Poets From England

"The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!"

"And heaven had wanted one immortal song. But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand, And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land."

"In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state."

"And all to leave, what with his toil he won To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son."

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

"Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings."

"Whate’er he did, was done with so much ease, In him alone 'twas natural to please."

"Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven, Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest."

"As sure as a gun."

"They say everything in the world is good for something."

"He's a sure card."

"Second thoughts, they say, are best."

"Like a led victim, to my death I'll go, And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow."

"Lord of humankind."

"There is a pleasure sure In being mad which none but madmen know."

"It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ... But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense."

"She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty, Grows cold even in the summer of her age."

"Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long — Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years, Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; Till like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still."

"His hair just grizzled, As in a green old age."

"Whatever is, is in its causes just."

"With how much ease believe we what we wish!"

"Men are but children of a larger growth; Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving, too, and full as vain."

"The wretched have no friends."

"Give, you gods, Give to your boy, your Caesar, The rattle of a globe to play withal, This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off; I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra."

"Let those find fault whose wit's so very small, They've need to show that they can think at all; Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below. Fops may have leave to level all they can; As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, We scarce could know they live, but that they bite."

"A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day; Like Hectors in at every petty fray."

"He's somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind; Weeps much; fights little; but is wond'rous kind."

"What flocks of critics hover here to-day, As vultures wait on armies for their prey, All gaping for the carcase of a play! With croaking notes they bode some dire event, And follow dying poets by the scent."

"I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty."

"Burn daylight."

"Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me."

"'T is not for nothing that we life pursue; It pays our hopes with something still that's new."

"When I consider life, 't is all a cheat. Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay. To-morrow 's falser than the former day; Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And from the dregs of life think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give."

"Death in itself is nothing; but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where."

"Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch."

"We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could, Till our love was lov'd out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: 'Twas pleasure first made it an oath."

"Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped; And they have kept it since by being dead."

"What precious drops are those Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?"

"Forgiveness to the injured does belong; But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong."

"I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

"Madam me no madam."

"Midas me no midas."

"Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are."

"All delays are dangerous in war."

"He who servilely creeps after sense Is safe, but ne'er will reach an excellence."

"Music...is inarticulate poesy."

"To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his Comick wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is alwayes great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the Poets,"

"The Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unités, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action."

"If confidence presage a victory, Eugenius, in his own opinion, has already triumphed over the Ancients: nothing seems more easy to him than to overcome those whom it is our greatest praise to have imitated well; for we do not only build upon their foundation, but by their models."

"So close behind some promontory lie The huge Leviathan to attend their prey, And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way."