Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?...
The Devil's not so ugly as they paint; He's well with all, compact of courtesy: Real heroism is real piety: Before small truth great falsehoods shrink and faint...
You sect most adverse to the good and true, Degenerate from your origin divine, Pastured on lies and shadows by the line Of Thais, Sinon, Judas, Homer! You,...
If men were happy in that age of gold, We yet may hope to see mild Saturn's reign; For all things that were buried live again, By time's revolving cycle forward rolled....
Organ of rut, not reason, is the lord Who from the body politic doth drain Lust for himself, instead of toil and pain, Leaving us lean as crickets on dry sward....
Born of God's Wisdom and Philosophy, Keen lover of true beauty and true good, I call the vain self-traitorous multitude Back to my mother's milk; for it is she,...
O Thou, who, mingling Force and Love, dost draw And guide the complex of all entities, Framed for that purpose; whence our reason sees In supreme Fate the synthesis of Law;...
Valour to pride hath turned; grave holiness To vile hypocrisy; all gentle ways To empty forms; sound sense to idle lays; Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:--...
They that have power to hurt, and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;...
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck; And yet methinks I have astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,...