Frasi di William Cowper

pagina 5

“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.”

“As if the world and they were hand and glove.”

“How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged arrows of light.”

“Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste
His works. Admitted once to his embrace,
Thou shalt perceive that thou was blind before:
Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart
Made pure shall relish with divine delight
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.”

“Reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.”

“There is a bird who by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow.”

“Society friendship and love
Divinely bestow'd upon man,
O had I the wings of a dove
How soon I would taste you again!”

“And still to love, though prest with ill,
In wintry age to feel no chill,
With me is to be lovely still,
My Mary!”

“Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.”

“My soul
Shall bear that also; for, by practice taught,
I have learned patience, having much endured.”

“I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain,
And bear the marks upon a blushing face,
Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.”

“I was a stricken deer that left the herd
Long since.”

“No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone;
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he.”

“She that asks
Her dear five hundred friends.”

“Not a flower
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil.”

“No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.”

“Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.”

“Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.”

“Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,—
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.”

“He that holds fast the golden mean, 22
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.”

“His head,
Not yet by time completely silvered o'er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpaired.”

“Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread,
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.”

“I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.”

“Glory, built
On selfish principles, is shame and guilt.”

“An idler is a watch that wants both hands;
As useless when it goes as when it stands.”

“Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
Unfriendly to society's chief joys,
Thy worst effect is banishing for hours
The sex whose presence civilizes ours.”

“But that disease when soberly defined
Is the false fire of an o'erheated mind.”

“Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid.”

“When one that holds communion with the skies
Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'T is e'en as if an angel shook his wings.”

“Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.”