John Conington Quotes

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

Comrades and friends! for ours is strength
Has brooked the test of woes;
O worse-scarred hearts! these wounds at length
The Gods will heal, like those.

While memory lasts and pulses beat,
The thought of Dido shall be sweet.

A lethargy of sleep,
Most like to death, so calm, so deep.

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

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

Me, guilty me, make me your aim,
O Rutules! mine is all the blame;
He did no wrong, nor e'er could do;
That sky, those stars attest 'tis true;
Love for his friend too freely shown,
This was his crime, and this alone.

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.

Huge, awful, hideous, ghastly, blind.

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

She calls it marriage now; such name
She chooses to conceal her shame.

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

Then should some man of worth appear
Whose stainless virtue all revere, They hush, they list: his clear voice rules
Their rebel wills, their anger cools.

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!

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