The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: To which is Prefixed the Life of the Author..J. Walker; J. Johnson; W. J. and J. Richardson ... [and 18 others], 1808 - English poetry - 651 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ancient Balaam bard Bavius beauty Behold better blest character charms Cibber court cried critics Curll Dennis divine dull Dulness dunce Dunciad e'er Edmund Curll epigram EPISTLE Essay Essay on Criticism ev'n ev'ry eyes fair fame fate flame folly fool genius give glory goddess grace happy hath hear heart Heaven hero Homer honour Iliad judgement king knave laws learn'd learned Leonard Welsted live lord lov'd mankind moral muse nature ne'er never night numbers nymph o'er octavo once passion pleas'd poem poet Pope praise pride proud queen racter rage REMARKS rhyme rise sacred Sappho satire SCRIBL shade shine sighs sing skies soft soul sure taste thee things thou thought true truth Twas verse Virgil virtue Westminster Abbey wife win widows words wretched writ write youth
Popular passages
Page 212 - Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Page 43 - HAPPY the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire; Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter, fire.
Page 203 - See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high, progressive life may go ! Around, how wide ! how deep extend below ! Vast chain of being ! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach ; from infinite to thee, From thee to nothing.
Page 54 - In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Page 199 - Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Page 67 - Soft yielding minds to water glide away, And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental tea. The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome, In search of mischief still on earth to roam. The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, And sport and flutter in the fields of air.
Page 216 - See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving vegetate again: All forms that perish other forms supply; (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die) Like bubbles on the sea of Matter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return.
Page 55 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Page 199 - Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Page 209 - Subject, compound them, follow her and God. Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain, These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd, Make and maintain the balance of the mind: The lights and shades, whose well accorded strife Gives all the strength and colour of our life.