The Works of the Author of The Night-thoughts: In Three Volumes, Volume 2

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F. and C. Rivington ; Otridge and Son ; J. Nichols ; J. Sewell ; Longman and Rees ; Cadell and Davies ; G. and J. Robinson ; Vernor and Hood ; J. Walker ; J. Scatcherd ; Ogilvy and Son ; T. Hurst ; J. Mawman ; J. Nunn ; J. Cuthell ; W.J. and J. Richardson ; and J. Bookham, 1802

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Page 214 - tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead ; Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life Procrastination is the thief of time ; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
Page 232 - Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours ; And ask them, what report they bore to heaven ; And how they might have borne more welcome news. Their answers form what men Experience call ; If Wisdom's friend, her best ; -if not, worst foe.
Page 203 - How much is to be done ! My hopes and fears Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down — on what ? A fathomless abyss, A dread eternity, how surely mine ! And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour ? How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man...
Page 215 - Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool, And scarce in human wisdom to do more. All promise is poor dilatory man, And that through every stage. When young, indeed...
Page 206 - And is it in the flight of threescore years To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
Page 202 - Night, sable goddess ! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Page 354 - Horrid with frost, and turbulent with storm, Blows autumn, and his golden fruits, away: Then melts into the spring : soft spring, with breath Favonian, from warm chambers of the south, Recalls the first. All, to re-flourish, fades ; As in a wheel, all sinks, to re-ascend. Emblems of man, who passes, not expires. With this minute distinction, emblems just, Nature revolves, but man advances ; both Eternal ; that a circle, this a line. That gravitates, this soars. Th' aspiring soul, Ardent, and tremulous,...
Page 255 - Smitten friends Are angels sent on errands full of love ; For us they languish, and for us they die...
Page 351 - Who lives to nature, rarely can be poor ; Who lives to fancy, never can be rich. Poor is the man in debt ; the man of gold, In debt to fortune, trembles at her power.
Page 205 - Life's theatre as yet is shut, and Death, Strong Death, alone can heave the massy bar, This gross impediment of clay remove, And make us, embryos of existence, free.

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