English Poet Quotes

Everything that I write is a kind of battle won—or lost—against silence and incoherence.

And shade the violets, That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

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

I first saw the light on the 5th of August, 1860, I was born in Lee Street, Wharf Street, Leicester. The deformity which I am now exhibiting was caused by my mother being frightened by an Elephant; my mother was going along the street when a procession of Animals were passing by, there was a terrible crush of people to see them, and unfortunately she was pushed under the Elephant's feet, which frightened her very much; this occurring during a time of pregnancy was the cause of my deformity.

For though the day be never so long,
At last the bells ringeth to evensong.

At length corruption, like a general flood (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun.

Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Is it not easy to conceive the World in your Mind? To think the Heavens fair? The Sun Glorious? The Earth fruitful? The Air Pleasant? The Sea Profitable? And the Giver bountiful? Yet these are the things which it is difficult to retain. For could we always be sensible of their use and value, we should be always delighted with their wealth and glory.

Thomas Traherne

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

Whoso maintains that I am humbled now
(Who wait the Awful Day) is still a liar;
I hope to meet my Maker brow to brow
And find my own the higher.

Frances Cornford

And look upon you with ten thousand eyes
Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done.

Joshua Sylvester

The course of nature governs all! The course of nature is the heart of God. The miracles thou call'st for, this attest; For say, could nature nature's course control? But miracles apart, who sees Him not?

Love lives with Nature, not with lust. Go find her in the flowers.

And the elephant sings deep in the forest-maze
About a star of deathless and painless peace
But no astronomer can find where it is.

Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger My daughter as we walk together now. All my life I'll feel a ring invisibly Circle this bone with shining When she is grown.

Stephen Spender

If ever I ate a good supper at night,
I dreamed of the devil, and waked in a fright.

Christopher Anstey

And an ingenious Spaniard says, that "rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element were made for wise men to contemplate and fools to pass by without consideration."

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.

William Shenstone

Guide Thou my hand within that hand of Thine —
Thy wounded hand! — until its tremblings take
Strength from Thy touch.

This is the sanctification of your studies: when they are devoted to God, and when He is the end, the object, and the life of them all.

My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls.

Robert Southwell

Thou that swing'st upon the waving haire Of some well-filled Oaten Beard, Drunke ev'ry night with a Delicious teare, Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now th'art! The joys of Earth and Ayre are thine intire, That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye; And when thy Poppy workes, thou dost retire To thy carv'd Acorn-bed to lye.

Richard Lovelace

Nor too much wealth nor wit come to thee,
So much of either may undo thee.

The doctor lives by chicken pox, by measles, and by mumps. He keeps a microbe in a box and cheers him when he jumps.

Al the povere peple tho pescoddes fetten; Benes and baken apples thei broghte in hir lappe, Chibolles and chervelles and ripe chiries manye, And profrede Piers this present to plese with Hunger.

William Langland