
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)
Four Riddles, no. II
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)
“Wilt thou pursue," she said, "or submit to aught that is shameful, when thou hast so many means of death and quick escape from a deed so wicked?”
<nowiki>'</nowiki>Tune sequeris' ait 'quidquam aut patiere pudendum
cum tibi tot mortes scelerisque brevissima tanti
effugia?
Source: Argonautica, Book VII, Lines 331–333
“This truth—to prove, and make thine own:
‘Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.”
"Isolation" (1857)
Canto XI, lines 91–93 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
"Lathmon"
The Poems of Ossian
“The wretched gift eternity
Was thine — and thou hast borne it well.”
II.
Prometheus (1816)
Context: Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity
Was thine — and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled,
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
“The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy.”
The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818)
Context: The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy.
Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
Thine is the Friend of all Mankind;
Mine speaks in parables to the blind.
Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.
“Wilt make haste to give up thy verdict because thou wilt not lose thy dinner.”
A Trick to catch the Old One (1605).