Fondly We Think We Honor Merit Then,

One Self-approving Hour Whole Years Outweighs.

See The Wild Waste Of All-devouring Years! How Rome Her Own Sad Sepulchre Appears, With Nodding Arches, Broken Temples Spread! The Very Tombs Now Vanish'd Like Their Dead!

No Senses Stronger Than His Brain Can Bear. Why Has Not Man A Microscopic Eye? For This Plain Reason, Man Is Not A Fly: What The Advantage, If His Finer Eyes Study A Mite, Not Comprehend The Skies?... Or Quick Effluvia Darting Thro' His Brain, Die Of A Rose, In Aromatic Pain? If Nature Thunder'd In His Opening Ears, And Stunn'd Him With The Music Of The Spheres... Who Finds Not Providence All-good And Wise, Alike In What It Gives, And What Denies?

For What I Have Publish'd, I Can Only Hope To Be Pardon'd; But For What I Have Burned, I Deserve To Be Prais'd.

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.