I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, Il Penseroso. Line 65. Where glowing embers through the room Far from all resort of mirth Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Line 79. Line 81. Line 97. Line 105. To something like prophetic strain. Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie. Under the shady roof Of branching elm star-proof. Line 173. Arcades. Line 68. Line && O fairest flower! no sooner blown but blasted, Ode on the Death of a fair Infant, dying of a Cough. Such as may make thee search the coffers round. No war or battle's sound At a Vacation Exercise. Line 31. Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 53 Time will run back and fetch the age of gold. Line 135. Line 172. Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. From haunted spring and dale Line 173. Edg'd with poplar pale The parting genius is with sighing sent. Line 184. Peor and Baälim Forsake their temples dim. Line 197. What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallow'd 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? Epitaph on Shakespeare. And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day.1 1 See Chaucer, page 6. Ibid Sonnet to the Nightingale As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye. On his being arrived to the Age of Twenty-three The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground. That old man eloquent. When the Assault was intended to the City. To the Lady Margaret Ley. That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp. On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises. License they mean when they cry, Liberty! Peace hath her victories No less renown'd than war. Ibid. To the Lord General Cromwell. Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, Thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; On his Blindness. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, In mirth that after no repenting draws. Sonnet xxi. To Mr. Lawrence. To Cyriac Skinner. For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains, Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot Ibid. Sonnet zz. Ibid. Of which all Europe rings from side to side. Ibid. On his Deceased Wifa Have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the stern god of sea. Translation of Horace. Book i. Ode 5. For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors is accounted Plagiarè. Iconoclastes, xxiii. Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.1 Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him. The Reason of Church Government. Introduction, Book ii. By labour and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after times as they should not willingly let it die. Ibid. Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies. Ibid. He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem. Apology for Smectymnuus. His words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command. Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees. Ibid, Tractate of Education. I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming. 1 See Bacon, page 169. Ibid Enflamed with the study of learning and the admi ration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages. Tractate of Education. Ornate rhetorick taught out of the rule of Plato. . . . To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less suttle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate. Ibid. In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. Ibid. Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument. Ibid. As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself. Areopagitica. A good book is the precious life-blood of a masterspirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Ibid. Seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books. Ibid. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Ibid. Who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers? Ibid. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as |