Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds,
But animated nature sweeter still,
To soothe and satisfy the human ear.
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The livelong night: nor these alone, whose notes
Nice-finger'd Art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still-repeated circles, screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns,
And only there, please highly for their sake.
Affection such as the last lines display for the inharmonious as well
as the harmonious, for the uncomely, as well as the comely parts of
nature has been made familiar by Wordsworth, but it was new in the time
of Cowper. Let us compare a landscape painted by Pope in his Windsor
forest, with the lines just quoted, and we shall see the difference
between the art of Cowper, and that of the Augustan age.
Here waving groves a checkered scene display,
And part admit and part exclude the day,
As some coy nymph her lover's warm address
Not quite indulges, nor can quite repress.
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