Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

For man is every thing,

And more. He is a tree, yet bears no fruit;

A beast, yet is or should be more. Reason and speech we only bring. Parrots may thank us, if they are not mute, They go upon the score.

Man is all symmetry,

Full of proportions, one limb to another,

And all to all the world besides; Each part may call the farthest, brother;

For head with foot hath private amity,

And both with moons and tides.

Nothing hath got so far,

But man hath caught and kept it as his prey.

His eyes dismount the highest star: He is in little all the sphere: Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they

Find their acquaintance there.

For us the winds do blow, The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow;

Nothing we see but means our good As our delight, or as our treasure; The whole is either our cupboard of food,

Or cabinet of pleasure.

The stars have us to bed;

Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws.

Music and light attend our head. All things unto our flesh are kind In their descent and being; - to our mind,

In their ascent and cause.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

What's that which Heaven to man

endears,

And that which eyes no sooner see Than the heart says, with floods of tears,

"Ah, that's the thing which I would be!"

Not childhood, full of frown and fret;

Not youth, impatient to disown Those visions high, which to forget Were worse than never to have

known;

Not great men, even when they're good:

The good man whom the Lord makes great,

By some disgrace of chance or blood He fails not to humiliate:

Not these: but souls, found here and there,

Oases in our waste of sin, Where every thing is well and fair, And God remits his discipline; Whose sweet subdual of the world The worldling scarce can recognize,

And ridicule against it hurled,

Drops with a broken sting, and dies;

Who nobly, if they cannot know Whether a 'scutcheon's dubious field

Carries a falcon or a crow,

Fancy a falcon on the shield; Yet ever careful not to hurt

God's honor, who creates success, Their praise of even the best desert

Is but to have presumed no less; And should their own life plaudits bring,

They're simply vexed at heart that such

An easy, yea, delightful thing Should move the minds of men so much.

They live by law, not like the fool,

But like the bard, who freely sings In strictest bonds of rhyme and rule, And finds in them not bonds, but

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
« AnteriorContinuar »