The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1

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J. Nichol, 1855

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Page 100 - With public zeal to cancel private crimes. How safe is treason and how sacred ill, Where none can sin against the people's will, "Where crowds can wink and no offence be known, Since in another's guilt they find their own ! Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge ; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abbethdin With more discerning eyes or hands more clean, Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, Swift of despatch and easy of access.
Page 111 - A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome. Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong; Was everything by starts, and nothing long: But in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon: Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking; Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 181 - DIM as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars To lonely, weary, wandering travellers, Is reason to the soul : and as on high Those rolling fires discover but the sky, Not light us here ; so Reason's glimmering ray Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way, But guide us upward to a better day. And as those nightly tapers disappear When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere ; So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight ; So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
Page 96 - Of men by laws less circumscribed and bound, They led their wild desires to woods and caves And thought that all but savages were slaves.
Page 100 - And o'er-informed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity, Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide ; Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest...
Page 302 - There thou may'st wings display, and altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways; Or, if thou wouldst thy different talents suit, Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.
Page 182 - So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light. Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led From cause to cause, to Nature's secret head; And found that one first principle must be: But what, or who, that UNIVERSAL HE; Whether some soul encompassing this ball, Unmade, unmoved, yet making, moving all; Or various atoms...
Page 109 - Doubt not: but, when he most affects the frown, Commit a pleasing rape upon the crown. Secure his person to secure your cause: They who possess the prince, possess the laws.
Page 111 - Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late; He had his jest, and they had his estate.
Page 212 - Thrice holy Fount, thrice holy Fire, Our hearts with heavenly love inspire: Come, and Thy sacred unction bring, To sanctify us while we sing.

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