O that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out of Norfolk (l. 1-2). . . New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse, The. Roger Lonsdale, ed. (1984) Oxford University Press.)

I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day,
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,
And, turning from my nursery window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out of Norfolk (l. 14-17). . . New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse, The. Roger Lonsdale, ed. (1984) Oxford University Press.)

Toll for the brave?
The brave! that are no more:
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore.

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. On the Loss of the Royal George (l. 1-4). . . New Oxford Book of English Verse, The, 1250-1950. Helen Gardner, ed. (1972) Oxford University Press.)

Here may we prove the pow'r of pray'r,
To strengthen faith, and sweeten care;
To teach our faint desires to rise,
And bring all heav'n before our eyes.

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British hymn-writer. Published in Olney Hymns, in Three Books, London, W. Oliver (1779). "On Opening a Place for Social Prayer," hymn #XLIV, book ii, pp. 234-35, l. 13-16 (1769).)

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. Lines Written During a Period of Insanity (written 1763). The poem, one of Cowper's Sapphics, was written in 1763, a year in which Cowper made three suicide attempts, which were followed by a period of insanity and hospitalization.)

Mr. Grenville squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed upon the whole a most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman.

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. Letter, March 29, 1874. Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper, vol. 2, eds. J. King and C. Ryskamp (1981).)

And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. repr. In Poetical Works, ed. H.S. Milford (1934). Olney Hymns, no. 29, "Exhortation to Prayer," (1779).)

My Mother! when I learnt that thou wast dead,
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun?

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out of Norfolk (l. 7-10). . . New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse, The. Roger Lonsdale, ed. (1984) Oxford University Press.)

By contemplation's help,not sought in vain,
I seem t' have liv'd my childhood o'er again;
To have renew'd the joys that once were mine,

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out of Norfolk (l. 114-116). . . New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse, The. Roger Lonsdale, ed. (1984) Oxford University Press.)

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,
For how could we do without sugar and rum?

(William Cowper (1731-1800), British poet. "Pity for Poor Africans," (written 1788, published 1800).)