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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.

-John Milton

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O Madness To Think

John Milton

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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.

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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.

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?

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

The Liberty Of Conscience, Which Above All Other Things Ought To Be To All Men Dearest And Most Precious.

Thou Canst Not Touch The Freedom Of My Mind.

Gratitude Bestows Reverence, Allowing Us To Encounter Everyday Epiphanies.

Tears Such As Angels Weep.

Incens'd With Indignation Satan Stood Unterrify'd, And Like A Comet Burn'd That Fires The Length Of Ophiuchus Huge In Th' Arctic Sky, And From His Horrid Hair Shakes Pestilence And War.

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

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.

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 Shall Possess A Paradise Within Thee, Happier Far.

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

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

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

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

His Form Had Yet Not Lost All Her Original Brightness, Nor Appear'd Less Than Archangel Ruin'd, And Th' Excess Of Glory Obscur'd.

We Shall Sooner Have The Fowl By Hatching The Egg Than By Smashing It. Abraham Lincoln, White House Speech 11 April 1865. Or Arm Th' Obdured Breast With Stubborn Patience As With Triple Steel.

Virtue May Be Assailed, But Never Hurt, Surprised By Unjust Force, But Not Enthralled.

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.

The Superior Man Acquaints Himself With Many Sayings Of Antiquity And Many Deeds Of The Past, In Order To Strengthen His Character Thereby.

. . . 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.

Solitude Is Sometimes The Best Society.

Perplexed And Troubled At His Bad Success The Tempter Stood, Nor Had What To Reply, Discovered In His Fraud, Thrown From His Hope.

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

Thou O Spirit, That Dost Prefer Before All Temples Th' Upright Heart And Pure, Instruct Me, For Thou Know'st; Thou From The First Wast Present, And With Mighty Wings Outspread Dove-like Satst Brooding On The Vast Abyss And Mad'st It Pregnant: What Is In Me Dark Illumine, What Is Low Raise And Support; That To The Heighth Of This Great Argument I May Assert Eternal Providence, And Justify The Ways Of God To Men.

His Rod Revers'd, And Backward Mutters Of Dissevering Power.

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

Faithful Found Among The Faithless.

Where Shame Is, There Is Also Fear.

Bacchus, That First From Out The Purple Grape Crush'd The Sweet Poison Of Misused Wine.

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

Must I Thus Leave Thee, Paradise?-thus Leave Thee, Native Soil, These Happy Walks And Shades?

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.

Wealth And Honours, Which Most Men Pursue, Easily Change Masters; They Desert To The Side Which Excels In Virtue, Industry, And Endurance Of Toil, And They Abandon The Slothful.

The Brazen Throat Of War.

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

How Gladly Would I Meet Mortality, My Sentence, And Be Earth In Sensible! How Glad Would Lay Me Down, As In My Mother's Lap! There I Should Rest, And Sleep Secure.

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

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.

A Bevy Of Fair Women.

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

And Grace That Won Who Saw To Wish Her Stay.

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

Sometime Let Gorgeous Tragedy In Sceptred Pall Come Sweeping By, Presenting Thebes, Or Pelops' Line, Or The Tale Of Troy Divine.

In Naked Beauty More Adorn'd, More Lovely Than Pandora.

Gratitude Bestows Reverence, Allowing Us To Encounter Everyday Epiphanies, Those Transcendent Moments Of Awe That Change Forever How We Experience Life And The World.

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

Midnight Brought On The Dusky Hour Friendliest To Sleep And Silence.

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.

Untwisting All The Chains That Tie The Hidden Soul Of Harmony.

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.

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

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!

And Oft, Though Wisdom Wake, Suspicion Sleeps At Wisdom's Gate, And To Simplicity Resigns Her Charge, While Goodness Thinks No Ill Where No Ill Seems.

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.

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 Sights As Youthful Poets Dream On Summer Eves By Haunted Stream. 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.

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

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.

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

For Truth Is Strong Next To The Almighty. She Needs No Policies Or Stratagems Or Licensings To Make Her Victorious. These Are The Shifts And The Defences That Error Uses Against Her Power.

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

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.

True It Is That Covetousness Is Rich, Modesty Starves.

So Spake The Seraph Abdiel, Faithful Found; Among The Faithless, Faithful Only He.

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

O Sun, To Tell Thee How I Hate Thy Beams That Bring To My Remembrance From What State I Fell, How Glorious Once Above Thy Sphere.

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

The Debt Immense Of Endless Gratitude, So Burthensome, Still Paying, Still To Owe; Forgetful What From Him I Still Receivd, And Understood Not That A Grateful Mind By Owing Owes Not, But Still Pays, At Once Indebted And Dischargd; What Burden Then?

If The Will, Which In 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!

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

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

Avenge, O Lord, Thy Slaughtered Saints, Whose Bones Lie Scattered On The Alpine Mountains Cold; Ev'n Them Who Kept Thy Truth So Pure Of Old When All Our Fathers Worshipped Stocks And Stones Forget Not.

He Who Destroys A Good Book Kills Reason Itself.

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?

Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint.

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

O Shame To Men! Devil With Devil Damned Firm Concord Holds, Men Only Disagree Of Creatures Rational, Though Under Hope Of Heavenly Grace: And God Proclaiming Peace, Yet Live In Hatred, Enmity, And Strife Among Themselves, And Levy Cruel Wars, Wasting The Earth, Each Other To Destroy: As If (which Might Induce Us To Accord) Man Had Not Hellish Foes Enough Besides, That Day And Night For His Destruction Wait.

Seas Wept From Our Deep Sorrows.

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.

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

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.

God Is Decreeing To Begin Some Newand Great Period In His Church, Even To The Reforming Of Reformation Itself. What Does He Then But Reveal Himself To His Servants, And As His Manner Is, First To His Englishmen?

Can Any Mortal Mixture Of Earth's Mould Breathe Such Divine Enchanting Ravishment?

For Men To Tell How Human Life Began Is Hard; For Who Himself Beginning Knew?

So Dear To Heaven Is Saintly Chastity, That, When A Soul Is Found Sincerely So, A Thousand Liveried Angels Lacky Her, Driving Far Off Each Thing Of Sin And Guilt.

Zeal And Duty Are Not Slow But On Occasion's Forelock Watchful Wait.

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.

Suffering For Truth's Sake Is Fortitude To Highest Victory, And To The Faithful Death The Gate Of Life.

Courtesy Which Oft Is Found In Lowly Sheds, With Smoky Rafters, Than In Tapestry Halls And Courts Of Princes, Where It First Was Named.

And On The Tree Of Life, The Middle Tree And Highest There That Grew, Sat Like A Cormorant.

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

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

Let Us Go Forth And Resolutely Dare With Sweat Of Brow To Toil Our Little Day.

First Moloch, Horrid King, Besmirched In Blood, Of Human Sacrifice, And Parent's Tears, Though, For The Noise Of Drums And Timbrels Loud, Their Childrens' Cries Unheard, That Passed Through Fire, To His Grim Idol.

For No Falsehood Can Endure Touch Of Celestial Temper.

What Reinforcement We May Gain From Hope; If Not, What Resolution From Despair.

And Out Of Good Still To Find Means Of Evil.

Who Can Enjoy Alone? Or All Enjoying What Contentment Find?

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.

Vain Wisdom All, And False Philosophy.

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.

God Shall Be All In All.

These Are Thy Glorious Works, Parent Of Good!

Yet Hold It More Humane, More Heav'nly, First, By Winning Words To Conquer Willing Hearts, And Make Persuasion Do The Work Of Fear.

O Loss Of Sight, Of Thee I Most Complain! Blind Among Enemies, O Worse Than Chains, Dungeon, Or Beggary, Or Decrepit Age!

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.

What Is Strength Without A Double Share Of Wisdom?

As In An Organ From One Blast Of Wind To Many A Row Of Pipes The Soundboard Breathes.

Of Man's First Disobedience, And The Fruit/of That Forbidden Tree, Whose Mortal Taste/brought Death Into The World, And All Our Woe,/with Loss Of Eden, Till One Greater Man/restore Us, And Regain The Blissful Seat,/sing Heavenly Muse

To Be Weak Is Miserable, Doing Or Suffering.

In Naked Beauty Most Adorned.

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

Money Brings Honor, Friends, Conquest, And Realms.

No Man Who Knows Aught, Can Be So Stupid To Deny That All Men Naturally Were Born Free.

The Planets In Their Station List'ning Stood.

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

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.

Ease Would Recant Vows Made In Pain, As Violent And Void.

Gratitude Bestows Reverence.....changing Forever How We Experience Life And The World.

Hail, Wedded Love, Mysterious Law; True Source Of Human Happiness.

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

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

Sable-vested Night, Eldest Of Things.

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.

You Can Make Hell Out Of Heaven And Heaven Out Of Hell. It's All In The Mind.

This Is Servitude, To Serve The Unwise.

In God's Intention, A Meet And Happy Conversation Is The Chiefest And Noblest End Of Marriage.

Hung Over Her Enamour'd, And Beheld Beauty, Which, Whether Waking Or Asleep, Shot Forth Peculiar Graces.

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

Man Hath His Daily Work Of Body Or Mind Appointed.

The Oracles Are Dumb, No Voice Or Hideous Hum Runs Thro' The Arched Roof In Words Deceiving.

Him That Yon Soars On Golden Wing, Guiding The Fiery-wheelèd Throne, The Cherub Contemplation.

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

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.

Solitude Sometimes Is Best Society.

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

O Visions Ill Foreseen! Better Had I Liv'd Ignorant Of Future, So Had Borne My Part Of Evil Only.

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?

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.

Evil On Itself Shall Back Recoil.

Better To Reign In Hell Than Serve In Heav'n.

Thoughts That Voluntary Move Harmonious Numbers.

...it Ought Not To Appear Wonderful If Many, Both Jews And Others, Who Lived Before Christ, And Many Also Who Have Lived Since His Time, But To Whom He Has Never Been Revealed, Should Be Saved By Faith In God Alone: Still However, Through The Sole Merits Of Christ, Inasmuch As He Was Given And Slain From The Beginning Of The World, Even For Those To Whom He Was Not Known, Provided They Believed In God The Father.

Abash'd The Devil Stood, And Felt How Awful Goodness Is.

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

He Who Tempts, Though In Vain, At Last Asperses The Tempted With Dishonor Foul, Supposed Not Incorruptible Of Faith, Not Proof Against Temptation.

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.

Who Would Not, Finding Way, Break Loose From Hell, . . . . And Boldly Venture To Whatever Place Farthest From Pain?

Flowers Of All Hue, And Without Thorn The Rose.

Paradise On Earth

What Neat Repast Shall Feast Us, Light And Choice, Of Attic Taste?

What If Earth Be But The Shadow Of Heaven And Things Therein - Each Other Like, More Than On Earth Is Thought?

I Must Not Quarrel With The Will Of Highest Dispensation, Which Herein, Haply Had Ends Above My Reach To Know.

At His Birth A Star, Unseen Before In Heaven, Proclaims Him Come.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

A Beardless Cynic Is The Shame Of Nature.

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

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?

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

And, Re-assembling Our Afflicted Powers, Consult How We May Henceforth Most Offend.

Athens, The Eye Of Greece, Mother Of Arts And Eloquence.

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

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.

Fame Is No Plant That Grows On Mortal Soil.

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

This Manner Of Writing Wherein Knowing Myself Inferior To Myself? I Have The Use, As I May Account It, But Of My Left Hand.

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.

Praise From An Enemy Smells Of Craft.

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.

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.

Those Graceful Acts, Those Thousand Decencies, That Daily Flow From All Her Words And Actions, Mixed With Love And Sweet Compliance, Which Declare Unfeigned Union Of Mind, Or In Us Both One Soul.

Son Of Heav'n And Earth, Attend: That Thou Art Happy, Owe To God; That Thou Continuest Such, Owe To Thyself, That Is, To Thy Obedience; Therein Stand.

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.

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.

This Horror Will Grow Mild, This Darkness Light; Besides What Hope The Never-ending Flight Of Future Days May Bring, What Chance, What Change Worth Waiting--since Our Present Lot Appears For Happy Though But Ill, For Ill Not Worst, If We Procure Not To Ourselves More Woe.

Should God Create Another Eve, And I Another Rib Afford, Yet Loss Of Thee Would Never From My Heart; No No, I Feel The Link Of Nature Draw Me: Flesh Of Flesh, Bone Of My Bone Thou Art, And From Thy State Mine Never Shall Be Parted, Bliss Or Woe.

The Pilot Of The Galilean Lake; Two Massy Keys He Bore, Of Metals Twain (the Golden Opes, The Iron Shuts Amain).

Beholding The Bright Countenance Of Truth In The Quiet And Still Air Of Delightful Studies.

Heaven Is For Thee Too High To Know What Passes There; Be Lowly Wise. Think Only What Concerns Thee And Thy Being; Dream Not Of Other Worlds, What Creatures There Live, In What State, Condition, Or Degree, Contented That Thus Far Hath Been Revealed.

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

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.

Danger Will Wink On Opportunity.

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.

Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise. That Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind. To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days.

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

Who Reads Incessantly, And To His Reading Brings Not A Spirit And Judgment Equal Or Superior, (and What He Brings What Need He Elsewhere Seek?) Uncertain And Unsettled Still Remains, Deep Versed In Books And Shallow In Himself, Crude Or Intoxicate, Collecting Toys And Trifles For Choice Matters, Worth A Sponge, As Children Gathering Pebbles On The Shore.

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

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.

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

With Eyes Of Conjugal Attraction Unreprov'd. Imparadised In One Another's Arms. With Thee Conversing I Forget All Time. And Feel That I Am Happier Than I Know.

The Oracles Are Dumb, No Voice Or Hideous Hum Runs Through The Arched Roof In Words Deceiving. Apollo From His Shrine Can No More Divine, With Hollow Shriek The Steep Of Delphos Leaving. No Nightly Trance Or Breathed Spell Inspires The Pale-eyed Priest From The Prophetic Cell.

But Peaceful Was The Night Wherein The Prince Of Light His Reign Of Peace Upon The Earth Began.

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

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

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.

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

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