But If, As Morning Rises, Dreams Are

Consider Your Origins: You Were Not Made To Live As Brutes, But To Follow Virtue And Knowledge.

So May Heaven's Grace Clear Away The Foam From The Conscience, That The River Of Thy Thoughts May Roll Limpid Thenceforth.

In That Part Of The Book Of My Memory Before The Which Is Little That Can Be Read, There Is A Rubric, Saying, Incipit Vita Nova. Under Such Rubric I Find Written Many Things; And Among Them The Words Which I Purpose To Copy Into This Little Book; If Not All Of Them, At The Least Their Substance.

O You, Who In Some Pretty Boat, Eager To Listen, Have Been Following Behind My Ship, That Singing Sails Along Turn Back To Look Again Upon Your Own Shores; Tempt Not The Deep, Lest Unawares, In Losing Me, You Yourselves Might Be Lost. The Sea I Sail Has Never Yet Been Passed; Minerva Breathes, And Pilots Me Apollo, And Muses Nine Point Out To Me The Bears. You Other Few Who Have Neck Uplifted Betimes To The Bread Of Angels Upon Which One Lives And Does Not Grow Sated, Well May You Launch Your Vessel Upon The Deep Sea.

Be As A Tower Firmly Set; Shakes Not Its Top For Any Blast That Blows.