Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 29.
Quotes from work
The Task
The Task: A Poem, in Six Books is a poem in blank verse by William Cowper published in 1785, usually seen as his supreme achievement. Its six books are called "The Sofa", "The Timepiece", "The Garden", "The Winter Evening", "The Winter Morning Walk" and "The Winter Walk at Noon". Beginning with a mock-Miltonic passage on the origins of the sofa, it develops into a discursive meditation on the blessings of nature, the retired life and religious faith, with attacks on slavery, blood sports, fashionable frivolity, lukewarm clergy and French despotism among other things. Cowper's subjects are those that occur to him naturally in the course of his reflections rather than being suggested by poetic convention, and the diction throughout is, for an 18th-century poem, unusually conversational and unartificial. As the poet himself writes,
Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 181.
Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 1.
“Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.”
The Task, book vi. Winter Walk at Noon, line 101.
The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 352.
“O Popular Applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?”
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 481.
“O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 120.
Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 560.
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 217.
Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 439.
“As dreadful as the Manichean god,
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 444.
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 188.
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 478.
“There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 285.
“While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 118.
“Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 514.
“He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 733.
