John Hoole Quotes

What more our folly shows,
Than while we others seek, ourselves to lose?

Reflect, ye gentle dames, that much they know,
Who gain experience from another's woe.

The youth, who pants to gain the amorous prize,
Forgets that Heaven with all-discerning eyes
Surveys the secret heart; and when desire
Has, in possession, quenched its short-lived fire,
The devious winds aside each promise bear,
And scatter all his solemn vows in air!

So from a water clear, the trembling light
Of Phoebus, or the silver queen of night,
Along the spacious rooms with splendour plays,
Now high, now low, and shifts a thousand ways.

What has that wretched damsel left to boast,
What good on earth, whose virtuous praise is lost?

Ah! why so rare does cruel Love inspire
Two tender bosoms with a mutual fire?
Say, whence, perfidious, dost thou pleasure find
To sow dissension in the human mind?

Love what we see can from our sight remove,
And things invisible are seen by Love.

The spotless maid is like the blooming rose
Which on its native stem unsullied grows;
Where fencing walls the garden-space surround,
Nor swains, nor browsing cattle tread the ground.
But if some hand the tender stalk invades,
Lost is its beauty, and its colour fades:
No more the care of heaven, or garden's boast,
And all its praise with youths and maidens lost.

My endeavour has been to render the sense of my author as nearly as possible, which could never be done merely by translating his words.