18th Century: William Cowper

"William Cowper (pronounced Cooper) (November 20, 1731 – April 25, 1800) was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside" (wikipedia). You should know that he is the author of the Task and that he translated the Iliad and the Odyssey. In Jane Austen's Mansfield Park Fanny Price quotes a line of Cowper's "The Task." (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18074)

• Biography
• Works (etexts; summaries)
  • The Task

   

• "Pass where we may, through city or through town,
  Village or hamlet of this merry land
  Though lean and beggar'd, every twentieth pace
  Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff
  Of stale debauch forth issuing from the styes
  That law has licensed, as makes temperance reel.
  There sit involved and lost in curling clouds
  Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor,
  The lacquey, and the groom. The craftsman there
  Takes a Lethæan leave of all his toil;
  Smith, cobler, joiner, he that plies the sheers,
  And he that kneads the dough; all loud alike,
  All learned, and all drunk..." (The Task)
• God moves in a mysterious way,
  His wonders to perform;
  He plants his footsteps in the sea,
  And rides upon the storm.(Olney Hymns [1779]--'Light Shining out of Darkness')