Moved the Creator, in His holy rest, Through all eternity, so late to build In chaos; and the work begun, how soon Absolved.
But all is calm in this eternal sleep;
Here grief forgets to groan, and love to weep; Even superstition loses every fear:
For God, not man, absolves our frailties here.
ABSTEMIOUSNESS-ABSTINENCE. His life is paralleled
E'en with the stroke and line of his great justice; He doth with holy abstinence subdue That in himself, which he spurs on his power To qualify in others.
Yet abstinence in things we must profess, Which nature fram'd for need, not for excess. William Browne.
Against diseases here the strongest fence Is the defensive virtue abstinence.
Religious men, who hither must be sent As awful guides of heavenly government; To teach you penance, fasts, and abstinence, To punish bodies for the soul's offence.
Clytorean streams the love of wine expel, (Such is the virtue of the abstemious well,) Whether the colder nymph that rules the flood, Extinguishes and balks the drunken god; Or that Melampus, (so have some assured,) When the mad Prætides with charms he cured, And powerful herbs, both charms and simples cast Into the sober spring, where still their virtues last.
THE man that sits within a monarch's heart, And ripens in the sunshine of his favour, Would he abuse the count'nance of the king, Alack! what mischiefs might he set abroach, In shadow of such greatness.
Any but God alone to value right
The good before him, but perverts best things To worst abuses, or to their meanest use.
Some praise at morning what they blame at night, And always think the last opinion right; The muse by these is like a mistress used, This hour she's idolized, the next abused.
Pick out of mirth, like stones out of the ground, Profaneness, filthiness, abusiveness ;
These are the scum with which coarse wits abound; The fine may spare these well, yet not go less.
Dame Nature, as the learned shew, Provides each animal its foe; Hounds hunt the hare, the wily fox Devours your geese, the wolf your Thus envy pleads a natural claim To persecute the muse's fame, On poets of all times abusive,
From Homer down to Pope inclusive.
As the unthought-on accident is guilty
Of what we wildly do, so we profess
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies Of every wind that blows.
And trivial accidents shall be forborne,
That others may have time to take their turn.
Such a minister as wind to fire,
That adds an accidental fierceness
Among those friendly powers, who him received With joy, and acclamations loud, that one, That, of so many myriads fall'n, yet one Return'd, not lost.
His speech was answered with a general noise Of acclamation; doubtless signs of joy Which soldiers uttered as they forward went, The sure forerunner of a fair event.
The herald ends, the vaulted firmament With loud acclaim, and vast applause is rent.
ACCOMPLISH-ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
TELL him from me, (as he will win my love,) He bear himself with honourable action, Such as he hath observed in noble ladies Unto their lords, by them accomplished.
I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap, And deck my body in gay ornaments. O miserable thought, and more unlikely Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns.
O that I never had! fond wish too late, Was in the Vale of Sorec, Dalila, That specious monster, my accomplished snare.
Accomplishments were native to her mind, Like precious pearls within a clasping shell, And winning grace her every act refined, Like sunshine shedding beauty where it fell.
AT many times I brought in my accounts, Laid them before you; you would throw them off, And say you found them in mine honesty.
Shakspere. Then thou shalt see him plunged, when least he fears, At once accounting for his deep arrears. Dryden.
Sum up at night what thou hast done by day; And in the morning what thou hast to do. Dress and undress thy soul. Watch the decay, And growth of it. If with thy watch, that too Be down, then wind up both. Since we shall be Most surely judged, make thy accounts agree.
Herbert. Why were they proud? Because their marble founts Gushed with more pride than do a wretch's tears? Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs? Why were they proud? Because red-lined accounts Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?
THUS they in mutual accusation spent
The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning, And of their vain contest appeared no end.
That good man who drank the poisonous draught With mind serene, and could not wish to see His vile accuser drink as deep as he.
None have accused thee; 't is thy conscience cries, The witness in the soul that never dies; Its accusation, like the moaning wind Of wintry midnight, moves thy startled mind. Oh! may it melt thy hardened heart, and bring From out thy frozen soul the life of spring.
EXPERIENCE is by industry achieved, And perfected by the swift course of time.
Virtue, and that part of philosophy I will apply, that treats of happiness, By virtue specially to be achieved.
Had you, some ages past, this race of glory
Run, with amazement we should read your story; But living virtue, all achievement past, Meets envy still to grapple with at last.
Act! for in action are wisdom and glory; Fame, immortality-these are its crown; Would'st thou illumine the tablets of story?- Build on achievements thy dome of renown. From the German.
Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait.
ACTIONS.
WE must not stint
Our necessary actions, in the fear
To cope malicious censurers, which ever, As ravenous fishes, do a vessel follow That is new trimmed, but benefit no further Than vainly longing. What we oft do best By sick interpreters, or weak ones, is Not ours, or not allowed; what worst, as oft Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up For our best act.
Two sovereign remedies for human grief; Religion, sweetest, firmest, first, and best,
Strength to the weak, and to the wounded balm;
And strenuous action next.
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