The Complaint: Or, Night Thoughts

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S. Andrus and Son, 1824 - 324 pages
 

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Page 22 - Death ! great proprietor of all ! 'tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars; The sun himself by thy permission shines; And one day thou shalt pluck him from his sphere.
Page 26 - As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves ; then dies the same. And why .' because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves...
Page 18 - An heir of glory ! a frail child of dust! Helpless immortal ! insect infinite ! A worm ! a god ! I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost ! At home a stranger, Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, And wondering at her own: how reason reels!
Page 265 - Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene ; Resumes them, to prepare us for the next. All evils natural are moral goods ; All discipline, indulgence, on the whole. None are unhappy : all have cause to smile, But such as to themselves that cause deny.
Page 211 - One bustling, and one dancing, into death. There's not a day, but, to the man of thought, Betrays some secret, that throws new reproach On life, and makes him sick of seeing more. so The scenes of business tell us —
Page 320 - Man's rich restorative ; his balmy bath, That supples, lubricates, and keeps in play. The various movements of this nice machine. Which asks such frequent periods of repair. When tired with vain rotations of the day, Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn ; Fresh we spin on, till sickness clogs our wheels, Or death quite breaks the spring, and motion ends.
Page 151 - Eternity! A glorious and a needful refuge that, From vile imprisonment in abject views. Tis immortality, 'tis that alone, Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness, The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill.
Page 48 - The chamber where the good man meets his fate, Is privileged beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Page 20 - And is it in the flight of threescore years, To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust? A soul immortal, spending all...
Page 224 - Taking his country by five hundred ears, Senates at once admire him and despise, With modest laughter lining loud applause, Which makes the smile more mortal to his fame? His fame which (like the mighty Caesar) crown'd With laurels, in full senate, greatly falls, By seeming friends, that honour and destroy.

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