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Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Power. Book III.

The Argument

Solomon considers man through the several stages and conditions of life, and concludes, in general, that we are all miserable. He reflects more particularly upon the trouble and uncertainty of greatness and power; gives some instances thereof from Adam down to himself; and still concludes that All Is Vanity. He reasons again upon life, death, and a future being; finds human wisdom too imperfect to resolve his doubts; has recourse to religion; is informed by an angel what shall happen to himself, his family, and his kingdom, till the redemption of Israel; and, upon the whole, resolves to submit his inquiries and anxieties to the will of his Creator.

Come then, my soul: I call thee by that name,
Thou busy thing, from whence I know I am;
For, knowing that I am, I know thou art,
Since that must needs exist which can impart:
But how thou camest to be, or whence thy spring,
For various of thee priests and poets sing.

Hearest thou submissive, but a lowly birth,
Some secret particles of finer earth,
A plain effect which Nature must beget,
As motion orders, and as atoms meet,
Companion of the body's good or ill,
From force of instinct more than choice of will,
Conscious of fear or valour, joy or pain,

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poem by Matthew Prior
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Queen Mab: Part V.

'Thus do the generations of the earth
Go to the grave and issue from the womb,
Surviving still the imperishable change
That renovates the world; even as the leaves
Which the keen frost-wind of the waning year
Has scattered on the forest-soil and heaped
For many seasons there-though long they choke,
Loading with loathsome rottenness the land,
All germs of promise, yet when the tall trees
From which they fell, shorn of their lovely shapes,
Lie level with the earth to moulder there,
They fertilize the land they long deformed;
Till from the breathing lawn a forest springs
Of youth, integrity and loveliness,
Like that which gave it life, to spring and die.
Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights
The fairest feelings of the opening heart,
Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil
Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love,
And judgment cease to wage unnatural war

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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Ruined Abbey, or, The Affects of Superstition

At length fair Peace, with olive crown'd, regains
Her lawful throne, and to the sacred haunts
Of wood or fount the frighted Muse returns.
Happy the bard who, from his native hills,
Soft musing on a summer's eve, surveys
His azure stream, with pensile woods enclosed;
Or o'er the glassy surface with his friend,
Or faithful fair, through bordering willows green,
Wafts his small frigate. Fearless he of shouts,
Or taunts, the rhetoric of the watery crew
That ape confusion from the realms they rule;
Fearless of these; who shares the gentler voice
Of peace and music; birds of sweetest song
Attune from native boughs their various lay,
And cheer the forest; birds of brighter plume
With busy pinion skim the glittering wave,
And tempt the sun; ambitious to display
Their several merit, while the vocal flute
Or number'd verse, by female voice endear'd,
Crowns his delight, and mollifies the scene.

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poem by William Shenstone
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Samson Agonistes (excerpts)

[Samson's Opening Speech]
A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade,
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,
Daily in the common prison else enjoin'd me,
Where I a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air imprison'd also, close and damp,
Unwholesome draught: but here I feel amends,
The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn feast the people hold
To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid
Laborious works; unwillingly this rest
Their superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease;
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm

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poem by John Milton
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On Simony

Saw'st thou ever Siquis patcht on Pauls Church door
To seek some vacant vicarage before?
Who wants a churchman that can service say,
Read fast and fair his monthly homily?
And wed and bury and make Christen-souls?
Come to the left-side alley of St. Paules.
Thou servile fool, why could'st thou not repair
To buy a benefice at Steeple-Fair?
There moughtest thou, for but a slendid price,
Advowson thee with some fat benefice:
Or if thee list not wait for dead mens shoon,
Nor pray each morn the incumbents days were doone:
A thousand patrons thither ready bring,
Their new-fall'n churches, to the chaffering;
Stake three years stipend: no man asketh more.
Go, take possession of the Church porch door,
And ring thy bells; luck stroken in thy fist
The parsonage is thine, or ere thou wist.
Saint Fool's of Gotam mought thy parish be
For this thy base and servile Simony.

poem by Joseph Hall
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Still Much To Be Said

Millions
of prostrated poor.
Never see.
Beyond servile slums
of suffocating cities.
Wretched live
in poverty
experiencing chronic
conditions.
In weary
subsistence life
extorted extracted
exist.

Wherefore these dwell
these wretches
see know
nothing
of earth’s beauty.
In real terms.

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poem by Terence George Craddock
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Elegy XIV. Declining an Invitation To Visit Foreign Countries

DECLINING AN INVITATION TO VISIT FOREIGN COUNTRIES, HE TAKES OCCASION TO INTIMATE THE ADVANTAGES OF HIS OWN. TO LORD TEMPLE.

While others, lost to friendship, lost to love,
Waste their best minutes on a foreign strand,
Be mine, with British nymph or swain to rove,
And court the Genius of my native land.

Deluded Youth! that quits these verdant plains,
To catch the follies of an alien soil!
To win the vice his genuine soul disdains,
Return exultant, and import the spoil!

In vain he boasts of his detested prize;
No more it blooms, to British climes convey'd;
Cramp'd by the impulse of ungenial skies,
See its fresh vigour in a moment fade;

Th' exotic folly knows its native clime;
An awkward stranger, if we waft it o'er;

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poem by William Shenstone
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The Irish Avatar

'And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant,
kneeling to receive the paltry rider.'~Curran.

Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide,
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherish'd isle which he loved like his--bride!

True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone,
The rainbow-like epoch where Freedom could pause
For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betray'd not, or crush'd not, or wept not her cause.

True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags,
The castle still stands, and the senate's no more,
And the famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.

To her desolate shore--where the emigrant stands

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poem by Byron
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Thebais - Book One - part II

A robe obscene was o’er her shoulders thrown,
A dress by fates and furies worn alone. us
She tossed her meagre arms; her better hand’
In waving circles whirled a fun’ral brand:
A serpent from her left was seen to rear
His flaming crest, and lash the yielding air.
But when the fury took her stand on high, too
Where vast Oitheron’s top salutes the sky,
A hiss from all the snaky tire went round:
The dreadful signal all the rocks rebound,
And through th’ Aobaian cities send the sound.
Œte, with high Parnassus, heard the voice;
Eurotas’ banks remurmured to the noise;.
Again Leucothea shook at these alarms,
And pressed Palæmon closer in her arms.
Headlong from thence the glowing fury springs,
And o’er the Theban palace spreads her wings,
Once more invades the guilty dome, and shrouds
Its bright pavilions in a veil of clouds.
Straight with the rage of all their race possessed

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poem by Pablius Papinius Statius
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Ode XVIII: To The Right Honourable Francis Earl Of Huntington

I. 1.
The wise and great of every clime,
Through all the spacious walks of Time,
Where'er the Muse her power display'd,
With joy have listen'd and obey'd.
For taught of heaven, the sacred Nine
Persuasive numbers, forms divine,
To mortal sense impart:
They best the soul with glory fire;
They noblest counsels, boldest deeds inspire;
And high o'er Fortune's rage inthrone the fixed heart.

I. 2.
Nor less prevailing is their charm
The vengeful bosom to disarm;
To melt the proud with human woe,
And prompt unwilling tears to flow.

Can wealth a power like this afford?
Can Cromwell's arts, or Marlborough's sword,

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poem by Mark Akenside
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