Background Image

...

As When The Dove Returning Bore The Mark Of Earth Restored To The Long Labouring Ark; The Relics Of Mankind, Secure At Rest, Oped Every Window To Receive The Guest, And The Fair Bearer Of The Message Bless'd.

-John Dryden

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

As When The Dove

John Dryden

...

As When The Dove Returning Bore The Mark Of Earth Restored To The Long Labouring Ark; The Relics Of Mankind, Secure At Rest, Oped Every Window To Receive The Guest, And The Fair Bearer Of The Message Bless'd.

Views: 9

Topic

More From John Dryden

Successful Crimes Alone Are Justified.

Death Ends Our Woes, And The Kind Grave Shuts Up The Mournful Scene.

Secret Guilt Is By Silence Revealed.

Not Sharp Revenge, Nor Hell Itself Can Find, A Fiercer Torment Than A Guilty Mind, Which Day And Night Doth Dreadfully Accuse, Condemns The Wretch, And Still The Charge Renews.

Imagination In A Poet Is A Faculty So Wild And Lawless That, Like A High Ranging Spaniel, It Must Have Clogs Tied To It, Lest It Outrun The Judgment. The Great Easiness Of Blank Verse Renders The Poet Too Luxuriant. He Is Tempted To Say Many Things Which Might Better Be Omitted, Or, At Least Shut Up In Fewer Words.

Then We Upon Our Globe's Last Verge Shall Go, And View The Ocean Leaning On The Sky: From Thence Our Rolling Neighbours We Shall Know, And On The Lunar World Securely Pry.

Much Malice Mingled With A Little Wit Perhaps May Censure This Mysterious Writ.

I Am Resolved To Grow Fat, And Look Young Till Forty.

Beware The Fury Of A Patient Man.

A Brave Man Scorns To Quarrel Once A Day; Like Hectors In At Every Petty Fray.

Maintain Your Post: That's All The Fame You Need; For 'tis Impossible You Should Proceed.

There's A Proud Modesty In Merit; Averse From Asking, And Resolved To Pay Ten Times The Gifts It Asks.

Ye Moon And Stars, Bear Witness To The Truth.

Farewell, Too Little, And Too Lately Known, Whom I Began To Think And Call My Own.

Time And Death Shall Depart And Say In Flying Love Has Found Out A Way To Live, By Dying.

Men Met Each Other With Erected Look, The Steps Were Higher That They Took; Friends To Congratulate Their Friends Made Haste, And Long Inveterate Foes Saluted As They Pass'd.

Nothing To Build, And All Things To Destroy.

Good Sense And Good Nature Are Never Separated; And Good Nature Is The Product Of Right Reason.

Be Secret And Discreet; The Fairy Favors Are Lost When Not Concealed.

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

Youth, Beauty, Graceful Action Seldom Fail: But Common Interest Always Will Prevail; And Pity Never Ceases To Be Shown To Him Who Makes The People's Wrongs His Own.

None But The Brave Deserve The Fair.

Desire Of Power, On Earth A Vicious Weed, Yet, Sprung From High, Is Of Celestial Seed: In God 'tisglory; And When Men Aspire, 'tis But A Spark Too Much Of Heavenly Fire.

Virgil Is So Exact In Every Word, That None Can Be Changed But For A Worse; Nor Any One Removed From Its Place, But The Harmony Will Be Altered. He Pretends Sometimes To Trip; But It Is Only To Make You Think Him In Danger Of A Fall, When He Is Most Secure.

Let Fortune Empty Her Whole Quiver On Me, I Have A Soul That, Like An Ample Shield, Can Take In All, And Verge Enough For More; Fate Was Not Mine, Nor Am I Fate's: Souls Know No Conquerors.

Trust Reposed In Noble Natures Obliges Them The More.

But Wild Ambition Loves To Slide, Not Stand, And Fortune's Ice Prefers To Virtue's Land.

We First Make Our Habits, And Then Our Habits Make Us.

There Is An Inimitable Grace In Virgil's Words, And In Them Principally Consists That Beauty Which Gives So Inexpressible A Pleasure To Him Who Best Understands Their Force. This Diction Of His, I Must Once Again Say, Is Never To Be Copied; And Since It Cannot, He Will Appear But Lame In The Best Translation.

Pleasure Never Comes Sincere To Man; But Lent By Heaven Upon Hard Usury.

Boldness Is A Mask For Fear, However Great.

Boldness And Courage

He With A Graceful Pride, While His Rider Every Hand Survey'd, Sprung Loose, And Flew Into An Escapade; Not Moving Forward, Yet With Every Bound Pressing, And Seeming Still To Quit His Ground.

The Elephant Is Never Won By Anger; Nor Must That Man Who Would Reclaim A Lion Take Him By The Teeth.

Home Is The Sacred Refuge Of Our Life.

If The Faults Of Men In Orders Are Only To Be Judged Among Themselves, They Are All In Some Sort Parties; For, Since They Say The Honour Of Their Order Is Concerned In Every Member Of It, How Can We Be Sure That They Will Be Impartial Judges?

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.

Imitation Pleases, Because It Affords Matter For Inquiring Into The Truth Or Falsehood Of Imitation, By Comparing Its Likeness Or Unlikeness With The Original.

Restless At Home, And Ever Prone To Range.

Government Itself At Length Must Fall To Nature's State, Where All Have Right To All.

All The Learn'd Are Cowards By Profession.

When I Consider Life, It Is All A Cheat. Yet Fooled With Hope, People Favor This Deceit.

Satire Is A Kind Of Poetry In Which Human Vices Are Reprehended.

The Soft Complaining Flute, In Dying Notes, Discovers The Woes Of Hopeless Lovers.

Whatever Is, Is In Its Causes Just.

All Habits Gather By Unseen Degrees.

Not Heav'n Itself Upon The Past Has Pow'r; But What Has Been, Has Been, And I Have Had My Hour.

Calms Appear, When Storms Are Past; Love Will Have His Hour At Last: Nature Is My Kindly Care; Mars Destroys, And I Repair; Take Me, Take Me, While You May, Venus Comes Not Ev'ry Day.

So Over Violent, Or Over Civil That Every Man With Him Was God Or Devil.

The Longest Tyranny That Ever Sway'd Was That Wherein Our Ancestors Betray'd Their Free-born Reason To The Stagirite [aristotle], And Made His Torch Their Universal Light. So Truth, While Only One Suppli'd The State, Grew Scarce, And Dear, And Yet Sophisticate.

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.

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

Reason Saw Not, Till Faith Sprung The Light.

Long Pains, With Use Of Bearing, Are Half Eased.

Learn To Write Well, Or Not To Write At All.

Prodigious Actions May As Well Be Done, By Weaver's Issue, As The Prince's Son.

I Learn To Pity Woes So Like My Own.

Take Not Away The Life You Cannot Give: For All Things Have An Equal Right To Live.

For Your Ignorance Is The Mother Of Your Devotion To Me.

He Who Trusts A Secret To His Servant Makes His Own Man His Master.

Of No Distemper, Of No Blast He Died, But Fell Like Autumn Fruit That Mellow'd Long: Even Wonder'd At, Because He Dropp'd No Sooner. Fate Seem'd 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.

All Heiresses Are Beautiful.

Kings Fight For Empires, Madmen For Applause.

Revenge, Revenge, Timotheus Cries, See The Furies Arise!

The Greater Part Performed Achieves The Less.

The People Have A Right Supreme To Make Their Kings, For Kings Are Made For Them. All Empire Is No More Than Pow'r In Trust, Which When Resum'd, Can Be No Longer Just. Successionm For The General Good Design'd, In Its Own Wrong A Nation Cannot Bind.

My Hands Are Guilty, But My Heart Is Free.

Reason Is A Crutch For Age, But Youth Is Strong Enough To Walk Alone.

Few Know The Use Of Life Before 'tis Past.

Love Is Love's Reward.

What Judgment I Had Increases Rather Than Diminishes; And Thoughts, Such As They Are, Come Crowding In So Fast Upon Me, That My Only Difficulty Is To Choose Or Reject; To Run Them Into Verse Or To Give Them The Other Harmony Of Prose.

Of All The Tyrannies On Human Kind The Worst Is That Which Persecutes The Mind.

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

Thus All Below Is Strength, And All Above Is Grace.

Satire Among The Romans, But Not Among The Greeks, Was A Bitter Invective Poem.

Honor Is But An Empty Bubble.

Second Thoughts, They Say, Are Best.

Second Thoughts

Heaven Be Thanked, We Live In Such An Age, When No Man Dies For Love, But On The Stage.

From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: When Nature Underneath A Heap Of Jarring Atoms Lay, And Could Not Heave Her Head, The Tuneful Voice Was Heard From High, 'arise, Ye More Than Dead!' Then Cold, And Hot, And Moist, And Dry, In Order To Their Stations Leap, And Music's Power Obey. 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.

The Perverseness Of My Fate Is Such That He's Not Mine Because He's Mine Too Much.

Murder May Pass Unpunishd For A Time, But Tardy Justice Will Oertake The Crime.

He Was The Man Who Of All Modern, And Perhaps Ancient Poets, Had The Largest And Most Comprehensive Soul. . . . He Was Naturally Learn'd; He Needed Not The Spectacles Of Books To Read Nature; He Looked Inwards, And Found Her There. . . . He Is Many Times Flat, Insipid; His Comic Wit Degenerating In To Clenches, His Serious Swelling Into Bombast. But He Is Always Great, When Some Occasion Is Presented To Him.

A Lively Faith Will Bear Aloft The Mind, And Leave The Luggage Of Good Works Behind.

Thou Spring'st A Leak Already In Thy Crown, A Flaw Is In Thy Ill-bak'd Vessel Found; 'tis Hollow, And Returns A Jarring Sound, Yet Thy Moist Clay Is Pliant To Command, Unwrought, And Easy To The Potter's Hand: Now Take The Mould; Now Bend Thy Mind To Feel The First Sharp Motions Of The Forming Wheel.

For What Can Power Give More Than Food And Drink, To Live At Ease, And Not Be Bound To Think?

Thou Tyrant, Tyrant Jealousy, Thou Tyrant Of The Mind!

Those Who Write Ill, And They Who Ne'er Durst Write, Turn Critics Out Of Mere Revenge And Spite.

Death Only This Mysterious Truth Unfolds, The Mighty Soul How Small A Body Holds.

Politicians Neither Love Nor Hate.

Ah, How Sweet It Is To Love! Ah, How Gay Is Young Desire! And What Pleasing Pains We Prove When We First Approach Love's Fire!

By Education Most Have Been Misled; So They Believe, Because They Were Bred. The Priest Continues Where The Nurse Began, And Thus The Child Imposes On The Man.

Who Climbs The Grammar-tree, Distinctly Knows Where Noun, And Verb, And Participle Grows.

Not To Ask Is Not Be Denied.

It's A Hard World, Neighbors, If A Man's Oath Must Be His Master.

Reason To Rule, Mercy To Forgive: The First Is Law, The Last Prerogative. Life Is An Adventure In Forgiveness.

Fortune's Unjust; She Ruins Oft The Brave, And Him Who Should Be Victor, Makes The Slave.

She Feared No Danger, For She Knew No Sin.

So The False Spider, When Her Nets Are Spread, Deep Ambushed In Her Silent Den Does Lie.

The Conscience Of A People Is Their Power.

They, Who Would Combat General Authority With Particular Opinion, Must First Establish Themselves A Reputation Of Understanding Better Than Other Men.

Accurst Ambition, How Dearly I Have Bought You.

He Who Would Pry Behind The Scenes Oft Sees A Counterfeit.

Behind The Scenes

Resolved To Ruin Or To Rule The State.

Words Are But Pictures Of Our Thoughts.

There Is A Pleasure In Being Mad, Which None But Madmen Know.

Ill News Is Wing'd With Fate, And Flies Apace.

The Commendation Of Adversaries Is The Greatest Triumph Of A Writer, Because It Never Comes Unless Extorted.

So Softly Death Succeeded Life In Her, She Did But Dream Of Heaven, And She Was There.

Ill Writers Are Usually The Sharpest Censors.

Riches Cannot Rescue From The Grave, Which Claims Alike The Monarch And The Slave.

From Harmony, From Heav'nly Harmony. This Universal Frame Began.

Griefs Assured Are Felt Before They Come.

Happy The Man, And Happy He Alone, He Who Can Call Today His Own; He Who, Secure Within, Can Say, Tomorrow Do Thy Worst, For I Have Lived Today.

Present Joys Are More To Flesh And Blood Than A Dull Prospect Of A Distant Good.

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

Repentance Is The Virtue Of Weak Minds.

To Take Up Half On Trust, And Half To Try, Name It Not Faith But Bungling Bigotry.

The People's Prayer, The Glad Diviner's Theme, The Young Men's Vision, And The Old Men's Dream!

He Who Would Search For Pearls Must Dive Below.

God Never Made His Work For Man To Mend.

'tis A Good Thing To Laugh At Any Rate; And If A Straw Can Tickle A Man, It Is An Instrument Of Happiness.

Parting Is Worse Than Death; It Is Death Of Love!

Criticism, As It Was First Instituted By Aristotle, Was Meant As A Standard Of Judging Well; The Chiefest Part Of Which Is To Observe Those Excellencies Which Delight A Reasonable Reader.

If You Have Lived, Take Thankfully The Past. Make, As You Can, The Sweet Remembrance Last.

By Education Most Have Been Misled.

To Die Is Landing On Some Distant Shore.

Possess Your Soul With Patience.

I Have A Soul That Like An Ample Shield Can Take In All, And Verge Enough For More.

What, Start At This! When Sixty Years Have Spread. Their Grey Experience O'er Thy Hoary Head? Is This The All Observing Age Could Gain? Or Hast Thou Known The World So Long In Vain?

Could Swell The Soul To Rage, Or Kindle Soft Desire.

An Ugly Woman In A Rich Habit Set Out With Jewels Nothing Can Become.

The Brave Man Seeks Not Popular Applause, Nor, Overpower'd With Arms, Deserts His Cause; Unsham'd, Though Foil'd, He Does The Best He Can, Force Is Of Brutes, But Honor Is Of Man.

Forgiveness To The Injured Does Belong; But They Ne'er Pardon Who Have Done Wrong.

Content With Poverty, My Soul I Arm; And Virtue, Though In Rags, Will Keep Me Warm.

That Gloomy Outside, Like A Rusty Chest, Contains The Shoring Treasure Of A Soul Resolved And Brave.

Every Language Is So Full Of Its Own Proprieties That What Is Beautiful In One Is Often Barbarous, Nay, Sometimes Nonsense, In Another.

Every Age Has A Kind Of Universal Genius, Which Inclines Those That Live In It To Some Particular Studies.

But Love's A Malady Without A Cure.

Seas Are The Fields Of Combat For The Winds; But When They Sweep Along Some Flowery Coast, Their Wings Move Mildly, And Their Rage Is Lost.

Happy The Man, And Happy He Alone, He, Who Can Call Today His Own.

Seek Not To Know What Must Not Be Reveal, For Joy Only Flows Where Fate Is Most Concealed. A Busy Person Would Find Their Sorrows Much More; If Future Fortunes Were Known Before!

Confidence Is The Feeling We Have Before Knowing All The Facts

There Is A Proud Modesty In Merit.

Plots, True Or False, Are Necessary Things, To Raise Up Commonwealths And Ruin Kings.

They Live Too Long Who Happiness Outlive.

Thus, While The Mute Creation Downward Bend Their Sight, And To Their Earthly Mother Ten, Man Looks Aloft; And With Erected Eyes Beholds His Own Hereditary Skies.

What I Have Left Is From My Native Spring; I've Still A Heart That Swells, In Scorn Of Fate, And Lifts Me To My Banks.

Fattened In Vice, So Callous And So Gross, He Sins And Sees Not, Senseless Of His Loss.

Like Pilgrims To Th' Appointed Place We Tend; The World's An Inn, And Death The Journey's End.

Dreams Are But Interludes That Fancy Makes... Sometimes Forgotten Things, Long Cast Behind Rush Forward In The Brain, And Come To Mind.

Forgotten Things

All, As They Say, That Glitters Is Not Gold.

I Am Reading Jonson's Verses To The Memory Of Shakespeare; An Insolent, Sparing, And Invidious Panegyric.

Happy, Happy, Happy Pair! None But The Brave Deserves The Fair.

When I Consider Life, 'tis All A Cheat; Yet, Fooled With Hope, Men Favour The Deceit; Trust On, And Think Tomorrow Will Repay. Tomorrow's Falser Than The Former Day.

If You Are For A Merry Jaunt, I Will Try, For Once, Who Can Foot It Farthest.

Fool That I Was, Upon My Eagle's Wings I Bore This Wren, Till I Was Tired With Soaring, And Now He Mounts Above Me.

The Propriety Of Thoughts And Words, Which Are The Hidden Beauties Of A Play, Are But Confusedly Judged In The Vehemence Of Action.

Youth Should Watch Joys And Shoot Them As They Fly.

And That One Hunting, Which The Devil Design'd For One Fair Female, Lost Him Half The Kind.

Not Judging Truth To Be In Nature Better Than Falsehood, But Setting A Value Upon Both According To Interest.

Death In Itself Is Nothing; But We Fear To Be We Know Not What, We Know Not Where.

Wit Will Shine Through The Harsh Cadence Of A Rugged Line.

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

The Province Of The Soul Is Large Enough To Fill Up Every Cranny Of Your Time, And Leave You Much To Answer For If One Wretch Be Damned By Your Neglect.

But Dying Is A Pleasure / When Living Is A Pain.

Roused By The Lash Of His Own Stubborn Tail Our Lion Now Will Foreign Foes Assail.

If Thou Dost Still Retain The Same Ill Habits, The Same Follies, Too, Still Thou Art Bound To Vice, And Still A Slave.

My Love's A Noble Madness.

Shame On The Body For Breaking Down While The Spirit Perseveres.

Discover The Opinion Of Your Enemies, Which Is Commonly The Truest; For They Will Give You No Quarter, And Allow Nothing To Complaisance.

He Is A Perpetual Fountain Of Good Sense.

We Can Never Be Grieved For Their Miseries Who Are Thoroughly Wicked, And Have Thereby Justly Called Their Calamities On Themselves.

Drinking Is The Soldier's Pleasure.

We Must Beat The Iron While It Is Hot, But We May Polish It At Leisure.

With How Much Ease Believe We What We Wish!

Many Things Impossible To Thought Have Been By Need To Full Perfection Brought.

Courage From Hearts And Not From Numbers Grows.

Errors Like Straws Upon The Surface Flow, Who Would Search For Pearls To Be Grateful For Often Must Dive Below.

If All The World Be Worth Thy Winning. / Think, Oh Think It Worth Enjoying: / Lovely Thaïs Sits Beside Thee, / Take The Good The Gods Provide Thee.

The Good We Have Enjoyed From Heaven's Free Will, And Shall We Murmur To Endure The Ill?

Ill Habits Gather Unseen Degrees, As Brooks Make Rivers, Rivers Run To Seas.

What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell!

Sculptors Are Obliged To Follow The Manners Of The Painters, And To Make Many Ample Folds, Which Are Unsufferable Hardness, And More Like A Rock Than A Natural Garment.

I Am As Free As Nature First Made Man, Ere The Base Laws Of Servitude Began, When Wild In Woods The Noble Savage Ran.

For Art May Err, But Nature Cannot Miss.

Merit Challenges Envy.

A Knock-down Argument; 'tis But A Word And A Blow.

Great Wits Are Sure To Madness Near Allied, And Thin Partitions Do Their Bounds Divide.

At Home The Hateful Names Of Parties Cease, And Factious Souls Are Wearied Into Peace.

Doeg, Though Without Knowing How Or Why, Made Still A Blundering Kind Of Melody; Spurr'd Boldly On, And Dash'd Through Thick And Thin, Through Sense And Nonsense, Never Out Nor In; Free From All Meaning Whether Good Or Bad, And In One Word, Heroically Mad.

Nature Meant Me A Wife, A Silly, Harmless, Household Dove, Fond Without Art, And Kind Without Deceit.

Repartee Is The Soul Of Conversation.

The True Amphitryon Is The Amphitryon Where We Dine.

Love Works A Different Way In Different Minds, The Fool It Enlightens And The Wise It Blinds.

Love And Time With Reverence Use, Treat Them Like A Parting Friend: Nor The Golden Gifts Refuse Which In Youth Sincere They Send: For Each Year Their Price Is More, And They Less Simple Than Before.

Bacchus Ever Fair And Young, Drinking Joys Did First Ordain. Bachus's Blessings Are A Treasure, Drinking Is The Soldier's Pleasure, Rich The Treasure, Sweet The Pleasure- Sweet Is Pleasure After Pain.

Light Sufferings Give Us Leisure To Complain.

I Strongly Wish For What I Faintly Hope; Like The Daydreams Of Melancholy Men, I Think And Think In Things Impossible, Yet Love To Wander In That Golden Maze.

But When To Sin Our Biased Nature Leans, The Careful Devil Is Still At Hand With Means; And Providently Pimps For Ill Desires.

The Blushing Beauties Of A Modest Maid.

How Happy The Lover, How Easy His Chain, How Pleasing His Pain, How Sweet To Discover He Sighs Not In Vain.

Trending Author

Dirk Kempthorne

Category