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Sweet Bird That Shunn'st The Nose Of Folly, Most Musical, Most Melancholy! Thee, Chauntress, Oft, The Woods Among, I Woo, To Hear Thy Even-song.

-John Milton

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Sweet Bird That Shunn'st

John Milton

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Sweet Bird That Shunn'st The Nose Of Folly, Most Musical, Most Melancholy! Thee, Chauntress, Oft, The Woods Among, I Woo, To Hear Thy Even-song.

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

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

There Is No Truth Sure Enough To Justify Persecution.

The Martyrs Shook The Powers Of Darkness With The Irresistible Power Of Weakness.

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

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.

When A King Sets Himself To Bandy Against The Highest Court And Residence Of All Regal Powers, He Then, In The Single Person Of A Man, Fights Against His Own Majesty And Kingship.

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

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

Leaves Have Their Time To Fall, And Flowers To Wither At The North - Wind's Breath, And Stars To Set; But All, Thou Hast All Seasons For Thine Own, O Death!

Yet Beauty, Though Injurious, Hath Strange Power, After Offence Returning, To Regain Love Once Possess'd.

The Timely Dew Of Sleep Now Falling With Soft Slumb'rous Weight Inclines Our Eyelids.

Live While Ye May, Yet Happy Pair.

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

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

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

What Honour That, But Tedious Waste Of Time, To Sit And Hear So Many Hollow Compliments And Lies.

To Adore The Conqueror, Who Now Beholds Cherub And Seraph Rolling In The Flood.

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining.

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

Sufficient To Have Stood, Though Free To Fall.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Yet Once More, O Ye Laurels, And Once More Ye Myrtles Brown, With Ivy Never Sere, I Come To Pluck Your Berries Harsh And Crude, And With Forced Fingers Rude Shatter Your Leaves Before The Mellowing Year.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

What Hath Night To Do With Sleep?

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.

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

Nor Love Thy Life, Nor Hate; But What Thou Livest, Live Well; How Long, Or Short, Permit To Heaven.

Capricious, Wanton, Bold, And Brutal Lust Is Meanly Selfish; When Resisted, Cruel; And, Like The Blast Of Pestilential Winds, Taints The Sweet Bloom Of Nature's Fairest Forms.

None Can Love Freedom Heartily, But Good Men; The Rest Love Not Freedom, But License.

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.

Biochemically, Love Is Just Like Eating Large Amounts Of Chocolate.

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.

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

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.

No Date Prefixed Directs Me In The Starry Rubric Set.

Is It True, O Christ In Heaven, That The Highest Suffer The Most? That The Strongest Wander Furthest And Most Hopelessly Are Lost? That The Mark Of Rank In Nature Is Capacity For Pain? That The Anguish Of The Singer Makes The Sweetness Of The Strain?

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.

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

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

And Pomp, And Feast, And Revelry, With Mask, And Antique Pageantry, Such Sights As Youthful Poets Dream On Summer Eves By Haunted Stream.

God Made Thee Perfect, Not Immutable.

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

Virtue Could See To Do What Virtue Would By Her Own Radiant Light, Though Sun And Moon Were In The Flat Sea Sunk. And Wisdom's Self Oft Seeks To Sweet Retired Solitude, Where With Her Best Nurse Contemplation She Plumes Her Feathers And Lets Grow Her Wings, That In The Various Bustle Of Resort Were All-to Ruffled, And Sometimes Impair'd. He That Has Light Within His Own Clear Breast May Sit I' Th' Centre And Enjoy Bright Day; But He That Hides A Dark Soul And Foul Thoughts Benighted Walks Under The Midday Sun.

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

Now Came Still Evening On, And Twilight Gray Had In Her Sober Livery All Things Clad; Silence Accompany'd; For Beast And Bird, They To Their Grassy Couch, These To Their Nests, Were Slunk, All But The Wakeful Nightingale; She All Night Long Her Amorous Descant Sung; Silence Was Pleas'd. Now Glow'd The Firmament With Living Sapphires; Hesperus, That Led The Starry Host, Rode Brightest, Till The Moon, Rising In Clouded Majesty, At Length Apparent Queen Unveil'd Her Peerless Light, And O'er The Dark Her Silver Mantle Threw.

Hate Is Of All Things The Mightiest Divider, Nay, Is Division Itself. To Couple Hatred, Therefore, Though Wedlock Try All Her Golden Links, And Borrow To Tier Aid All The Iron Manacles And Fetters Of Law, It Does But Seek To Twist A Rope Of Sand.

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

Who, As They Sung, Would Take The Prison'd Soul And Lap It In Elysium.

In Dim Eclipse, Disastrous Twilight Sheds On Half The Nations, And With Fear Of Change Perplexes Monarchs.

Now The Bright Morning-star, Day's Harbinger, Comes Dancing From The East.

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

The Spirits Perverse With Easy Intercourse Pass To And Fro, To Tempt Or Punish Mortals.

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.

Back To Thy Punishment, False Fugitive, And To Thy Speed Add Wings.

No Worthy Enterprise Can Be Done By Us Without Continual Plodding And Wearisomeness To Our Faint And Sensitive Abilities.

Luck Is The Residue Of Design.

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

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.

So Scented The Grim Feature, And Upturn'd His Nostril Wide Into The Murky Air, Sagacious Of His Quarry From So Far.

How Soon Hath Time, The Subtle Thief Of Youth, Stolen On His Wing My Three-and-twentieth Year!

Hell Has No Benefits, Only Torture.

The Wife, Where Danger Or Dishonour Lurks, Safest And Seemliest By Her Husband Stays, Who Guards Her, Or With Her The Worst Endures.

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.

And As An Ev'ning Dragon Came, Assailant On The Perched Roosts And Nests In Order Rang'd Of Tame Villatic Fowl.

Flowers Of All Hue, And Without Thorn The Rose.

Paradise On Earth

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

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

Long Is The Way And Hard, That Out Of Hell Leads Up To Light.

Our Torments Also May In Length Of Time Become Our Elements, These Piercing Fires As Soft As Now Severe, Our Temper Changed Into Their Temper.

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

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.

Consider First, That Great Or Bright Infers Not Excellence.

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.

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

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

There Is No Learned Man But Will Confess Be Hath Much Profited By Reading Controversies,--his Senses Awakened, His Judgment Sharpened, And The Truth Which He Holds Firmly Established. If Then It Be Profitable For Him To Read, Why Should It Not At Least Be Tolerable And Free For His Adversary To Write? In Logic They Teach That Contraries Laid Together, More Evidently Appear; It Follows Then, That All Controversy Being Permitted, Falsehood Will Appear More False, And Truth The More True; Which Must Needs Conduce Much To The General Confirmation Of An Implicit Truth.

Our Two First Parents, Yet The Only Two Of Mankind, In The Happy Garden Placed, Reaping Immortal Fruits Of Joy And Love, Uninterrupted Joy, Unrivalled Love In Blissful Solitude.

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

The Work Under Our Labour Grows, Luxurious By Restraint.

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.

And Some Are Fall'n, To Disobedience Fall'n, And So From Heav'n To Deepest Hell; O Fall From What High State Of Bliss Into What Woe!

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

The Mind Is Its Own Place, And In Itself, Can Make Heaven Of Hell, And A Hell Of Heaven.

A Crown Golden In Show, Is But A Wreath Of Thorns, Bring Dangers, Troubles, Cares, And Sleepless Nights To Him Who Wears The Regal Diadem

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

Death To Life Is Crown Or Shame.

Straight Mine Eye Hath Caught New Pleasures Whilst The Landscape Round It Measures, Russet Lawns And Fallows Grey, Where The Nibbling Flocks Do Stray, Mountains On Whose Barren Breast The Labouring Clouds Do Often Rest; Meadows Trim With Daisies Pied, Shallow Brooks, And Rivers Wide.

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

And That Must End Us, That Must Be Our Cure: To Be No More. Sad Cure! For Who Would Lose, Though Full Of Pain, This Intellectual Being, Those Thoughts That Wander Through Eternity, To Perish, Rather, Swallowed Up And Lost In The Wide Womb Of Uncreated Night Devoid Of Sense And Motion?

Joking Decides Great Things, Stronger And Better Oft Than Earnest Can.

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.

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

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

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. 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. Assuredly We Bring Not Innocence Into The World, We Bring Impurity Much Rather: That Which Purifies Us Is Trial, And Trial Is By What Is Contrary.

Innocence, Once Lost, Can Never Be Regained. Darkness, Once Gazed Upon, Can Never Be Lost.

And The Earth Self-balanced On Her Centre Hung.

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

Men Of Most Renowned Virtue Have Sometimes By Transgressing Most Truly Kept The Law.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Solitude Is Sometimes Best Society.

To Be Weak Is Miserable, Doing Or Suffering.

The Brazen Throat Of War.

God Doth Not Need Either Man's Work Or His Own Gifts. Who Best Bear His Mild Yoke, They Serve Him Best. His State Is Kingly: Thousands At His Bidding Speed, And Post O'er Land And Ocean Without Rest; They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait.

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?

In Discourse More Sweet; For Eloquence The Soul, Song Charms The Sense. Others Apart Sat On A Hill Retir'd, In Thoughts More Elevate, And Reason'd High Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, And Fate, Fix'd Fate, Free-will, Foreknowledge Absolute; And Found No End, In Wand'ring Mazes Lost.

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

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.

Execute Their Airy Purposes.

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

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?

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

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

Solitude Is Sometimes The Best Society.

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

Yet Much Remains To Conquer Still; Peace Hath Her Victories No Less Renowned Then War, New Foes Arise Threatening To Bind Our Souls With Secular Chains: Help Us To Save Free Conscience From The Paw Of Hireling Wolves Whose Gospel Is Their Maw.

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

And In Their Motions Harmony Divine So Smoothes Her Charming Tones, That God's Own Ear Listens Delighted.

The Hungry Sheep Look Up, And Are Not Fed.

Now Conscience Wakes Despair That Slumber'd,-wakes The Bitter Memory Of What He Was, What Is, And What Must Be Worse.

Where Eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors Of Nature, Hold Eternal Anarchy Amidst The Noise Of Endless Wars, And By Confusion Stand; For Hot, Cold, Moist, And Dry, Four Champions Fierce, Strive Here For Mast'ry.

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

Heaven Is As The Book Of God Before Thee Set, Wherein To Read His Wondrous Works.

Thus With The Year Seasons Return, But Not To Me Returns Day, Or The Sweet Approach Of Ev'n Or Morn, Or Sight Of Vernal Bloom, Or Summer's Rose, Or Flocks, Or Herds, Or Human Face Divine.

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.

There Is No Christian Duty That Is Not To Be Seasoned And Set Off With Cheerishness, Which In A Thousand Outward And Intermitting Crosses May Yet Be Done Well, As In This Vale Of Tears.

O'er Many A Frozen, Many A Fiery Alp, Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, And Shades Of Death.

And Sing To Those That Hold The Vital Shears; And Turn The Adamantine Spindle Round, On Which The Fate Of Gods And Men Is Wound.

The Power Of Kings And Magistrates Is Nothing Else, But What Is Only Derivative, Transferrd And Committed To Them In Trust From The People, To The Common Good Of Them All, In Whom The Power Yet Remaines Fundamentally, And Cannot Be Takn From Them, Without A Violation Of Thir Natural Birthright.

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

Death From Sin No Power Can Separate.

Wisdom's Self Oft Seeks To Sweet Retired Solitude, Where With Her Best Nurse Contemplation, She Plumes Her Feathers, And Lets Grow Her Wings That In The Various Bustle Of Resort Were All To-ruffled, And Sometimes Impaired.

Seas Wept From Our Deep Sorrows.

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.

Daughter To That Good Earl, Once President Of England's Council, And Her Treasury, Who Lived In Both, Unstained With Gold Or Fee, And Left Them Both, More In Himself Content, Till Sad The Breaking Of That Parliament Broke Him, As That Dishonest Victory At Chaeronea, Fatal To Liberty, Killed With Report That Old Man Eloquent. Though Later Born Than To Have Known The Days Wherein Your Father Flourished, Yet By You, Madam, Methinks I See Him Living Yet; So Well Your Words His Noble Virtues Praise, That All Both Judge You To Relate Them True, And To Possess Them, Honoured Margaret.

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

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

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.

Which Way I Fly Is Hell; Myself Am Hell.

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

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.

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

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

Taste This, And Be Henceforth Among The Gods Thyself A Goddess.

Man Hath His Daily Work Of Body Or Mind Appointed.

God Shall Be All In All.

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?

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

[rhyme Is] But The Invention Of A Barbarous Age, To Set Off Wretched Matter And Lame Meter; ... Not Without Cause Therefore Some Both Italian And Spanish Poets Of Prime Note Have Rejected Rhyme, ... As Have Also Long Since Our Best English Tragedies, As... Trivial And Of No True Musical Delight; Which [truly] Consists Only In Apt Numbers, Fit Quantity Of Syllables, And The Sense Variously Drawn Out From One Verse Into Another, Not In The Jingling Sound Of Like Endings, A Fault Avoided By The Learned Ancients Both In Poetry And All Good Oratory.

Aristotle ... Imputed This Symphony Of The Heavens ... This Music Of The Spheres To Pythagorus. ... But Pythagoras Alone Of Mortals Is Said To Have Heard This Harmony ... If Our Hearts Were As Pure, As Chaste, As Snowy As Pythagoras' Was, Our Ears Would Resound And Be Filled With That Supremely Lovely Music Of The Wheeling Stars.

Servant Of God, Well Done! Well Hast Thou Fought The Better Fight, Who Single Hast Maintain'd Against Revolted Multitudes The Cause Of Truth.

Danger Will Wink On Opportunity.

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

Man Hath His Daily Work Of Body Or Mind Appointed, Which Declares His Dignity, And The Regard Of Heav'n On All His Ways.

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

Pleas'd Me, Long Choosing And Beginning Late.

Paradise Lost Book 9

They, Looking Back, All The Eastern Side Beheld Of Paradise, So Late Their Happy Seat, Waved Over By That Flaming Brand, The Gate With Dreadful Faces Thronged And Fiery Arms: Some Natural Tears They Dropped, But Wiped Them Soon; The World Was All Before Them, Where To Choose Their Place Of Rest, And Providence Their Guide; They, Hand In Hand, With Wandering Steps And Slow, Through Eden Took Their Solitary Way.

Our Cure, To Be No More; Sad Cure!

Tears Such As Angels Weep.

That Power Which Erring Men Call Chance.

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

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

Vain Wisdom All, And False Philosophy.

Nothing Lovelier Can Be Found In Woman, Than To Study Household Good, And Good Works In Her Husband To Promote.

The End Of All Learning Is To Know God, And Out Of That Knowledge To Love And Imitate Him.

Hence, Loathèd Melancholy, Of Cerberus And Blackest Midnight Born, In Stygian Cave Forlorn, 'mongst Horrid Shapes, And Shrieks, And Sights Unholy.

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

Till Old Experience Do Attain To Something Like Prophetic Strain.

All Hell Broke Loose.

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

Contemplation Is Wisdom's Best Nurse.

Moping Melancholy And Moon-struck Madness.

And Now Without Redemption All Mankind Must Have Been Lost, Adjudged To Death And Hell By Doom Severe.

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.

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

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

Just Deeds Are The Best Answer To Injurious Words.

Money Brings Honor, Friends, Conquest, And Realms.

... Then There Was War In Heaven. But It Was Not Angels. It Was That Small Golden Zeppelin, Like A Long Oval World, High Up. It Seemed As If The Cosmic Order Were Gone, As If There Had Come A New Order, A New Heavens Above Us: And As If The World In Anger Were Trying To Revoke It.

Come Knit Hands, And Beat The Ground In A Light Fantastic Round

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

Come To The Sunset Tree! The Day Is Past And Gone; The Woodman's Axe Lies Free, And The Reaper's Work Is Done.

For No Falsehood Can Endure Touch Of Celestial Temper.

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

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

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