John Conington Quotes

He who maligns an absent friend's fair fame,
Who says no word for him when others blame,
Who courts a reckless laugh by random hits,
Just for the sake of ranking among wits,
Who feigns what he ne'er saw, a secret blabs,
Beware him, Roman! that man steals or stabs!

Fury and wrath within me rave,
And tempt me to a warrior's grave.

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

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

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

Ah! Postumus! Devotion fails
The lapse of gliding years to stay,
With wrinkled age it nought avails
Nor conjures conquering Death away.

Huge, awful, hideous, ghastly, blind.

O ye Gods, and O great Jove,
Have pity on a father's love
And hear Evander's prayer:
If 'tis your purpose to restore
My Pallas to my arms once more;
If living is to see his face,
Then grant me life, of your dear grace:
No toil too hard to bear.
But ah! if Fortune be my foe,
And meditate some crushing blow,
Now, now the thread in mercy break,
While hope sees dim and cares mistake,
While still I clasp thee darling boy,
My latest and my only joy,
Nor let assurance, worse than fear,
With cruel tidings wound my ear.

The gods implore
To crush the proud and elevate the poor.

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

At Orcus' portals hold their lair
Wild Sorrow and avenging Care;
And pale Diseases cluster there,
And pleasureless Decay
Foul Penury, and Fears that kill,
And Hunger, counsellor of ill,
A ghastly presence they:
Suffering and Death the threshold keep,
And with them Death's blood-brother, Sleep.

O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
Why make such game of this poor life of ours?

Along the illimitable shade
Darkling and lone their way they made, Through the vast kingdom of the dead, An empty void, though tenanted:
So travellers in a forest move
With but the uncertain moon above,
Beneath her niggard light.

E'en here the tear of pity springs,
And hearts are touched by human things.

I quail,
E'en now, at telling of the tale.