The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. ...: Moral essays

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J. and P. Knapton, 1751

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Page 23 - 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 37 - As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength; So, cast and mingled with his very frame.
Page 27 - 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; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err...
Page 18 - Were we to press, inferior might on ours; Or in the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. And, if each system in gradation roll Alike essential to th' amazing whole, The least confusion but in one, not all That system only, but the whole must fall.
Page 43 - Ask where's the North? at York, 'tis on the Tweed; In Scotland, at the Orcades ; and there, At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.
Page 42 - Fools ! who from hence into the notion fall, That vice or virtue there is none at all. If white and black blend, soften, and unite A thousand ways, is there no black or white ? Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain ; 'Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain.
Page 15 - Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled...
Page 87 - Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed, From Macedonia's madman to the Swede ; The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find Or make an enemy of all mankind!
Page 187 - Consult the Genius of the Place in all; That tells the Waters or to rise, or fall; Or helps th...
Page 9 - Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way...

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