The feminine note once struck, the note of personal tenderness, of domestic interest, of compassion for the homely, the suffering, or the secluded was never again to be absent from English poetry; and Cowper continued, without a break, the still sad music of humanity first clearly uttered by Goldsmith. What is the name of Cowper’s principal and most ambitious poem? As you know, it is called The Task; and what are the respective titles of the six books into which it is divided? They are: The Sofa, The Time-Piece, The Garden, The Winter Evening, The Winter Morning Walk, The Winter Walk at Noon. Other poems of a kindred character are entitled Hope, Charity, Conversation, Retirement. Open what page you will of Cowper’s verse, and you will be pretty sure to find him either[Pg 40] denouncing things which women, good women, at least, find abhorrent, such as the slave-trade, gin-drinking, gambling, profligacy, profane language, or dwelling on occupations which are dear to them. [Pg 40] O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, he exclaims— Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more! My ear is pained, My soul is sick with every day’s report Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. There is no flesh in man’s obdurate heart, It does not feel for man. These are the opening lines of the Time-Piece, and they sound what may be called the note of feminine indignation; a note which is reverted to by him again and again. More placidly but still in the same spirit, he exclaims: 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 steaming column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in. Farther on, he describes how— ’Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreat To peep at such a world, to see the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd. Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced To some secure and more than mortal height, That liberates and exempts me from them all. [Pg 41]Again, invoking evening, he says: [Pg 41]
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