Ask not the cause, why sullen Spring So long delays her flowers to bear; Why warbling birds forget to sing, And winter storms invert the year: Chloris is gone, and fate provides...
Oft has our poet wish'd, this happy seat Might prove his fading Muse's last retreat: I wonder'd at his wish, but now I find He sought for quiet, and content of mind;...
You've seen a pair of faithful lovers die: And much you care; for most of you will cry, 'Twas a just judgment on their constancy. For, heaven be thank'd, we live in such an age,...
What Sophocles could undertake alone, Our poets found a work for more than one; And therefore two lay tugging at the piece, With all their force, to draw the ponderous mass from Greece;...
Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit, So trembles a young Poet at a full pit. Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear, And wonders how the devil he durst come there;...
Most modern wits such monstrous fools have shown, They seem not of Heaven's making, but their own. Those nauseous harlequins in farce may pass; But there goes more to a substantial ass:...
They who have best succeeded on the stage, Have still conform'd their genius to their age. Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show, When men were dull, and conversation low....
So fair, so young, so innocent, so sweet, So ripe a judgment, and so rare a wit, Require at least an age in one to meet. In her they met; but long they could not stay,...
Sacred To The Immortal Memory Of Sir Palmes Fairbone, Knight, Governor Of Tangier; In Execution Of Which Command, He Was Mortally Wounded By A Shot From The Moors, Then Besieging The Town, In The Forty-Sixth Year Of His Age. Oc...
Fair, kind, and true, a treasure each alone, A wife, a mistress, and a friend in one, Rest in this tomb, raised at thy husband's cost, Here sadly summing what he had, and lost....
And now 'tis time; for their officious haste, Who would before have borne him to the sky, Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past, Did let too soon the sacred eagle[1] fly. ...
TIR. Choose the darkest part o' th' grove, Such as ghosts at noonday love. Dig a trench, and dig it nigh Where the bones of Laius lie; Altars raised, of turf or stone,...
He who could view the book of destiny, And read whatever there was writ of thee, O charming youth, in the first opening page, So many graces in so green an age, Such wit, such modesty, such strength of mind,...
Must noble Hastings immaturely die, The honour of his ancient family; Beauty and learning thus together meet, To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet? Must Virtue prove Death's harbinger? must she,...
Below this marble monument is laid All that heaven wants of this celestial maid. Preserve, O sacred tomb! thy trust consign'd; The mould was made on purpose for the mind:...
He who in impious times undaunted stood, And 'midst rebellion durst be just and good; Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more Confirm'd the cause for which he sought before,...
CLARENDON had law and sense, Clifford was fierce and brave; Bennet's grave look was a pretence, And Danby's matchless impudence Help'd to support the knave.