English Poet Quotes

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

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

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

William Shenstone

What dreamest thou, drunkard, drowsy pate?
Thy lust and liking is from thee gone;
Thou blinkard blowboll, thou wakest too late.

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

The first slap-jack given me for dinner was a cake of flour, partially fried in a pan of fat bacon. I nibbled about the brown edges and threw it, unbaked, against a barn door, where it stuck for days.

Prostrate on earth the bleeding warrior lies,
And Isr'el's beauty on the mountains dies.
How are the mighty fallen!
Hush'd be my sorrow, gently fall my tears,
Lest my sad tale should reach the alien's ears:
Bid Fame be dumb, and tremble to proclaim
In heathen Gath, or Ascalon, our shame
Lest proud Philistia, lest our haughty foe,
With impious scorn insult our solemn woe.

William Somervile

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

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

So Orpheus did for his owne bride,
So I unto my selfe alone will sing,
The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring.

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

I saw God! Do you doubt it?
Do you dare to doubt it?
I saw the Almighty Man! His hand
Was resting on a mountain!

James Kenneth Stephen

I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a-cold;
I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.

William Stevenson

A quiet mediocrity is still to be preferred before a troubled superfluity.

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

Joshua Sylvester

Far from mortal cares retreating,
Sordid hopes and vain desires,
Here, our willing footsteps meeting,
Every heart to heaven aspires.

He 'midst the graceful of superior grace,
And she the loveliest of the loveliest race.

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

To-morrow is that lamp upon the marsh, which a traveller never reacheth;
To-morrow, the rainbow's cup, coveted prize of ignorance;
To-morrow, the shifting anchorage, dangerous trust of manners;
To-morrow, the wrecker's beacon, wily snare of the destroyer.
Reconcile conviction with delay, and To-morrow is a fatal lie;
Frighten resolutions into action, To-morrow is a wholesome truth.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

As order is heavenly, where quiet is had, so error is hell, or a mischief as bad.

We thinke no greater blisse then such
To be as be we would,
When blessed none but such as be
The same as be they should.

Threadbare his songs seem now, to lettered ken: They were worn threadbare next the hearts of men.

And elm-trees, massed like ostrich feather plumes,
Are streaked and shot with fire.

Dorothy Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington

In a herber green, asleep where I lay,
The birds sang sweet in the mids of the day;
I dreamed fast of mirth and play.
In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.

I, a Laconian dog, can bite again: Yes, I can make the Daunian tiger flee, Much more a bragging, foul-mouth'd whelp like thee.

Henry Kirke White