God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more / Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.
A little onward lend thy guiding hand / To these dark steps, a little further on.
Sabrina fair, / Listen where thou art sitting/ Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, / In twisted braids of lilies knitting / The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, / What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st, Live well, how long or short permit to heav'n
Adam inquires concerning celestial motions, is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge.
The childhood shows the man, / As morning shows the day. Be famous then / By wisdom; as thy empire must extend, / So let extend thy mind o'er all the world.
Nations grow corrupt, love bondage more than liberty; bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.
This is servitude, To serve th'unwise, or him who hath rebelled Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee, Thyself not free, but to thyself enthralled.
He's gone and who knows how he may report/ Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
With thy long levelled rule of streaming light.
Apt words have power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind.
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones / Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; / Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old / When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones.