John Conington Quotes

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

Myself not ignorant of woe,
Compassion I have learned to show.

Blank verse really deserving the name I believe to be impossible except to one or two eminent writers in a generation.

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

Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill
The hearer's soul, and move it at its will.

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

There are few writers whose text is in so satisfactory a state as Virgil's.

Curst Love! what lengths of tyrant scorn Wreak'st not on those of woman born?

Thou too take courage, wealth despise,
And fit thee to ascend the skies, Nor be a poor man's courtesies
Rejected or disdained.

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

Now for a heart that scorns dismay:
Now for a soul prepared.

Death takes the mean man with the proud;
The fatal urn has room for all.

To die! and unrevenged!' she said,
'Yet let me die.

A critical sense of style and of poetic form is not easy to attain, nor is it of first importance for the younger, or, indeed, for any student of Virgil. Wide open to anyone who is willing to learn is the richer knowledge of Virgil as a poet who loved his country and who loved also that humanity which existed before Rome, exists today within ourselves, and will exist long after our own civilization, like that of Virgil's Rome, has become a matter of "ancient history." It is true that the longer one has lived the better one can appreciate a poem which is concerned with life. But the gain that comes to us with the years depends, partly at least, upon the riches we have been willing to extract from literature, which is the experience of other men and women written out. In youth's search for this treasure the Aeneid will be at once a fair haven and a port of departure.

Sleep gives his name to portals twain; One all of horn, they say, Through which authentic spectres gain Quick exit into day, And one which bright with ivory gleams, Whence Pluto sends delusive dreams.