To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis.But Æschylus, says Horace in some page,Was the first mountebank that trod the stage:Yet Athens never knew your learned sport,Of tossing poets in a tennis-court.But ’tis the talent of our English nation,Still to be plotting some new reformation;And few years hence, if…
My amorous heart was in despairTo find a new victorious fair:Till you, descending on our plains,With foreign force renew my chains;Where now you rule without control,The mighty sovereign of my soul.Your smiles have more of conquering charms,Than all your native country’s arms;Their troops we can expel with ease,Who vanquish only when we please.But in your…
The virgin wax hath blushed it self to redSince it with me hath lost its maidenhead.You, fairest nymph, are wax: O, may you beAs well in softness as in purity!Till fate and your own happy choice revealWhom you shall so far bless to make your seal.
When man, on many, multiply’d his kind,E’r one to one was, cursedly, confind:When Nature prompted, and no law deny’dPromiscuous use of Concubine and Bride;Then, Israel’s monarch, after Heaven’s own heart,His vigorous warmth did, variously, impartTo Wives and Slaves; And, wide as his Command,Scatter’d his Maker’s Image through the Land.Michal, of Royal blood, the Crown did…
To be another’s is the grace,That makes me wish you mine.The Gods and Fortune take their partWho like young monarchs fight;And boldly dare invade that heartWhich is another’s right.First mad with hope we undertakeTo pull up every bar;But once possess’d, we faintly makeA dull defensive war.Now every friend is turn’d a foeIn hope to get…
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:To-morrow’s falser than the former day;Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blessedWith some new joys, cuts off what we possessed.Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;And, from the dregs of life, think to receiveWhat the first sprightly running…
He who, secure within, can say,Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.Be fair or foul or rain or shineThe joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
Methinks already from this chymic flameI see a city of more precious mould,Rich as the town which gives the Indies name,With silver paved and all divine with gold.Already, labouring with a mighty fate,She shakes the rubbish from her mounting brow,And seems to have renewed her charter’s date,Which Heaven will to the death of time allow.More…
A secret, which does much my mind perplex,—There’s treason in the play against our sex.A man that’s false to love, that vows and cheats,And kisses every living thing he meets;A rogue in mode,—I dare not speak too broad,—One that—does something to the very bawd.Out on him, traitor, for a filthy beast!Nay, and he’s like the…
Sure there’s a lethargy in mighty woe,Tears stand congealed, and cannot flow;And the sad soul retires into her inmost room:Tears, for a stroke foreseen, afford relief;But, unprovided for a sudden blow,Like Niobe, we marble grow,And petrify with grief.Our British heaven was all serene,No threatening cloud was nigh,Not the least wrinkle to deform the sky;We lived…
