Part 7 (1/1)

Some succour yet they could afford, And, such as storms allow, The cask, the coop, the floated cord, Delay'd not to bestow; But he, they knew, nor shi+p nor shore, Whate'er they gave, should visit more

Nor, cruel as it seeht, in such a sea, Alone could rescue them; Yet bitter felt it still to die Deserted, and his friends so nigh

He long survives, who lives an hour In ocean, self-upheld; And so long he, with unspent power, His destiny repelled: And ever, as the th, his transient respite past, His comrades, who before Had heard his voice in every blast, Could catch the sound nowave, and then he sank

No poet wept hie Of narrative sincere, That tells his nae, Is ith Anson's tear; And tears by bards or heroes shed Alike immortalize the dead

I therefore purpose not, or dreaive the hts to trace Its semblance in another's case

No voice divine the storht propitious shone, When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, We perish'd, each alone: But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelulfs than he

The despair which finds vent in verse is hardly despair Poetry can never be the direct expression of emotion; it must be the product of reflection combined with an exercise of the faculty of composition which in itself is pleasant Still _The Castaway_ ought to be an antidote to religious depression, since it is the work of a ed froood to the utmost of his powers

Cowper died very peacefully on theof April 25, 1800, and was buried in Dereham Church, where there is a monument to hiood poetry, is a tribute of sincere affection

Any one whose lot it is to write upon the life and works of Cowper must feel that there is an immense difference between the interest which attaches to hireater poets of the succeeding age Still there is so about him so attractive, his voice has such a silver tone, he retains, even in his ashes, such a faculty of winning friends that his biographer and critic h a place He belongs to a particular religious reat part of his works has departed or is departing

Still more e to Christianity In no natural struggle for existence would he have been the survivor, by no natural process of selection would he ever have been picked out as a vessel of honour If the shi+eld which for eighteen centuries Christ by His teaching and His death has spread over the weak things of this world should fail, and ain become the title to existence and the measure of worth, Coill be cast aside as a speci in his praise will be treated with the same scorn