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Is It Just Or Reasonable, That Most Voices Against The Main End Of Government Should Enslave The Less Number That Would Be Free? More Just It Is, Doubtless, If It Come To Force, That A Less Number Compel A Greater To Retain, Which Can Be No Wrong To Them, Their Liberty, Than That A Greater Number, For The Pleasure Of Their Baseness, Compel A Less Most Injuriously To Be Their Fellow-slaves. They Who Seek Nothing But Their Own Just Liberty, Have Always Right To Win It And To Keep It, Whenever They Have Power, Be The Voices Never So Numerous That Oppose It.

-John Milton

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Is It Just Or

John Milton

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Is It Just Or Reasonable, That Most Voices Against The Main End Of Government Should Enslave The Less Number That Would Be Free? More Just It Is, Doubtless, If It Come To Force, That A Less Number Compel A Greater To Retain, Which Can Be No Wrong To Them, Their Liberty, Than That A Greater Number, For The Pleasure Of Their Baseness, Compel A Less Most Injuriously To Be Their Fellow-slaves. They Who Seek Nothing But Their Own Just Liberty, Have Always Right To Win It And To Keep It, Whenever They Have Power, Be The Voices Never So Numerous That Oppose It.

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Fame Is The Last Infirmity Of The Human Mind.

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.

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.

O Impotence Of Mind, In Body Strong! But 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.

Love-quarrels Oft In Pleasing Concord End.

With Ruin Upon Ruin, Rout On Rout, Confusion Worse Confounded.

Ink Is The Blood Of The Printing-press.

The Olive Grove Of Academe, Plato's Retirement, Where The Attic Bird Trills Her Thick-warbled Notes The Summer Long.

That Power Which Erring Men Call Chance.

We Read Not That Christ Ever Exercised Force But Once; And That Was To Drive Profane Ones Out Of His Temple, Not To Force Them In.

The Rising World Of Waters Dark And Deep.

Day And Night, Seed-time And Harvest, Heat And Hoary Frost Shall Hold Their Course, Till Fire Purge All Things New.

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.

Imparadis'd In One Another's Arms.

Let Not England Forget Her Precedence Of Teaching Nations How To Live.

Apt Words Have Power To Suage The Tumors Of A Troubled Mind.

For Stories Teach Us, That Liberty Sought Out Of Season, In A Corrupt And Degenerate Age, Brought Rome Itself To A Farther Slavery: For Liberty Hath A Sharp And Double Edge, Fit Only To Be Handled By Just And Virtuous Men; To Bad And Dissolute, It Becomes A Mischief Unwieldy In Their Own Hands: Neither Is It Completely Given, But By Them Who Have The Happy Skill To Know What Is Grievance And Unjust To A People, And How To Remove It Wisely; What Good Laws Are Wanting, And How To Frame Them Substantially, That Good Men May Enjoy The Freedom Which They Merit, And The Bad The Curb Which They Need.

What Is Strength Without A Double Share Of Wisdom?

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.

Spirits When They Please Can Either Sex Assume, Or Both.

License They Mean When They Cry Liberty; For Who Loves That, Must First Be Wise And Good.

Into This Wild Abyss, The Womb Of Nature And Perhaps Her Grave.

Evil, Be Thou My Good.

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.

The Bird Of Jove, Stoop'd From His Aery Tour, Two Birds Of Gayest Plume Before Him Drove.

And To Thy Husband's Will Thine Shall Submit; He Over Thee Shall Rule.

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.

Man Hath His Daily Work Of Body Or Mind Appointed.

Innumerable As The Stars Of Night, Or Stars Of Morning, Dewdrops Which The Sun Impearls On Every Leaf And Every Flower.

Beauty Is Nature's Coin, Must Not Be Hoarded, But Must Be Current, And The Good Thereof Consists In Mutual And Partaken Bliss.

Only This I Know, That One Celestial Father Gives To All.

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

A Gulf Profound As That Serbonian Bog Betwixt Damiata And Mount Casius Old, Where Armies Whole Have Sunk: The Parching Air Burns Frore, And Cold Performs Th' Effect Of Fire. Thither By Harpy-footed Furies Hal'd, At Certain Revolutions All The Damn'd Are Brought, And Feel By Turns The Bitter Change Of Fierce Extremes,-extremes By Change More Fierce; From Beds Of Raging Fire To Starve In Ice Their Soft Ethereal Warmth, And There To Pine Immovable, Infix'd, And Frozen Round, Periods Of Time; Thence Hurried Back To Fire.

Rhime Being No Necessary Adjunct Or True Ornament Of Poem Or Good Verse, In Longer Works Especially, But The Invention Of A Barbarous Age, To Set Off Wretched Matter And Lame Meeter...the Troublesom And Modern Bondage Of Rimeing.

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

Lords Are Lordliest In Their Wine.

Gratitude Bestows Reverence, Allowing Us To Encounter Everyday Epiphanies.

So He With Difficulty And Labour Hard Mov'd On, With Difficulty And Labour He.

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

With Cowslips Wan That Hang The Pensive Head, And Every Flower That Sad Embroidery Wears.

Confusion Heard His Voice, And Wild Uproar Stood Ruled, Stood Vast Infinitude Confined; Till At His Second Bidding Darkness Fled, Light Shone, And Order From Disorder Sprung.

These Evils I Deserve, And More . . . . Justly, Yet Despair Not Of His Final Pardon, Whose Ear Is Ever Open, And His Eye Gracious To Re-admit The Suppliant.

Govern Well Thy Appetite, Lest Sin Surprise Thee, And Her Black Attendant Death.

Above The Smoke And Stir Of This Dim Spot Which Men Call Earth.

And So Sepúlchred In Such Pomp Dost Lie, That Kings For Such A Tomb Would Wish To Die.

Satan; So Call Him Now, His Former Name Is Heard No More In Heaven.

With A Smile That Glow'd Celestial Rosy Red, Love's Proper Hue.

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 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.

They Eat, They Drink, And In Communion Sweet Quaff Immortality And Joy.

Sweet Is The Breath Of Morn, Her Rising Sweet, With Charm Of Earliest Birds.

Hope Elevates, And Joy Brightens His Crest.

Paradise Lost Book 9

Till Old Experience Do Attain To Something Like Prophetic Strain.

What Boots It At One Gate To Make Defence, And At Another To Let In The Foe?

Fame, If Not Double Fac'd, Is Double Mouth'd, And With Contrary Blast Proclaims Most Deeds; On Both His Wings, One Black, The Other White, Bears Greatest Names In His Wild Aery Flight.

It Is Chastity, My Brother. She That Has That Is Clad In Complete Steel.

A Limbo Large And Broad, Since Call'd The Paradise Of Fools To Few Unknown.

The Pious And Just Honoring Of Ourselves May Be Thought The Fountainhead From Whence Every Laudable And Worthy Enterprise Issues Forth.

Arm The Obdured Breast With Stubborn Patience As With Triple Steel.

O When Meet Now Such Pairs, In Love And Mutual Honour Joined?

Virtue Hath No Tongue To Check Vice's Pride.

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

Tears Such As Angels Weep.

Thus I Set My Printless Feet O'er The Cowslip's Velvet Head, That Bends Not As I Tread.

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.

Time Is The Subtle Thief Of Youth.

A Short Retirement Urges A Sweet Return.

His Words, Like So Many Nimble And Airy Servitors, Trip About Him At Command. Ibid.

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

His Sleep Was Aery Light, From Pure Digestion Bred.

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.

In Contemplation Of Created Things, By Steps We May Ascend To God.

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.

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.

But That From Us Aught Should Ascend To Heav'n So Prevalent As To Concern The Mind Of God, High-bless'd, Or To Incline His Will, Hard To Belief May Seem; Yet This Will Prayer.

Flowers Of All Hue, And Without Thorn The Rose.

Paradise On Earth

It Is Lawful And Hath Been Held So Through All Ages For Any One Who Have The Power To Call To Account A Tyrant Or Wicked King, And After Due Conviction To Depose And Put Him To Death.

With Thee Goes Thy Husband, Him To Follow Thou Art Bound; Where He Abides, Think There Thy Native Soil.

And Join With Thee Calm Peace And Quiet, Spare Fast, That Oft With Gods Doth Diet.

To Live A Life Half Dead, A Living Death.

Of Calling Shapes, And Beck'ning Shadows Dire, And Airy Tongues That Syllable Men's Names.

The Sacred Influence Of Light Appears.

Quips And Cranks And Wanton Wiles, Nods And Becks And Wreathèd Smiles.

For Liberty Hath A Sharp And Double Edge, Fit Only To Be Handled By Just And Virtuous Men; To Bad And Dissolute, It Becomes A Mischief Unwieldy In Their Own Hands.

It Was That Fatal And Perfidious Bark, Built In Th' Eclipse, And Rigg'd With Curses Dark.

Goodness Thinks No Ill Where No Ill Seems.

When The New Light Which We Beg For Shines In Upon Us, There Be [those] Who Envy And Oppose, If It Come Not First In At Their Casements.

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

They Who Have Put Out The People's Eyes Reproach Them Of Their Blindness.

From Man Or Angel The Great Architect Did Wisely To Conceal, And Not Divulge, His Secrets, To Be Scanned By Them Who Ought Rather Admire. Or, If They List To Try Conjecture, He His Fabric Of The Heavens Hath Left To Their Disputes - Perhaps To Move His Laughter At Their Quaint Opinions Wide Hereafter, When They Come To Model Heaven And Calculate The Stars: How They Will Wield The Mighty Frame: How Build, Unbuild, Contrive To Save Appearances; How Gird The Sphere With Centric And Eccentric Scribbled O'er, Cycle And Epicycle, Orb In Orb.

Faithful Found Among The Faithless.

Apostate, Still Thou Err'st, Nor End Wilt Find Offering, From The Paths Of Truth Remote.

Death Grinn'd Horrible A Ghastly Smile, To Hear His Famine Should Be Fill'd.

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

Eternity Of Life

Solitude Is Sometimes The Best Society.

When Complaints Are Freely Heard, Deeply Considered And Speedily Reformed, Then Is The Utmost Bound Of Civil Liberty Attained That Wise Men Look For.

Immortal Amarant, A Flower Which Once In Paradise, Fast By The Tree Of Life, Began To Bloom; But Soon For Man's Offence To Heaven Removed, Where First It Grew, There Grows, And Flowers Aloft, Shading The Fount Of Life, And Where The River Of Bliss Through Midst Of Heaven Rolls O'er Elysian Flowers Her Amber Stream: With These That Never Fade The Spirits Elect Bind Their Resplendent Locks.

The Redundant Locks, Robustious To No Purpose, Clustering Down--vast Monument Of Strength.

So Dear I Love Him, That With Him, All Deaths I Could Endure, Without Him, Live No Life.

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.

Meanwhile The Adversary Of God And Man, Satan With Thoughts Inflamed Of Highest Design, Puts On Swift Wings, And Towards The Gates Of Hell Explores His Solitary Flight.

Knowledge Forbidden? Suspicious, Reasonless. Why Should Their Lord Envy Them That? Can It Be Sin To Know, Can It Be Death? And Do They Only Stand By Ignorance? Is That Their Happy State, The Proof Of Their Obedience And Their Faith? O Fair Foundation Laid Whereon To Build Their Ruin!

Sabrina Fair, Listen Where Thou Art Sitting Under The Glassy, Cool, Translucent Wave, In Twisted Braids Of Lilies Knitting The Loose Train Of Thy Amber-dropping Hair.

The Leaf Was Darkish, And Had Prickles On It, But In Another Country, As He Said, Bore A Bright Golden Flow'r, But Not In This Soil; Unknown, And Like Esteem'd, And The Dull Swain Treads On It Daily With His Clouted Shoon.

Is It Just Or Reasonable, That Most Voices Against The Main End Of Government Should Enslave The Less Number That Would Be Free? More Just It Is, Doubtless, If It Come To Force, That A Less Number Compel A Greater To Retain, Which Can Be No Wrong To Them, Their Liberty, Than That A Greater Number, For The Pleasure Of Their Baseness, Compel A Less Most Injuriously To Be Their Fellow-slaves. They Who Seek Nothing But Their Own Just Liberty, Have Always Right To Win It And To Keep It, Whenever They Have Power, Be The Voices Never So Numerous That Oppose It.

But Hail Thou Goddess Sage And Holy, Hail, Divinest Melancholy, Whose Saintly Visage Is Too Bright To Hit The Sense Of Human Sight, And Therefore To Our Weaker View O'erlaid With Black, Staid Wisdom's Hue.

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

See Golden Days, Fruitful Of Golden Deeds, With Joy And Love Triumphing.

And What Is Faith, Love, Virtue Unassayed Alone, Without Exterior Help Sustained?

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.

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

Thou Art My Father, Thou My Author, Thou My Being Gav'st Me; Whom Should I Obey But Thee, Whom Follow?

New Presbyter Is But Old Priest Writ Large.

For Other Things Mild Heav'n A Time Ordains, And Disapproves That Care, Though Wise In Show, That With Superfluous Burden Loads The Day, And When God Sends A Cheerful Hour, Refrains.

Thence To The Famous Orators Repair, Those Ancient, Whose Resistless Eloquence Wielded At Will That Fierce Democratie, Shook The Arsenal, And Fulmin'd Over Greece, To Macedon, And Artaxerxes' Throne.

Where More Is Meant Than Meets The Ear.

So Satan, Whom Repulse Upon Repulse Met Ever, And To Shameful Silence Brought, Yet Gives Not O'er Though Desperate Of Success.

Money Brings Honor, Friends, Conquest, And Realms.

Now Came Still Evening On; And Twilight Gray Had In Her Sober Livery All Things Clad: Silence Accompanied; For Beast And Bird, They To They Grassy Couch, These To Their Nests, Were Slunk, All But The Wakeful Nightingale.

The Teachers Of Our Law, And To Propose What Might Improve My Knowledge Or Their Own.

Books Are Not Absolutely Dead Things, But Do Contain A Potency Of Life In Them....i Know They Are As Lively And As Vigorously Productive As Those Fabulous Dragon's Teeth And Being Sown Up And Down, May Chance To Spring Up Armed Men.

Nothing Is Here For Tears, Nothing To Wail Or Knock The Breast, No Weakness, No Contempt, Dispraise, Or Blame,-nothing But Well And Fair, And What May Quiet Us In A Death So Noble.

And, When Night Darkens The Streets, Then Wander Forth The Sons Of Belial, Flown With Insolence And Wine.

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.

Seas Wept From Our Deep Sorrows.

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

Witness This New-made World, Another Heav'n From Heaven Gate Not Farr, Founded In View On The Clear Hyaline, The Glassie Sea; Of Amplitude Almost Immense, With Starr's Numerous, And Every Starr Perhaps A World Of Destined Habitation.

Th' Ethereal Mould Incapable Of Stain Would Soon Expel Her Mischief, And Purge Off The Baser Fire, Victorious. Thus Repuls'd, Our Final Hope Is Flat Despair.

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.

But What More Oft In Nations Grown Corrupt, And By Their Vices Brought To Servitude, Than To Love Bondage More Than Liberty, Bondage With Ease Than Strenuous Liberty.

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

The Virtuous Mind That Ever Walks Attended By A Strong Siding Champion, Conscience.

Immediate Are The Acts Of God, More Swift Than Time Or Motion.

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

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?

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

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

The Helmed Cherubim, And Sworded Seraphim, Are Seen In Glittering Ranks With Wings Display'd.

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.

Myself, And All The Angelic Host, That Stand In The Sight Of God Enthroned, Our Happy State Hold, As You Yours, While Our Obedience Hold. On Other Surety None: Freely We Serve, Because We Freely Love.

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

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

I Will Not Deny But That The Best Apology Against False Accusers Is Silence And Sufferance, And Honest Deeds Set Against Dishonest Words.

What Hath Night To Do With Sleep?

Tis Chastity, My Brother, Chastity; She That Has That Is Clad In Complete Steel, And, Like A Quiver'd Nymph With Arrows Keen, May Trace Huge Forests, And Unharbour'd Heaths, Infamous Hills, And Sandy Perilous Wilds; Where, Through The Sacred Rays Of Chastity, No Savage Fierce, Bandite, Or Mountaineer, Will Dare To Soil Her Virgin Purity.

Sweet Bird, That Shun The Noise Of Folly, Most Musical, Most Melancholy!

Infinity Is A Dark Illimitable Ocean, Without Bound.

And Grace That Won Who Saw To Wish Her Stay.

For No Falsehood Can Endure Touch Of Celestial Temper.

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.

Moping Melancholy And Moon-struck Madness.

Bring The Rathe Primrose That Forsaken Dies, The Tufted Crow-toe, And Pale Gessamine, The White Pink, And The Pansy Freaked With Jet, The Glowing Violet, The Musk-rose, And The Well Attir'd Woodbine, With Cowslips Wan That Hang The Pensive Head, And Every Flower That Sad Embroidery Wears: Bid Amaranthus All His Beauty Shed, And Daffadillies Fill Their Cups With Tears, To Strew The Laureate Hearse Where Lycid Lies.

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

Calm Of Mind, All Passion Spent.

For Solomon, He Lived At Ease, And Full Of Honour, Wealth, High Fare, Aimed Not Beyond Higher Design Than To Enjoy His State.

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.

Beauty Is Nature's Brag, And Must Be Shown In Courts, At Feasts, And High Solemnities, Where Most May Wonder At The Workmanship.

Heav'nly Love Shall Outdoo Hellish Hate

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.

When Thou Attended Gloriously From Heaven , Shalt In The Sky Appear, And From Thee Send Thy Summoning Archangels To Proclaim Thy Dread Tribunal.

Such As The Meeting Soul May Pierce, In Notes With Many A Winding Bout Of Linked Sweetness Long Drawn Out.

Truth Is Compared In Scripture To A Streaming Fountain; If Her Waters Flow Not In Perpetual Progression, They Sicken Into A Muddy Pool Of Conformity And Tradition.

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

Ah, Why Should All Mankind For One Man's Fault, Be Condemned, If Guiltless?

For Neither Man Nor Angel Can Discern Hypocrisy, The Only Evil That Walks Invisible, Except To God Alone.

If It Come To Prohibiting, There Is Aught More Likely To Be Prohibited Than Truth Itself.

Live While Ye May, Yet Happy Pair.

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.

The Gay Motes That People The Sunbeams.

Methinks I See In My Mind A Noble And Puissant Nation Rousing Herself Like A Strong Man After Sleep, And Shaking Her Invincible Locks; Methinks I See Her As An Eagle Mewing Her Mighty Youth, And Kindling Her Undazzled Eyes At The Full Midday Beam.

Pandemonium, The High Capital Of Satan And His Peers.

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.

Give Me The Liberty To Know, To Utter, And To Argue Freely According To Conscience, Above All Liberties.

Our Reason Is Our Law.

Yet I Shall Temper So Justice With Mercy, As May Illustrate Most Them Fully Satisfy'd, And Thee Appease.

Wild Above Rule Or Art, Enormous Bliss.

On The Tawny Sands And Shelves Trip The Pert Fairies And The Dapper Elves.

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

Truth And Understanding Are Not Such Wares As To Be Monopolized And Traded In By Tickets And Statutes And Standards. We Must Not Think To Make A Staple Commodity Of All The Knowledge In The Land, To Mark And License It Like Our Broadcloth And Our Woolpacks.

And Yet On The Other Hand Unless Warinesse Be Us'd, As Good Almost Kill A Man As Kill A Good Book; Who Kills A Man Kills A Reasonable Creature, Gods Image, But Hee Who Destroyes A Good Booke, Kills Reason It Selfe, Kills The Image Of God, As It Were In The Eye.

Ornate Rhetorick Taught Out Of The Rule Of Plato.... To Which Poetry Would Be Made Subsequent, Or Indeed Rather Precedent, As Being Less Suttle And Fine, But More Simple, Sensuous, And Passionate.

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!

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

Or Bid The Soul Of Orpheus Sing Such Notes As, Warbled To The String, Drew Iron Tears Down Pluto's Cheek.

By Labor And Intent Study (which I Take To Be My Portion In This Life), Joined With The Strong Propensity Of Nature, I Might Perhaps Leave Something So Written To After-times, As They Should Not Willingly Let It Die.

They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait.

Patience And Waiting

Death From Sin No Power Can Separate.

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

In Vain Doth Valour Bleed, While Avarice And Rapine Share The Land.

Dark With Excessive Bright.

Hear All Ye Angels, Progeny Of Light, Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.

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.

I Was All Ear, And Took In Strains That Might Create A Soul Under The Ribs Of Death.

Let No Man Seek Henceforth To Be Foretold That Shall Befall Him Or His Children.

A Shout That Tore Hell's Concave, And Beyond / Frightened The Reign Of Chaos And Old Night.

Virtue Could See To Do What Virtue Would By Her Own Radiant Light, Though Sun And Moon Where In The Flat Sea Sunk.

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.

Such Bickerings To Recount, Met Often In These Our Writers, What More Worth Is It Than To Chronicle The Wars Of Kites Or Crows Flocking And Fighting In The Air?

Ask For This Great Deliverer Now, And Find Him Eyeless In Gaza At The Mill With Slaves.

True It Is That Covetousness Is Rich, Modesty Starves.

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