No fruitful crop the sickly fields return;
But oats and darnel choke the rising corn.
Quotes from Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson — John Dryden
1631–1700 England
246 quotes
Delve of convenient depth your threshing floor;
With temper’d clay then fill and face it o’er.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
In vain the hinds the threshing floor prepare,
And exercise their flails in empty air.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
On a short pruning-hook his head reclines,
And studiously surveys his gen’rous vines.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
The low’ring spring, with lavish rain,
Beats down the slender stem and bearded grain.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
In the sun your golden grain display,
And thrash it out and winnow it by day.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
We may know
And when to reap the grain and when to sow,
Or when to fell the furzes.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
You who supply the ground with seeds of grain,
And you who swell those seeds with kindly rain.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Begin when the slow waggoner descends,
Nor cease your sowing till midwinter ends.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
For flax and oats will burn the tender field,
And sleepy poppies harmful harvests yield.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
But various are the ways to change the state,
To plant, to bud, to graft, to inoculate.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Suffering not the yellow beards to rear,
He tramples down the spikes, and intercepts the ear.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Their morning milk the peasants press at night;
Their evening milk before the rising light.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
The peaceful peasant to the wars is prest,
The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Your farm requites your pains,
Though rushes overspread the neighb’ring plains.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
Rocks lie cover’d with eternal snow;
Thin herbage in the plains, and fruitless fields.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
T’ unload the branches, or the leaves to thin
That suck the vital moisture of the vine.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
In vain the barns expect their promised load;
Nor barns at home, nor ricks are heap’d abroad.
Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)
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.