In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain. The wond'ring forests soon should dance again; The moving mountains hear the powerful call. And headlong streams hand listening in their fall!
The most positive men are the most credulous, since they most believe themselves, and advise most with their falsest flatterer and worst enemy--their own self-love.
With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore, Th' inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears; The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years.
Pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry.
The difference is as great between The optics seeing as the objects seen. All manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discolor'd through out passions shown; Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.
Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd, Nor pass these lips in holy silence seal'd. Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise, Where mixed with Gods, his lov'd idea lies: O write it not, my hand - the name appears Already written - wash it out, my tears! In vain lost Eloisa weeps and prays, Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeyes.
Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are madeTaller or stronger than the weeds they shade?Or ask of yonder argent fields above,Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?