Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours...
A Sacred Eclogue, in Imitation of Virgil’s Pollio
YE nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and th’ Aonian maids,
Delight no more—O thou my voice inspire
Who touched Isaiah’s hallowed lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the bard...
Vital spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, O quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
O, 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!
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my...
From “An Essay on Man,” Epistle IV.
WHAT ’s fame?—a fancied life in others’ breath,
A thing beyond us, e’en before our death.
Just what you hear, you have; and what ’s unknown
The same (my lord) if Tully’s, or your own.
All that we feel of it begins and ends
In the small circle of our foes or friends;
To all beside, as much an empty...
From “An Essay on Man,” Epistle IV.
HONOR and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.
“What differ more (you cry) than...
From “Moral Essays,” Epistle I.
SEARCH thou the ruling passion; there, alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool consistent and the false sincere;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.* * * * *
In this the lust, in that the avarice,
Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice...
[Lord Bolingbroke]
From “An Essay on Man,” Epistle IV.
COME then, my friend! my genius! come along;
O master of the poet, and the song!
And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends,
To man’s low passions, or their glorious ends,
Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Formed by thy...
From “The Rape of the Lock,” Canto I.
AND now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
The inferior priestess, at her altar’s...
From “The Rape of the Lock,” Canto II. ll. 7–18.
ON her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore,
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those:
Favors to none, to all she smiles extends:
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes...
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;
...
