289 quotes
And still to love, though prest with ill,
In wintry age to feel no chill,
With me is to be lovely still,
My Mary!
They best can judge a poet's worth,
Who oft themselves have known
The pangs of a poetic birth
By labours of their own.
The dogs did bark, the children screamed,
Up flew the windows all;
And every soul cried out, "Well done!"
As loud as he could bawl.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)
Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all
that once lived here
The Yardley Oak (1791)
Now let us sing, long live the king.
Words pregnant with celestial fire.
In indolent vacuity of thought.
The Task (1785)
Joint-stools were then created; on three legs
Upborne they stood. Three legs upholding firm
A massy slab, in fashion square or round.
On such a stool immortal Alfred sat.
So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can,
Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search
Of argument, employed too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!
The Yardley Oak (1791)
Greece, sound thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name,
But England's Milton equals both in fame.
Deem our nation brutes no longer,
Till some reason ye shall find
Worthier of regard and stronger
Than the colour of our kind.
The Negro's Complaint (1788)
But he (his musical finesse was such,
So nice his ear, so delicate his touch)
Made poetry a mere mechanic art,
And ev'ry warbler has his tune by heart.
Table Talk (1782)
Till authors hear at length, one general cry,
Tickle and entertain us, or we die!The loud demand from year to year the same,
Beggars invention and makes fancy lame.
Retirement (1782)
I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd —
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat
Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.
Retirement (1782)
Hast thou not learn'd what thou art often told,
A truth still sacred, and believed of old,
That no success attends on spears and swords
Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord's?
Behold your bishop! well he plays his part,
Christian in name, and infidel in heart,
Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan,
A slave at court, elsewhere a lady’s man.
Dumb as a senator, and as a priest
A piece of mere church furniture at best.
Hark, my soul! it is the Lord;
'Tis thy (Saviour, hear his word;
Jesus speaks, and speaks to thee:
"Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou me?"
Olney Hymns (1779)
Grief is itself a med'cine.
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
The Task (1785)
The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.