Luck Is The Residue Of Design.

For Liberty Hath A Sharp And Double Edge, Fit Only To Be Handled By Just And Virtuous Men; To Bad And Dissolute, It Becomes A Mischief Unwieldy In Their Own Hands.

Thou O Spirit, That Dost Prefer Before All Temples Th' Upright Heart And Pure, Instruct Me, For Thou Know'st; Thou From The First Wast Present, And With Mighty Wings Outspread Dove-like Satst Brooding On The Vast Abyss And Mad'st It Pregnant: What Is In Me Dark Illumine, What Is Low Raise And Support; That To The Heighth Of This Great Argument I May Assert Eternal Providence, And Justify The Ways Of God To Men.

Of Four Infernal Rivers That Disgorge/ Into The Burning Lake Their Baleful Streams;/abhorred Styx The Flood Of Deadly Hate,/sad Acheron Of Sorrow, Black And Deep;/cocytus, Nam'd Of Lamentation Loud/ Heard On The Rueful Stream; Fierce Phlegethon/ Whose Waves Of Torrent Fire Inflame With Rage./ Far Off From These A Slow And Silent Stream,/ Lethe The River Of Oblivion Rolls/ Her Wat'ry Labyrinth Whereof Who Drinks,/ Forthwith His Former State And Being Forgets,/ Forgets Both Joy And Grief, Pleasure And Pain.

In Dim Eclipse, Disastrous Twilight Sheds On Half The Nations, And With Fear Of Change Perplexes Monarchs.

The Very Essence Of Truth Is Plainness And Brightness; The Darkness And Crookedness Is Our Own. The Wisdom Of God Created Understanding, Fit And Proportionable To Truth, The Object And End Of It, As The Eye To The Thing Visible. If Our Understanding Have A Film Of Ignorance Over It, Or Be Blear With Gazing On Other False Glitterings, What Is That To Truth?