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The Judgment Of The Poets.

By William Cowper

Topics: classic

Two nymphs, both nearly of an age,     Of numerous charms possessd,     A warm dispute once chanced to wage,     Whose temper was the best.     The worth of each had been complete,     Had both alike been mild:     But one, although her smile was sweet,     Frownd oftener than she smiled.     And in her humour, when she frownd,     Would raise her voice, and roar,     And shake with fury to the ground     The garland that she wore.     The other was of gentler cast,     From all such frenzy clear,     Her frowns were seldom known to last,     And never proved severe.     To poets of renown in song     The nymphs referrd the cause,     Who, strange to tell, all judgd it wrong,     And gave misplaced applause.     They gentle calld, and kind and soft,     The flippant and the scold,     And though she changed her mood so oft,     That failing left untold.     No judges, sure, were eer so mad,     Or so resolved to err     In short the charms her sister had     They lavishd all on her.     Then thus the god, whom fondly they     Their great inspirer call,     Was heard, one genial summers day,     To reprimand them all.     Since thus ye have combined, he said,     My favourite nymph to slight,     Adorning May, that peevish maid,     With Junes undoubted right,     The minx shall, for your follys sake,     Still prove herself a shrew,     Shall make your scribbling fingers ache,     And pinch your noses blue.

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Author:William Cowper

"Two nymphs, both nearly of an age,..." by William Cowper

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

William Cowper

About William Cowper

William Cowper (1731–1800) was an English poet and hymnodist whose work bridges the gap between the Augustan age and Romanticism. His poems "The Task" and "John Gilpin" were enormously popular, and his hymn "God Moves in a Mysterious Way" remains widely sung.

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