William Cowper Sweet Quotations

O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?

The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed! / How sweet their memory still! / But they have left an aching void / The world can never fill.

I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd - How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper Solitude is sweet

How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at interval upon the ear In cadence sweet; now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where Memory slept.

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 flow’r. Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.

Oh, popular applause! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms? The wisest and the best feel urgent need Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales; But swell'd into a gust--who then, alas! With all his canvas set, and inexpert, And therefore, heedless, can withstand thy power?

Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd, And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.

Come, evening, once again, season of peace; Return, sweet evening, and continue long! Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, With matron step, slow moving, while the night Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employ'd In letting fall the curtain of repose On bird and beast, the other charged for man With sweet oblivion of the cares of day.

The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns; The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears; These Flora banishes, and gives the fair Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.

The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade Pants for the refuge of some rural shade, Where all his long anxieties forgot Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot, Or recollected only to gild o'er And add a smile to what was sweet before, He may possess the joys he thinks he sees, Lay his old age upon the lap of ease, Improve the remnant of his wasted span. And having lived a trifler, die a man.

I am out of humanity's reach.I must finish my journey alone,Never hear the sweet music of speech;I start at the sound of my own.

Trials make the promise sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low, and keep me there.

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.