John Milton Quotes

And join with thee, calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet.

Forget thyself to marble.

The gay motes that people the sunbeams.

Hence vain deluding Joys,
The brood of Folly without father bred!

Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee, I mean to live.

Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.

And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild,
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.

Ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize.

Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men.

Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength.

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale.

And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the checkered shade.
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday.

Herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.

Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and balements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.

And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.