| C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. | | | | May |
| | | | A true philosopher |
| Makes death his common practice, while he lives, |
| And every day by contemplation strives |
| To separate the soul, far as he can, |
| From off the body. |
| 1 |
| | For true charity |
| Though ne’er so secret finds its just reward. |
| 2 |
| | From our tables here, no painful surfeits, |
| No fed diseases grow, to strangle nature, |
| And suffocate the active brain; no fevers, |
| No apoplexies, palsies or catarrhs |
| Are here; where nature, not entic’d at all |
| With such a dang’rous bait as pleasant cates, |
| Takes in no more than she can govern well. |
| 3 |
| | Health and liberty |
| Attend on these bare meals; if all were blest |
| With such a temperance, what man would fawn, |
| Or to his belly sell his liberty? |
| There would be then no slaves, no sycophants |
| At great men’s tables. |
| 4 |
| | Known mischiefs have their cure; but doubts have none; |
| And better is despair than fruitless hope |
| Mix’d with a killing fear. |
| 5 |
| | None can describe the sweets of country life, |
| But those blest men that do enjoy and taste them. |
| Plain husbandmen, tho’ far below our pitch, |
| Of fortune plac’d, enjoy a wealth above us; |
| To whom the earth with true and bounteous justice, |
| Free from war’s cares, returns an easy food, |
| They breathe the fresh and uncorrupted air, |
| And by clear brooks enjoy untroubled sleeps. |
| Their state is fearless and secure, enrich’d |
| With several blessings, such as greatest kings |
| Might in true justice envy, and themselves |
| Would count too happy, if they truly knew them. |
| 6 |
| | Oh sad vicissitude |
| Of earthly things! to what untimely end |
| Are all the fading glories that attend |
| Upon the state of greatest monarchs, brought! |
| What safety can by policy be wrought, |
| Or rest be found on fortune’s restless wheel! |
| 7 |
| | Seldom is faction’s ire in haughty minds |
| Extinguish’d but by death: it oft like fire |
| Suppress’d, breaks forth again, and blazes higher. |
| 8 |
| | There, in her den, lay pompous luxury, |
| Stretch’d out at length; no vice could boast such high |
| And genial victories as she had won; |
| Of which proud trophies there at large were shown, |
| Besides small states and kingdoms ruined |
| Those mighty monarchies that had o’erspread |
| The spacious earth, and stretch’d their conquering arms |
| From pole to pole, by her ensnaring charms |
| Were quite consum’d; there lay imperial Rome, |
| That vanquish’d all the world, by her o’ercome; |
| Fetter’d was th’ old Assyrian lion there; |
| The Grecian leopard, and the Persian bear; |
| With others numberless, lamenting by, |
| Examples of the power of luxury. |
| 9 |
| | With riotous banquets, sicknesses came in, |
| When death ’gan muster all his dismal band |
| Of pale diseases. |
| 10 | | |
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