’Tis a type and ’tis a pledge
Of a Crowning Privilege:
Careful as that Lily Flower,
This Maid must keep her precious dower;
Live a Sainted Maid, or die
Martyr to Virginity.
Virtuous Poor Ones, sleep, sleep on,
And, waking, find your labours done.
C. Lamb.
New Monthly Magazine,
June 1, 1827.
COWPER.
The poet of “The Sofa,” when “in merry pin,” trifled pleasantly. As an instance of his manner, there remains the following
Letter to the Rev. J. Newton.
July 12, 1781.
My very dear Friend,—I am going to send, what, when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say, I suppose there’s nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not; by the tune or the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did you ever see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before?
I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the reviewers should say “to be sure, the gentleman’s muse wears Methodist shoes; you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard, have little regard, for the taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the modern day: and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, ’tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production, on a new construction; she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap, all that may come, with a sugar plum.”—This opinion in this will not be amiss: ’tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought, to a serious thought, I should think I am paid for all I have said, and all I have done, though I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far from hence, to the end of my sense, and by hook or crook, write another book, if I live and am here, another year.
I have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much art, in every part, that when you went in, you was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing. And now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned; which that you may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out, with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble me—
W. C.
When prevented by rains and floods from visiting the lady who suggested “The Task,” Cowper beguiled the time by writing to her the following lines, and afterwards printing them with his own hand. He sent a copy of these verses, so printed, to his sister, accompanied by the subjoined note written upon his typographical labours.
To watch the storms, and hear the sky
Give all the almanacks the lie;
To shake with cold, and see the plains
In autumn drown’d with wintry rains:
’Tis thus I spend my moments here,
And wish myself a Dutch mynheer;
I then should have no need of wit,
For lumpish Hollander unfit;
Nor should I then repine at mud,
Or meadows delug’d with a flood;
But in a bog live well content,
And find it just my element;
Should be a clod, and not a man,
Nor wish in vain for sister Anne,
With charitable aid to drag
My mind out of its proper quag;
Should have the genius of a boor,
And no ambition to have more.
My dear Sister,—You see my beginning; I do not know but in time I may proceed to the printing of halfpenny ballads. Excuse the coarseness of my paper; I wasted so much before I could accomplish any thing legible, that I could not afford finer. I intend to employ an ingenious mechanic of this town to make me a longer case, for you may observe that my lines turn up their tails like Dutch mastiffs; so difficult do I find it to make the two halves exactly coincide with each other.
We wait with impatience for the departure of this unseasonable flood. We think of you, and talk of you; but we can do no more till the waters subside. I do not think our correspondence should drop because we are within a mile of each other; it is but an imaginary approximation, the flood having in reality as effectually parted us, as if the British Channel rolled between us.
Yours, my dear sister, with Mrs. U.’s best love,
William Cowper.
Monday, Aug. 12, 1782.
[217] Suggested by a picture in the possession of Charles Aders, Esq. Euston-square, in which is represented the Legend of a poor female Saint, who, having spun past midnight to maintain a bed-rid mother, has fallen asleep from fatigue, and Angels are finishing her work. In another part of the chamber, an Angel is tending a lily, the emblem of her purity.