Time seems not now beneath his years to stoop,
Nor do his wings with sickly feathers droop.
John Dryden Quotes
1631–1700 England
John Dryden (19 August [O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
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Also known as: Dryden
537 quotes
O’er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down,
Till with his silent sickle they are mown.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
That the spent earth may gather heart again,
And, better’d by cessation, bear the grain.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
’Tis good for arable; a glebe that asks
Tough teams of oxen; and laborious tasks.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Men plough with oxen of their own
Their small paternal field of corn.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
To his county farm the fool confined;
Rude work well suited with a rustic mind.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Too truly Tamerlane’s successors they;
Each thinks a world too little for his sway.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Long galleries of ancestors
Challenge nor wonder or esteem from me:
"Virtue alone is true nobility."
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
When we behold an angel, not to fear,
Is to be impudent.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
His pensive cheek upon his hand reclined,
And anxious thoughts revolving in his mind.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Let this and every other anxious thought
At th’ entrance of my threshold be forgot.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
His son builds on, and never is content
Till the last farthing is in structure spent.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature’s part,
Obey the rules and discipline of art.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
He, full of fraudful arts,
This well-invented tale for truth imparts.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
In easy dialogues is Fletcher’s praise:
He moved the mind, but had not pow’r to raise.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Ganfride, who couldst so well in rhyme complain
The death of Richard, with an arrow slain.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
The hand and head were never lost of those
Who dealt in dogg’rel, or who punn’d in prose.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
No more accuse thy pen, but charge the crime
On native sloth, and negligence of time.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Her soul abhorring avarice,
Bounteous; but almost bounteous to a vice.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Attribution
Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Dryden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.