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Life is the desert, life the solitude;Death joins us to the great majority.
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And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.
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Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed:Who does the best his circumstance allowsDoes well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
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The course of Nature is the art of God.
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At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;At fifty chides his infamous delay,Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;In all the magnanimity of thoughtResolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.
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Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!
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Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
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Ah, how unjust to Nature and himselfIs thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
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Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour.
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Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
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There is something in Poetry beyond Prose-reason; there are Mysteries in it not to be explained, but admired.
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Pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps;And pyramids are pyramids in vales.Each man makes his own stature, builds himself.Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids;Her monuments shall last when Egypt’s fall.
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Virtue alone has majesty in death.
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Thoughts shut up want air,And spoil, like bales unopen’d to the sun.
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Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
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Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,In rayless majesty, now stretches forthHer leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world.
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With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue,Forever most divinely in the wrong.
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Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched.
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'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,And ask them what report they bore to heaven.
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On reason build resolve,that column of true majesty in man.