18th-century Poet Quotes

Expression, child of soul! I fondly trace
Thy strong enchantment, when the poet's lyre,
The painter's pencil cathch thy sacred fire,
And beauty wakes for thee her touching grace

Helen Maria Williams

I saw the radiant Queen of Night
Walking in brightness through the sky...

Charlotte Elliott

Again the violet of our early days Drinks beauteous azure from the golden sun, And kindles into fragrance at his blaze.

Ebenezer Elliott

A weapon that comes down as still
As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman's will,
As lightning does the will of God;
And from its force nor doors nor locks
Can shield you,—'t is the ballot-box.

Woman, a pleasing but a short-lived flower,
Too soft for business and too weak for power:
A wife in bondage, or neglected maid:
Despised, if ugly; if she's fair, betrayed.

Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look, The fields his study, nature was his book.

Robert Bloomfield

I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling,
I've felt all its favours and found its decay;
Sweet was its blessing, kind its caressing,
But now it is fled, fled far, far away.

Alison Cockburn

Or to some coffee-house I stray
For news, the manna of a day.

Now spring returns; but not to me returns
The vernal joy my better years have known;
Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,
And all the joys of life with health have flown.

Let those who feast at ease on dainty fare,
Pity the reapers, who their feasts prepare.

Dear Lord! while we adoring pay
Our humble thanks to Thee,
May every heart with rapture say,—
"The Saviour died for me!"

I know that there is not in the world a more subtle poison than that which is extracted from and administered by books.

Charlotte Dacre

Though in astronomy survey'd, His constant course was retrograde; O'er Newton's system though he sleeps, And finds his wits in dark eclipse!

What is the life of a man more than the life of a lamb, or any guiltless animal?

Ma'm, architecture you're not skill'd in, I don't approve your way of building; In this there's nothing like design, Pray learn the use of Gunter's line.

Christopher Smart

A female mind like a rude fallow lies;
No seed is sown, but weeds spontaneous rise.
As well might we expect, in winter, spring,
As land untilled a fruitful crop should bring.

Anne Ingram, Viscountess Irvine

What should I do if in fretful sleep
The ghosts of the slaughtered were to appear,
Bloody, pale, and wan, and weep
In front of me, what should I do?

Matthias Claudius

Don't kill!... The fly is asking you To save his life By rubbing his hands together

And o'er them the lighthouse looked lovely as hope,—
That star of life's tremulous ocean.

Paul Moon James

Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,—
Take, I give it willingly;
For, invisible to thee,
Spirits twain have crossed with me.

O, Winter! Put away thy snowy pride;
O, Spring! Neglect the cowslip and the bell;
O, Summer! Throw thy pears and plums aside;
O, Autumn! Bid the grape with poison swell.

Thomas Chatterton

What is man's love? His vows are broke even while his parting kiss is warm.

Fitz-Greene Halleck

Such, Polly, are your sex - part truth, part fiction; - Some thought, much whim and all a contradiction.

And His that gentle voice we hear,
Soft as the breath of even.

Should we miss but a tree where we used to be playing,
Or find the wood cut where we sauntered a-Maying,—
If the yew-seat's away, or the ivy's a-wanting,
We hate the fine lawn and the new-fashioned planting.
Each thing called improvement seems blackened with crimes,
If it tears up one record of blissful old times.

Susanna Blamire