Some succour yet they could afford, And, such as storms allow, The cask, the coop, the floated cord, Delay"d not to bestow; But he, they knew, nor ship nor sh.o.r.e, Whate"er they gave, should visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seem"d, could he Their haste himself condemn, Aware that flight, in such a sea, Alone could rescue them; Yet bitter felt it still to die Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
He long survives, who lives an hour In ocean, self-upheld; And so long he, with unspent power, His destiny repelled: And ever, as the minutes flew, Entreated help, or cried--"Adieu!"
At length, his transient respite past, His comrades, who before Had heard his voice in every blast, Could catch the sound no more: For then by toil subdued, he drank The stifling wave, and then he sank.
No poet wept him; but the page Of narrative sincere, That tells his name, his worth, his age, Is wet with Anson"s tear; And tears by bards or heroes shed Alike immortalize the dead.
I therefore purpose not, or dream, Descanting on his fate, To give the melancholy theme A more enduring date: But misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another"s case.
No voice divine the storm allay"d, No light propitious shone, When, s.n.a.t.c.h"d from all effectual aid, We perish"d, each alone: But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelm"d in deeper gulfs than he.
The despair which finds vent in verse is hardly despair. Poetry can never be the direct expression of emotion; it must be the product of reflection combined with an exercise of the faculty of composition which in itself is pleasant. Still _The Castaway_ ought to be an antidote to religious depression, since it is the work of a man of whom it would be absurdity to think as realty estranged from the spirit of good, who had himself done good to the utmost of his powers.
Cowper died very peacefully on the morning of April 25, 1800, and was buried in Dereham Church, where there is a monument to him with an inscription by Hayley, which, if it is not good poetry, is a tribute of sincere affection.
Any one whose lot it is to write upon the life and works of Cowper must feel that there is an immense difference between the interest which attaches to him, and that which attaches to any one among the far greater poets of the succeeding age. Still there is something about him so attractive, his voice has such a silver tone, he retains, even in his ashes, such a faculty of winning friends that his biographer and critic may be easily beguiled into giving him too high a place. He belongs to a particular religious movement, with the vitality of which the interest of a great part of his works has departed or is departing.
Still more emphatically and in a still more important sense does he belong to Christianity. In no natural struggle for existence would he have been the survivor, by no natural process of selection would he ever have been picked out as a vessel of honour. If the shield which for eighteen centuries Christ by His teaching and His death has spread over the weak things of this world should fail, and might should again become the t.i.tle to existence and the measure of worth, Cowper will be cast aside as a specimen of despicable infirmity, and all who have said anything in his praise will be treated with the same scorn.