English Poet Quotes

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

You are so great, and I am so small,
I hardly can think of you, World, at all

Well, but the joy to see my works in print!
Myself too pictur'd in a mezzo-tint!

The first men that our Saviour dear
Did choose to wait upon him here,
Blest fishers were; and fish the last
Food was, that he on earth did taste:
I therefore strive to follow those
Whom he to follow him hath chose.

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

Epitaph:
Went the day well? we died and never knew;
But well or ill, England, we died for you.

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.

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.

The essay was impelled by Clare's anxiety that his poems were slipping out if fashion.

John Birtwhistle
John Birtwhistle
In working well, if travail you sustain, Into the wind shall lightly pass the pain; But of the deed the glory shall remain, And cause your name with worthy wights to reign. In working wrong, if pleasure you attain, The pleasure soon shall fade, and void as vain; But of the deed throughout the life the shame Endures, defacing you with foul defame.

It came as a boon and a blessing to men,
The peaceful, the pure, the victorious pen!

My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots
About their heads are flying!

This life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant.

Bede
Bede
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.

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.

But the summits of poetry are mysteries; they are shiftingly veiled, and those who catch the glimpses see different aspects of the transcendental; but they have seen something, and they come down with the glory lingering on them.

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

The little street
Into its gloom retires, secluded and shy.

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

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.

First, a poem must be magical, then musical as a sea-gull and it must hold fire as well.

Jose Garcia Villa
Jose Garcia Villa
Fair summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore: So fair a summer look for never more. All good things vanish, less than in a day, Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay. Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year; The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.

Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe
A moment is a mighty thing
Beyond the soul's imagination;
For in it, though we trace it not,
How much there crowds of varied lot
How much of life, life cannot see,
Darts onward to eternity!

Enter upon thy paths, O year!
Thy paths, which all who breathe must tread,
Which lead the Living to the Dead,
I enter; for it is my doom
To tread thy labyrinthine gloom;
To note who round me watch and wait;
To love a few; perhaps to hate;
And do all duties of my fate.

Bryan Procter
Bryan Procter
Ay, this is the famed rock, which Hercules
And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door
England stands sentry.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt