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’Tis impious in a good man to be sad
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Life is the desert, life the solitude;Death joins us to the great majority.
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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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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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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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Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!
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None think the great unhappy but the great.
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There buds the promise of celestial worth.
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Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
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The course of Nature is the art of God.
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Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
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The booby father craves a booby son,And by Heaven’s blessing thinks himself undone.
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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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And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
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Prayer ardent opens heaven.
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Virtue alone has majesty in death.
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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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That life is long which answers life's great end.
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Ah, how unjust to Nature and himselfIs thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
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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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Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour.
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The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.