Date: 1735

"A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find, / But each man's secret standard in his mind, / That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, / This, who can gratify? For who can guess?"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1735

"The Bard whom pilf'red Pastorels renown, / Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, / Just writes to make his barrenness appear, / And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1735, 1736

"In Men, we various Ruling Passions find, / In Women, two almost divide the kind; / Those, only fix'd, they first or last obey, / The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"I learn to smooth and harmonize my Mind, / Teach ev'ry Thought within its bounds to roll, / And keep the equal Measure of the Soul."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"My Mind resumes the thread it dropt before; / Thoughts, which at Hyde-Park-Corner I forgot, / Meet and rejoin me, in my pensive Grott. "

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"Talk what you will of Taste, my Friend, you'll find, / Two of a Face, as soon as of a Mind."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"With Terrors round can Reason hold her throne / Despise the known, nor tremble at th'unknown?"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1737, published 1738

"A Voice there is, that whispers in my ear, / ('Tis Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear)."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1737, published 1738

"Long, as to him who works for debt, the Day; / Long as the Night to her whose love's away; / Long as the Year's dull circle seems to run, / When the brisk Minor pants for twenty-one; / So slow th' unprofitable Moments roll, / That lock up all the Functions of my soul; / That keep me from Myself;...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1737, published 1738

"But when no Prelate's Lawn with Hair-shirt lin'd, / Is half so incoherent as my Mind, / When (each Opinion with the next at strife, / One ebb and flow of follies all my Life) / I plant, root up, I build, and then confound, / Turn round to square, and square again to round."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)