246 quotes
Moist earth produces corn and grass, but both
Too rank and too luxuriant in their growth.
Let not my land so large a promise boast,
Lest the lank ears in length of stem be lost.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Please thy pride, and search the herald’s roll,
Where thou shalt find thy famous pedigree,
Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree,
And thou, a thousand off, a fool of long degree.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Is it for this they study? to grow pale,
And miss the pleasures of a glorious meal?
For this, in rags accoutred are they seen,
And made the May-game of the public spleen?
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Yet then this little spot of earth well till’d,
A num’rous family with plenty fill’d,
The good old man and thrifty housewife spent
Their days in peace and fatten’d with content;
Enjoy’d the dregs of life, and lived to see
A long descending healthful progeny.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
What have I lost by my forefathers’ fault!
Why was I not the twentieth by descent
From a long restive race of droning kings?
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn:
The first in majesty of thought surpass’d,
The next in gracefulness; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go:
To make a third she join’d the other two.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
He was too warm on picking work to dwell,
But faggoted his notions as they fell;
And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Our swords so wholly did the fates employ,
That they, at length, grew weary to destroy;
Refused the work we brought, and out of breath,
Made sorrow and despair attend for death.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Whoe’er thou art, whose forward ears are bent
On state affairs, to guide the government;
Hear first what Socrates of old has said
To the loved youth whom he at Athens bred.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Here Pallas urges on, and Lausus there;
Their congress in the field great Jove withstands:
Both doom’d to fall, but fall by greater hands.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Prudence, thou vainly in our youth art sought,
And with age purchased, art too dearly bought:
We’re past the use of wit for which we toil:
Late fruit, and planted in too cold a soil.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
What, start at this! when sixty years have spread
Their grey experience o’er thy hoary head?
Is this the all observing age could gain?
Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Quintius here was born,
Whose shining ploughshare was in furrows worn,
Met by his trembling wife, returning home,
And rustically joy’d, as chief of Rome.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Your hay it is mow’d, and your corn it is reap’d;
Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap’d;
Come, my boys, come,
Come, my boys, come,
And merrily roar out harvest-home.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
From a mean stock the pious Decii came;
Yet such their virtues, that their loss alone
For Rome and all our regions did atone.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight,
Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces write;
But hopp’d about, and short excursions made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
When he knew his rival freed and gone,
He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous moan:
He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground,
The hollow tow’r with clamours rings around.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Winds murmur’d through the leaves your short delay,
And fountains o’er their pebbles chid your stay:
But, with your presence cheer’d, they cease to mourn,
And walks wear fresher green at your return.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
When the fiery suns too fiercely play,
And shriyell’d herbs on with’ring stems decay,
The wary ploughman, on the mountain’s brow,
Undams his wat’ry stores; huge torrents flow;
Temp’ring the thirsty fever of the field.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
The soldier then in Grecian arts unskill’d,
Returning rich with plunder from the field,
If cups of silver or of gold he brought
With jewels set, and exquisitely wrought,
To glorious trappings strait the plate he turn’d,
And with the glitt’ring spoil his horse adorn’d.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)