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Shrinking from admonition, like a man
Who feels, that to exhort, is to reproach.
Yet not to be diverted from his aim,
The Sage continued.—"For that other loss,
The loss of confidence in social Man,
By the unexpected transports of our Age
Carried so high, that every thought—which looked
Beyond the temporal destiny of the Kind—
To many seemed superfluous; as, no cause
For such exalted confidence could e'er
Exist; so, none is now for such despair:
The two extremes are equally remote
From Truth and Reason;—do not, then, confound
One with the other, but reject them both;
And choose the middle point, whereon to build
Sound expectations. This doth he advise
Who shared at first the illusion; but was soon
Cast from the pedestal of pride by shocks
Which Nature gently gave, in woods and fields;
Nor unreproved by Providence, thus speaking
To the inattentive Children of the World,
"Vain-glorious Generation! what new powers
"On you have been conferred? what gifts, withheld
