None Can Love Freedom Heartily, But Good

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.

But Pain Is Perfect Misery, The Worst Of Evils, And Excessive, Overturns All Patience.

A Broad And Ample Road, Whose Dust Is Gold, And Pavement Stars,--as Stars To Thee Appear Seen In The Galaxy, That Milky Way Which Nightly As A Circling Zone Thou Seest Powder'd With Stars.

Among The Writers Of All Ages, Some Deserve Fame, And Have It; Others Neither Have Nor Deserve It; Some Have It, Not Deserving It; Others, Though Deserving It, Yet Totally Miss It, Or Have It Not Equal To Their Deserts.

From Restless Thoughts, That, Like A Deadly Swarm Of Hornets Arm'd, No Sooner Found Alone, But Rush Upon Me Thronging.