Frasi di William Cowper

pagina 3

“Di quando in quando uno sciocco deve pur azzeccarci, per combinazione.”

“Dio si muove in modo misterioso | Per compiere i suoi prodigi | Nel mare egli calca le sue impronte | E cavalca la tempesta.”

“La Natura è solo un nome per un effetto
La cui causa è Dio.”

“Le ricchezze hanno ali, e la magnificenza è un sogno.”

“Dio creò la campagna e l'uomo creò la città.”

“E il primo fabbro era il figlio del primo assassino.”

“Il papa ha reso il fare poesia una semplice arte meccanica.”

“Il parroco che conosce un duca ha abbastanza cognizioni.”

“Il rimorso è l'uovo fatale deposto dal piacere in ogni petto dove si è fatto il nido.”

“Ma la sofferenza ancor ama scoprire
La propria immagine nei casi altrui.”

“Sospendere il giudizio serve solo a dichiarare che la verità sta da qualche parte. Se solo sapessimo dove.”

“Tu Stampa, dea della nostra idolatria.”

“Un uomo che fa chiasso ha sempre ragione.”

“There is a fountain fill'd with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.”

“O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!”

“Toll for the brave —
The brave! that are no more;
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!”

“Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all
that once lived here”

“I would not enter on my list of friends,
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.”

“Which not even critics criticise.”

“I praise the Frenchman [Voltaire], his remark was shrewd —
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat
Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.”

“Tis hard if all is false that I advance,
A fool must now and then be right by chance.”

“Made poetry a mere mechanic art.”

“With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.”

“Misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.”

“But many a crime deem'd innocent on earth
Is register'd in Heaven; and these no doubt
Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,
But God will never.”

“So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can,
Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search
Of argument, employed too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!”

“O 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.”

“As dreadful as the Manichean god,
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.”

“In indolent vacuity of thought.”

“Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.”

“From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up.”

“A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.”

“Beware of desp'rate steps! The darkest day
(Live till tomorrow) will have passed away.”

“All learned, and all drunk!”

“Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.”

“There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.”

“The son of parents pass'd into the skies.”

“While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.”

“Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.”

“Now let us sing — Long live the king,
And Gilpin, long live he;
And, when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!”

“He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.”

“Forced from home and all its pleasures
Afric's coast I left forlorn,
To increase a stranger's treasures
O'er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though slave they have enrolled me,
Minds are never to be sold.”