In this selection, which includes short poems and extracts from the longer ones, there is ample evidence of the quality of Cowper's faith and of his eye and ear for nature. Indicative of how his life was sustained by writing, these poems reveal his effort to engage in discourse with friends and with the natural world.
William Cowper was a poet and a hymnodist who changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing on everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. Nick Rhodes is an editor and a poet.