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Lines Written During a Period of Insanity
by William Cowper

English poet. The simplicity of his work and his treatment of natural subjects was in marked contrast to the sophistication of the fashionable Pope; he was an important forerunner of the Romantics, and his unfinished poem 'Yardley Oak' was particularly admired by Wordsworth. Other notable poems include 'The Poplar Trees', 'The Journey of John Gilpin' and 'The Castaway', while The Task is his most ambitious work in verse. Olney Hymns (1779) contains his popular hymns 'God moves in a mysterious way' and 'Oh, for a closer walk with God'. His autobiographical Memoir was published in 1816, and his letters have been widely appreciated, providing an intimate picture of the man.


Lines Written During a Period of Insanity
by William Cowper

Hatred and vengence -my eternal portion
Scarce can endure delay of execution -
Wait with impatient readiness to seize my
Soul in a moment.

Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master!
Twice betrayed, Jesus me, the last delinquent,
Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.

Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,
I'm called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence
Worse than Abiram's.

Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice
Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong;
I, fed with judgment, in a fleshy tomb am
Buried above ground.


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