Classic Poem

Plus vigilia semper, nec somno deditus esto;
Nam diuturna quies vitiis alimenta ministrat.

Since thou, O happy man, alone art blest
With heavenly knowledge, since thy glowing breast
With such celestial raptures is inspir'd,
And all thy godlike faculties are fir'd
With the reflection of the heaven-born mind,
Whose boundless scope no eye but God's can find;
Thy mind the express image of thy God,
Which can in highest Heav'n take its abode,
Tho' this vile earth contain the viler clod.

Permit not, then, the baleful type of death
Insensibly to steal your sense and breath;
Nor let the drowsy pow'r presume to keep
Thy soul a captive in injurious sleep
One moment past the time that nature grants
T'afford the rest thy wearied body wants.
As many hours you from sleep refrain,
So many hours of new life you gain;
Therefore from all immod'rate rest abstain.

Nor suffer an inglorious ease to waste
That precious time which passeth too, too fast
To be recover'd. Can you dare to throw
Away a gift God only can bestow,
On needless trifles? Shall thy godlike soul
Which can ascend from glitt'ring roof and roll
In wanton ecstasies from pole to pole,
Be spent and wasted in a thoughtless ease,
And ne'er employ'd but menially to please
Some wanton thought? Nor yet invok'd to sing
A theme beyond a mistress...
When it should always praise the heav'nly King.

Then fly with greatest fear from luxury,
From sleep, from sloth, those keys to misery;
Those hot-beds in which vices grow so fast,
And which destroy mankind with so much haste
That, when he would repent, the time is past.