What to do when you want to express yourself but your own words fail you? When that happens to me, I turn to poets. It is their gift to ‘dress’ in the right words all our confused thoughts and feelings, especially when the latter cannot seem to figure out which ‘clothes to wear’. Poets are the great philosophers of human soul.
Today I share a selection of quotes I picked from some of Alexander Pope’s poems (18th century England). Reading them I smiled and marvelled at how inexplicably easy and clearly the poet has put the confusion in my mind into such beautiful words. I hope some of these words will speak also to you.
“Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst
A. Pope (1)
thou find,
Why form’d so weak, so little, and so blind!
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form’d no weaker, blinder, and no less!”
“Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
A. Pope (1)
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv’n,
T’inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav’n?”
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own;
A. Pope (1)
Is Heav’n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas’d with nothing, if not bless’d with all?
Know then thyself, presume not God so scan;
A. Pope (1)
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus’d;
Still by himself abus’d, or disabus’d;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl’d:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
keep exploring!
(1) Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, Alexander Pope Poems, selected by Claude Rawson, 2018
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