The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 2

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G. Bell, 1891

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Page 33 - KNOW then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer...
Page 315 - To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart, To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold...
Page 25 - The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Page 312 - VITAL spark of heavenly flame ! Quit, oh quit this mortal frame ! Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying; Oh the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease,- fond nature ! cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. Hark ! they whisper ; angels say, Sister Spirit, come away.
Page 160 - Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and Templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise — Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he? What though my name stood rubric on the walls, Or plaster'd posts, with claps, in capitals? Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers load, On wings of winds came flying all abroad?
Page 266 - Yes, I am proud ; I must be proud to see Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me ; Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, Yet touch'd and sham'd by ridicule alone.
Page 160 - Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike...
Page 31 - Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect in a hair as heart ; As full, as perfect in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns. To Him no high, no low, no great, no small ; He fills, He bounds, connects and equals all.
Page 71 - FATHER of all ! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord ! Thou great First Cause, least understood, Who all my sense confined To know but this, that Thou art good, And that myself am blind ; Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill ; And binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.
Page 63 - Tis but to know how little can be known; To see all others' faults and feel our own: Condemn'd in business or in arts to drudge, Without a second or without a judge: Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

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