John Milton

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.

Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days.

To-morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new.

New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ Large.

What boots it with uncessant care, To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?

Hence, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born.

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

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds.

The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n.

To be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering, but of this be sure, To do aught good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight, As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist.

The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.

What if the Sun be center to the World, and other Stars By his attractive virtue and their own Incited, dance about him various rounds?

Deep calls to deep.

Thrice happy if they know Their happiness, and persevere upright.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

For neither Man nor Angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Ignorance is the mother of devotion.