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A NIGHTINGALEthat all day long
Had cheered the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel, as well he might,
The keen demands of appetite;
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied, far off upon the ground
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glow-worm by his spark.
WILLIAM COWPER
So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus right eloquent:
“Did you admire my lamp,” quoth he,
“As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song;
For ’twas the self-same Pow’r divine
Taught you to sing and me to shine,
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night.”
The songster heard this short oration,
And warbling out his approbation.
Released him, as my story tells,
And found a supper somewhere else.
Hence jarring sectaries may learn
Their real interest to discern:
That brother should not war with brother
And worry and devour each other;
But sing and shine by sweet consent,
Till life’s poor transient night is spent,
Respecting in each other’s case
The gifts of nature and of grace.
Those Christians best deserve the name,
Who studiously make peace their aim:—
Peace, both the duty and the prize
Of him that creeps and him that flies
— WILLIAM COWPER
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still,
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain’d to love thee.
— William Cowper