On the morning of her death he asked the servant "whether there was life above stairs ?" On being taken to see the corpse, he gazed at it for a moment, uttered one passionate cry of grief, and never spoke of Mrs.Unwin more.

He had the misfortune to survive her three years and a half, during which relatives and friends were kind, and Miss Perowne partly filled, the place of Mrs.Unwin.

Now and then, there was a gleam of reason and faint revival of literary faculty, but composition was confined to Latin verse or translation, with one memorable and almost awful exception.

The last original poem written by Cowper was _The Castaway_, founded on an incident in Anson's Voyage.
Obscurest night involved the sky, The Atlantic billows roared, When such a destined, wretch as I, Wash'd headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left.
No braver chief could Albion boast; Than he with whom he went, Nor ever ship left Albion's coast With warmer wishes sent.
He loved them both, but both in vain; Nor him beheld, nor her again.
Not long beneath the whelming brine Expert to swim, he lay, Nor soon he felt his strength decline, Or courage die away; But waged with death a lasting strife, Supported by despair of life.
He shouted; nor his friends had fail'd To check the vessel's course, But so the furious blast prevail'd, That pitiless perforce They left their outcast mate behind, And scudded still before the wind.
Some succour yet they could afford, And, such as storms allow, The cask, the coop, the floated cord, Delay'd not to bestow; But he, they knew, nor ship nor shore, Whate'er they gave, should visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he Their haste himself condemn, Aware that flight, in such a sea, Alone could rescue them; Yet bitter felt it still to die Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
He long survives, who lives an hour In ocean, self-upheld; And so long he, with unspent power, His destiny repelled: And ever, as the minutes flew, Entreated help, or cried--"Adieu!" At length, his transient respite past, His comrades, who before Had heard his voice in every blast, Could catch the sound no more: For then by toil subdued, he drank The stifling wave, and then he sank.
No poet wept him; but the page Of narrative sincere, That tells his name, his worth, his age, Is wet with Anson's tear; And tears by bards or heroes shed Alike immortalize the dead.
I therefore purpose not, or dream, Descanting on his fate, To give the melancholy theme A more enduring date: But misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case.
No voice divine the storm allay'd, No light propitious shone, When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, We perish'd, each alone: But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.
The despair which finds vent in verse is hardly despair.

Poetry can never be the direct expression of emotion; it must be the product of reflection combined with an exercise of the faculty of composition which in itself is pleasant.