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Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? 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 Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.

-John Milton

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Alas! What Boots It

John Milton

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Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? 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 Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.

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But See! Thevirgin Blessed Hath Laid Her Babe To Rest. Time Is Our Tedious Song Should Here Have Ending.

For Such Kind Of Borrowing As This, If It Be Not Bettered By The Borrowers, Among Good Authors Is Accounted Plagiarè.

The Low'ring Element Scowls O'er The Darken'd Landscape.

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.

My Latest Found, Heaven's Last, Best Gift, My Ever New Delight!

From Haunted Spring And Dale Edg'd With Poplar Pale The Parting Genius Is With Sighing Sent.

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 God Will Deign To Visit Oft The Dwellings Of Just Men -- Delighted, And With Frequent Intercourse -- Thither Will Send His Winged Messengers On Errants Of Supernal Grace.

Ladies, Whose Bright Eyes Rain Influence, And Judge The Prize.

A Broad And Ample Road, Whose Dust Is Gold, And Pavement Stars,--as Stars To Thee Appear Seen In The Galaxy, That Milky Way Which Nightly As A Circling Zone Thou Seest Powder'd With Stars.

Hail Holy Light, Offspring Of Heav'n Firstborn!

Such Joy Ambition Finds.

Each Tree Laden With Fairest Fruit, That Hung To Th' Eye Tempting, Stirr'd In Me Sudden Appetite To Pluck And Eat.

Freely We Serve, Because We Freely Love, As In Our Will To Love Or Not; In This We Stand Or Fall.

To Many A Youth And Many A Maid, Dancing In The Chequer'd Shade.

Imparadis'd In One Another's Arms.

I Will Not Allow My Daughters To Learn Foreign Languages Because One Tongue Is Sufficient For A Woman.

And Grace That Won Who Saw To Wish Her Stay.

Still Paying, Still To Owe. Eternal Woe!

It Is Not Virtue, Wisdom, Valour, Wit, Strength, Comeliness Of Shape, Or Amplest Merit, That Woman's Love Can Win, Or Long Inherit; But What It Is, Hard Is To Say, Harder To Hit.

There Swift Return Diurnal, Merely To Officiate Light Round This Opacous Earth, This Punctual Spot.

Who Kills A Man Kills A Reasonable Creature, God's Image; But He Who Destroys A Good Book, Kills Reason Itself, Kills The Image Of God, As It Were, In The Eye.

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.

And The Jocund Rebecks Sound To Many A Youth, And Many A Maid, Dancing In The Checkered Shade. And Young And Old Come Forth To Play On A Sunshine Holiday.

For To Interpose A Little Ease, Let Our Frail Thoughts Dally With False Surmise.

Where All Life Dies Death Lives.

Earth Felt The Wound; And Nature From Her Seat, Sighing Through All Her Works, Gave Signs Of Woe That All Was Lost.

Beyond Is All Abyss, Eternity, Whose End No Eye Can Reach.

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 Dost 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.

By Night The Glass Of Galileo ... Observes Imagin'd Land And Regions In The Moon.

Nothing Profits More Than Self-esteem, Grounded On What Is Just And Right.

For Contemplation He And Valour Formed; / For Softness She And Sweet Attractive Grace, / He For God Only, She For God In Him: / His Fair Large Front And Eye Sublime Declared / Absolute Rule.

Arms On Armour Clashing Bray'd Horrible Discord, And The Madding Wheels Of Brazen Chariots Rag'd: Dire Was The Noise Of Conflict.

Hail, Holy Light! Offspring Of Heaven Firstborn! Or Of Th' Eternal Co-eternal Beam, May I Express Thee Unblam'd? Since God Is Light And Never But In Unapproached Light Dwelt From Eternity, Dwelt Then In Thee, Bright Effluence Of Bright Essence Increate!

Freely We Serve, Because Freely We Love.

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.

Accuse Not Nature: She Hath Done Her Part; Do Thou But Thine.

Virtue Hath No Tongue To Check Vice's Pride.

A Good Principle Not Rightly Understood May Prove As Hurtful As A Bad.

Let Us No More Contend, Nor Blame Each Other, Blamed Enough Elsewhere, But Strive, In Offices Of Love, How We May Lighten Each Other's Burden.

To Overcome In Battle, And Subdue Nations, And Bring Home Spoils With Infinite Man-slaughter, Shall Be Held The Highest Pitch Of Human Glory.

All Seemed Well Pleased, All Seemed, But Were Not All.

The Childhood Shows The Man As Morning Shows The Day. Be Famous Then By Wisdom; As Thy Empire Must Extend, So Let Extend Thy Mind O'er All The World.

He Left It In Thy Power, Ordaind Thy Will By Nature Free, Not Over-rul'd By Fate Inextricable, Or Strict Necessity.

Yet From Those Flames No Light, But Rather Darkness Visible.

Our Reason Is Our Law.

The Greatest Burden In The World Is Superstition, Not Only Of Ceremonies In The Church, But Of Imaginary And Scarecrow Sins At Home.

Mutual Love, The Crown Of All Our Bliss.

Truth Is As Impossible To Be Soiled By Any Outward Touch As The Sunbeam.

Nor From Hell One Step No More Than From Himself Can Fly By Change Of Place.

Our Country Is Where Ever We Are Well Off.

The Love-lorn Nightingale Nightly To Thee Her Sad Song Mourneth Well.

My Heart Contains Of Good, Wise, Just, The Perfect Shape.

Our State Cannot Be Severed, We Are One, One Flesh; To Lose Thee Were To Lose Myself.

The Conquer'd, Also, And Enslaved By War, Shall, With Their Freedom Lost, All Virtue Lose.

Luck Is The Residue Of Design.

Such Sweet Compulsion Doth In Music Lie.

This Having Learnt, Thou Hast Attained The Sum Of Wisdom; Hope No Higher, Though All The Stars Thou Knew'st By Name, And All Th'ethereal Powers, All Secrets Of The Deep, All Nature's Works, Or Works Of God In Heav'n, Air, Earth, Or Sea, And All The Riches Of This World Enjoy'dst, And All The Rule, One Empire; Onlyadd Deeds To Thy Knowledge Answerable, Add Faith, Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance, Add Love, By Name To Come Called 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.

No Mighty Trance, Or Breathed Spell Inspires The Pale-eyed Priest From The Prophetic Cell.

Spirits That Live Throughout, Vital In Every Part, Not As Frail Man, In Entrails, Heart Or Head, Liver Or Reins, Cannot But By Annihilating Die.

God Shall Be All In All.

And Storied Windows Richly Dight, Casting A Dim Religious Light. There Let The Pealing Organ Blow, To The Full-voiced Choir 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.

He Who Reigns Within Himself And Rules Passions, Desires, And Fears Is More Than A King.

So Hand In Hand They Passed, The Loveliest Pair That Ever Since In Love's Embraces Met -- Adam, The Goodliest Man Of Men Since Born His Sons; The Fairest Of Her Daughters Eve.

Equally Inured By Moderation Either State To Bear, Prosperous Or Adverse.

As Therefore The State Of Man Now Is, What Wisdom Can There Be To Choose, What Continence To Forbear, Without The Knowledge Of Good And Evil?

Some Say No Evil Thing That Walks By Night, In Fog Or Fire, By Lake Or Moorish Fen, Blue Meagre Hag, Or Stubborn Unlaid Ghost That Breaks His Magic Chains At Curfew Time, No Goblin, Or Swart Fairy Of The Mine, Hath Hurtful Power O'er True Virginity.

Contemplation Is Wisdom's Best Nurse.

Nor Aught Availed Him Now To Have Built In Heaven High Towers; Nor Did He Scrape By All His Engines, But Was Headlong Sent With His Industrious Crew To Build In Hell.

Law Can Discover Sin, But Not Remove, Save By Those Shadowy Expiations Weak.

A Bevy Of Fair Women.

For The Air Of Youth, Hopeful And Cheerful, In Thy Blood Will Reign A Melancholy Damp Of Cold And Dry To Weigh Thy Spirits Down, And Last Consume The Balm Of Life.

Ev'n Them Who Kept Thy Truth So Pure Of Old, When All Our Fathers Worshipp'd Stocks And Stones.

Live While Ye May, Yet Happy Pair.

How Charming Is Divine Philosophy! Not Harsh And Crabb

Now I See Peace To Corrupt No Less Than War To Waste.

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.

So Dear To Heav'n 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, And In Clear Dream And Solemn Vision Tell Her Of Things That No Gross Ear Can Hear, Till Oft Converse With Heav'nly Habitants Begin To Cast A Beam On Th' Outward Shape.

Meadows Trim With Daisies Pied, Shallow Brooks And Rivers Wide Towers And Battlements It Sees Bosom'd High In Tufted Trees, Where Perhaps Some Beauty Lies, The Cynosure Of Neighboring Eyes.

The Tree Of Knowledge Grew Fast By, Knowledge Of Good Bought Dear By Knowing Ill.

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.

God, Who Oft Descends To Visit Men Unseen, And Through Their Habitations Walks To Mark Their Doings.

So Shall The World Go On, To Good Malignant, To Bad Men Benign, Under Her Own Weight Groaning.

Loneliness Is The First Thing Which God's Eye Named Not Good.

What Can 'scape The Eye Of God, All-seeing, Or Deceive His Heart. Omniscient!

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.

For Spirits When They Please Can Either Sex Assume, Or Both; So Soft And Uncompounded Is Their Essence Pure, Not Tied Or Manacled With Joint Or Limb, Nor Founded On The Brittle Strength Of Bones, Like Cumbrous Flesh; But In What Shape They Choose Dilated Or Condensed, Bright Or Obscure, Can Execute Their Airy Purposes, And Works Of Love Or Enmity Fulfil.

Solitude Is Sometimes Best Society.

To Be Blind Is Not Miserable; Not To Be Able To Bear Blindness, That Is Miserable.

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.

Retiring From The Popular Noise, I Seek This Unfrequented Place To Find Some Ease.

The Great Emathian Conqueror Bid Spare The House Of Pindarus, When Temple And Tower Went To The Ground.

But Who Is This, What Thing Of Sea Or Land,- Female Of Sex It Seems,- That So Bedeck'd, Ornate, And Gay, Comes This Way Sailing Like A Stately Ship Of Tarsus, Bound For Th' Isles Of Javan Or Gadire, With All Her Bravery On, And Tackle Trim, Sails Fill'd, And Streamers Waving, Courted By All The Winds That Hold Them Play, An Amber Scent Of Odorous Perfume Her Harbinger?

Be Strong, Live Happy And Love, But First Of All Him Whom To Love Is To Obey, And Keep His Great Command!

Yet Some There Be That By Due Steps Aspire To Lay Their Just Hands On That Golden Key That Opes The Palace Of Eternity.

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?

But All Was False And Hollow; Though His Tongue Dropp'd Manna, And Could Make The Worse Appear The Better Reason, 4 To Perplex And Dash Maturest Counsels.

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?

Me Miserable! Which Way Shall I Fly Infinite Wrath And Infinite Despair? Which Way I Fly Is Hell; 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.

Her Silent Course Advance With Inoffensive Pace, That Spinning Sleeps On Her Soft Axle.

Subdue By Force, Who Reason For Their Law Refuse, Right Reason For Their Law.

For So I Created Them Free And Free They Must Remain.

And Ever Against Eating Cares Lap Me In Soft Lydian Airs, Married To Immortal Verse

And The More I See Pleasures About Me, So Much More I Feel Torment Within Me.

Paradise Lost Book 9

The Other Shape, If Shape It Might Be Call'd That Shape Had None Distinguishable In Member, Joint, Or Limb; Or Substance Might Be Call'd That Shadow Seem'd, For Each Seem'd Either,--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.

And Fast By, Hanging In A Golden Chain, This Pendent World, In Bigness As A Star Of Smallest Magnitude, Close By The Moon.

Rich And Various Gems Inlay The Unadorned Bosom Of The Deep.

Opinion In Good Men Is But Knowledge In The Making.

Thus Belial, With Words Clothed In Reason's Garb, Counseled Ignoble Ease, And Peaceful Sloth, Not Peace.

Our Torments Also May In Length Of Time Become Our Elements.

Hide Me From Day's Garish Eye, While The Bee With Honied Thigh, That At Her Flowery Work Doth Sing, And The Waters Murmuring With Such Consort As They Keep, Entice The Dewy-feathered Sleep.

Where There Is Much Desire To Learn, There Of Necessity Will Be Much Arguing, Much Writing, For Opinion In Good Men Is But Knowledge In The Making.

Of Four Infernal Rivers That Disgorge/ Into The Burning Lake Their Baleful Streams;/abhorred Styx The Flood Of Deadly Hate,/sad Acheron Of Sorrow, Black And Deep;/cocytus, Nam'd Of Lamentation Loud/ Heard On The Rueful Stream; Fierce Phlegethon/ Whose Waves Of Torrent Fire Inflame With Rage./ Far Off From These A Slow And Silent Stream,/ Lethe The River Of Oblivion Rolls/ Her Wat'ry Labyrinth Whereof Who Drinks,/ Forthwith His Former State And Being Forgets,/ Forgets Both Joy And Grief, Pleasure And Pain.

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.

And Feel That I Am Happier Than I Know.

What Wisdom Can There Be To Choose, What Continence To Forbear Without The Knowledge Of Evil? 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 Wayfaring Christian.

And May At Last My Weary Age Find Out The Peaceful Hermitage, The Hairy Gown And Mossy Cell, Where I May Sit And Rightly Spell Of Every Star That Heaven Doth Shew, And Every Herb That Sips The Dew, Till Old Experience To Attain To Something Like Prophetic Strain.

More Safe I Sing With Mortal Voice, Unchang'd To Hoarse Or Mute, Though Fall'n On Evil Days, On Evil Days Though Fall'n, And Evil Tongues.

Laws Can Discover Sin, But Not Remove It

And Every Shepherd Tells His Tale Under The Hawthorn In The Dale.

Enjoy Your Dear Wit And Gay Rhetoric, That Hath So Well Been Taught Her Dazzling Fence.

And Looks Commercing With The Skies, Thy Rapt Soul Sitting In Thine Eyes.

The Sun To Me Is Dark And Silent As The Moon, When She Deserts The Night Hid In Her Vacant Interlunar Cave.

But Oh! As To Embrace Me She Inclin'd, I Wak'd, She Fled, And Day Brought Back My Night.

Money Brings Honor, Friends, Conquest, And Realms.

One Sip Of This Will Bathe The Drooping Spirits In Delight, Beyond The Bliss Of Dreams.

For Books Are Not Absolutely Dead Things, But Do Contain A Potency 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.

No Institution Which Does Not Continually Test Its Ideals, Techniques And Measure Of Accomplishment Can Claim Real Vitality.

Wherefore Did He [god] Create Passions Within Us, Pleasures Round About Us, But That These Rightly Tempered Are The Very Ingredients Of Virtue?

To Know That Which Lies Before Us In Daily Life Is The Prime Wisdom.

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?

The Gay Motes That People The Sunbeams.

But Infinite In Pardon Is My Judge.

Tower'd Cities Please Us Then, And The Busy Hum Of Men.

Death To Life Is Crown Or Shame.

Eye Me, Blest Providence, And Square My Trial To My Proportion'd Strength.

Well Observe The Rule Of Not Too Much, By Temperance Taught In What Thou Eat'st And Drink'st.

Therefore, If At Great Things Thou Wouldst Arrive, Get Riches First, Get Wealth.

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.

Hell Has No Benefits, Only Torture.

That Practis'd Falsehood Under Saintly Shew, Deep Malice To Conceal, Couch'd With Revenge.

The End Then Of Learning Is To Repair The Ruins Of Our First Parents By Regaining To Know God Aright, And Out Of That Knowledge To Love Him, To Imitate Him, To Be Like Him, As We May The Nearest By Possessing Our Souls Of True Virtue, Which Being United To The Heavenly Grace Of Faith Makes Up The Highest Perfection.

Iris All Hues, Roses, And Jessamine Reared High Their Flourished Heads Between, And Wrought Mosaic; Underfoot The Violet, Crocus, And Hyacinth With Rich Inlay Broidered The Ground, More Coloured Than With Stone Of Costliest Emblem: Other Creature Here Beast, Bird, Insect, Or Worm Durst Enter None; Such Was Their Awe Of Man.

Come And Trip It As Ye Go On The Light Fantastic Toe.

Courage Never To Submit Of Yield.

Blind Mouths! That Scarce Themselves Know How To Hold A Sheep-hook.

Necessity And Chance Approach Not Me, And What I Will Is Fate.

But Pain Is Perfect Misery, The Worst Of Evils, And Excessive, Overturns All Patience.

Fairest Of Stars, Last In The Train Of Night, If Better Thou Belong Not To The Dawn.

Oft, On A Plat Of Rising Ground, I Hear The Far-off Curfew Sound Over Some Wide-watered Shore, Swinging Low With Sullen Roar.

Where Peace And Rest Can Never Dwell, Hope Never Comes, That Comes To All.

Here The Great Art Lies, To Discern In What The Law Is To Be To Restraint And Punishment, And In What Things Persuasion Only Is To Work.

Just Are The Ways Of God, And Justifiable To Men; Unless There Be Who Think Not God At All.

Cyriack, Whose Grandsire On The Royal Bench Of British Themis, With No Mean Applause Pronounced And In His Volumes Taught Our Laws, Which Others At Their Bar So Often Wrench

Time, Though In Eternity, Applied To Motion, Measures All Things Durable By Present, Past, And Future.

None But Such As Are Good Men Can Give Good Things, And That Which Is Not Good, Is Not Delicious To A Well-govern'd And Wise Appetite.

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. 1 Paradise Lost. Book I. Line 22.

The Brazen Throat Of War.

Dark With Excessive Bright.

Grace Was In All Her Steps, Heaven In Her Eye, In Every Gesture Dignity And Love.

Let None Henceforth Seek Needless Cause To Approve The Faith They Owe; When Earnestly They Seek Such Proof, Conclude, They Then Begin To Fail.

Promiscuous Reading Is Necessary To The Constituting Of Human Nature. The Attempt To Keep Out Evil Doctrine By Licensing Is Like The Exploit Of That Gallant Man Who Thought To Keep Out The Crows By Shutting The Park Gate.

O Welcome Pure-eyed Faith, White Handed Hope, Thou Hovering Angel Girt With Golden Wings.

In Naked Beauty Most Adorned.

Fairy Elves, Whose Midnight Revels By A Forest Side Or Fountain Some Belated Peasant Sees, Or Dreams He Sees, While Overhead The Moon Sits Arbitress.

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.

Believe And Be Confirmed.

Death Is The Golden Key That Opens The Palace Of Eternity.

Eternity Of Life

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.

Neither Prosperity Nor Empire Nor Heaven Can Be Worth Winning At The Price Of A Virulent Temper, Bloody Hands, An Anguished Spirit, And A Vain Hatred Of The Rest Of The World.

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.

On A Sudden Open Fly With Impetuous Recoil And Jarring Sound Th' Infernal Doors, And On Their Hinges Grate Harsh Thunder.

To Live A Life Half Dead, A Living Death.

'paradise Lost' Is One Of The Books Which The Reader Admires And Lays Down, And Forgets To Take Up Again. None Ever Wished It Longer Than It Is.

Nor Jealousy Was Understood, The Injur'd Lover's Hell.

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining.

New Presbyter Is But Old Priest Writ Large.

And These Gems Of Heav'n, Her Starry Train.

Thick As Autumnal Leaves That Strow The Brooks In Vallombrosa, Where Th' Etrurian Shades High Over-arch'd Imbower.

If This Fail, The Pillar'd Firmament Is Rottenness, And Earth's Base Built On Stubble.

Wild Above Rule Or Art, Enormous Bliss.

Sweet Intercourse Of Looks And Smiles; For Smiles From Reason Flow.

Look Homeward, Angel, Now, And Melt With Ruth.

Into This Wild Abyss/ The Womb Of Nature, And Perhaps Her Grave--/ Of Neither Sea, Nor Shore, Nor Air, Nor Fire,/ But All These In Their Pregnant Causes Mixed/ Confusedly, And Which Thus Must Ever Fight,/ Unless The Almighty Maker Them Ordain/ His Dark Materials To Create More Worlds,--/ Into This Wild Abyss The Wary Fiend/ Stood On The Brink Of Hell And Looked A While,/ Pondering His Voyage; For No Narrow Frith/ He Had To Cross.

Who Aspires Must Down As Low As High He Soar'd.

Paradise Lost Book 9

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.

Implied Subjection, But Requir'd With Gentle Sway, And By Her Yielded, By Him Best Receiv'd,- Yielded With Coy Submission, Modest Pride, And Sweet, Reluctant, Amorous Delay.

All Is Not Lost, The Unconquerable Will, And Study Of Revenge, Immortal Hate, And The Courage Never To Submit Or Yield.

Chaos Umpire Sits And By Decision More Embroils The Fray By Which He Reigns: Next Him High Arbiter Chance Governs All.

Oh, Shame To Men! Devil With Devil Damn'd Firm Concord Holds, Men Only Disagree Of Creatures Rational.

It Were A Journey Like The Path To Heaven, To Help You Find Them.

Heav'nly Love Shall Outdoo Hellish Hate

What Need A Man Forestall His Date Of Grief, And Run To Meet What He Would Most Avoid?.

I Did But Prompt The Age To Quit Their Clogs By The Known Rules Of Ancient Liberty, When Straight A Barbarous Noise Environs Me Of Owls And Cuckoos, Asses, Apes And Dogs.

God Is Thy Law, Thou Mine: To Know No More Is Woman's Happiest Knowledge And Her Praise. With Thee Conversing I Forget All Time.

O Loss Of Sight, Of Thee I Most Complain! Blind Among Enemies, O Worse Than Chains, Dungeon Or Beggary, Or Decrepit Age! Light, The Prime Work Of God, To Me Is Extinct, And All Her Various Objects Of Delight Annulled, Which Might In Part My Grief Have Eased. Inferior To The Vilest Now Become Of Man Or Worm; The Vilest Here Excel Me, They Creep, Yet See; I, Dark In Light, Exposed To Daily Fraud, Contempt, Abuse And Wrong, Within Doors, Or Without, Still As A Fool, In Power Of Others, Never In My Own; Scarce Half I Seem To Live, Dead More Than Half.

United Thoughts And Counsels, Equal Hope And Hazard In The Glorious Enterprise.

Infinity Is A Dark Illimitable Ocean, Without Bound.

The Strongest And The Fiercest Spirit That Fought In Heaven, Now Fiercer By Despair.

A Poet Soaring In The High Reason Of His Fancies, With His Garland And Singing Robes About Him.

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