See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head!
Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly!
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
you played, and loved, and ate, and drunk your fill:
walk sober off; before a sprightlier age comes tittering on,
and shoves you from the stage:
leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please.
In lazy apathy let stoics boast
Their virtue fix’d: ’t is fix’d as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
In Words, as Fashions, the same Rule will hold;
Alike Fantastick, if too New, or Old;
Be not the first by whom the New are try’d,
Nor yet the last to lay the Old aside.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
"Hither the heroes and nymphs resort, To taste awhile the pleasures of a court; In various talk th' instuctive hours they past, Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last; One speaks the glory of the British Queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen A third interprets motions, looks and eyes; At every word a reputation dies."
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great.
From pride, from pride, our very reas’ning springs;
Account for moral, as for nat’ral things:
Why charge we Heav’n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.
Poetical Works [Alexander Pope]. Herbert Davis, ed. (1978; repr. 1990) Oxford University Press.
The bookful blockhead ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always list'ning to himself appears.
All books he reads, and all he reads assails.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend, A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend.
Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.
Books by and about Alexander Pope
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