Task and Other Poems by William Cowper
page 156 of 199 (78%)
page 156 of 199 (78%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ
Uninjured, with inimitable art, And, ere one flowery season fades and dies, Designs the blooming wonders of the next. Some say that in the origin of things, When all creation started into birth, The infant elements received a law From which they swerve not since; that under force Of that controlling ordinance they move, And need not His immediate hand, who first Prescribed their course, to regulate it now. Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God The encumbrance of His own concerns, and spare The great Artificer of all that moves The stress of a continual act, the pain Of unremitted vigilance and care, As too laborious and severe a task. So man the moth is not afraid, it seems, To span Omnipotence, and measure might That knows no measure, by the scanty rule And standard of his own, that is to-day, And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down. But how should matter occupy a charge Dull as it is, and satisfy a law So vast in its demands, unless impelled To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, And under pressure of some conscious cause? The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused Sustains and is the life of all that lives. |
|