William Cowper (1731-1800) William Cowper was born in Berkha…
William Cowper (1731-1800) William Cowper was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire to a middle-class family. His father was a clergyman at the local church. His mother Ann gave birth to seven children, only two of whom survived infancy. Ann herself died giving birth to Cowper’s brother John when Cowper was only five years old, a devastating experience he wrote about over fifty years later in his poem “On Receipt of My Mother’s Picture.” Cowper began learning ancient Latin and Greek as a child, and, in later life, produced important English translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey. At ten, he was sent to boarding school in London where he was the target of frequent bullying, but where he also made lifelong friends and got to know boys from of a range of social classes. After a number of false starts in law and politics, Cowper began writing poems and religious hymns. Over time, he became one of the most popular poets of his time, changing the direction of nature poetry by writing about everyday life in the English countryside. Like Thomas Gray, Cowper is one of the bridges between the classical and Romantic traditions in poetry. His popularity also owed to his outspoken advocacy for religious and humanitarian ideals at a time of widespread Evangelical sentiment. He wrote a number of well-known anti-slavery poems and spoke out in support of Abolitionism. One of his poems “The Negro’s Complaint” (1788) was often quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his speeches during the American Civil Rights Movement. His hymns were also popular, with one of them, “Light Shining out of Darkness” becoming the source of the proverb “God moves in mysterious ways.” The Glow-Worm Beneath the hedge or near the stream,A worm is known to stray,That shows by night a lucid beam,Which disappears by day.Disputes have been and still prevailFrom whence his rays proceed;Some give that honour to his tail,And others to his head.But this is sure, –the hand of mightThat kindles up the skies,Gives him a modicum of light,Proportion’d to his size.Perhaps indulgent Nature meantBy such a lamp bestow’d,To bid the traveller, as he went,Be careful where he trod;Nor crush a worm, whose useful lightMight serve, however small,To show a stumbling stone by night,And save him from a fall.Whate’er she meant, this truth divineIs legible and plain,‘Tis power Almighty bids him shine,Nor bids him shine in vain.Ye proud and wealthy, let this themeTeach humbler thoughts to you,Since such a reptile has its gem,And boasts its splendour, too.
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