The Strongest And The Fiercest

He That Can Apprehend And Consider Vice With All Her Baits And Seeming Pleasures, And Yet Abstain, And Yet Distinguish, And Yet Prefer That Which Is Truly Better, He Is The True Wayfaring Christian. I Cannot Praise A Fugitive And Cloistered Virtue, Unexercised And Unbreathed, That Never Sallies Out And Sees Her Adversary, But Slinks Out Of The Race, Where That Immortal Garland Is To Be Run For, Not Without Dust And Heat. Assuredly We Bring Not Innocence Into The World, We Bring Impurity Much Rather: That Which Purifies Us Is Trial, And Trial Is By What Is Contrary.

Thick As Autumnal Leaves That Strow The Brooks In Vallombrosa, Where Th' Etrurian Shades High Over-arch'd Imbower.

A Limbo Large And Broad, Since Call'd The Paradise Of Fools To Few Unknown.

Unless An Age Too Late, Or Cold Climate, Or Years, Damp My Intended Wing.

If This Fail, The Pillar'd Firmament Is Rottenness, And Earth's Base Built On Stubble.