Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling Like flame whose tongues are serpents: hope and fear Die when a love more dire than hate draws near,...
Our author, by experience, finds it true, 'Tis much more hard to please himself than you; And out of no feign'd modesty, this day Damns his laborious trifle of a play;...
Swift music made of passion's changeful power, Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang From grave and gracious lips that smiled and sang...
Were you but half so wise as you're severe, Our youthful poet should not need to fear: To his green years your censures you would suit, Not blast the blossom, but expect the fruit....
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....
'I hope it is in good plain verse,' said my uncle, 'none of your hurry-scurry anap'sts, as you call them, in lines which sober people read for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line over two, or, it may ...
Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea, Smote England when his day bade Marlowe be. No fire so keen had thrilled the clouds of time Since Dante's breath made Italy sublime....
The judge removed, though he's no more my lord, May plead at bar, or at the council board: So may cast poets write; there's no pretension To argue loss of wit from loss of pension....
These to the glory and praise of the green land That bred my women, and that holds my dead, ENGLAND, and with her the strong broods that stand Wherever her fighting lines are thrust or spread!...
Sure there's a dearth of wit in this dull town, When silly plays so savourily go down; As, when clipt money passes, 'tis a sign A nation is not over-stock'd with coin. Happy is he who, in his own defence,...
True wit has seen its best days long ago; It ne'er look'd up, since we were dipp'd in show: When sense in doggerel rhymes and clouds was lost, And dulness flourish'd at the actors' cost....
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:...
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:...
When Athens all the Grecian state did guide, And Greece gave laws to all the world beside; Then Sophocles with Socrates did sit, Supreme in wisdom one, and one in wit:...
The golden bells of fairyland, that ring Perpetual chime for childhood's flower-sweet spring, Sang soft memorial music in his ear Whose answering music shines about us here....
Once more we venture here, to prove our worth, And ask indulgence kind, to tempt us forth: Seek not perfection from our essays green, That, in man's noblest works, has never been,...
Fools, which each man meets in his dish each day, Are yet the great regalios of a play; In which to poets you but just appear, To prize that highest, which cost them so dear:...