Edmund Waller - Poems

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His love at once and dread instruct our thought; As man He suffer'd and as God He taught.

Edmund Waller
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made; Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Edmund Waller
The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; So calm are we when passions are no more!

Edmund Waller
Happy the innocent whose equal thoughts are free from anguish as they are from faults.

Edmund Waller
Lampoons, like squibs, may make a present blaze; but time and thunder pay respect to bays.

Edmund Waller
Seeming devotion does but gild a knave,
That's neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave;
But where religion does with virtue join,
It makes a hero like an angel shine.

Edmund Waller
And as pale sickness does invade, Your frailer part, the breaches made, In that fair lodging still more clear, Make the bright guest, your soul, appear.

Edmund Waller
In other things the knowing artist may Judge better than the people; but a play, (Made for delight, and for no other use) If you approve it not, has no excuse.

Edmund Waller
His kingdom come!" For this we pray in vain,
Unless He does in our affections reign.
How fond it were to wish for such a King,
And no obedience to his sceptre bring,
Whose yoke is easy, and His burthen light;
His service freedom, and His judgments right.

Edmund Waller
Happy is she that from the world retires, and carries with her what the world admires.

Edmund Waller
Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired: Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired.

Edmund Waller
What use of oaths, of promise, or of test, where men regard no God but interest?

Edmund Waller
Gods, that never change their state, vary oft their love and hate.

Edmund Waller
Fade, flowers, fade! Nature will have it so; 'tis but what we in our autumn do.

Edmund Waller
All things but one you can restore; the heart you get returns no more.

Edmund Waller
Poets may boast (as safely-vain) Their work shall with the world remain: Both bound together, live, or die, The verses and the prophecy. But who can hope his lines shou'd long Last, in a daily changing tongue? While they are new, envy prevails, And as that dies, our language fails.

Edmund Waller
While we converse with her, we mark
No want of day, nor think it dark.

Edmund Waller
For all we know Of what the blessed do above Is, that they sing, and that they love. While I listen to thy Voice.

Edmund Waller
So must the writer, whose productions should Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould.

Edmund Waller
To love is to believe, to hope, to know;
'Tis an essay, a taste of Heaven below!

Edmund Waller
The chain that's fixed to the throne of Jove, On which the fabric of our world depends, One link dissolved, the whole creation ends.

Edmund Waller
Thrice happy is that humble pair, Beneath the level of all care! Over whose heads those arrows fly, Of sad distrust and jealousy.

Edmund Waller
Music so softens and disarms the mind That not an arrow does resistance find.

Edmund Waller