Der Mensch, ein philosophisches Gedicht

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A. König, 1772 - Human beings - 351 pages

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Page 11 - What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam; Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green ; Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles through the vernal wood. The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine ! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line...
Page 39 - tis the price of toil; The knave deserves it, when he tills the soil, The knave deserves it, when he tempts the main, Where folly fights for kings, or dives for gain. The good man may be weak, be indolent; Nor is his claim to plenty, but content.
Page 5 - Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man.
Page 8 - Yet simple Nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To Be, contents his natural desire, He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Page 15 - With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err...
Page 23 - Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw ; Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite ; Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age : Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before ; Till tir'd he sleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er.
Page 19 - As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength; So, cast and mingled with his very frame.
Page 26 - Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spread the flow'ry lawn: Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? Loves of his own and raptures swell the note.
Page 16 - Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art; But when his own great work is but begun, What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone. Trace Science then, with modesty thy guide; First strip off...
Page 23 - Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw : Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite...

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