The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 3

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Ingram, Cooke, 1853

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Page 261 - 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...
Page 252 - Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? 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 152 - Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread empire, CHAOS! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And universal darkness buries all.
Page 292 - What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy, Is virtue's prize: A better would you fix?
Page 271 - Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite...
Page 276 - Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food ? Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Page 298 - See the sole bliss heav'n could on all bestow ! Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know: Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, The bad must miss, the good, untaught, will find; 330 Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through nature up to nature's God: Pursues that chain which links th...
Page 298 - Pursues that chain which links th' immense design, Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine ; Sees that no being any bliss can know, But touches some above, and some below ; Learns from this union of the rising whole, The first, last purpose of the human soul ; And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, All end in love of God and love of man.

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