-
I can enjoy her while she's kind;But when she dances in the wind,And shakes the wings and will not stay,I puff the prostitute away: The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd: Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
John Dryden -
Calms appear, when storms are past,Love will have its hour at last.
John Dryden
-
So, when the last and dreadful HourThis crumbling Pageant shall devour,The trumpet shall be heard on high,The dead shall live, the living die,And musick shall untune the Sky.
John Dryden -
But love's a malady without a cure.
John Dryden -
Three poets, in three distant ages born,Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;The next, in majesty; in both the last.The force of Nature could no further go.To make a third, she joined the former two.
John Dryden -
And plenty makes us poor.
John Dryden -
Of no distemper, of no blast he died,But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long - Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;Till like a clock worn out with eating time,The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
John Dryden -
So softly death succeeded life in her,She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
John Dryden
-
The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,But Shadwell never deviates into sense.Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,Strike through and make a lucid interval;But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
John Dryden -
Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made;And peace itself is war in masquerade.
John Dryden -
You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water.
John Dryden -
Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
John Dryden -
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
John Dryden -
All empire is no more than power in trust.
John Dryden
-
A man so various, that he seemed to beNot 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.
John Dryden -
Of seeming arms to make a short essay,Then hasten to be drunk - the business of the day.
John Dryden -
Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.
John Dryden -
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
John Dryden -
Seek not to know what must not be reveal, for joy only flows where fate is most concealed. A busy person would find their sorrows much more; if future fortunes were known before!
John Dryden -
With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,For every inch that is not fool is rogue :A monstrous mass of fuul corrupted matter,As all the devils had spew'd to make the baiter.When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,He curses God, but God before curst him ;And, if man could have reason, none has more.That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
John Dryden
-
Railing and praising were his usual themes;And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;So over violent, or over civil,That every man with him was God or devil.
John Dryden -
Leave writing plays, and choose for thy commandSome peaceful province in acrostic land.There thou mayst wings display and altars raise,And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
John Dryden -
Look around the inhabited world; how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
John Dryden -
Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;And they have kept it since by being dead.
John Dryden