The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, 2. köide

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W. Pickering, 1851

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Page 83 - The only point where human bliss stands still, And tastes the good without the fall to ill ; Where only merit constant pay receives, Is...
Page 49 - Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd 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 153 - The world recedes: it disappears! 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 13 - 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 86 - What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than hell to shun, That, more than heaven pursue.
Page 7 - First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard, which is still the same: Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchanged, and universal light, Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart, At once the source, and end, and test of Art. Art from that fund each just supply provides; Works without show, and without pomp presides: In some fair body thus th...
Page 7 - Want as much more to turn it to its use ; For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
Page 17 - Though oft the ear the open vowels tire ; While expletives their feeble aid do join ; And ten low words oft creep in one dull line ; While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes ; Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze...
Page 47 - Cease then, nor order imperfection name : Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point : This kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Page 18 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

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