Skip to content
ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students
Poetry Library

— Stephen Crane

I looked here;

I looked there;

Nowhere could I see my love.

And--this time--

…

Read full poem →

noun

A person whose job is to keep financial accounts for a company or person.

“The company hired a new accountant to manage its finances and prepare tax returns.”

Know more →

BOETHIUS 19

40 lines
Sir Philip Sidney·1554–1586
✦
n vain we labor when we pray, and when we fast, or giveahns, if we have not therefore more favor than those who inall things walk according to their own will, and ran aftertheir bodily lust Then said he : This is the old complaint, which thou hastlong bewailed, and many also before thee : one of whom wasa certain Marcus, by another name TuUius; by a third namehe was called Cicero, who was a consul of the Romans. Hewas a philosopher. He was very much occupied with thissame question : but he could not bring it to any end at thattime, because their mind was occupied with the desires ofthis world. But I say to thee, if that is true which ye say,it was a vain command in divine books, which God com-manded, that man should forsake evil and do good; andagain the saying which he said, that as man labors more, soshall he receive greater reward. And I wonder why thoushouldest have forgotten all that we before mentioned. Webefore said that the divine predestination wrought all good,and no evil: nor decreed to work, nor ever wrought any.Moreover, we proved that to be good which to vulgar menseemed evil: that is, that man should afflict or punish anyone for his evil. Did we not also say in this same book,that God had decreed to give freedom to men, and so did;and if they exercised the freedom well, that he would greatlyhonor them with eternal power; and if they abused the free-dom, that he would then punish them with death? He or-dained that if they at all sinned through the freedom, theyafterward through the freedom should make amends for itby repentance; and that if any of them were so hard-heartedthat he did not repent, he should have just punishment. All creatures he made servile except angels and men.Because the other creatures are servile, they perform theirservices till doomsday. But men and angels, who are free,forsake their services. How can men say that the divinepredestination had decreed what it fulfils not? Or how canthey excuse themselves that they should not do good, whenit is written that God will requite every man according tohis works? Wherefore, then, should any man be idle, thathe work not? Then said 1 : Thou hast sufficiently relievedme from the doubting of my mind by the questions which I
✦