65 quotes
Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
Poems (1656)
Oh happy, (if his happiness he knows)
The Countrey Swain! on whom kind Heav'n bestows
At home all Riches that wise Nature needs;
Whom the just Earth with easie plenty feeds.
Works (1668)
He saw the beauties of his shape and face,
His female sweetness, and his manly grace
Poems (1656)
To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them: I have lived to-day.
My garden painted o'er
With Nature's hand, not Art's.
Several Discourses by Way of Essays in Verse and Prose (1668)
Thus each extream to equal danger tends,
Plenty as well as Want can separate Friends
Poems (1656)
Th' adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barb'rous skill;
'Tis like the pois'ning of a dart,
Too apt before to kill.
Poems (1656)
To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.
Works (1668)
Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given
The two most sacred names of Earth and Heaven.
Poems (1656)
Love in her sunny eyes does basking play;
Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair;
Love does on both her lips for ever stray;
And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there.
In all her outward parts Love's always seen;
But, oh, he never went within.
The Mistress (1647)
Books should, not Business, entertain the Light;
And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
I would not fear nor wish my fate,
But boldly say each night,
To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have liv'd to-day.
Works (1668)
Life is an incurable disease.
Poems (1656)
Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say,
Have ye not seen us walking every day?
Was there a tree about which did not know
The love betwixt us two?
Poems (1656)
The monster London laugh at me.
Works (1668)
Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.
Works (1668)
Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow
On us, the Poets Militant below!
Poems (1656)
I sing the Man who Judahs Scepter bore
In that right hand which held the Crook before;
Who from best Poet, best of Kings did grow;
The two chief gifts Heav'n could on Man bestow.
Poems (1656)
We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine,
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry;
Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine.
Poems (1656)
Curs'd be that wretch (Death's factor sure) who brought
Dire swords into the peaceful world, and taught
Smiths (who before could only make
The spade, the plough-share, and the rake)
Arts, in most cruel wise
Man's left to epitomize!