10 quotes
Dire lust of gold! how mighty thy controll
To bend to crime man's impotence of soul!
The Æneis (1817)
Roman! be thine the sovereign arts of sway;
Nobly to rule, and make the world obey:
Give peace its laws; respect the prostrate foe:
Abase the lofty, and exalt the low.
The Æneis (1817)
Yet have I lived!—and lived for noble ends!
My shade in glory to the shades descends.
The Æneis (1817)
Hard is the task, O Queen! that you impose,
To tear my bosom with reviving woes.
The Æneis (1817)
As it is generally seen, blank verse seems to be only a laborious and doubtful struggle to escape from the fangs of prose... if it ever ventures to relax into simple and natural phraseology, it instantly becomes tame and the prey of its pursuer.
The Æneis (1817)
And while the memory of self remains,
While life's warm spirit quickens in my veins,
Still shall your worth be treasured in my breast;
And still Elissa's virtues be confess'd.
The Æneis (1817)
O! trust not to the horse, my Trojan Friends!
Whate'er it means, it means but to deceive.
I dread the Grecians even when they give.
The Æneis (1817)
They can because they dare.
The Æneis (1817)
Arms, and the man who first, by Fate's command,
From Ilion flying, sought Italia's strand,
And gain'd Lavinium, are my themes of song.
Long toss'd by waves, on land he suffer'd long:
From power supernal, such his doom of woe;
Pursued by vengeful Juno as her foe.
The Æneis (1817)
—————————— to death's abode
Prone lies the path, and facile is the road.
To all who seek them open day and night,
Pluto's black gates with broad access invite.
But to recall the foot, retrace the way
Up the dark steep, and re-assert the day—
This is the labor, this the mighty feat,
Achieved by few, the greatest of the great.
The Æneis (1817)