John Dryden
John Dryden
John Drydenwas an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668...
maids blushing modest
The blushing beauties of a modest maid.
mean ignorant world
Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.
gossip sun compare
For my part, I can compare her (a gossip) to nothing but the sun; for, like him, she knows no rest, nor ever sets in one place but to rise in another.
brave pairs fairs
Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave deserves the fair.
men life-and-death tales
Dead men tell no tales.
candidate heaven
While yet a young probationer, / And candidate of heaven.
false whipped
Who, for false quantities, was whipped at school.
heaps
To see and to be seen, in heaps they run; / Some to undo, and some to be undone.
affects assumes ears monarch seems shake
With ravished ears / The monarch hears, / Assumes the god, / Affects to nod, / And seems to shake the spheres.
ancient boast bred fashion manners themselves
Well may they boast themselves an ancient Nation; For they were bred e'er manners were in fashion
cheating consider favour fooled former men trust
When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat. Yet, fooled by hope, men favour the deceit; trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: to-morrow's falser than the former day.
glad
The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, / The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!
condensed deeper english-poet words
If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.
few inhabited knowing
Look around the inhabited world; how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.