William Cowper was an 18th century poet and hymn writer, born a generation or two before Blake, Coleridge, Clare and Keats, and like them, posthumously diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Of course, we can never really know what caused their mental illness and it seems rather prurient to conjecture about this aspect of their lives. In any event, what's more interesting about Cowper is the fact he kept three orphaned hares as pets and found some comfort in caring for them.
Mr Cowper’s Hares
And so he sits without moving
holds them in his lap
not so tightly they’ll take
fright
leap through the window
scream up the lane
outstripping every attempt to
catch them
hurling themselves
from rock to moss to wild
supposition
till they’ve gone beyond all
returning
no longer know they have a home
and not so softly they’ll take
fright
bolt down the passage
out through the door
dodging the grasp of passers-by
plunging
almost suicidal into tan pits
brought back half-drowned in a
sack
caked with lime
and so he holds them without
moving
pent between his hands
sees his reflection
in their mad amber eyes
©Deborah Harvey 2016
This poem won the Hilly Cansdale Prize for Local Poets at Wells Literature Festival last year, and I'll be reading it at the prize-giving ceremony for this year's shortlisted poets, this Sunday at 3.30pm in the Bishop's Palace.
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