<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=537915" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Task: Book II, The Time-Piece (excerpts)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">...</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> England, with all thy faults, I love thee still-- <br> My country! and, while yet a nook is left<br> Where English minds and manners may be found,<br> Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime<br> Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd<br> With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,<br> I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,<br> And fields without a flow'r, for warmer France<br> With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves<br> Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.<br> To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime<br> Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire<br> Upon thy foes, was never meant my task:<br> But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake<br> Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart<br> As any thund'rer there. And I can feel<br> Thy follies, too; and with a just disdain<br> Frown at effeminates, whose very looks<br> Reflect dishonour on the land I love.<br> How, in the name of soldiership and sense,<br> Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth<br> And tender as a girl, all essenc'd o'er<br> With odours, and as profligate as sweet;<br> Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,<br> And love when they should fight; when such as these<br> Presume to lay their hand upon the ark<br> Of her magnificent and awful cause?<br> Time was when it was praise and boast enough<br> In ev'ry clime, and travel where we might,<br> That we were born her children. Praise enough<br> To fill th' ambition of a private man,<br> That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,<br> And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.<br> Farewell those honours, and farewell with them<br> The hope of such hereafter! They have fall'n<br> Each in his field of glory; one in arms,<br> And one in council--Wolfe upon the lap<br> Of smiling victory that moment won,<br> And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame!<br> They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still<br> Consulting England's happiness at home,<br> Secur'd it by an unforgiving frown<br> If any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,<br> Put so much of his heart into his act,<br> That his example had a magnet's force,<br> And all were swift to follow whom all lov'd.<br> Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such!<br> Or all that we have left is empty talk<br> Of old achievements, and despair of new....</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> There is a pleasure in poetic pains<br> Which only poets know. The shifts and turns,<br> Th' expedients and inventions multiform<br> To which the mind resorts in chase of terms<br> Thought apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,<br> T' arrest the fleeting images that fill<br> The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,<br> And force them sit, till he has pencill'd off<br> A faithful likeness of the forms he views;<br> Then to dispose his copies with such art<br> That each may find its most propitious light,<br> And shine by situation hardly less<br> Than by the labour and the skill it cost,<br> Are occupations of the poet's mind<br> So pleasing, and that steal away the thought<br> With such address from themes of sad import,<br> That, lost in his own musings, happy man!<br> He feels th' anxieties of life, denied<br> Their wonted entertainment, all retire.<br> Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such,<br> Or seldom such, the hearers of his song.<br> Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps<br> Aware of nothing arduous in a task<br> They never undertook, they little note<br> His dangers or escapes, and haply find<br> Their least amusement where he found the most.<br> But is amusement all? Studious of song,<br> And yet ambitious not to sing in vain,<br> I would not trifle merely, though the world<br> Be loudest in their praise who do no more.<br> Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay?<br> It may correct a foible, may chastise<br> The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,<br> Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch;<br> But where are its sublimer trophies found?<br> What vice has it subdu'd? whose heart reclaim'd<br> By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform?<br> Alas! Leviathan is not so tam'd.<br> Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard,<br> Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,<br> That fear no discipline of human hands.<br> The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it fill'd<br> With solemn awe, that bids me well beware<br> With what intent I touch that holy thing)--<br> The pulpit (when the satirist has at last,<br> Strutting and vapouring in an empty school,<br> Spent all his force, and made no proselyte)--<br> I say the pulpit (in the sober use<br> Of its legitimate, peculiar pow'rs)<br> Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall stand,<br> The most important and effectual guard,<br> Support, and ornament of Virtue's cause.....</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Cowper">William Cowper</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=537915" data-title="The Task: Book II, The Time-Piece (excerpts) de William Cowper" data-description="... England, with all thy faults, I love thee still-- My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd W..."></div> </div> </div>

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