Desert, 2.

The North American Review, January 1834, remembers William Cowper's bouts of temporary insanity:

"Spent in heavy insensibility, ... he felt for himself a contempt not to be expressed or imagined ... he felt as if he had offended God so deeply that his guilt could never be forgiven... Madness was not far off, or rather madness was already come."

The article ultimately described not the poet's madness, but how God prevented Cowper--from destroying himself (Psalm 124).

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It would hurt to get disciplined by this desert branch.
It would prob draw blood.
Photo taken in Arizona, February 2010.

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Among William Cowper's first compositions after his first descent into despair was "There is a fountain,"  which celebrated that, and how, God could remove the stain of even the guiltiest sin.

there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.

and sinners plunged beneath that flood

lose all their guilty stains!

lose all their guilty stains!

lose all their guilty stains!

and sinners plunged beneath that flood

lose all their guilty stains!