And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!
In Thebes’s streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.
Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy;
Thou hast a tongue,—come,...
Was this small plant for thee cut down?
So was the plant of great renown,
Which Mercy sends
For nobler ends.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
Doth juice medicinal proceed
From such a naughty foreign weed?
Then what ’s the power
Of Jesse’s flower?
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
The...
Anonymous translation from the Italian
IF every man’s internal care
Were written on his brow,
How many would our pity share
Who raise our envy now?
The fatal secret, when revealed,
Of every aching breast,
Would prove that only while concealed
Their lot appeared the best.
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...
He who bends to himself a joy
Does the wingèd life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.
If you trap the moment before it is ripe,
The tears of repentance you ’ll certainly wipe;
But if once you let the ripe moment go,
You can never wipe off the tears of woe.
O That the chemist’s magic art
Could crystallize this sacred treasure!
Long should it glitter near my heart,
A secret source of pensive pleasure.
The little brilliant, ere it fell,
Its lustre caught from Chloe’s eye;
Then, trembling, left its coral cell,—
The spring of Sensibility!
Sweet drop of pure and pearly light!...
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...
THE Wisest of the wise
Listen to pretty lies,
And love to hear them told;
Doubt not that Solomon
Listened to many a one,—
Some in his youth, and more when he grew old.
I never sat among
The choir of Wisdom’s song,
But pretty lies loved I
As much...
From “The Borough”
BUT now our Quacks are gamesters, and they play
With craft and skill to ruin and betray;
With monstrous promise they delude the mind,
And thrive on all that tortures human-kind.
Void of all honor, avaricious, rash,
The daring tribe compound their boasted trash,—
Tincture or syrup, lotion, drop or pill;
All...
The Tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
’T was therefore said by ancient sages,
That love of life increased with years
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pains grow sharp and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.
This great affection to believe,
Which all confess, but few...
