Alexander Pope

On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.

Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.

Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender, or too firm a heart, To act a lover's or a Roman's part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good …

Therefore they who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble the Ancients, may as well say our faces are not our own, because they are like our Fathers: And indeed it is very unreasonable, that people should expect us to be …

I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any …

Ignobly vain, and impotently great.

A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state. While Cato gives his little senate laws, What bosom beats not in his country's cause?

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage.

From old Belerium to the northern main.

Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare, They fall, and leave their little lives in air.

Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began A mighty hunter, and his prey was man.

Not chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd, But as the world, harmoniously confus'd, Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things …

The world recedes; it disappears! Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears With sounds seraphic ring! Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?

Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.

The flying Rumours gather'd as they roll'd, Scarce any Tale was sooner heard than told; And all who told it, added something new, And all who heard it, made Enlargements too, In ev'ry Ear it spread, on ev'ry Tongue it grew.

The garlands fade, the vows are worn away; So dies her love, and so my hopes decay.

Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from every thorn.

Say, is not absence death to those who love?

Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.