An Ode
’T WAS at the royal feast, for Persia won
By Philip’s warlike son:
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne:
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned);
The lovely Thais,...
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From the French by Elizur Wright
A COBBLER sang from morn till night:
’T was sweet and marvellous to hear;
His trills and quavers told the ear
Of more contentment and delight,
Enjoyed by that laborious wight,
Than e’er enjoyed the sages seven,
Or any mortals short of heaven.
His neighbor, on the other hand,
With gold in... -
This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honor I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone;
The unknown are better than ill known:
Rumor can ope the grave.
Acquaintance I would have, but when ’t depends
Not on the number, but the choice, of friends.Books should, not...
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He that is down need fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much;
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because thou savest such.Fulness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage;
Here little, and... -
Beat on, proud billows; Boreas, blow;
Swell, curlèd waves, high as Jove’s roof;
Your incivility doth show
That innocence is tempest proof;
Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm;
Then strike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm.That which the world miscalls a jail
A private closet is to me;
Whilst a good... -
Playing Blind-Man’s-Buff
YOU charm when you talk, walk, or move,
Still more on this day than another:
When blinded—you ’re taken for Love;
When the bandage is off—for his mother! -
From “An Elegy on a Friend’s Passion for His Astrophill”
WITHIN these woods of Arcadia
He chiefe delight and pleasure tooke,
And on the mountaine Parthenie,
Upon the chrystall liquid brooke,
The Muses met him ev’ry day,
That taught him sing, to write, and say.When he descended downe the mount,
His personage seemed most... -
The Muse’s fairest light in no dark time,
The wonder of a learnèd age; the line
Which none can pass! the most proportioned wit,—
To nature, the best judge of what was fit;
The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen;
The voice most echoed by consenting men;
The soul which answered best to all well said
By others, and which most requital... -
AH Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts,
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun;
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.My Ben!...
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What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
For...