William Cowper (1731-1800)

Upon a Venerable Rival

Biblical age metaphor

Thirty years references the biblical human lifespan. Cowper is doing precise mortality calculus.

Full thirty frosts since thou wert young
Have chill'd the wither'd grove,
Thou wretch! and hast thou liv'd so long,
Nor yet forgot to love?
Ye Sages! spite of your pretences

Wisdom vs. Emotion paradox

Sages claim wisdom but often miss emotional truths. Cowper critiques intellectual pretension.

To wisdom, you must own
Your folly frequently commences
When you acknowledge none.
Not that I deem it weak to love,
Or folly to admire,
But ah! the pangs we lovers prove
Far other years require.
Unheeded on the youthful brow

Classical allusion

Phoebus is the Greek sun god. Here used to represent youthful vitality contrasted with aging.

The beams of Phoebus play,
But unsupported Age stoops low
Beneath the sultry ray.
For once, then, if untutor'd youth,
Youth unapprov'd by years,
May chance to deviate into truth,
When your experience errs;
For once attempt not to despise
What I esteem a rule:
Who early loves, though young, is wise -
Who old, though gray, a fool.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Love and Aging: A Satirical Critique

Cowper subverts typical 18th-century poetry about love by mocking the idea that emotional passion should diminish with age. He argues that wisdom is not about suppressing feeling, but understanding it.

The poem operates as a witty challenge to social conventions, using sharp wordplay to expose the hypocrisy of those who claim rational superiority. By positioning youthful passion as potentially wiser than aged cynicism, Cowper inverts expected hierarchies of knowledge.

Poetic Structure and Argument

The poem uses tight quatrain structures with a consistent ABAB rhyme scheme, which ironically mirrors the controlled rationality Cowper is critiquing. Each stanza builds a precise argument about emotional authenticity.

Notice how the final stanza delivers a provocative reversals: 'Who early loves, though young, is wise - / Who old, though gray, a fool' encapsulates the entire poem's argument about emotional intelligence transcending age.