Wealth and honours, which most men pursue, easily change masters; they desert to the side which excels in virtue, industry, and endurance of toil, and they abandon the slothful.
He left it in thy power, ordaind thy will By nature free, not over-rul’d by Fate Inextricable, or strict necessity;.
What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support, That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 1 Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22.
O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.
Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.
Still paying, still to owe. Eternal woe!
Yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible.
Thou art my father, thou my author, thou my being gav’st me; whom should I obey but thee, whom follow?
How oft, in nations gone corrupt, And by their own devices brought down to servitude, That man chooses bondage before liberty. Bondage with ease before strenuous liberty.
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined; Till at his second bidding darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.
Heaven is for thee too high To know what passes there; be lowly wise. Think only what concerns thee and thy being; Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there Live, in what state, condition, or degree, Contented that thus far hath been revealed.
The childhood shows the man As morning shows the day. Be famous then By wisdom; as thy empire must extend, So let extend thy mind o’er all the world.
But pain is perfect misery, the worst Of evils, and excessive, overturns All patience.
Such sober certainty of waking bliss.
It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, That woman’s love can win, or long inherit; But what it is, hard is to say, Harder to hit.
Freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall.
Imparadis’d in one another’s arms.
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou livest, Live well; how long, or short, permit to Heaven.
For men to tell how human life began Is hard; for who himself beginning knew?
Servant of God, well done! well hast thou fought The better fight, who single hast maintain’d Against revolted multitudes the cause of truth.