The Works of Alexander Pope: Poetry

Front Cover
J. Murray, 1871
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 462 - 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; And binding Nature fast in fate, Left free the human will. 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 424 - For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right : In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity : All must be false that thwart this one great end ; And all of God, that bless mankind or mend.
Page 491 - Honour and shame from no condition rise ; Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Page 356 - Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be, contents his natural desire; He asks no .angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Page 365 - Great wits are sure to madness near allied; And thin partitions do their bounds divide: Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Page 153 - Favours to none, to all she smiles extends ; Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults if belles had faults to hide : If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face and you'll forget 'em all.
Page 207 - What might this be? A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
Page 142 - And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things.
Page 363 - Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore? Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
Page 393 - 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.

Bibliographic information