There was nothing in his general manner, or intercourse with society, to excite the suspicion of the wretchedness that dwelt within. Among strangers he was at all times reserved and silent, but in the circle of familiar friends, where restraint was banished, not only did he exhibit no marks of gloom, but he could participate in the mirth of others, or inspire it from his own fertile resources of wit and humour. The prismatic colours, so to speak, were discernible through the descending shower. The bow in the heavens was not only emblematic of his imagination, but might be interpreted as the pledge of promised mercy. For it seemed to be graciously ordered that his lively and sportive imagination should be a relief to the gloomy forebodings of his mind; and that, in vouchsafing to him this alleviation, God proclaimed, "Behold, I do set my bow in the cloud, it shall be for a covenant between me and thee."
3rdly. The rare union, in the same mind, of a rich vein of humour with a spirit of profound melancholy was never perhaps so strikingly exemplified as in the celebrated production of John Gilpin. The town resounded with its praises. Henderson recited it to overflowing auditories; Mr. Henry Thornton addressed it to a large party of friends at Mr. Newton's. Laughter might be said to hold both his sides, and the gravest were compelled to acknowledge the power of comic wit. We scarcely know a more extraordinary phenomenon than what is furnished by the history of this performance. For it appears, by the author's own testimony, that it was written "in the saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been written at all."[763] It is also known that this depression was not incidental or temporary, but a fixed and settled feeling; that he was in fact absorbed, for the most part, in the profoundest melancholy; that he considered himself to be cut off from the mercy of his God, though his life was blameless and without reproach; and that, finally, having enlightened his country with strains of the sublimest morality, he died the victim of an incurable despair. As a contrast to the inimitable humour of John Gilpin, let us now turn to that most affecting representation which the poet draws of his own mental sufferings, occasioned by the painful depression which has been the subject of so many remarks.
Look where he comes—in this embowered alcove
Stand close concealed, and see a statue move;
Lips busy, and eyes fixt, foot falling slow,
Arms hanging idly down, hands clasped below,
Interpret to the marking eye distress,
Such as its symptoms can alone express.
That tongue is silent now; that silent tongue
Could argue once, could jest or join the song,
Could give advice, could censure or commend,
Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend.
Renounced alike its office and its sport,
Its brisker and its graver strains fall short;
Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway,
And like a summer-brook are past away.
This is a sight for pity to peruse,
Till she resemble faintly what she views;
Till sympathy contract a kindred pain,
Pierced with the woes that she laments in vain.
This, of all maladies that man infest,
Claims most compassion, and receives the least.
See Poem on Retirement.
The minute and mournful delineation of mental trouble here submitted to the eye of the reader, and the fact of this living image of woe being a portrait of Cowper drawn by his own hand, impart to it a character of inimitable pathos, and of singular and indescribable interest.
The physical and moral solution of this evil, and its painful influence on the mind, till the cure is administered by an almighty Physician, are beautifully and affectingly described.
Man is a harp whose chords elude the sight,
Each yielding harmony, disposed aright;
The screws reversed (a task which if he please
God in a moment executes with ease),
Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose,
Lost, till he tune them, all their power and use.
Then neither healthy wilds, nor scenes as fair
As ever recompensed the peasant's care,
Nor soft declivities, with tufted hills,
Nor view of waters turning busy mills,
Parks in which art preceptress nature weds,
Nor gardens interspersed with flowery beds,
Nor gales, that catch the scent of blooming groves,
And waft it to the mourner as he roves—
Can call up life into his faded eye,
That passes all he sees unheeded by:
No wounds like those a wounded spirit feels,
No cure for such, till God, who makes them, heals.
Retirement.
The lines which follow are important, as proving by his own testimony that, so far from his religious views being the occasion of his wretchedness, it was to this source alone that he looked for consolation and support.
And thou, sad sufferer under nameless ill,
That yields not to the touch of human skill;
Improve the kind occasion, understand
A Father's frown, and kiss his chastening hand:
To thee the day-spring and the blaze of noon,
The purple evening and resplendent moon,
The stars, that, sprinkled o'er the vault of night,
Seem drops descending in a shower of light,
Shine not, or undesired and hated shine,
Seen through the medium of a cloud like thine:
Yet seek Him, in his favour life is found,
All bliss beside, a shadow or a sound:
Then heaven, eclipsed so long, and this dull earth,
Shall seem to start into a second birth!
Nature, assuming a more lovely face,
Borrowing a beauty from the works of grace,
Shall be despised and overlooked no more,
Shall fill thee with delights unfelt before,
Impart to things inanimate a voice,
And bid her mountains and her hills rejoice;
The sound shall run along the winding vales,
And thou enjoy an Eden ere it fails.