Skip to content

Quotes from Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson — John Dryden

1631–1700 England

← All quotes by John Dryden

246 quotes

Be mindful
With iron teeth of rakes and prongs to move
The crusted earth.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Let thy hand supply the pruning-knife,
And crop luxuriant stragglers.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Here the marshy grounds approach your fields,
And there the soil a stony harvest yields.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

While the reaper fills his greedy hands,
And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Some through ambition, or through thirst of gold,
Have slain their brothers, and their country sold.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Those who to empire by dark paths aspire,
Still plead a call to what they most desire.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

O diadem, thou centre of ambition,
Where all its different lines are reconciled;
As if thou wert the burning glass of glory.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Why does Antony dream out his hours,
And tempts not fortune for a noble day?

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Dare to be great without a guilty crown;
View it, and lay the bright temptation down:
’Tis base to seize on all.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Do then as your progenitors have done,
And by their virtues prove yourself their son.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

For if the sire be faint, or out of case,
He will be copied in his famish’d race.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

If on your head my fury does not turn,
Thank that fond dotage which so much you scorn.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let them play awhile upon the hook.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Perpetual anguish fills his anxious breast,
Not stopt by business, nor composed by rest;
No music cheers him, nor no feast can please.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Some on antiquated authors pore;
Rummage for sense.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Then thus a senior of the place replies,
Well read, and curious of antiquities.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

All arts and artists Theseus could command,
Who sold for hire, or wrought for better fame.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Unskill’d in schemes by planets to foreshow,
I neither will nor can prognosticate
To the young gaping heir his father’s fate.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

The spiteful stars have shed their venom down,
And now the peaceful planets take their turn.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Sorceries to raise th’ infernal pow’rs,
And sigils framed in planetary hours.

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.