Plots, true or false, are necessary things,

To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.

JOHN DRYDEN, Absalom and Achitophel

Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear,

To be we know not what, we know not where.

There is a pleasure sure,

In being mad, which none but madmen know!

Great wits are sure to madness near allied;

And thin partitions do their bonds divide.

By viewing nature, nature's handmaid art,

Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow:

Thus fishes first to shipping did impart,

Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.

All human things are subject to decay,

And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

Of all the tyrannies on human kind

The worst is that which persecutes the mind.

When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat;

Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit;

Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:

To-morrow's falser than the former day;

Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest

With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed.

For present joys are more to flesh and blood

Than a dull prospect of a distant good.

Content with poverty, my soul I arm;

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

Ah, how sweet it is to love!

Ah, how gay is young Desire!

And what pleasing pains we prove

When we first approach Love's fire!

To die for faction is a common evil,

But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.

I strongly wish, for what I faintly hope:

Like the daydreams of melancholy men,

I think and think on things impossible,

Yet love to wander in that golden maze.

See how the madman bleed! behold the gains

With which their master, Love, rewards their pains!

But far more numerous was the herd of such,

Who think too little and who talk too much.

They would leave out the words, and fall to dancing.

The poetry of the foot takes most of late.