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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.

-John Dryden

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Three Poets, In Three

John Dryden

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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.

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More From John Dryden

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

Merit Challenges Envy.

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

Keen Appetite And Quick Digestion Wait On You And Yours.

Thoughts Cannot Form Themselves In Words So Horrid As Can Express My Guilt.

Genius Must Be Born, It Can't Be Taught.

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

O Freedom, First Delight Of Human Kind!

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

Beauty, Like Ice, Our Footing Does Betray; Who Can Tread Sure On The Smooth, Slippery Way: Pleased With The Surface, We Glide Swiftly On, And See The Dangers That We Cannot Shun.

Better To Hunt In Fields, For Health Unbought, Than Fee The Doctor For A Nauseous Draught, The Wise, For Cure, On Exercise Depend; God Never Made His Work For Man To Mend.

Drinking Is The Soldier's Pleasure.

The Glorious Lamp Of Heaven, The Radiant Sun, Is Nature's Eye.

Or Hast Thou Known The World So Long In Vain?

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

Let Grace And Goodness Be The Principal Loadstone Of Thy Affections.

He Who Would Search For Pearls Must Dive Below.

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.

Truth Is The Foundation Of All Knowledge And The Cement Of All Societies.

All Objects Lose By Too Familiar A View.

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

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.

All Flowers Will Droop In The Absence Of The Sun That Waked Their Sweets.

Good Sense And Good-nature Are Never Separated, Though The Ignorant World Has Thought Otherwise. Good-nature, By Which I Mean Beneficence And Candor, Is The Product Of Right Reason.

If By The People You Understand The Multitude, The Hoi Polloi, 'tis No Matter What They Think; They Are Sometimes In The Right, Sometimes In The Wrong; Their Judgment Is A Mere Lottery.

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.

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

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.

I Feel My Sinews Slackened With The Fright, And A Cold Sweat Trills Down All Over My Limbs, As If I Were Dissolving Into Water.

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

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

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

So Poetry, Which Is In Oxford Made An Art, In London Only Is A Trade.

The True Amphitryon Is The Amphitryon Where We Dine.

The Bravest Men Are Subject Most To Chance.

All Delays Are Dangerous In War.

No King Nor Nation One Moment Can Retard The Appointed Hour.

When I Consider Life, 't Is All A Cheat. Yet Fool'd With Hope, Men Favour The Deceit; Trust On, And Think To-morrow Will Repay. To-morrow 's Falser Than The Former Day; Lies Worse, And While It Says We Shall Be Blest With Some New Joys, Cuts Off What We Possest. Strange Cozenage! None Would Live Past Years Again, Yet All Hope Pleasure In What Yet Remain; And From The Dregs Of Life Think To Receive What The First Sprightly Running Could Not Give.

God Has Endowed Man With Inalienable Rights, Among Which Are Self-government, Reason, And Conscience. Man Is Properly Self-governed Only When He Is Guided Rightly And Governed By His Maker, Divine Truth And Love.

Railing In Other Men May Be A Crime, But Ought To Pass For Mere Instinct In Him: Instinct He Follows And No Further Knows, For To Write Verse With Him Is To Transprose.

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

Self-defense Is Nature's Eldest Law.

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

All Authors To Their Own Defects Are Blind.

Only Man Clogs His Happiness With Care, Destroying What Is With Thoughts Of What May Be.

Anxious Thoughts

All Things Are Subject To Decay And When Fate Summons, Monarchs Must Obey.

For All Have Not The Gift Of Martyrdom.

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

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

Dancing Is The Poetry Of The Foot.

Virtue Without Success Is A Fair Picture Shown By An Ill Light; But Lucky Men Are Favorites Of Heaven; All Own The Chief, When Fortune Owns The Cause.

They Think Too Little Who Talk Too Much.

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.

A Satirical Poet Is The Check Of The Laymen On Bad Priests.

She Feared No Danger, For She Knew No Sin.

Good Heaven, Whose Darling Attribute We Find Is Boundless Grace, And Mercy To Mankind, Abhors The Cruel.

Grace And Mercy

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.

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

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

To Breed Up The Son To Common Sense Is Evermore The Parent's Least Expense.

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

Blown Roses Hold Their Sweetness To The Last.

I Saw Myself The Lambent Easy Light Gild The Brown Horror, And Dispel The Night.

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

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.

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.

Mighty Things From Small Beginnings Grow.

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

Beware Of The Fury Of The Patient Man.

Love Reckons Hours For Months, And Days For Years; And Every Little Absence Is An Age.

Long Distance Relationship

Light Sufferings Give Us Leisure To Complain.

A Happy Genius Is The Gift Of Nature.

None But The Brave Deserve The Fair.

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.

If Passion Rules, How Weak Does Reason Prove!

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

He Made All Countries Where He Came His Own.

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.

For All The Happiness Mankind Can Gain Is Not In Pleasure, But In Rest From Pain.

Second Thoughts, They Say, Are Best.

Second Thoughts

And Plenty Makes Us Poor.

The World To Bacon Does Not Only Owe It's Present Knowledge, But Its Future Too.

Let Those Find Fault Whose Wit's So Very Small, They've Need To Show That They Can Think At All; Errors, Like Straws, Upon The Surface Flow; He Who Would Search For Pearls, Must Dive Below. Fops May Have Leave To Level All They Can; As Pigmies Would Be Glad To Lop A Man. Half-wits Are Fleas; So Little And So Light, We Scarce Could Know They Live, But That They Bite.

Bets At First Were Fool-traps, Where The Wise Like Spiders Lay In Ambush For The Flies.

The Unhappy Man, Who Once Has Trail'd A Pen, Lives Not To Please Himself, But Other Men; Is Always Drudging, Wastes His Life And Blood, Yet Only Eats And Drinks What You Think Good.

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

None, None Descends Into Himself, To Find The Secret Imperfections Of His Mind: But Every One Is Eagle-ey'd To See Another's Faults, And His Deformity.

Shakespeare Was The Homer, Or Father Of Our Dramatic Poets;jonson Was Thevirgil, The Pattern Of Elaborate Writing; I Admire Him, But I Love Shakespeare.

Confidence Is The Feeling We Have Before Knowing All The Facts

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

Not To Ask Is Not Be Denied.

The Gods, (if Gods To Goodness Are Inclined If Acts Of Mercy Touch Their Heavenly Mind), And, More Than All The Gods, Your Generous Heart, Conscious Of Worth, Requite Its Own Desert!

Ye Moon And Stars, Bear Witness To The Truth.

Silence In Times Of Suffering Is The Best.

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

Among Our Crimes Oblivion May Be Set.

For Every Inch That Is Not Fool, Is Rogue.

Inspire The Vocal Brass, Inspire; The World Is Past Its Infant Age: Arms And Honour, Arms And Honour, Set The Martial Mind On Fire, And Kindle Manly Rage.

Sure There's Contagion In The Tears Of Friends.

For Secrets Are Edged Tools, And Must Be Kept From Children And From Fools.

For They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can.

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.

Griefs Assured Are Felt Before They Come.

He Is The Very Janus Of Poets; He Wears Almost Everywhere Two Faces; And You Have Scarce Begun To Admire The One, Ere You Despise The Other.

He Has Not Learned The First Lesson Of Life Who Does Not Every Day Surmount A Fear.

He Who Proposes To Be An Author Should First Be A Student.

Pride - Lord Of Human Kind

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

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

Virtue In Distress, And Vice In Triumph Make Atheists Of Mankind.

I Learn To Pity Woes So Like My Own.

For Granting We Have Sinned, And That The Offence Of Man Is Made Against Omnipotence, Some Price That Bears Proportion Must Be Paid, And Infinite With Infinite Be Weighed.

A Fiery Soul, Which Working Out Its Way, Fretted The Pygmy-body To Decay: And O'er-informed The Tenement Of Clay. A Daring Pilot In Extremity; Pleased With The Danger, When The Waves Went High He Sought The Storms...

They Say Everything In The World Is Good For Something.

Ev'n Wit's A Burthen, When It Talks Too Long.

Great Souls Forgive Not Injuries Till Time Has Put Their Enemies Within Their Power, That They May Show Forgiveness Is Their Own.

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

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.

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

Faith Is To Believe What You Do Not Yet See: The Reward For This Faith Is To See What You Believe. Thus All Below Is Strength, And All Above Is Grace.

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

My Love's A Noble Madness.

Humility And Resignation Are Our Prime Virtues.

Swift Was The Race, But Short The Time To Run.

Kings Fight For Empires, Madmen For Applause.

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.

While I Am Compassed Round With Mirth, My Soul Lies Hid In Shades Of Grief, Whence, Like The Bird Of Night, With Half-shut Eyes, She Peeps, And Sickens At The Sight Of Day.

And He, Who Servilely Creeps After Sense, Is Safe, But Ne'er Will Reach An Excellence.

Fool, Not To Know That Love Endures No Tie, And Jove But Laughs At Lovers' Perjury.

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

Honor Is But An Empty Bubble.

If We From Wealth To Poverty Descend, Want Gives To Know The Flatterer From The Friend.

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

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

But Shakespeare's Magic Could Not Copied Be; Within That Circle None Durst Walk But He.

Even Kings But Play; And When Their Part Is Done, Some Other, Worse Or Better, Mounts The Throne.

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

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

My Heart's So Full Of Joy, That I Shall Do Some Wild Extravagance Of Love In Public; And The Foolish World, Which Knows Not Tenderness, Will Think Me Mad.

A Farce Is That In Poetry Which Grotesque (caricature) Is In Painting. The Persons And Actions Of A Farce Are All Unnatural, And The Manners False, That Is, Inconsistent With The Characters Of Mankind; And Grotesque Painting Is The Just Resemblance Of This.

My Whole Life Has Been A Golden Dream Of Love And Friendship.

Love And Friendship

Thou Strong Seducer, Opportunity!

What Precious Drops Are Those, Which Silently Each Other's Track Pursue, Bright As Young Diamonds In Their Faint Dew?

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.

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

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

As Poetry Is The Harmony Of Words, So Music Is That Of Notes.

The Fates But Only Spin The Coarser Clue; The Finest Of The Wool Is Left For You.

Want Is A Bitter And A Hateful Good, Because Its Virtues Are Not Understood; Yet Many Things, Impossible To Thought, Have Been By Need To Full Perfection Brought. The Daring Of The Soul Proceeds From Thence, Sharpness Of Wit, And Active Diligence; Prudence At Once, And Fortitude It Gives; And, If In Patience Taken, Mends Our Lives.

By Education Most Have Been Misled.

And Love's The Noblest Frailty Of The Mind.

These Are The Effects Of Doting Age,--vain Doubts And Idle Cares And Over Caution.

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

A Man May Be Capable, As Jack Ketch's Wife Said Of His Servant, Of A Plain Piece Of Work, A Bare Hanging; But To Makea Malefactordiesweetly Was Only Belonging Toher Husband.

Such Subtle Covenants Shall Be Made,till Peace It Self Is War In Masquerade.

Fiction Is Of The Essence Of Poetry As Well As Of Painting; There Is A Resemblance In One Of Human Bodies, Things, And Actions Which Are Not Real, And In The Other Of A True Story By Fiction.

Shakespeare Was Naturally Learned; He Needed Not The Spectacles Of The Books To Read Nature; He Looked Inward, And Found Her There.

Take The Good The Gods Provide Thee.

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

Uncertain Whose The Narrowest Span,--the Clown Unread, Or Half-read Gentleman.

When A Man's Life Is Under Debate, The Judge Can Ne'er Too Long Deliberate.

Arts And Sciences In One And The Same Century Have Arrived At Great Perfection; And No Wonder, Since Every Age Has A Kind Of Universal Genius, Which Inclines Those That Live In It To Some Particular Studies; The Work Then, Being Pushed On By Many Hands, Must Go Forward.

I Trade Both With The Living And The Dead, For The Enrichment Of Our Native Language.

Native Language

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?

Raw In The Fields The Rude Militia Swarms, Mouth Without Hands; Maintained At Vast Expense, In Peace A Charge, In War A Weak Defence.

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

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

From Plots And Treasons Heaven Preserve My Years, But Save Me Most From My Petitioners. Unsatiate As The Barren Womb Or Grave; God Cannot Grant So Much As They Can Crave.

Rich The Treasure, Sweet The Pleasure,- Sweet Is Pleasure After Pain.

A Man Is To Be Cheated Into Passion, But To Be Reasoned Into Truth.

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.

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

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

Tis Fate That Flings The Dice, And As She Flings Of Kings Makes Peasants, And Of Peasants Kings.

But Love's A Malady Without A Cure.

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

Affability, Mildness, Tenderness, And A Word Which I Would Fain Bring Back To Its Original Signification Of Virtue,--i Mean Good-nature,--are Of Daily Use; They Are The Bread Of Mankind And Staff Of Life.

War Is The Trade Of Kings.

Since A True Knowledge Of Nature Gives Us Pleasure, A Lively Imitation Of It, Either In Poetry Or Painting, Must Produce A Much Greater; For Both These Arts Are Not Only True Imitations Of Nature, But Of The Best Nature.

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

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

Love Either Finds Equality Or Makes It.

And Nobler Is A Limited Command, Given By The Love Of All Your Native Land, Than A Successive Title, Long And Dark, Drawn From The Mouldy Rolls Of Noah's Ark.

More Liberty Begets Desire Of More; The Hunger Still Increases With The Store

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

Virgil And Horace [were] The Severest Writers Of The Severest Age.

Having Mourned Your Sin, For Outward Eden Lost, Find Paradise Within.

The Greater Part Performed Achieves The Less.

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

Men Are But Children Of A Larger Growth.

Youth Should Watch Joys And Shoot Them As They Fly.

An Horrible Stillness First Invades Our Ear, And In That Silence We The Tempest Fear.

It Is Almost Impossible To Translate Verbally And Well At The Same Time; For The Latin (a Most Severe And Compendious Language) Often Expresses That In One Word Which Either The Barbarity Or The Narrowness Of Modern Tongues Cannot Supply In More. ...but Since Every Language Is So Full Of Its Own Proprieties That What Is Beautiful In One Is Often Barbarous, Nay, Sometimes Nonsense, In Another, It Would Be Unreasonable To Limit A Translator To The Narrow Compass Of His Author's Words; It Is Enough If He Choose Out Some Expression Which Does Not Vitiate The Sense.

Secret Guilt Is By Silence Revealed.

The Wretched Have No Friends.

For Those Whom God To Ruin Has Design'd, He Fits For Fate, And First Destroys Their Mind.

He Look'd In Years, Yet In His Years Were Seen A Youthful Vigor, And Autumnal Green.

An Hour Will Come, With Pleasure To Relate Your Sorrows Past, As Benefits Of Fate.

Go Miser Go, For Money Sell Your Soul. Trade Wares For Wares And Trudge From Pole To Pole, So Others May Say When You Are Dead And Gone. See What A Vast Estate He Left His Son.

The End Of Satire Is The Amendment Of Vices By Correction; And He Who Writes Honestly Is No More An Enemy To The Offender Than The Physician To The Patient When He Prescribes Harsh Remedies.

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