Quotes
Quotes - Dryden
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care
To grant, before we can conclude the prayer:
Preventing angels met it half the way,
And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
Be kind to my remains; and oh defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise for cure on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
Wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
So softly death succeeded life in her,
She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
O gracious God! how far have we
Profan'd thy heavenly gift of poesy!
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
He was exhal'd; his great Creator drew
His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.
Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join'd the former two.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
None but the brave deserves the fair.
With ravish'd ears
The monarch hears;
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
Bacchus, ever fair and ever young.
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,--
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth expos'd he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying.
If all the world be worth the winning,
Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.
Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again.
And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
