HORACE. Book the 2d. ODE the 10th.
1.
RECEIVE, dear friend, the truths I teach,
So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse fortunes pow'r;
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treach'rous shore.
Poems: by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq.
About this Item
- Title
- Poems: by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq.
- Author
- Cowper, William, 1731-1800.
- Publication
- London :: printed for J. Johnson,
- 1782.
- Rights/Permissions
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To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.lib.umich.edu/tcp/ecco/ for more information.
- Link to this Item
-
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/004792651.0001.000
- Cite this Item
-
"Poems: by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq." In the digital collection Eighteenth Century Collections Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/004792651.0001.000. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 11, 2025.
Pages
Page 333
2.
He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Imbitt'ring all his state.
3.
The tallest pines feel most the pow'r
Of wintry blasts, the loftiest tow'r
Comes heaviest to the ground,
The bolts that spare the mountains side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide
And spread the ruin round.
4.
The well inform'd philosopher
Rejoices with an wholesome fear,
And hopes in spite of pain;
If winter bellow from the north,
Soon the sweet spring comes dancing forth,
And nature laughs again.
Page 334
5.
What if thine heav'n be overcast,
The dark appearance will not last,
Expect a brighter sky;
The God that strings the silver bow,
Awakes sometimes the muses too,
And lays his arrows by.
6.
If hindrances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,
And let thy strength be seen,
But oh! if Fortune fill thy sail
With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvass in.