7/26/2012 Poet of the day: William Cowper

Cowper, William (1731-1800), Was an English poet, who wrote about simple pleasures of country life and expressed a deep concern with human cruelty and suffering. He suffered periods of acute depression. He spent time in an asylum but composing poetry helped him to recover. 

He is perhaps best known for his poem "The Castaway" using a man washed overboard in a storm as a metaphor for his own depression:

 OBSCUREST night involv'd the sky,
     Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
     Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left. 
 
 He makes it clear what he means in the final verse:

No voice divine the storm allay'd,
     No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
     We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulphs than he.

The often quoted line "Variety is the spice of life" was written by Cowper as part of a large 6 book poetic series entitled "The Task."

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