A collection of miscellanies consisting of poems, essays, discourses, and letters occasionally written / by John Norris ...
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Title
A collection of miscellanies consisting of poems, essays, discourses, and letters occasionally written / by John Norris ...
Author
Norris, John, 1657-1711.
Publication
Oxford :: Printed at the Theater for John Crosley ...,
1687.
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Cite this Item
"A collection of miscellanies consisting of poems, essays, discourses, and letters occasionally written / by John Norris ..." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A52417.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2024.
Pages
Freedom.
I.
I Do not ask thee Fate to giveThis little span a long reprieve.Thy pleasures here are all so poor and vain,I care not hence how soon I'm gone.Date as thou wilt my time, I shan't complain;May I but still live free, and call it all my own.
II.
Let my sand slide away apace,I care not, so I hold the glass.Let me my Time, my Books, my Self enjoy,Give me from cares a sure retreat;Let no impertinence my hours employ,That's in one word, kind Heaven, ••et me ne're be great.
III.
In vain from chains and fetters freeThe great man boasts of Liberty.He's pinnion'd up by formal rules of state;Can ne're from noise and dust retire;He's haunted still by Crouds that round him wait,His lot's to be in Pain, as that of Fools t' admire.
IV.
Mean while the Swain has calm repose,Freely he comes and freely goes.
descriptionPage 142
Thus the bright Stars whose station is more highAre fix'd, and by strict measures move,While lower Planets wanton in the sky,Are bound to no set laws, but humoursomly rove.
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