The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope

Front Cover
Macmillan, 1907 - English poetry - 505 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 204 - Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Page 199 - 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 46 - Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears With sounds seraphic ring: Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O Grave! where is thy victory? O Death! where is thy sting?
Page 90 - 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: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage, Commanding tears to stream thro' ev'ry age; Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Page 55 - Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
Page 53 - A perfect judge will read each work of wit With the same spirit that its author writ : Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find Where Nature moves, and rapture warms the mind ; Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight, The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit.
Page 193 - Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that Hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest; The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Page 72 - Spoil. This Casket India's glowing Gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box. The Tortoise here and Elephant unite, Transform'd to Combs, the speckled, and the white.
Page 278 - Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys : So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as...
Page 45 - Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

Bibliographic information