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A Comparison.

By William Cowper

Topics: classic

The lapse of time and rivers is the same,     Both speed their journey with a restless stream;     The silent pace, with which they steal away,     No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay;     Alike irrevocable both when past,     And a wide ocean swallows both at last.     Though each resemble each in every part,     A difference strikes at length the musing heart;     Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound,     How laughs the land with various plenty crownd!     But time, that should enrich the nobler mind,     Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind.

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Author:William Cowper

"The lapse of time and rivers is the same,..." 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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