Part 1 of 2
From ‘The Task’
NO noise is here, or none that
hinders thought.
The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppressed:
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where’er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendant drops of ice,
That tinkle in the withered leaves below.
Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft times no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds,
Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems t’enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Précis
On a winter walk, poet William Cowper relished the quiet of the countryside, where the sounds were of birdsong. In such surroundings, he said, the distinction between knowledge and wisdom becomes clearer: book-learned knowledge can only be bricks and mortar, whereas wisdom alone is an architect that can turn them into a building with a purpose. (56 / 60 words)
Part Two
BOOKS are not seldom talismans and
spells,
By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled.
Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment, hoodwinked. Some the style
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them, by a tune entranced.
While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear
The insupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice,
The total grist unsifted, husks and all.
But trees and rivulets, whose rapid course
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,
And lanes in which the primrose ere her time
Peeps through the moss, that clothes the hawthorn
root,
Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth,
Not shy, as in the world, and to be won
By slow solicitation, seize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.
Précis
Pursuing his distinction between knowledge and wisdom, Cowper shows how book-learning has gained an undeserved honour, because the public is dazzled by academic reputation or eloquence, and rarely subjects the authors to a proper critique. More can be learned, he concluded, in a moment’s insight on a country walk than in many hours spent in a library. (57 / 60 words)