Cowper and Newton Museum, Olney, 3945
William Cowper’s Shaving Mirror
It is morning and the poet
still in white nightshirt
is shaving
at his washstand, a mirror
catches his bedroom
backwards
adding a sliver of town
all-night drunks stumbling
out of the Red Lion
the poet’s face is long and bony
wide mouth, soft eyes are sensitive
his faculties are god-given
every day, scrape away
sin
a mirror within
every morning he looks in his shaving mirror
to perceive himself
as cheek and chin
no mark of sin
upon cheek and chin
upon throat his hand trembles slightly
percussive birdsong merely
blackbird hymn
praising the God of Light and upper lip
he dips his blade in cold water
his skin stiffens
his nightshirt is thin
whinny of horses beyond
clatter of pattens below
rustle of leaves, spit-splat of rain
every morning
new promise, good faith
benediction of cheek and chin
every morning this mirror frames his face
his face fills this mirror
innocent
his hands are clean
our Redeemer’s blood
all washed away
leaving love
of God
of shaven cheek and chin.
Clare Brant
I find it interesting to watch men shave. You see them look at themselves in a most particular way. We don’t have much of a language for that… is it a version of the male gaze?
I wanted form to catch something of shaving as a process: short raspy lines, nubbly corners, a few longer sweeps. Cowper’s cosmology is touched on, no more, no less. Biography is present but relaxed. I wanted to evoke self-familiarity, even self-portrait: it is an ekphrastic poem using an image invisible to us, Cowper’s face in the mirror.
After I had written the poem I was impelled by scholarly drives to see if Cowper had written anything about shaving. He had! ‘Gratitude. A Poem Addressed to Lady Hesketh’ (in William Hayley, The Life and Letters of William Cowper, vol. 4 p.227) gives his cousin a tour of his bedroom, to which she had contributed various items. Halfway round we meet
This table and mirror within
Secure from collision and dust,
At which I oft shave cheek and chin,
And periwig nicely adjust.
You can imagine how I smiled.