That brings us to another person; an eighteenth-century poet by the name William Cowper. William Cowper had pits and fits of despair. What an up and down life he had, and bouts of genuine madness. But there were lucid times and there were happy times as well. In his mind sometimes, he felt that he was reprobate, that he was cast off by God, and doomed to be damned. But there were other times when he shared Habakkuk’s faith and could come at it in poetry. One time he wrote these words, which you can tell that he has appropriated from Habakkuk 3:17–18. Couper wrote:
Though vine nor fig tree neither. Their wonted fruit shall bear,
though all the fields should wither, nor flocks nor herds be there,
yet God, the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice;
for while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice!1
Ralph Davis
17 Car le figuier ne fleurira pas, La vigne ne produira rien, Le fruit de l'olivier manquera, Les champs ne donneront pas de nourriture; Les brebis disparaîtront du pâturage, Et il n'y aura plus de bœufs dans les étables.