Poet of the Week: William Cowper

Between Hope and Despair

The last couple of weeks I have found myself extensively reading William Cowper’s poetry. He is not much liked or much studied these days. Although writing at the same time as literary giants like Jane Austen and William Wordsworth, for some reason his works never make their way onto university syllabi, and never come up among readers as personal favourites. And yet, he was extremely well-known and respected by many of his contemporaries. Wordsworth and Coleridge were deeply influenced by his treatment of nature, to the point that we can think of him as a kind of proto-Romantic. According to Austen’s brother Henry, Cowper was Austen’s favourite verse writer (with Dr. Johnson being her favourite writer of prose). He was also beloved by many famous historical figures at the time. For example, abolitionist William Wilberforce counted him as a favourite poet of his. Another famous abolitionist, John Newton (the same who wrote the lyrics to the beloved hymn ‘Amazing Grace’, was Cowper’s personal friend and collaborator.

It’s hard to say exactly why Cowper doesn’t suit our current literary taste. I would suggest that it’s because his poetry is too openly devotional, but the poetry of George Herbert is very devotional, and he’s definitely considered an important figure in English literary history. And yet there is something weird, something unusual about Herbert’s poetry - with its odd and unexpected metaphors - that I think appeals to literary critics more than Cowper’s plain, direct style. Same goes for Gerard Manley Hopkins; he can be excused for being religious, because at least he mostly writes in a ‘difficult’ way. But simplicity and religiosity? That’s a step too far! I think it’s a great shame that Cowper is neglected, however. His poetry is devotional, but it is not ‘preachy’; it’s deeply emotional, but it’s not ‘sentimental’; it’s simple, but not ‘simplistic’.

Struggling throughout his life with bouts of severe depression, perhaps the most interesting feature of his poetry, for me, is its constant swinging between hope and despair. Cowper was a devout Anglican of the kind that, in the late 18th century, would have been described as Evangelical. This had very little to do with what we now think of as Evangelical Christianity, especially in America. Rather, Evangelicals in Cowper’s times belonged to the Church of England, but were concerned that too many Englishmen were only nominally Christian. They wanted to reignite their nation’s love of God, and thus focused on ideas like the conversion of hearts. They were also people deeply involved in charitable causes, and deeply concerned with justice. Many who campaigned for the abolition of slavery in England were Evangelical Christians, for example. But to return to Cowper: he was at once fervent in his faith, and yet doubted his salvation, and would periodically succumb to a sense of despair. His struggle to believe that he was worthy of God’s love and help is absolutely fascinating to me, and makes his perseverance even more admirable.

He was a poet who could confidently write of God’s mysterious, but perfect plan for humanity, like in the hymn ‘Light Shining Out of Darkness’:

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour,

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

At the same time, he was able to convey a terrifying fear of damnation, like in ‘Hatred and Vengeance, My Eternal Portion’:

Man disavows, and deity disowns me.

Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;

Therefore hell keeps her everhungry mouths all

Bolted against me.

But there are also poems where existential dread, and endless hope in God’s mercy are combined. Cowper’s imagination seems to have been particularly captured by incidents of shipwrecks, which work for him as a helpful metaphor to convey his feeling of being lost on his pilgrimage towards God. This is exactly what happens in the poem ‘VERSES, supposed to be written by ALEXANDER SELKIRK, during his solitary Abode in the Island of JUAN FERNANDEZ.’ This clunkily titled poem was inspired by the real-life Selkirk, who was marooned on a South American island in 1704. Wordsworth liked the poem enough to discuss it in the revised 1802 introduction to his Lyrical Ballads. Jane Austen loved this poem, also: in September 1813, while staying with her brother Edward Knight at Godmersham Estate, she references the poem’s first line.

In this poem, Cowper is able to simultaneously lament, ‘I am out of humanity’s reach’, conveying a sense of utter loneliness and desolation, and yet to confidently say that, ‘There is mercy in every place’. He is ‘alone’ in his journey towards salvation, and yet he can find ‘grace’ even in ‘affliction’ thanks to God. It is a poem of loss and of hope, at once inspired by a very specific historical event, and yet wonderfully universal in the fears and joys it discusses. If you’ve never read - or perhaps even heard of - Cowper, that’s where I would start. Here is the poem in full: I can only hope it convinces you to read more of his beautiful poetry!

I am monarch of all I survey,
     My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
     I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
Oh, solitude! where are the charms
     That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
     Than reign in this horrible place.

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.
The beasts, that roam over the plain,
     My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
     Their tameness is shocking to me.

Society, friendship, and love,
     Divinely bestow'd upon man,
Oh, had I the wings of a dove,
     How soon would I taste you again!
My sorrows I then might assuage
     In the ways of religion and truth,
Might learn from the wisdom of age,
     And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.

Religion! what treasure untold
     Resides in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver and gold,
     Or all that this earth can afford.
But the sound of the church-going bell
     These vallies and rocks never heard,
Ne'er sighed at the sound of a knell,
     Or smil'd when a sabbath appear'd.

Ye winds, that have made me your sport,
     Convey to this desolate shore
Some cordial endearing report
     Of a land I shall visit no more.
My friends, do they now and then send
     A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
     Though a friend I am never to see.

How fleet is a glance of the mind!
     Compar'd with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,
     And the swift wing'd arrows of light.
When I think of my own native land
     In a moment I seem to be there;
But, alas! recollection at hand
     Soon hurries me back to despair.

But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest,
     The beast is laid down in his lair;
Ev'n here is a season of rest,
     And I to my cabin repair.
There is mercy in every place;
     And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace,
     And reconciles man to his lot.