An Essay on Man: In Four Epistles to H. St. John Lord Bolinbroke. To which are Added the Universal Prayer, Messiah, and Elegy

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J. Lowe, 1820 - Human beings - 72 pages

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Page 57 - Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great indeed. What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath, A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.
Page 66 - 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 56 - Go ! if your ancient, but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go ! and pretend your family is young ; Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards ? Alas ! not all the blood of all the HOWARDS.
Page 14 - See through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth! Above, how high progressive life may go ! Around, how wide ! how deep extend below ! Vast chain of being! which from God began; Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from infinite to thee; From thee to nothing...
Page 18 - Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides; Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old Time, and regulate the sun; Go, soar with Plato to th...
Page 7 - Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Page 16 - 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 13 - Man's imperial race from the green myriads in the peopled grass : what modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, the mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam ; of smell, the headlong lioness between, and hound sagacious on the tainted green ; of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, to that which warbles through the vernal wood; the spider's touch how exquisitely fine ! feels at each thread, and lives along the line...
Page 70 - See heaven its sparkling portals wide display, And break upon thee in a flood of day.
Page 62 - Pursues that chain which links th' immense design, Joins heav'n and earth, and mortal and divine; Sees, that no being any bliss can know, But touches some above, and some below; Learns, from this union of the rising whole, The first, last purpose of the human soul ; And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, All end, in love of God, and love of man.

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