John Conington Quotes

They reach the realms of tranquil bliss. Green spaces folded in with trees,
A paradise of pleasances.

Here sees he the illustrious dead
Who fighting for their country bled;
Priests who while earthly life remained
Preserved that life unsoiled, unstained;
Blest bards, transparent souls and clear,
Whose song was worthy Phoebus' ear;
Inventors who by arts refined
The common lot of human kind,
With all who grateful memory won
By services to others done:
A goodly brotherhood, bedight
With coronals of virgin white.

Why reel I thus, confused and blind?
What madness mars my sober mind?

Is there, friend,' he cries, 'a spot
That knows not Troy's unhappy lot?

May Heaven, if virtue claim its thought,
If justice yet avail for aught; Heaven, and the sense of conscious right, With worthier meed your acts requite!

Too cruel, lady, is the pain,
You bid me thus revive again.

A woman's will Is changeful and uncertain still.

She turned, and flashed upon their view
Her stately neck's purpureal hue;
Ambrosial tresses round her head
A more than earthly fragrance shed:
Her falling robe her footprints swept,
And showed the goddess as she stept.

Ah son! compel me not to speak
The sorrows of our race!
That youth the Fates but just display
To earth, nor let him longer stay:
With gifts like these for aye to hold,
Rome's heart had e'en been overbold.
Ah! what a groan from Mars's plain
Shall o'er the city sound!
How wilt thou gaze on that long train,
Old Tiber, rolling to the main
Beside his new-raised mound!
No youth of Ilium's seed inspires
With hope as fair his Latian sires:
Nor Rome shall dandle on her knee
A nursling so adored as he.
O piety! O ancient faith!
O hand untamed in battle scathe!
No foe had lived before his sword,
Stemmed he on foot the war's red tide
Or with relentless rowel gored
His foaming charger's side.
Dear child of pity! shouldst thou burst
The dungeon-bars of Fate accurst,
Our own Marcellus thou!

I heard, fear-stricken and amazed, My speech tongue-tied, my hair upraised.

Thus, severed by the ruthless plough,
Dim fades a purple flower:
Their weary necks so poppies bow,
O'erladen by the shower.

Virgil imitated Homer, but imitated him as a rival, not as a disciple.

For easier 'tis to learn and recollect
What moves derision than what claims respect.

We have been Trojans: Troy has been:
She sat, but sits no more, a queen.

No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave,
And lifts him to the gods.