C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Milton

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,

And pavement stars.

A crown

Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns;

Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights

To him who wears the regal diadem,

When on his shoulders each man’s burden lies;

For therein stands the office of a king,

His honor, virtue, merit, and chief praise,

That for the public all this weight he bears.

A dark

Illimitable ocean, without bound,

Without dimension; where length, breadth, and highth,

And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night

And Chaos—ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

A death-like sleep,

A gentle wafting to immortal life.

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,

As one great furnace, flamed; yet from those flames

No light, but rather darkness visible

Serv’d only to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes to all; but torture without end.

A fabric huge

Rose, like an exhalation.

A grateful mind

By owing owes not, but still pays, at once

Indebted and discharg’d.

A smile that glow’d

Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue.

A Spirit, zealous, as he seemed, to know

More of the Almighty’s works, and chiefly Man,

God’s latest image.

A universe of death

Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things

Abominable, unutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feign’d, or fear conceived.

A wilderness of sweets; for nature here

Wanton’d as in her prime, and play’d at will

Her virgin fancies, pouring forth more sweets;

Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.

Abash’d the devil stood,

And felt how awful goodness is, and saw

Virtue in her shape how lovely.

Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part;

Do thou but thine!

Adam, the goodliest man of men since born

His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.

Adam, well may we labor, still to dress

This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower.

All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,

All intellect, all sense, and as they please

They limb themselves, and color, shape, or size

Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare.

Among unequals what society

Can sort, what harmony or true delight?

And add to these retired Leisure,

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.

And all amid them stood the Tree of Life,

High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit

Of vegetable gold.

And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

And God made two great lights, great for their use

To man, the greater to have rule by day,

The less by night, altern.

And if by prayer

Incessant I could hope to change the will

Of Him who all things can, I would not cease

To weary Him with my assiduous ones.

And made the stars,

And set them in the firmament of heav’n,

T’ illuminate the earth, and rule the day

In their vicissitude, and rule the night.

***and now expecting

Each hour their great adventurer, from the search

Of foreign worlds.

And now the herald lark

Left his ground-nest, high tow’ring to descry

The morn’s approach, and greet her with his song.

And now without redemption all mankind

Must have been lost, adjudged to death and hell

By doom severe.

And sing to those that hold the vital shears;

And turn the adamantine spindle round,

On which the fate of gods and men is wound.

And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie;

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

And to thy husband’s will

Thine shall submit; he over thee shall rule.

And what the people but a herd confus’d,

A miscellaneous rabble, who extol

Things vulgar, and, well weigh’d, scarce worth the praise?

They praise, and they admire, they know not what,

And know not whom, but as one leads the other;

And what delight to be by such extoll’d,

To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,

Of whom to be disprais’d were no small praise?

And Wisdom’s self

Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,

Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,

That in the various bustle of resort

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.

And, weaponless himself,

Made arms ridiculous.

Angels contented with their face in heaven,

Seek not the praise of men.

Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given,

That brought into this world a world of woe,

Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,

Death’s harbinger.

Apostate, still thou err’st, nor end wilt find

Offering, from the paths of truth remote.

Apt words have power to ’suage

The tumors of a troubled mind;

And are as balm to fester’d wounds.

Arms on armor clashing bray’d

Horrible discord, and the madding wheels

Of brazen chariots ray’d; dire was the noise

Of conflict.

Ascend, I follow thee, safe guide, the path

Thou lead’st me, and to the hand of heav’n submit.

At whose sight all the stars

Hide their diminished heads.

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts

And eloquence.

Awake,

My fairest, my espous’d, my latest found,

Heaven’s last best gift, my ever new delight!

Back to thy punishment,

False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,

Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue

Thy ling’ring.

Beauty is Nature’s coin, must not be hoarded,

But must be current, and the good thereof

Consists in mutual and partaken bliss.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death, my son and foe.

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,

And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,

To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.

Black it stood as night,

Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a dreadful dart; what seem’d his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

Satan was now at hand.

Brightest seraph, tell

In which of all these shining orbs hath man

His fixed seat, or fixed seat hath none,

But all these shining orbs his choice to dwell.

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue

Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest counsels.

But to know

That which before us lies in daily life,

Is the prime wisdom.

But what will not ambition and revenge

Descend to? who aspires must down as low

As high he soar’d, obnoxious first or last

To basest things.

But when lust,

By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,

But most by lewd and lavish arts of sin,

Lets in defilement to the inward parts,

The soul grows clotted by contagion,

Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose

The divine property of her first being.

But zeal moved thee;

To please thy gods them didst it!

Capricious, wanton, bold, and brutal Lust

Is meanly selfish; when resisted, cruel;

And, like the blast of Pestilential Winds,

Taints the sweet bloom of Nature’s fairest forms.

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,

A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend

Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view.

Come and trip it as ye go,

On the light fantastic toe.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground

In a light fantastic round.

Confirm’d then I resolve,

Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe:

So dear I love him, that with him all deaths

I could endure, without him live no life.

Day and night,

Seedtime and harvest, heat and hoary frost

Shall hold their course, till fire purge all things new.

Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,

White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.

Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones,

Forget not.

Experience, next, to thee I owe,

Best guide; not following thee, I had remain’d

In ignorance; thou open’st wisdom’s way,

And giv’st access, though secret she retire.

Extol not riches then, the toil of fools,

The wise man’s cumbrance, if not snare, more apt

To slacken virtue, and abate her edge,

Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise

(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights and live laborious days;

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,

And slits the thin-spun life.

Farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear;

Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost;

Evil, be thou my good!

Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy forever dwells; hail, horrors!

Farewell, remorse: all good to me is lost;

Evil, be thou my good.

Flesh of flesh,

Bone of my bone, thou art, and from thy state

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

***for beauty stands

In the admiration only of weak minds

Led captive. Cease to admire, and all her plumes

Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy,

At every sudden slighting quite abash’d.

For God will deign

To visit oft the dwellings of just men

Delighted, and with frequent intercourse

Thither will send his winged messengers

On errands of supernal grace.

For I no sooner in my heart divin’d,

My heart, which by a secret harmony

Still moves with thine, joined in connection sweet.

For nothing lovelier can be found

In woman, than to study household good,

And good works in her husband to promote.

For smiles from reason flow

To brute deny’d, and are of love the food.

For spirits when they please

Can either sex assume, or both.

***For such a numerous host

Fled not in silence through the frighted deep

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded.

For what thou art is mine:

Our state cannot be severed; we are one,

One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.

For wonderful indeed are all His works,

Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all

Had in remembrance always with delight;

But what created mind can comprehend

Their number, or the wisdom infinite

That brought them forth, but hid their causes deep?

From that high mount of God whence light and shade

Spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed

To grateful twilight.

God made thee perfect, not immutable;

And good he made thee, but to persevere

He left it in thy pow’r; ordained thy will

By nature free, not over-rul’d by fate

Inextricable, or strict necessity.

God, who oft descends to visit men

Unseen, and through their habitations walks

To mark their doings.

Good luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth

The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth.

Govern well thy appetite, lest Sin

Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death.

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

In every gesture dignity and love.

Hanging in a golden chain

This pendent world.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,

Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.

He hears

On all sides, from innumerable tongues

A dismal universal hiss, the sound

Of public scorn.

He of their wicked ways

Shall them admonish, and before them set

The paths of righteousness.

He seem’d

For dignity composed and high exploit:

But all was false and hollow.

He that has light within his own clear breast,

May sit i’ the centre, and enjoy bright day;

But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,

Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;

Himself is his own dungeon.

He who tempts, though in vain, at last asperses

The tempted with dishonor foul, supposed

Not incorruptible of faith, not proof

Against temptation.

He’s gone, and who knows how he may report

Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?

Heaven

Is as the Book of God before thee set,

Wherein to read His wondrous works.

Hell, their fit habitation, fraught with fire

Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain.

Her rash hand in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she eat;

Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat

Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe

That all was lost.

Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,

That would be woo’d and not unsought be won.

Here we may reign secure; and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

***his providence

Out of our evil seek to bring forth good.

Hither, as to their fountain, other stars

Repairing in their golden urns draw light,

And hence the morning planet gilds her horns.

How often from the steep

Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard

Celestial voices to the midnight air,

Sole, or responsive each to other’s note,

Singing their great Creator?

How sweetly did they float upon the wings

Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,

At every fall smoothing the raven down

Of darkness till it smiled!

I argue not

Against heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot

Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer

Right onward.

I fled, and cried out Death!

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh’d

From all her caves, and back resounded Death.

I hate when vice can bolt her arguments,

And virtue has no tongue to check her pride.

I must not quarrel with the will

Of highest dispensation, which herein,

Haply had ends above my reach to know.

I on the other side

Us’d no ambition to commend my deeds;

The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer.

I see thou art implacable, more deaf

To pray’rs than winds and seas. Yet winds to seas

Are reconcil’d at length, and sea to shore:

Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages

Eternal tempest never to be calm’d.

I was all ear,

And took in strains that might create a soul

Under the ribs of death.

If all the world

Should in a pet of temp’rance, feed on pulse,

Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,

Th’ All-giver would be unthank’d, would be unprais’d.

If at great things thou would’st arrive,

Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap,

Not difficult, if thou hearken to me;

Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand,

They whom I favor thrive in wealth amain,

While virtue, valor, wisdom, sit in want.

If by fire

Of sooty coal th’ empiric alchymist

Can turn, or holds it possible to turn,

Metals of drossest ore to perfect gold.

If by prayer

Incessant I could hope to change the will

Of him who all things can, I would not cease

To weary him with my assiduous cries;

But prayer against his absolute decree

No more avails than breath against the wind

Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth:

Therefore to his great bidding I submit.

If thou well observe

The rule of—not too much,—by temperance taught

In what thou eat’st and drink’st, seeking from thence

Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,

Till many years over thy head return:

So may’s thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop,

Into thy mother’s lap, or be with ease

Gather’d, not harshly pluck’d; in death mature.

If weakness may excuse,

What murderer, what traitor, parricide,

Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it?

All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore,

With God or man will gain thee no remission.

Immortal amaranth, a flower which once

In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life,

Began to bloom, but soon for Man’s offence,

To heav’n remov’d, where first it grew, there grows,

And flow’rs aloft shading the fount of life.

Impostor! do not charge most innocent Nature

As if she would her children should be riotous

With her abundance. She, good cateress,

Means her provision only to the good,

That live according to her sober laws,

And holy dictate of spare Temperance.

In argument with men a woman ever

Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause.

In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread,

Till thou return unto the ground; for thou

Out of the ground wast taken; know thy birth,

For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.

In their looks divine

The image of their glorious Maker shone,

Truth, wisdom, sanctitude serene and pure.

In vain doth valour bleed,

While Avarice and Rapine share the land.

It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit,

Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit,

That woman’s love can win;

But what it is, hard is to say, harder to hit.

Joking decides great things,

Stronger and better oft than earnest can.

Keep together here, lest, running thither,

We unawares run into danger’s mouth.

Lap me in soft Lydian airs,

Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,

In notes, with many a winding bout

Of linked sweetness long drawn out.

Law can discover sin, but not remove,

Save by those shadowy expiations weak.

Let none admire

That riches grow in hell; that soil may best

Deserve the precious bane.

“Let there be light!” said God; and forthwith light

Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,

Sprung from the deep; and, from her native east,

To journey through the aery gloom began,

Spher’d in a radiant cloud.

Let us no more contend, nor blame

Each other, blam’d enough elsewhere, but strive

In offices of love, how we may lighten

Each other’s burden, in our share of woe.

Long is the way

And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

Mammon led them on—

Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell

From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of Heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision, beatific.

Many books,

Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

Uncertain and unsettled still remains—

Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself.

Meanwhile the adversary of God and man,

Satan, with thoughts inflam’d of highest design,

Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of Hell

Explores his solitary flight; sometimes

He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left:

Now shaves with level wing the deep; then soars

Up to the fiery concave, tow’ring high.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth

Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.

My latest found,

Heaven’s last best gift, thy ever new delight!

Myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide;

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

Necessity and chance

Approach not me, and what I will is fate.

Never can true reconcilement grow,

Where wounds of deadly hate have pierc’d so deep.

No thought of flight,

None of retreat, no unbecoming deed

That argued fear; each on himself relied,

As only in his arm the moment lay

Of victory.

None

But such as are good men can give good things,

And that which is not good, is not delicious

To a well-governed and wise appetite.

Nor love thy life nor hate; but what thou liv’st

Live well; how long or short permit to heaven.

Nothing lovelier can be found

In woman, than to study household good,

And good works in her husband to promote.

Now began

Night with her sullen wing to double-shade

The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couch’d,

And now wild beasts came forth, the woods to roam.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray,

Had in her sober livery all things clad.

Now conscience wakes despair

That slumber’d, wakes the bitter memory,

Of what he was, what is, what must be

Worse; if worst deeds, worse sufferings must ensue.

***now glow’d the firmament

With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led

The starry host rode brightest, till the Moon,

Rising in clouded majesty, at length,

Apparent queen, unveil’d her peerless light,

And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.

Now purer air

Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair: Now gentle gales

Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole

Those balmy spoils.

Now the bright morning star, day’s harbinger,

Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.

Hail, bounteous May, that doth inspire

Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;

Woods and groves are of thy dressing,

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing,

Thus we salute thee with our early song,

And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,

Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,

Without all hope of day.

O execrable son! so to aspire

Above his brethren, to himself assuming

Authority usurp’d, from God not given.

He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,

Dominion absolute; that right we hold

By his donation; but man over men

He made not lord; such title to himself

Reserving, human left from human free.

O fairest of creation! last and best

Of all God’s works! creature in whom excell’d

Whatever can to sight or thought be form’d

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!

Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,

Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!

O madness, to think use of strongest wines

And strongest drinks our chief support of health

When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear

His mighty champion, strong above compare,

Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.

O visions ill foreseen! Better had I

Liv’d ignorant of future, so had borne

By part of evil only.

O welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,

Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings.

Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe.

Oft fairy elves,

Whose midnight revels by a forest side,

Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while o’erhead the moon

Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course, they on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Oh! why did God,***create at last

*****

This novelty on earth, this fair defect

Of nature, and not fill the world at once

With men as angels without feminine.

Only add

Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add faith,

Add virtue, patience, temperance, add love,

By name to come call’d charity, the soul

Of all the rest; then wilt thou not be loath

To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess

A Paradise within thee, happier far.

Open, ye heavens, your living doors; let in

The great Creator from His work returned

Magnificent, His six days’ work, a world!

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing

Such notes as, warbled to the string,

Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek.

Or stars of morning, dew-drops which the sun

Impearls on every leaf and every flower.

Others more mild,

Retreated in a silent valley, sing

With notes angelical to many a harp

Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall

By doom of battle.

Peace hath her victories,

No less renowned than war.

Rather than be less

Car’d not to be at all.

Retired Leisure,

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.

Retiring from the popular noise, I seek

This unfrequented place to find some ease.

Ring out ye crystal spheres!

Once bless our human ears,

If ye have power to touch our senses so;

And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time;

And let the base of Heaven’s deep organ blow,

And with your ninefold harmony,

Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

Satan; so call him now, his former name

Is heard no more in heaven.

Say, heavenly pow’rs, where shall we find such love?

Which of ye will be mortal to redeem

Man’s mortal crime, and just th’ unjust to save?

Sense of pleasure we may well

Spare out of life perhaps, and not repine,

But live content, which is the calmest life;

But pain is perfect misery, the worst

Of evils, and excessive, overturns

All patience.

Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought

The better fight.

Shepherd, I take thy word,

And trust thy honest offer’d courtesy,

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds

With smoky rafters, than in tap’stry halls,

And courts of princes.

So clomb the first grand thief into God’s fold;

So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity,

That, when a soul is found sincerely so,

A thousand liveried angels lackey her,

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.

So frown’d the mighty combatants, that hell

Grew darker at their frown.

So glistered the dire Snake, and into fraud

Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the Tree

Of Prohibition, root of all our woe.

So may’st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop

Into thy mother’s lap, or be with ease

Gather’d, not harshly pluck’d, for death mature.

So on he fares, and to the border comes,

Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,

As with a rural mound, the champain head

Of a steep wilderness.

So sang they, and the empyrean rung

With Hallelujahs. Thus was Sabbath kept.

So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.

So, farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,

Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost.

Socrates***

Whom, well inspir’d, the oracle pronounc’d

Wisest of men.

Some cursed fraud

Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,

And me with thee hath ruined.

Stand fast***

And all temptation to transgress repel.

Subdue

By force, who reason for their law refuse,

Right reason for their law.

Such a numerous host

Fled not in silence through the frighted deep,

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded.

Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet,

With charm of earliest birds.

Sweetest Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen

Within thy airy shell,

By slow Meander’s margent green,

And in the violet-embroidered vale.

Take heed lest passion sway

Thy judgment to do aught which else free-will

Would not admit.

Th’ invention all admir’d, and each, how he

To be th’ inventor miss’d; so easy it seem’d,

Once found, which yet unfound most would have thought

Impossible.

Th’ unwieldly elephant,

To make them mirth, us’d all his might, and wreathed

His lithe proboscis.

That golden key,

That opes the palace of eternity.

The Angel ended, and in Adam’s ear

So charming left his voice, that he awhile

Thought him still speaking, still stood fix’d to hear.

The childhood shows the man

As morning shows the day.

The golden sun, in splendor likest heav’n,

Dispenses light from far; they, as they move

Their starry dance, in numbers that compute

Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp,

Turn swift their various motions, or are turn’d

By his magnetic beam, that gently warms

The universe; and to each inward part,

With gentle penetration, though unseen,

Shoots invisible virtue ev’n to the deep.

The great luminary

Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,

That from his lordly eye keep distance due,

Dispenses light from far.

The hasty multitude

Admiring enter’d, and the work some praise,

And some the architect: his hand was known

In heaven by many a tower’d structure high,

Where scepter’d angels held their residence,

And sat as princes.

The helmed Cherubim,

And sworded Seraphim,

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display’d.

The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,

Stirr’d up with envy and revenge, deceiv’d

The mother of mankind.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

The swan, with arched neck

Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows

Her state with oary feet.

The thunder,

Wing’d with red lightning and impetuous rage,

Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now

To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.

The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks,

Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,

Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.

The winds with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kisst.

The work under our labour grows

Luxurious by restraint.

The world was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.

Then might ye see

Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers tost

And flutter’d into rags; then reliques, beads,

Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,

The sport of winds; all these upwhirl’d aloft

Fly to the rearward of the world far off

Into a limbo large and broad, since called

The paradise of fools.

Then purg’d with euphrasy and rue

The visual nerve, for he had much to see.

Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names,

Places and titles, and with these to join

Secular pow’r though feigning still to act

By spiritual, to themselves appropriating

The spirit of God, promis’d alike and given

To all believers; and from that pretence,

Spiritual laws by carnal pow’r shall force

On every conscience; laws which none shall find

Left them enroll’d, or what the spirit within

Shall on the heart engrave.

Then to the well-trod stage anon

If Jonson’s learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,

Warble his native wood-notes wild.

There let the pealing organ blow,

To the full voiced quire below,

In service high, and anthems clear,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear,

Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all heaven before mine eyes.

Therefore God’s universal law

Gave to the man despotic power

Over his female in due awe,

Not from that right to part an hour,

Smile she or lour.

Therefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive,

Get riches first, get wealth.

These eyes tho’ clear

To outward view of blemish or of spot,

Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot.

Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear

Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,

Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not

Against Heaven’s hand or will, nor have a jot

Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer

Right onward.

They praise, and they admire they know not what,

And know not whom, but as one leads the other;

And what delight to be by such extoll’d,

To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,

Of whom to be disprais’d were no small praise?

This is the month, and this the happy morn,

Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,

Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,

Our great redemption from above did bring,

For so the holy sages once did sing,

That He our deadly forfeit should release,

And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

Those graceful acts,

Those thousand decencies that daily flow

From all her words and actions.

Though to recount almighty works

What words of tongue or seraph can suffice,

Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?

Though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps

At wisdom’s gate, and to simplicity

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill

Where no ill seems.

Thrones, dominions, princedoms, virtues, powers—

If these magnific titles yet remain

Not merely titular.

Thy actions to thy words accord; they words

To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart

Contains of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.

Thy boist’rous locks, no worthy match

For valor to assail, nor by the sword,

*****

But by the barber’s razor best subdued.

Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,

Thy wish, exactly to thy heart’s desire.

To overcome in battle, and subdue

Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite

Man-slaughter, shall be held the highest pitch

Of human glory.

To satisfy the sharp desire I had

Of tasting those fair apples, I resolv’d

Not to defer; hunger and thirst at once

Powerful persuaders, quicken’d at the scent

Of that alluring fruit, urged me so keen.

To the nuptial bower

I led her, blushing like the morn; all Heaven,

And happy constellations on that hour

Shed their selectest influence; the earth

Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill;

Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs

Whisper’d it to the woods, and from their wings

Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub.

Towered cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men.

Under a tuft of shade that on the green

Stood whisp’ring soft, by a fresh fountain side

They sat them down; and after no more toil

Of their sweet gard’ning labour than suffic’d

To recommend cool zephyr, and made ease

More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite

More grateful, to their supper fruits they fell.

Under spread ensigns moving nigh, in slow

But firm battalion.

Virtue may be assail’d, but never hurt;

Surpris’d by unjust force, but not enthrall’d;

Yea, even that which mischief meant most harm,

Shall in the happy trial prove most glory.

What can ’scape the eye

Of God, all-seeing, or deceive His heart,

Omniscient!

What cause

Moved the Creator in His holy rest

Through all eternity so late to build

In chaos, and, the work begun, how soon

Absolved.

What in me is dark,

Illumine; what is low, raise and support;

That to the height of this great argument

I may assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

What is strength, without a double share

Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome;

Proudly secure, yet liable to fall

By weakest subtleties; not made to rule,

But to subserve where wisdom bears command.

What need a man forestall his date of grief,

And run to meet what he would most avoid?

What needs my Shakespeare for his honor’d bones,

The labor of an age in pilèd stones?

*****

Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a livelong monument.

What though the field be lost!

All is not lost; the ungovernable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield;

And what is else not to be overcome.

When Adam first of men,

To first of women Eve, thus moving speech,

Turn’d him all ear to hear new utterance flow.

When I approach

Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,

And in herself complete, so well to know

Her own, that what she wills to do or say,

Seems wisest, virtuousest, discretest, best;

All higher knowledge in her presence falls

Degraded. Wisdom in discourse with her

Loses, discount’nanc’d, and like folly shows.

When the gust hath blown his fill,

Ending on the rustling leaves,

With minute drops from off the eaves.

When the scourge

Inexorable, and the torturing hour

Calls us to penance.

Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth

With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,

Covering the earth with odors, fruits, and flocks,

Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable,

But all to please and sate the curious taste?

Who best

Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state

Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,

And post o’er land and ocean without rest.

Who can enjoy alone?

Or all enjoying what contentment find?

Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl’d

Th’ imperial ensign, which full high advanc’d

Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.

Who overcomes by force,

Hath overcome but half his foe.

With grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem’d

A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat, and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shone

Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stood,

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer’s noontide air.

With thee goes

Thy husband, him to follow thou art bound;

Where he abides, think there thy native soil.

Yet hold it more humane, more heav’nly, first,

By winning words to conquer willing hearts,

And make persuasion do the work of fear.

Yet when I approach

Her loveliness, of absolute she seems,

And in herself complete; so well to know

Her own, that what she wills to do or say,

Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.

Zeal and duty are not slow;

But on occasion’s forelock watchful wait.

A complete and generous education fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices of peace and war.

A dismal, universal hiss, the sound of public scorn.

A father or a brother may be hated zealously, and loved civilly or naturally.

A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

A good principle not rightly understood may prove as hurtful as a bad.

A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.

Advise how war may, best upheld, move by her two main nerves, iron and gold.

Airs, vernal airs, breathing the smell of fields and grove, attune the trembling leaves.

All hope is lost of my reception into grace; what worse? For where no hope is left, is left no fear.

All sorts are here that all the earth yields, variety without end.

Among the writers of all ages, some deserve fame, and have it; others neither have nor deserve it; some have it, not deserving it; others, though deserving it, yet totally miss it, or have it not equal to their deserts.

Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; for no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them.

And now the thickened sky like a dark ceiling stood; down rushed the rain impetuous.

And out of good still to find means of evil.

And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, that kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

Apt words have power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind.

Arm the obdured breast with stubborn patience as with triple steel.

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.

At His birth a star, unseen before in heaven, proclaims Him come.

At shut of evening flowers.

Awake, arise, or be forever fall’n!

Beauty is God’s handwriting,—a wayside sacrament.

Beauty is Nature’s brag.

Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.

Believe and be confirmed.

Beyond is all abyss, eternity, whose end no eye can reach.

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

But God himself is truth; in propagating which, as men display a greater integrity and zeal, they approach nearer to the similitude of God, and possess a greater portion of his love.

But infinite in pardon is my Judge.

But thy words, with grace divine imbued, bring to their sweetness no satiety.

By a certain fate, great acts, and great eloquence have most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honoring each other in the same ages.

By steps we may ascend to God.

Chance governs all.

Childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.

Confidence imparts a wonderful inspiration to its possessor.

Conspicuous, with three listed colors gay, betokening peace from God, and covenant new.

Courage never to submit or yield.

Courtesy which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds, with smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls and courts of princes, where it first was named.

Danger will wink on opportunity.

Darkness visible.

Death from sin no power can separate.

Death ready stands to interpose his dart.

Deep versed in books and shallow in himself.

Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy.

Dim eclipse, disastrous twilight.

Dim sadness did not spare that time celestial visages; yet, mixed with pity, violated not their bliss.

Distends with pride, and hardening in his strength.

Education of youth is not a bow for every man to shoot in that counts himself a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave to Ulysses.

Eloquence the soul, song charms the senses.

Enflamed with the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.

Equally inured by moderation either state to bear, prosperous or adverse.

Evil into the mind of god or man may come and go, so unapproved, and leave no spot or blame behind.

Evil news rides post, while good news bates.

Evil, be thou my good.

Faithful found among the faithless.

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil substance.

For no falsehood can endure touch of celestial temper, but returns of force to its own likeness.

For not to irksome toil, but to delight, He made us.

For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors is accounted Plagiary.

For what is glory but the blaze of fame?

For who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no politics, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious; those are the shifts and the defenses that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps.

Forget thyself to marble.

Give me the liberty to know, to think, to believe, and to utter freely according to conscience, above all other liberties.

God has set labor and rest, as day and night to men successive.

God hath here varied His bounty so with new delights!

God sure esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more than the restraint of ten vicious.

Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.

Goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems.

Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras dire.

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, in every gesture dignity and love.

Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first-born.

Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source of human offspring!

Hate is of all things the mightiest divider, nay, is division itself. To couple hatred, therefore, though wedlock try all her golden links, and borrow to her aid all the iron manacles and fetters of law, it does but seek to twist a rope of sand.

He alone is worthy of the appellation who either does great things, or teaches how they may be done, or describes them with a suitable majesty when they have been done; but those only are great things which tend to render life more happy, which increase the innocent enjoyments and comforts of existence, or which pave the way to a state of future bliss more permanent and more pure.

He of their wicked ways shall them admonish, and before them set the paths of righteousness.

He seemed for dignity composed and high exploit; but all was false and hollow.

He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true way-faring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day.

He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more than a king.

Hide their diminished heads.

His tongue dropped manna, and could make the worse appear the better reason, to perplex and dash maturest counsels.

His words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command.

How charming is divine philosophy! not harsh nor crabbed, as dull fools suppose, but musical as is Apollo’s lute!

Human face divine.

Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone.

I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.

I was all ear, and took in strains that might create a soul under the ribs of death.

If I foreknew, foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, which had no less proved certain unforeknown.

If the will, which is the law of our nature, were withdrawn from our memory, fancy, understanding, and reason, no other hell could equal, for a spiritual being, what we should then feel from the anarchy of our powers. It would be conscious madness,—a horrid thought!

Imparadis’d in one another’s arms.

In heaven the trees of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines yield nectar.

In his east the glorious lamp was seen, regent of the day; and all the horizon round, invested with bright rays.

In those vernal seasons of the year when the air is soft and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches and partake of her rejoicings with heaven and earth.

Indued with sanctity of reason.

Ink is the blood of the printing-press.

It is not hard for any man who hath a Bible in his hand to borrow good words and holy sayings in abundance; but to make them his own is a work of grace only from above.

Laws can discover sin, but not remove.

Let gorgeous Tragedy, in sceptred pall, come sweeping by.

Let his tormentor conscience find him out.

Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve the faith they own; when earnestly they seek such proof, conclude they then begin to fail.

Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls his watery labyrinth, which whoso drinks forgets both joy and grief.

License they mean when they cry liberty.

Lifted up so high I disdained subjection, and thought one step higher would set me highest.

Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named not good.

Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

Lust—hard by hate.

Man hath his daily work of body or mind appointed, which declares his dignity; while other animals unactive range, and of their doings God takes no account.

Many a man lives a burden upon the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life.

Midnight brought on the dusky hour friendliest to sleep and silence.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake.

Mine eyes he closed, but open left the cell of Fancy, my immortal sight.

Money brings honor, friends, conquest, and realms.

Morn, waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand unbarred the gates of light.

Most men admire virtue, who follow not her lore.

Mutual love the crown of all our bliss!

My heart contains of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.

My sentence is for open war.

Nations grow corrupt, love bondage more than liberty; bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.

No date prefixed directs me in the starry rubric set.

Now had night measured, with her shadowy cone, half-way up hill this vast sublunar vault.

O conscience, into what abyss of fears and horrors hast thou driven me, out of which I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged.

O goodness! that shall evil turn to good.

O nightingale, that on yon blooming spray warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,—thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart doth fill!

O sun! of this great world both eye and soul.

On the tawny sands and shelves trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child!

Or, if virtue feeble were, heaven itself would stoop to her.

Praise from an enemy smells of craft.

Prudence is that virtue by which we discern what is proper to be done under the various circumstances of time and place.

Revenge, at first though sweet, bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.

Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck’d.

Sable-vested Night, eldest of things!

Servant of God, well done.

She that has that is clad in complete steel.

Short retirement urges sweet return.

Sin and her shadow, death.

So many laws argue so many sins.

Solitude is sometimes best society.

Spirits live insphered, in regions mild, of calm and serene air.

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, and Laughter, holding both his sides.

Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!

Sweet intercourse of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow.

Swinish gluttony never looks to heaven amidst its gorgeous feast; but with besotted, base ingratitude, cravens and blasphemes his feeder.

Tears such as angels weep.

That forbidden tree, whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and all our woe.

That golden key that opes the palace of eternity.

That grounded maxim, so rife and celebrated in the mouths of wisest men, that to the public good private respects must yield.

The brazen throat of war.

The bright consummate flower.

The debt immense of endless gratitude.

The drowsy frightened steeds that draw the litter of close-curtained sleep.

The earth, though in comparison of heaven so small, nor glistering, may of solid good contain more plenty than the sun, that barren shines.

The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him, and to imitate Him, as we may the nearest, by possessing our souls of true virtue.

The evening star, love’s harbinger, appeared.

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus’ train.

The gay motes that people the sunbeams.

The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home.

The hell within him.

The hidden soul of harmony.

The love-lorn nightingale nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well.

The palpable obscure.

The paradise of fools, to few unknown.

The pious and just honoring of ourselves may be thought the radical moisture and fountain-head from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth.

The planets in their station listening stood.

The pleasing poison the visage quite transforms of him that drinks, and the inglorious likeness of a beast fixes instead, unmoulding reason’s mintage charactered in the face.

The redundant locks, robustious to no purpose, clustering down—vast monument of strength.

The rising world of waters dark and deep.

The sacred influence of light appears.

The silver-footed queen.

The spirit of man, which God inspired, cannot together perish with this corporeal clod.

The spirits perverse with easy intercourse pass to and fro, to tempt or punish mortals.

The starry cope of heaven.

The sun, declined, was hastening now with prone career to the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale of heaven the stars that usher evening rose.

The timely dew of sleep, now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines our eyelids.

The truest fortitude.

The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness; the darkness and crookedness is our own. The wisdom of God created understanding, fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the eye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false glitterings, what is that to truth?

The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil liberty.

There are no songs comparable to the songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the prophets, and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach.

There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies,—his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth which he holds firmly established. If then it be profitable for him to read, why should it not at least be tolerable and free for his adversary to write? In logic they teach that contraries laid together, more evidently appear; it follows then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true; which must needs conduce much to the general confirmation of an implicit truth.

There is no Christian duty that is not to be seasoned and set off with cheerishness, which in a thousand outward and intermitting crosses may yet be done well, as in this vale of tears.

These are Thy glorious works, Parent of good.

These evils I deserve, yet despair not of His final pardon whose ear is ever open and his eye gracious to readmit the supplicant.

They also serve who only stand and wait.

They rejoice each with their kind, lion with lioness, so fitly them in pairs thou hast combined.

Those thoughts that wander through eternity.

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.

Time will run back and fetch the age of gold.

To attain the height and depth of Thy eternal ways, all human thoughts come short.

To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering.

To know that which before us lies in daily life is the prime of wisdom.

To season them, and win them early to the love of virtue and true labor, ere any flattering seducement or vain principle seize them wandering, some easy and delightful book of education should be read to them.

To show us what a miserable, credulous, deluded thing that creature is, called the vulgar.

To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.

Twilight gray hath in her sober livery all things clad.

Unbelief is blind.

Under the opening eyelids of the morn.

Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev’d.

Virtue can see to do what virtue would by her own radiant light, though sun and moon were in the flat sea sunk.

Virtue that wavers is not virtue, but vice revolted from itself, and after a while returning. The actions of just and pious men do not darken in their middle course.

Virtue, which breaks through opposition and all temptation can remove, most shines, and most is acceptable above.

Wave rolling after wave in torrent rapture.

We should be wary what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books, since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life.

What better can we do than prostrate fall before Him reverent, and there confess humbly our faults, and pardon beg with tears watering the ground?

What need a man forestall his date of grief, and run to meet what he would most avoid?

When a king sets himself to bandy against the highest court and residence of all regal powers, he then, in the single person of a man, fights against his own majesty and kingship.

Where all life dies death lives.

Where more is meant than meets the ear.

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.

Where shame is, there is also fear.

Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.

While rocking winds are piping loud.

Who can in reason then or right assume monarchy over such as live by right his equals, if in power or splendor less, in freedom equal?

Who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?

Why was the sight to such a tender ball as the eye confined, so obvious and so easy to be quenched, and not, as feeling, through all parts diffused, that she might look at will through every pore?

With thee conversing I forget all time.

Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Worthy deeds are not often destitute of worthy relaters; as, by a certain fate, great acts and great eloquence have most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honoring each other in the same age.

Yet I argue not against heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer right onward.

Zeal and duty … on occasion’s forelock watchful wait.

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD