Essay on man, and The universal prayer

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Whittaker & Company, 1860 - 47 pages

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Page 4 - Heav'n 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 to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play ? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Page 11 - Placed 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...
Page 45 - By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord ! Thou Great First Cause, least understood, Who all my sense confined, To know but this, that Thou art good, And that myself am blind...
Page 13 - Two principles in human nature reign; Self-love, to urge, and reason, to restrain; Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, Each works its end, to move or govern all: And to their proper operation still Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill.
Page 9 - 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 5 - Where slaves once more their native land behold ; No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To Be, contents his natural desire ; He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. rv. Go, wiser thou ! and, in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fanciest such ; Say, here he gives too little, there too much...
Page 3 - Yet serves to second too some other use. So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
Page 14 - Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More studious to divide than to unite, And grace and virtue, sense and reason split, With all the rash dexterity of wit: Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. Self-love and reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire...
Page 13 - Man, but for that, no action could attend, And, but for this, were active to no end: Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot: Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.
Page 32 - That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die, Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, 5 O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise. Plant of celestial seed ! if dropp'd below, Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?

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