Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice, But leave to Heav'n the Measure and the Choice.”
- Date
- 1749
Meaning of “Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice, But…”
The poem’s devotional close allows prayer for good while counseling humility about the exact form or measure in which that good should arrive.
Where does it come from?
The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), explicitly devotional closing movement, Wikisource first-edition scan leaf 41. Johnson allows supplication for good while telling the petitioner to leave “the Measure and the Choice” to Heaven. The passage remains eighteenth-century Christian moral poetry rather than universal therapeutic, medical or decision-making guidance.
