Thomas Gray Pain Quotations

Th' applause of listening senates to command, / The threats of pain and ruin to despise,/ To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, / And read their history in a nation's eyes.

To each his suff'rings; all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan,- The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'T is folly to be wise.

The applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes.

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow.

In buskined measures move Pale Grief and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.

Man's feeble race what ills await! Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!

Where once my careless childhood strayed, / A stranger yet to pain.

To each his suff'rings: all are men, / Condemn'd alike to groan, / The tender for another's pain; / Th' unfeeling for his own.