Procrastination is the thief of time: Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
How blessings brighten as they take their flight.
Too low they build who build below the skies.
A soul without reflection, like a pile Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.
Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain, It, makes us wander, wander earth around, To fly that tyrant Thought. As Atlas groan’d The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.
A foe to God ne’er was true friend to man, Some sinister intent taints all he does.
Final Ruin fiercely drives Her ploughshare o’er creation.
Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopen’d to the sun.
To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.
Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!
Life’s cares are comforts; such by Heav’n design’d; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched.
Man wants little, nor that little long.
An undevout astronomer is mad.
The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
Heaven wills our happiness, allows our doom.
Sweet instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.
As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.
The spider’s most attenuated thread Is cord, is cable, to man’s tender tie On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
Death! great proprietor of all! ’tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
When men once reach their autumn, sickly joys fall off apace, as yellow leaves from trees.