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Within a couple of lines of the proverb last cited occurs a maxim almost scriptural in its phraseology. "Wickedness," sings the poet, "you might choose in a heap; level is the path, and it lies hard at hand." One is reminded of the "broad and narrow roads" in our Saviour's teaching; and the lines which follow, and enforce the earnest struggle which alone can achieve the steep ascent, have found an echo in many noble outbursts of after-poetry. The passage in Tennyson's Ode, which expands the sentiment, is sufficiently well known, but perhaps it is itself suggested by the 20th fragment of Simonides, which may be freely translated:—