Selected Poems of Alexander Pope

Front Cover
Crofts, 1926 - 271 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 158 - Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies: His wit all see-saw between that and this, Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis.
Page 76 - As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule — Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!
Page 155 - Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike...
Page 43 - She said ; then raging to Sir Plume repairs, And bids her Beau demand the precious hairs: (Sir Plume of amber snuff-box justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane...
Page 9 - Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky, Th' eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last: But those attain'd, we tremble to survey The growing labours of the lengthen'd way; Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes, Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
Page 74 - That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees. Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent...
Page 86 - Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat ? Loves of his own and raptures swell the note.
Page 74 - Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent : Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns : To him no high, no low, no great, no small ; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Page 66 - AWAKE, my St John ! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man ; A mighty maze ! but not without a plan ; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot ; Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Page 32 - Beam new transient Colours flings, Colours that change whene'er they wave their Wings. Amid the Circle, on the gilded Mast, Superior by the head, was Ariel...

Bibliographic information