Cowper’s life was a tragic one, yet it is not for tragedy that we turn to his poems. His poetry, at its best, is the poetry of pleasure, of the plain, ordinary pleasures which every man can enjoy. Again, though Cowper himself was always on the verge of insanity, his poetry is essentially the poetry of the sane. He is in every way a paradox: a recluse who became the spokesman of a great popular religious and democratic movement; and an oddity, an eccentric, a refugee from society, who, perhaps more than any other English poet, expressed the aspirations of the average man of his time.
NORMAN NICHOLSON: A Choice of Cowper’s Verse (Faber and Faber, 1975)
Both the hymns printed below form part of the Olney Hymn Book, to which Cowper contributed no fewer than sixty-eight. A convert of the Evangelical Revival, he had gone to live in Olney, Buckinghamshire, to be near the Revd John Newton, who, having worked in the slave trade, was now the enormously influential Rector of Olney. Cowper became his lay helper, and at the weekly prayer meetings Newton and Cowper took it in turns to produce a new hymn each week. Best known for his fervent hymns that compare favourably with those of Watts and Wesley, Cowper initially trained as a lawyer but, unable to handle stress, suffered attacks of acute melancholia. Convinced that he was damned, he attempted suicide and spent periods of his life in mental asylums. For more than thirty years he was cared for by Mary Unwin, a clergyman’s widow, to whom he was deeply attached. When she fell ill in 1767, Cowper’s aunt sent him a letter of comfort; Cowper responded by writing some verses for her: ‘I began to compose them yesterday morning before day break,’ he informed her in a covering letter, ‘but fell asleep at the end of the first two lines. […] When I awaked again, the third and fourth lines were whispered to my heart in a way which I have often experienced.’ The poem in question was ‘Walking with God’. Another woman in his life was a neighbour, Lady Austin, who supplied him with the story for the celebrated John Gilpin’s Ride. She also encouraged him to write The Task (1785), his wonderful blank verse poem of some 5,000 lines, in which he describes the beauties of country life and fulminates against those that indulge in blood sports (Cowper derived much pleasure from petting his own animals, which included three hares, five rabbits, two guinea-pigs, two dogs, a magpie, a jay and other birds). Tirocinium; or, A Review of Schools, was published in 1785, and is referred to in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. His finest poem, ‘The castaway’, describes the drowning of a sailor, and ends with this eloquent expression of his own suffering:
No voice divine the storm allayed,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatched from all effectual aid,
We perished, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
Am whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs
And works his sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and will break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace:
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain:
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
Oh! for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!
Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his word?
What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.
Sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made thee mourn,
And drove thee from my breast.
The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from thy throne,
And worship only thee.
So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.