Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson

Wheresoe'er her conquering eagles fled,
Arts, learning, and civility were spread.

SIR J. DENHAM.

Artist divine, whose skilful hands infold
The victim s horn with circumfusile gold.

POPE.

Smit with the love of English arts we came,
And met congenial, mingling flame with flame.
POPE.

Arts still follow'd where Rome's eagles flew.
POPE.

We conquer'd France, but felt our captive's charm :

From Egypt arts their progress made to Greece, Their arts victorious triumph'd o'er our arms. Wrapt in the fable of the golden fleece.

SIR J. DENHAM.

The soldier then in Grecian arts unskill'd,
Returning rich with plunder from the field,
If cups of silver or of gold he brought
With jewels set, and exquisitely wrought,
To glorious trappings strait the plate he turn'd,
And with the glitt'ring spoil his horse adorn'd.
DRYDEN.

What wonder if the kindly beams he shed,
Revived the drooping arts again;
If science raised her head,
And soft humanity, that from rebellion fled.
DRYDEN.

All arts and artists Theseus could command,
Who sold for hire, or wrought for better fame.
DRYDEN.

POPE.

Howe'er love's native hours are set,

ASTROLOGY.

If he chance to find

A new repast, or an untasted spring, Blesses his stars and thinks it luxury.

ADDISON.

Thanks to my stars, I have not ranged about
The wilds of life ere I could find a friend.
ADDISON.
Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate-
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Though cheats, yet more intelligible
Than those that with the stars do fribble.
BUTLER: Hudibras.

But with more lucky hit than those
That use to make the stars depose.

BUTLER: Hudibras.

I only deal by rules of art, Such as are lawful, and judge by Conclusions of astrology.

BUTLER: Hudibras.

Cardan believed great states depend
Upon the tip o' th' bear's tail's end;
That as she whisk'd it t'wards the sun,
Strow'd mighty empires up and down.
BUTLER: Hudibras.

They'll find i' the physiognomies
O' th' planets all men's destinies.

BUTLER: Hudibras.

Quoth Hudibras, The stars determine
You are my prisoners, base vermin!
Could they not tell you so, as well
As what I came to know foretell?

BUTLER: Hudibras.

Many rare pithy saws concerning The worth of astrologic learning.

BUTLER: Hudibras.

Cry out upon the stars for doing Ill offices, to cross their wooing.

BUTLER: Hudibras.

The astrologer, who spells the stars,
Mistakes his globes, and in her brighter eye
Interprets heaven's physiognomies.

JOHN CLEAVELAND.

Whatever starry synod met,

'Tis in the mercy of her eye, If poor love shall live or die.

CRASHAW.

Large foundations may be safely laid,
Or houses roof'd, if friendly planets aid.
CREECH.

The Greek names this the horoscope,
This governs life, and this marks out our parts;
Our humours, manners, qualities, and arts.
CREECH.

We must trust to virtue, not to fate;
That may protect, whom cruel stars will hate.
SIR W. DAVENANT: Distresses.
Unskill'd in schemes by planets to foreshow,
I neither will nor can prognosticate
To the young gaping heir his father's fate.
DRYDEN.

The spiteful stars have shed their venom down,
And now the peaceful planets take their turn.
DRYDEN.

Such sullen planets at my birth did shine,
They threaten every fortune mixt with mine.
DRYDEN.

Sorceries to raise th' infernal pow'rs,
And sigils framed in planetary hours.

SHAKSPEARE.

Let me lament

SHAKSPEARE.

Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars,
On equal terms to give him chastisement?
SHAKSPEARE.

My good stars, that were my former guides,
Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires
Into the abysm of hell.

Strange an astrologer should die
Without one wonder in the sky!
Not one of all his crony stars
To pay their duty at his hearse.

AUCTION.

SHAKSPEARE.

SWIFT.

And much more honest to be hired, and stand With auctionary hammer in thy hand; Provoking to give more, and knocking thrice For the old household stuff, or picture's price. DRYDEN: Juvenal.

Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys? Phryne foresees a general excise.

AUTHORS.

POPE.

Our homespun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarlatti yield.

ADDISON.

Great Milton next, with high and haughty stalks, Unfetter'd in majestic numbers walks.

Than Timoleon's arms require,

ADDISON.

And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre.

AKENSIDE: Ode.

Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer, and, rare Beaumont, lie

That our stars, unreconcilable, should have A little nearer Spenser, to make room

divided

Our equalness to this.

SHAKSPEARE.

Our jovial star reign'd at his birth.

SHAKSPEARE.

For Shakspeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
WILLIAM BASSE: On Shakspeare.
How does Cartesius all his sinews strain
The earth's attractive vigour to explain!
SIR R. BLACKMORE.

There Shakspeare! on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world! O eyes sublimeWith tears and laughter for all time!

MRS. E. B. BROWNING.

The glory dies not, and the grief is past.

SIR S. E. BRYDGES: Death of Sir Walter Scott.

Where sense with sound and ease with weight combine

In the pure silver of Pope's ringing line;

Or where the pulse of man beats loud and strong In the frank flow of Dryden's lusty song. BULWER: New Timon.

When Bishop Berkeley said, "There was no

matter,"

And proved it 'twas no matter what he said.
BYRON.

Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore
And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!
BYRON.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away.

BYRON.

Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact, in Virtue's name, let Crabbe attest:
Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.
BYRON: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

And stoic Franklin's energetic shade,
Robed in the lightning which his hand allay'd.
BYRON: Age of Bronze.

The starry Galileo with his woes.

BYRON: Childe Harold. The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle. BYRON Bride of Abydos. Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?

BYRON.

The self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, The apostate of affection-he who threw Enchantment over passion, and from woe Wrung overwhelming eloquence.

BYRON: Childe Harold.

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung.

BYRON.

The Ariosto of the North.

BYRON Childe Harold.

Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame
By arrogating Jonson's hostile name;
Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,
And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.

DRYDEN.

Horace's wit and Virgil's state
He did not steal, but emulate;
And when he would like them appear,
Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear.
SIR J. DENHAM.
What from Jonson's oil and sweat did flow,
Or what more easy nature did bestow
On Shakspeare's gentler muse, in thee full-grown | Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces write;
Their
graces did appear.

SIR J. DENHAM.

So the twins' humours in our Terence are Unlike; this harsh and rude, that smooth and fair.

SIR J. DENHAM.

Noble Boyle, not less in nature seen
Than his great brother read in states and men.
DRYDEN.

Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear.
DRYDEN.

In easy dialogues is Fletcher's praise:
He moved the mind, but had not pow'r to raise.
DRYDEN.

When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,
As thou whose Eth'ridge dost transfuse to thine?
But so transfused as oil and waters flow:
His always floats above, thine sinks below.
DRYDEN.
Ganfride, who couldst so well in rhyme com-
plain

The death of Richard, with an arrow slain.
DRYDEN.
Homer, whose name shall live in epic song,
While music numbers, or while verse has feet.
DRYDEN.

Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn:
The first in majesty of thought surpass'd,
The next in gracefulness; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go:
To make a third she join'd the other two.
DRYDEN: On Milton.

Horace, with sly insinuating grace,
Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the
face;

Would raise a blush where secret vice he found,
And tickle while he gently probed the wound;
With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled,
But made the desperate passes when he smiled.
DRYDEN.

Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight,

But hopp'd about, and short excursions made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid.

Books