From an Essay on Man poem – Alexander Pope

A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period

Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate,

All but the page prescrib’d, their present state:

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?

Pleas’d to the last, he crops the flow’ry food,

And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.

Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv’n,

That each may fill the circle mark’d by Heav’n:

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,

But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:

Man never is, but always to be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin’d 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;

Yet simple nature to his hope has giv’n,

Behind the cloud topp’d hill, an humbler heav’n;

Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,

Some happier island in the wat’ry waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.

To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky.

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• Graydigger’s Home by William Stafford by William Stafford
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• Sonnet 127: In the old age black was not counted fair by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 125: Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
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• Sonnet 122: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
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• Sonnet 11: As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
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• Sonnet 118: Like as to make our appetite more keen by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 117: Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
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