[Page 128]

TO My Brothers E. and T. W.

False Greatness.

I.
1 BROTHERS, forbear to call him Blest
2 That only has a large Estate,
3 Should all the Treasures of the West
4 Meet and Conspire to make him Great.
5 Let a broad Stream with Golden Sands
6 Thro' all his Meadows roll,
7 He's but a Wretch with all his Lands
8 That wears a narrow Soul.
II.
9 He swells amidst his wealthy Store,
10 And proudly poizing what he weighs,
[Page 129]
11 In his own Scale he fondly lays
12 Huge Heaps of Shining Oar,
13 He spreads the Balance wide to hold
14 His Mannors and his Farms,
15 And cheats the Beam with Loads of Gold
16 He hugs between his Arms.
17 So might the Plough-boy climb a Tree,
18 When Craesus mounts his Throne,
19 And both stand up and smile to see
20 How long their Shadow's grown;
21 Alass! how vain their Fancies be,
22 To think that Shape their own.
III.
23 Thus mingled still with Wealth and State
24 Craesus himself can never know;
25 His true Dimensions, and his Weight
26 Are far inferiour to their show;
27 Were I so tall to reach the Pole,
28 Or grasp the Ocean with my Span,
29 I must be measur'd by my Soul.
30 The Mind's the Standard of the Man.

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Title (in Source Edition): TO My Brothers E. and T. W.
Author: Isaac Watts
Themes:
Genres: address; ode

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Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748. Horæ lyricæ: Poems, chiefly of the lyric kind. In two books. ... By I. Watts. London: Printed by S. and D. Bridge, for John Lawrence at the Sign of the Angel in the Poultrey. MDCCVI., 1706, pp. 128-129. [20],267,[1]p.; 8⁰. (ESTC T82397; OTA K067329.000) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Princeton Theological Seminary Library.)

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The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

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