With wisdom fraught; not such as books, but such as practice taught.
The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; So calm are we when passions are no more!
Vexed sailors cursed the rain, for which poor shepherds prayed in vain.
Happy the innocent whose equal thoughts are free from anguish as they are from faults.
What use of oaths, of promise, or of test, where men regard no God but interest?
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become As they draw near to their eternal home: Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new.