Classic Love Poems
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William Cowper (1731-1800) was an English poet and hymn writer. He was immensely popular during his lifetime, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him “the best modern poet.” From 1782, when his first major volume appeared, until 1837, when Robert Southey completed the monumental Life and Works of Cowper, more than a hundred editions of Cowper’s poems were published in Britain and almost fifty editions in America. Many of his poems were written for or mention Mary Unwin, the widow with whom he lived for 35 years.
Mary Unwin
The Diverting History
of John Gilpin
Showing how he went farther
than he intended,
and came safe home again
To Mary (an excerpt)
The twentieth year is well-nigh past
Since first our sky was overcast;
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!
Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
I see thee daily weaker grow—
‘Twas my distress that brought thee low,
My Mary!
Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disus’d, and shine no more,
My Mary!
For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
The same kind office for me still,
Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
My Mary!
But well thou play’d’st the housewife’s part,
And all thy threads with magic art
Have wound themselves about this heart,
My Mary!
Thy indistinct expressions seem
Like language utter’d in a dream;
Yet me they charm, whate’er the theme,
My Mary!
Thy silver locks, once auburn bright,
Are still more lovely in my sight
Than golden beams of orient light,
My Mary!
For could I view nor them nor thee,
What sight worth seeing could I see?
The sun would rise in vain for me,
My Mary!
The Symptoms of Love
Would my Delia know if I love, let her take
My last thought at night, and the first when I wake;
With my prayers and best wishes preferred for her sake.
Let her guess what I muse on, when rambling alone
I stride o’er the stubble each day with my gun,
Never ready to shoot till the covey is flown.
Let her think what odd whimsies I have in my brain,
When I read one page over and over again,
And discover at last that I read it in vain.
Let her say why so fixed and so steady my look,
Without ever regarding the person who spoke,
Still affecting to laugh, without hearing the joke.
Or why when the pleasure her praises I hear,
(That sweetest of melody sure to my ear),
I attend, and at once inattentive appear.
And lastly, when summoned to drink to my flame,
Let her guess why I never once mention her name,
Though herself and the woman I love are the same.
on “Cowper, William”
