Long had our dull forefathers slept supine, Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine; Till Chaucer first, the merry bard, arose, And many a story told in rhyme and prose....
Fine and feathery artisan, Best of Plumists (if you can With your art so far presume) Make for me a Prince's Plume-- Feathers soft and feathers rare, Such as suits a Prince to wear. ...
Whilst one philosopher tells us that men are constantly the dupes of their own senses, another will swear that the senses never deceive. Both are right. Philosophy truly affirms that the senses will deceive so long as men are c...
He. Whither away, fair Neat-herdess? She. Shepherd, I go to tend my kine. He. Stay thou, and watch this flock of mine. She. With thee? Nay, that were idleness. He. Thy kine will pasture none the less....
It's my grief that I am not a little white duck, And I'd swim over the sea to France or to Spain; I would not stay in Ireland for one week only, To be without eating, without drinking, without a full jug. ...
And Pushkin's exile had begun right here, And Lermontov's expulsion had been "canceled." There is the easy grasses' scent on highland. And only once it chanced to me to see it --...
But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?...
It was many and many a year ago, In a city by the sea, That a man there lived whom I happened to know By the name of Andrew M'Crie; And this man he slept in another room,...
And when I am entombed in my place, Be it remembered of a single man, He never, though he dearly loved his race, For fear of human eyes swerved from his plan.
When England did enjoy her Halsion dayes, Her noble Sidney wore the Crown of Bayes; As well an honour to our British Land, As she that sway'd the Scepter with her hand; Mars and Minerva did in one agree,...
Must I needes write, who's hee that can refuse, He wants a minde, for her that hath no Muse, The thought of her doth heau'nly rage inspire, Next powerfull, to those clouen tongues of fire....
Can we not force from widow'd poetry, Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust, Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust,...
Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, The not-incurious in God's handiwork (This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,...
The train of equipage and pomp of state, The shining sideboard and the burnish'd plate, Let other ministers, great Anne, require, And partial fall thy gift to their desire....
Madam,'A stranger's purpose in these lays Is to congratulate, and not to praise. To give the creature the Creator's due Were sin in me, and an offence to you. From man to man, or e'en to woman paid,...
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones The labor of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,...