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PETITION FOR AN ABSOLUTE RETREAT, 
Let me then, indulgent Fate, 
Let me still, in my retreat, 
* From all roving thoughts be freed, 
Or aims, that may contentions breed ; 
Nor be my endeavors led 
By goods, that perish with the dead! 
Fitly might the life of man 
Be indeed esteem’d a span, 
If the present moment were 
Of delight his only share; 
If no other joys he knew 
Than what round about him grew. 
But as those, who stars would trace 
From a subterranean place, 
Through some engine lift their eyes 
To the outward, glorious skies ; 
So the immortal spirit may, 
When descended to our clay, 
From a rightly govern’d frame 
View the height, from whence she came, 
To her paradise be caught, 
And things unutterable taught. 
Give me then, in that retreat, 
Give me, O indulgent Fate! 
For all pleasures left behind, 
Contemplations of the mind. 
Let the fair, the gay, the vain 
Courtship and applause obtain ; 

































