Lords are lordliest in their wine.

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. Samson Agonistes, l. 1418 (1671).)

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.
Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But, O! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. On His Deceased Wife (l. 9-14). . . The Complete Poetry of John Milton. John T. Shawcross, ed. (1963, rev. ed. 1971) Doubleday.)

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased.
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me,
They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. Samson, in Samson Agonistes.)

What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones
The labor of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Has built thyself a livelong monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavoring art,
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving,
And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. On Shakespeare (l. 1-16). . . The Complete Poetry of John Milton. John T. Shawcross, ed. (1963, rev. ed. 1971) Doubleday.)

All is best, though we oft doubt,
What th' unsearchable dispose
Of highest wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.
Oft he seems to hide his face,
But unexpectedly returns
And to his faithful Champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns
And all that band them to resist
His uncontroulable intent,
His servants he with new acquist
Of true experience from this great event
With peace and consolation hath dismist,
And calm of mind all passion spent.

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. Samson Agonistes (l. 1745-1758). . . The Complete Poetry of John Milton. John T. Shawcross, ed. (1963, rev. ed. 1971) Doubleday.)

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. Lycidas (l. 1-8). . . The Complete Poetry of John Milton. John T. Shawcross, ed. (1963, rev. ed. 1971) Doubleday.)

Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid:/Leave them to God above; him serve and fear.

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet, statesman. Raphael in Paradise Lost, book VIII, lines 167-168.)

Alas! What boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Hid in the tangles of Neaera's hair?

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. Lycidas (l. 64-69). . . The Complete Poetry of John Milton. John T. Shawcross, ed. (1963, rev. ed. 1971) Doubleday.)

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. repr. In Milton's Poetical Works, ed. Douglas Bush (1966). Phoebes, in Lycidas, l. 78 (1637).)

Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;

(John Milton (1608-1674), British poet. L'Allegro (l. 33-36). . . The Complete Poetry of John Milton. John T. Shawcross, ed. (1963, rev. ed. 1971) Doubleday.)