Cowper’s poems were produced late in life, but in bulk the work is large. It is curiously mixed and attractive in its nature. His _Poems_ (1782) is his first attempt at authorship. The book contains little that is noteworthy. The bulk of it is taken up with a collection of set pieces in heroic couplets, quite in the usual manner, on such subjects as _The Progress of Error, Truth, Hope, and Charity_. At the very end of the volume a few miscellaneous short pieces are more encouraging as novelties. One of them is the well-known poem containing the reflections of Alexander Selkirk (“I am monarch of all I survey”). His next work is _The Task_ (1785), a long poem in blank verse, dealing with simple and familiar themes and containing many fine descriptions of country scenes. In places the style is marked by the prevailing artificial tricks, and as a whole the poem is seldom inspired with any deep or passionate feeling; but his observation is acute and humane, it includes the homeliest detail within its kindly scope, and he gives us real nature, like Thomson in _The Seasons_. At the end of this volume the ballad of _John Gilpin_ finds a place. It is an excellent example of Cowper’s prim but sprightly humor, an extraordinary gift for a man of his morbid temperament. Other short poems were added to later editions of his first volume. These include the _Epitaph on a Hare_, curiously and touchingly pathetic; lines _On the Receipt of my Mother’s Picture_, which reveal only too painfully the suppressed convulsions of grief and longing that were stirred within him by memories of the past; and _The Castaway_, written in a lucid interval just before the end, and sounding like the wail of a damned spirit. The poem gives a tragic finality to his life. It describes the doom of a poor wretch swept overboard in a storm, and concludes: No poet wept him; but the page Of narrative sincere, That tells his name, his worth, his age, Is wet with Anson’s tear; And tears by bards or heroes shed Alike immortalise the dead. I therefore purpose not, or dream, Descanting on his fate, To give the melancholy theme A more enduring date: But misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another’s case. No voice divine the storm allay’d, No light propitious shone, When, snatch’d from all effectual aid, We perished, each alone: But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelm’d in deeper gulfs than he. Cowper’s letters, private epistles addressed to various personal friends, are among the most delightful of their kind. They show the man at his best--almost jovial in a delicate fashion, keenly observant, and with a genuine gift for narrative. The style is so clear that the disposition of the writer shines through it with unruffled benignity.