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From "A Living and a Dead Faith" by William Cowper (part of the "Olney Hymns"):

To walk as children of the day,
To mark the precepts' holy light,
To wage the warfare, watch, and pray,
Show who are pleasing in his sight.

I'm baffled a bit by this stanza. I vaguely understand the general meaning (although "wage the warfare" might be harder to explain).

But the main point is that I'm not sure where the subject(s) and the object(s) are.

Is this an inverted word order, with "who are pleasing in his sight" the subject?

"The people who are pleasing in the sight of God exhibit the following behaviours: they walk as children of the day, they mark the precepts' holy light, they 'wage the warfare' (maybe metaphorically, a war on sins)".

Am I right? My guess is that "show" could mean "exhibit (a behaviour)" here.

I struggle to imagine the to-infinitive phrases (to walk, to mark..) as the subjects of the sentence.

Nathan Tuggy
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CowperKettle
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  • Struggle further to imagine that :) – TimR Mar 01 '16 at 15:26
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    It's religious poetry, and it's over two centuries old, so you shouldn't assume much about current English from the "syntax". I think probably the "grammatical" equivalent today would be Walking as children, marking..., waging..., watching, praying, [are actions identifying those who really are* are pleasing to God - as opposed to what the "loud professor says" which doesn't please Him]*. – FumbleFingers Mar 01 '16 at 15:27
  • @FumbleFingers - I see, thank you. So it's kind of an omission of "(are actions that show who are pleasing in His sight)". I thought of that but did not include that option in my question. I thought that maybe I overlooked an inversion, and posed that as a hypothesis. – CowperKettle Mar 01 '16 at 15:28
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    I may be mistaken, but I think in order to be the "subject", we'd expect a "noun" form - and the (nouny) *gerund* wasn't used that often in such pre-Victorian English. But it's not actually "invalid" to use the infinitive forms like this today - *To hate God is a sin, as opposed to Hating God is a sin*. But to repeat - you won't be likely to learn much about current syntax by studying such texts. – FumbleFingers Mar 01 '16 at 15:32
  • @FumbleFingers - with a similar omission, the equivalent would be "To hate God indicates a person whose soul is tainted". That is "To hate God [is a sin that] indicates a person whose soul is tainted". Something like that. – CowperKettle Mar 01 '16 at 15:34
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    (I think it would be a big mistake to assume that Cowper himself had any kind of "omission" in mind - that's exactly why you should be careful about trying to "learn English" from the text). – FumbleFingers Mar 01 '16 at 15:36
  • @FumbleFingers - I'm aware that it's old poetry, I only was curious as to its meaning and structure. The meaning of another stanza from the same poem turned out to be quite counterintuitive for me. – CowperKettle Mar 01 '16 at 15:36
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    Well, you've got the meaning yourself. As to the precise rationale of the "syntax", I'm not really qualified to discuss that, despite having read hundreds of texts from that period and earlier. You'll note how your attempt to impose "simple modern syntax" on the other stanza completely misled you. – FumbleFingers Mar 01 '16 at 15:39
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    It's a poem about action speaking louder than words; these infinitive forms (walk, mark, wage, watch, pray) emphasize doing. The parallel infinitive phrases cannot be the complement of "show" with subject being "(they) who are pleasing in his sight". – TimR Mar 01 '16 at 15:41
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    @TRomano: Not sure I follow the logic of that. If there's any difference at all between the infinitive and the gerund forms in this respect (not necessarily obvious to me), surely it's the gerund that emphasises *doing?* – FumbleFingers Mar 01 '16 at 16:32
  • @FumbleFingers: I wasn't drawing a contrast with the gerund forms. I was replying to CopperKettle's original difficulty in accepting the infinitive phrases as the subject of show.. – TimR Mar 01 '16 at 18:46
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    @TRomano: oic. I think there has been a change over time re using gerunds rather than infinitives in this sort of construction though. I know this particular example wouldn't actually have applied in Cowper's time, but I suspect that syntactically speaking he'd have been happier with To drive while uninsured is illegal, where today we'd be more like to go for *Driving while uninsured is illegal*. – FumbleFingers Mar 01 '16 at 18:53
  • I agree that the gerund form is more common now. – TimR Mar 01 '16 at 18:55
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    We may have to start referring to him as CowperKettle :) – TimR Mar 01 '16 at 18:55

2 Answers2

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Since this is religious poetry, a certain amount of liberties can be taken with the language. In this case, the verse is more straightforward if "these" or "these actions" is inserted at the beginning of the fourth line.

To do A, or to B or to do C: (these actions) show (those) who are pleasing in His sight.

WhatRoughBeast
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  • I sort of agree with your elucidation "(those)" but would quibble with "(these actions)" as that changes the syntax. – TimR Mar 02 '16 at 15:09
  • @TRomano - Yes, but making the replacement singular forces "show" to become "shows". Given the multiplicity of A, B and C, I figured to maintain the singular/plural choice of the original. – WhatRoughBeast Mar 02 '16 at 15:17
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This would be perfectly acceptable (if a little ponderous) syntax in 2016:

To take care in selecting the gift, to wrap it neatly, to attach a thoughtful note, show care for the person to whom the gift is given.

TimR
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