John Milton Quotes
Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown in courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, where most may wonder at the workmanship.
So dear I love him, that with him, all deaths I could endure, without him, live no life.
And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.
A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses
Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, That brought into this world a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery, Death's harbinger.
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.
One sip of this will bathe the drooping spirits in delight, beyond the bliss of dreams.
To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull Night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise.
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight; Casting a dim religious light.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark, Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark.
How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns
Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offence returning, to regain Love once possess'd.
The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveller.
When a king sets himself to bandy against the highest court and residence of all regal powers, he then, in the single person of a man, fights against his own majesty and kingship.
Chaos umpire sits And by decision more embroils the fray by which he reigns: next him high arbiter Chance governs all.
O welcome pure-eyed Faith, white handed Hope, Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings.
Fairy elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side Or fountain some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon Sits arbitress.
On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder.
Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.