246 quotes
For sundry foes the rural realm surround;
The field-mouse builds her garner under ground:
For gather’d grain the blind laborious mole,
In winding mazes, works her hidden hole.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Ev’n when they sing at ease in full content,
Insulting o’er the toil they underwent,
Yet still they find a future task remain,
To turn the soil.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
All was common, and the fruitful earth
Was free to give her unexacted birth.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Uneasy still within these narrow bounds,
Thy next design is on thy neighbour’s grounds:
His crop invites, to full perfection grown;
Thy own seems thin, because it is thy own.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
The soil, with fatt’ning moisture fill’d,
Is clothed with grass, and fruitful to be till’d;
Such as in fruitful vales we view from high,
Which dripping rocks, not rowling streams supply.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
First, with assiduous care from winter keep,
Well fother’d in the stalls, thy tender sheep;
Then spread with straw the bedding of thy fold,
With fern beneath, to fend the bitter cold.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Vain are their hopes who fancy to inherit,
By trees of pedigree, or fame or merit;
Though plodding heralds through each branch may trace
Old captains and dictators of their race.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Thus, born alike, from virtue first began
The diffrence that distinguish’d man from man:
He claim’d no title from descent of blood;
But that which made him noble, made him good.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
So bright a splendour, so divine a grace,
The glorious Daphnis casts on his illustrious race.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
What wonder if the kindly beams he shed,
Revived the drooping arts again;
If science raised her head,
And soft humanity, that from rebellion fled.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Such sullen planets at my birth did shine,
They threaten every fortune mixt with mine.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
If but a mile she travel out of town,
The planetary hour must first be known,
And lucky moment, if her eye but akes,
Or itches, its decumbiture she takes.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
And much more honest to be hired, and stand
With auctionary hammer in thy hand;
Provoking to give more, and knocking thrice
For the old household stuff, or picture’s price.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Lucan, content with praise, may lie at ease
In costly grots and marble palaces;
But to poor Bassus what avails a name,
To starve on compliments and empty fame?
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Next Petrarch follow’d, and in him we see
What rhyme, improved in all its height, can be;
At best a pleasing sound, and sweet barbarity.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Exalted Socrates! divinely brave!
Injured he fell, and dying he forgave;
Too noble for revenge.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Whatever truths
Redeem’d from error, or from ignorance,
Thin in their authors, like rich veins of ore,
Your works unite, and still discover more.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
But the base miser starves amidst his store,
Broods o’er his gold, and, griping still at more,
Sits sadly pining, and believes he’s poor.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And now their odours arm’d against them fly:
Some preciously by shatter’d porcelain fall,
And some by aromatic splinters die.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)