The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me;
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
She's still the same belov'd, contented thing.
All Nature is but art, unknown to thee All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good.
Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade,
The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heav'n influence scarce can penetrate.
In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.
In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost; contracted all, retiring to the breast; but strength of mind is exercise, not rest.