Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

FROM "ESSAY ON MAN"

HOPE Springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul proud Science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good;

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd, —
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.

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.

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 ;

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.
Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,
Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;

A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;

An honest man 's the noblest work of God.

Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land ? All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

FROM "EPISTLE TO MR. ADDISON "

STATESMAN, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.

FROM ESSAY ON CRITICISM

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

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.

True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,

99

none

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

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.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
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 the unbending corn, and skims along the main

Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

FROM "THE TEMPLE OF FAME"

UNBLEMISH'D let me live, or die unknown; O grant an honest fame, or grant me none !

HENRY CAREY

(1693-1743)

SALLY IN OUR ALLEY

Of all the girls that are so smart
There's none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

Her father he makes cabbage-nets,

And through the streets does cry 'em ;
Her mother she sells laces long

To such as please to buy 'em :

But sure such folks could ne'er beget

So sweet a girl as Sally!

She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

When she is by, I leave my work,
I love her so sincerely;

My master comes like any Turk,
And bangs me most severely:
But let him bang his bellyful,
I'll bear it all for Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

Of all the days that's in the week

I dearly love but one day —

And that's the day that comes betwixt ~
A Saturday and Monday;

For then I'm drest all in my best
To walk abroad with Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

My master carries me to church,
And often am I blamèd

Because I leave him in the lurch
As soon as text is named;

I leave the church in sermon time
And slink away to Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

When Christmas comes about again,
O, then I shall have money;

I'll hoard it up, and box it all,
I'll give it to my honey:

I would it were ten thousand pound,

I'd give it all to Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

My master and the neighbours all
Make game of me and Sally,
And, but for her, I'd better be
A slave and row a galley;

But when my seven long years are out,
O then I'll marry Sally;

O then we'll wed, and then we 'll bed —
But not in our alley!

THOMAS GRAY

(1716-1771)

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.