So must the writer, whose productions should Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould.
Category Archive: Edmund Waller
And as pale sickness does invade, Your frailer part, the breaches made, In that fair lodging still more clear, Make the bright guest, your soul, appear.
The lark that shuns on lofty boughs to build, Her humble nest, lies silent in the field.
His love at once and dread instruct our thought; As man He suffer’d and as God He taught.
A narrow compass! and yet there Dwelt all that ‘s good, and all that ‘s fair; Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round.
All human things Of dearest value hang on slender strings.
Poets lose half the praise they should have got, Could it be known what they discreetly blot.
The fear of hell, or aiming to be blest, savors too much of private interest.
Others may use the ocean as their road; Only the English make it their abode.
Give us enough but with a sparing hand.