Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.
His sleep Was aery light, from pure digestion bred.
Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.
The timely dew of sleep.
Hail holy light, offspring of heav’n firstborn!
Her virtue and the conscience of her worth, That would be woo’d, and not unsought be won.
Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones.
And these gems of Heav’n, her starry train.
Fame is the last infirmity of the human mind.
Son of Heav’n and Earth, Attend: that thou art happy, owe to God; That thou continuest such, owe to thyself, That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.
Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides. Come and trip it as ye go, On the light fantastic toe.
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
Midnight shout and revelry, Tipsy dance and jollity.
A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men’s names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost.
How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo’s lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns.
I was all ear, And took in strains that might create a soul Under the ribs of death.
Live while ye may, Yet happy pair.
Laws can discover sin, but not remove it.
The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burthensome, still paying, still to owe; Forgetful what from him I still receivd, And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but still pays, at once Indebted and dischargd; what burden then?