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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

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537 quotes

A cloud of smoke envelops either host,
And all at once the combatants are lost:
Darkling they join adverse, and shock unseen,
Coursers with coursers justing, mén with men.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

These I wielded while my bloom was warm,
Ere age unstrung my nerves, or time o’er-snow’d my head.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

The royal husbandman appear’d,
And plough’d, and sow’d, and till’d;
The thorns he rooted out, the rubbish clear’d,
And blest th’ obedient field.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

If a wood of leaves o’ershade the tree,
In vain the hind shall vex the threshing floor,
For empty chaff and straw will be thy store.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

She in pens his flocks will fold.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

In shallow furrows vines securely grow.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

The vineyard must employ thy sturdy steer
To turn the glebe; besides thy daily pain
To break the clods, and make the surface plain.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Some steep their seeds, and some in cauldrons boil
O’er gentle fires; the exuberant juice to drain,
And swell the flatt’ring husks with fruitful grain.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Mark well the flow’ring almonds in the wood:
If od’rous blooms the bearing branches load,
The glebe will answer to the sylvan reign:
Great heats will follow, and large crops of grain.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

When continued rain
The lab’ring husband in his house restrain,
Let him forecast his work with timely care,
Which else is huddled when the skies are fair.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

And oft whole sheets descend of sluicy rain,
Suck’d by the spungy clouds from off the main:
The lofty skies at once come pouring down,
The promised crop and golden labours drown.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

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)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Dryden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.