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MAN'S GREATNESS AND LITTLENESS
His home a speck in a vast Universe,
He a mere atom on that tiny speck,
Victim of countless evils that coerce
And force him onward on a pathless track;
And yet a being made to dominate
O'er all things else by mind's controlling power:
Spoiled favourite at once and sport of fate,
Football of fortune, time's consummate flower!
To him alone did nature's self impart
A spark of her divinest energy,
With power to create the world of Art,
And intellect to solve all mystery:
So great and yet so little! blessed and cursed,—
Nature's most noble offspring—yet her worst!
He a mere atom on that tiny speck,
Victim of countless evils that coerce
And force him onward on a pathless track;
And yet a being made to dominate
O'er all things else by mind's controlling power:
Spoiled favourite at once and sport of fate,
Football of fortune, time's consummate flower!
To him alone did nature's self impart
A spark of her divinest energy,
With power to create the world of Art,
And intellect to solve all mystery:
So great and yet so little! blessed and cursed,—
Nature's most noble offspring—yet her worst!
PASSION VERSUS REASON
Wherefore is man to sensual thoughts a slave.
And beauty but a bait to tempt to lust?
Tell me why reason such small power should have.
That can but say "You ought" to Passion's "must"?
We strive to root the seeds of evil out,
And steer our course by virtue's steady light,
Make resolutions of resistance stout
To all the assailing powers of appetite:
Then, when we rest of victory most assured,
A gust of fierce desire assails the soul,
O'erturns the guards with which it seemed secured,
And gone is all our boasted self-control!
Hard fate of man, thus wrecked on Passion's shelf,
That ne'er may be the master of himself.
And beauty but a bait to tempt to lust?
Tell me why reason such small power should have.
That can but say "You ought" to Passion's "must"?
We strive to root the seeds of evil out,
And steer our course by virtue's steady light,
Make resolutions of resistance stout
To all the assailing powers of appetite:
Then, when we rest of victory most assured,
A gust of fierce desire assails the soul,
O'erturns the guards with which it seemed secured,
And gone is all our boasted self-control!
Hard fate of man, thus wrecked on Passion's shelf,
That ne'er may be the master of himself.
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