The Rape of the Lock. A mock-heroic poem. Canto I • Paragraph 170
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“And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I, To imitate thee well, against my heart Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye, Who if it wink shall thereon fall and die. These means, as frets upon an instrument, Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.