John Conington Quotes

War, dreadful war, and Tiber flood
I see incarnadined with blood.

'Tis thus that men to heaven aspire:
Go on and raise your glories higher.

My life is lived, and I have played
The part that Fortune gave.

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?

Each for himself, we all sustain
The durance of our ghostly pain;
Then to Elysium we repair,
The few, and breathe this blissful air.

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.

Now dews precipitate the night,
And setting stars to rest invite.

An inferior artist's only chance of giving pleasure.

'Tis come, our fated day of death.

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!

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

But, Roman, thou, do thou control
The nations far and wide;
Be this thy genius, to impose The rule of peace on vanquished foes, Show pity to the humbled soul, And crush the sons of pride.

Fear proves a base-born soul.