Versos English Samuel Taylor Coleridge Self-Knowledge[487:2]

English poem

Self-Knowledge[487:2]

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--E coelo descendit γνῶθι σεαυτόν.--JUVENAL, xi. 27.

Γνῶθι σεαυτόν!--and is this the prime And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time!-- Say, canst thou make thyself?--Learn first that trade;-- Haply thou mayst know what thyself had made. What hast thou, Man, that thou dar'st call thine own?-- What is there in thee, Man, that can be known?-- Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought, A phantom dim of past and future wrought, Vain sister of the worm,--life, death, soul, clod-- Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!

1832.