Frasi di William Cowper

pagina 4

“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.”

“How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home!”

“T is Providence alone secures
In every change both mine and yours.”

“No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,
Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.”

“The solemn fop; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.”

“It seems the part of wisdom.”

“He sees that this great roundabout
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says—what says he?—Caw.”

“A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.”

“That good diffused may more abundant grow.”

“His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock it never is at home.”

“Prove that you have human feelings,
Ere you proudly question ours!”

“Transforms old print
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.”

“Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.”

“Though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.”

“England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrained to love thee.”

“Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”

“But strive still to be a man before your mother.”

“Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause.”

“But Conversation, choose what theme we may,
And chiefly when religion leads the way,
Should flow, like waters after summer show'rs,
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.”

“United yet divided, twain at once:
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.”

“And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.”

“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.”

“As when around the clear bright moon, the stars
Shine in full splendor, and the winds are hush'd,
The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland-heights
Stand all apparent, not a vapor streaks
The boundless blue, but ether open'd wide
All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd.”

“Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.”

“Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
And frustrate hope severer than despair.”

“Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.”

“Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.”

“So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,
All healthful, are the employs of rural life,
Reiterated as the wheel of time,
Runs round; still ending, and beginning still.”

“I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau
If birds confabulate or no.”

“Oh! for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heav'nly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!”