* * * * *
WILLIAM COWPER.
1731-1800.
THE TASK.
Book i. _The Sofa_.
God made the county, and man made the town.[20]
[Note 20: "God the first garden made, and the first city Cain."--Cowley]
Book ii. _The Timepiece_.
O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never roach me more.
* * * * *
Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
* * * * *
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.
* * * * *
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
* * * * *
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.
* * * * *
Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavor.
* * * * *
Book iii. _The Garden_.
Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that hast survived the fall!
How various his employments whom the world
jails idle; and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!
* * * * *
Book iv.
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