537 quotes
Lord of oneself, uncumbered with a name.
Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)
Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight,
Ye gods who rule the regions of the night,
Ye gliding ghosts, permit me to relate
The mystic wonders of your silent state!
The Works of Virgil (1697)
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years;
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn put with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own web from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,
That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.
Marriage à la mode (1673)
The poorest of the sex have still an itch
To know their fortunes, equal to the rich.
The dairy-maid inquires, if she shall take
The trusty tailor, and the cook forsake.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1687)
Fame then was cheap, and the first courier sped;
And they have kept it since, by being dead.
Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;
And they have kept it since by being dead.
The Conquest of Granada (1669)
I swear I’le keep my Maidenhead till death,
And die as pure as Queen Elizabeth.
So over violent, or over civil,
That every man with him was God or Devil.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Long stood the noble youth oppress'd with awe,
And stupid at the wondrous things he saw,
Surpassing common faith, transgressing nature's law.
Heaven gave him all at once; then snatched away,
Ere mortals all his beauties could survey;
Just like the flower that buds and withers in a day.
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong.
Every man with him was God or devil.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Bacchus, ever fair and ever young.
Alexander's Feast (1697)
Above any Greek or Roman name.
By tracing Heaven his footsteps may be found:
Behold! how awfully he walks the round!
God is abroad, and wondrous in his ways
The rise of empires, and their fall surveys.
Men met each other with erected look,
The steps were higher that they took;
Friends to congratulate their friends made haste,
And long inveterate foes saluted as they passed.
Threnodia Augustalis (1685)
The winds that never moderation knew,
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;
Or out of breath with joy, could not enlarge
Their straighten'd lungs or conscious of their charge.