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 | The complete works, poetry and prose, of the Rev. Edward Young prefixed, a life of the author, by John Doran ... With eight illustrations on steel, and a portrait. In two volumes |  |
“Thou shalt not covet,” is a wise command;
But bounded to the wealth the sun surveys:
Look farther, the command stands quite reversed,
And avarice is a virtue most Divine.
Is faith a refuge for our happiness?
Most sure. And is it not for reason too?
Nothing this world unriddles, but the next.
Whence inextinguishable thirst of gain?
From inextinguishable life in man.
Man, if not meant, by worth, to reach the skies,
Had wanted wing to fly so far in guilt.
Sour grapes, I grant, ambition, avarice;
Yet still their root is immortality.
These its wild growths so bitter, and so base,
(Pain and reproach!) Religion can reclaim,
Refine, exalt, throw down their poisonous lee,
And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss.
But bounded to the wealth the sun surveys:
Look farther, the command stands quite reversed,
And avarice is a virtue most Divine.
Is faith a refuge for our happiness?
Most sure. And is it not for reason too?
Nothing this world unriddles, but the next.
Whence inextinguishable thirst of gain?
From inextinguishable life in man.
Man, if not meant, by worth, to reach the skies,
Had wanted wing to fly so far in guilt.
Sour grapes, I grant, ambition, avarice;
Yet still their root is immortality.
These its wild growths so bitter, and so base,
(Pain and reproach!) Religion can reclaim,
Refine, exalt, throw down their poisonous lee,
And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss.
| The complete works, poetry and prose, of the Rev. Edward Young prefixed, a life of the author, by John Doran ... With eight illustrations on steel, and a portrait. In two volumes | |