Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson

The bending scythe

GAY.

Nor is the profit small the peasant makes,
Who smooths with harrow, or who pounds Shaves all the surface of the waving green.

with rakes,

The crumbling clods.

Be mindful

With iron teeth of rakes and prongs to move
The crusted earth.

DRYDEN.

How turnips hide their swelling heads below,
And how the closing coleworts upwards grow.

GAY.

Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes.
GOLDSMITH: Traveller.

Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made:
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd can never be supplied.
GOLDSMITH: Deserted Village.

Nor is't unwholesome to subdue the land
By often exercise; and where before
You broke the earth, again to plow.

MAY.

The ground one year at rest, forget not then
With richest dung to hearten it again.

MAY.

Shall tend the flocks, or reap the bearded grain. You sunburnt sickle men, of August weary,

Come hither from the furrow, and be merry. SHAKSPEARE.

The sun shines hot; and if we use delay, Cold biting winter mars our hoped-for hay. SHAKSPEARE,

The strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him like the mower's swath.
SHAKSPEARE.

What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn, Have now we mowed down in top of all their pride?

SHAKSPEARE.

Let me be no assistant for a state, But keep a farm, and carters.

SHAKSPEARE,

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks.
SHAKSPEARE.

The folds stand empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with the murrain flock; The nine men's morris is filled up with mud. SHAKSPEARE.

Her fallow leas The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory Doth root upon; while that the culter rusts That should deracinate such savagery.

SHAKSPEARE.

Nothing teems

But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, Losing both beauty and utility.

SHAKSPEARE.

The ear that budded fair is burnt and blasted, And all my hoped gain is turn'd to scath.

SPENSER.

Thee a ploughman all unweeting found,
As he his toilsome team that way did guide,
And brought thee up in ploughman's state to

bide.

SPENSER.

The kings, and awful fathers of mankind;

love.

TUSSER.

Plough-Monday next after that the twelftide is

past,

And some, with whom compared your insect Bids out with the plough, the worst husband is

tribes

Are but the beings of a summer's day,

last.

TUSSER.

Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm At Midsummer down with the brambles and
Of mighty war, then, with unwearied hand,

Disdaining little delicacies, seized

The plough, and greatly independent lived.

THOMSON.

To the harness'd yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil.
THOMSON.

With superior boon may your rich soil
Exuberant nature's better blessings pour
O'er every land, the naked nations clothe,
And be th' exhaustless granary of a world.

THOMSON.

They rose as vigorous as the sun;

Then to the culture of the willing glebe.

THOMSON.

In rueful gaze

The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens Cast a deploring eye.

brakes,

And after abroad with thy forks and thy rakes. TUSSER.

Such land as ye break up for barley to sow, Two earths, at the least, ere ye sow it, bestow.

TUSSER.

Sowe peason and beans in the wane of the moon: Who soweth them sooner he soweth too soone. TUSSER.

Friend, harrow in time, by some manner of

means,

Not only thy peason, but also thy beans.

TUSSER.

Plant ye with alders or willowes a plot,
Where yeerely, as needeth, mo poles may be got.
TUSSER.

The north is a noiance to grass of all suits,
The east a destroyer to herbs and all fruits.

THOMSON.

TUSSER.

The west as a father all goodness doth bring, The east a forbearer no manner of thing.

TUSSER.

Let servant be ready with mattock in hand To stub out the bushes that noieth the land. TUSSER.

In lopping and felling save elder and stake, Thine hedges, as needeth, to mend or to make. TUSSER.

One seed for another to make an exchange With fellowly neighbourhood seemeth not strange.

TUSSER.

Land arable, driven, or worn to the proof, With oats you may sow it, the sooner to grass, More soon to be pasture, to bring it to pass. TUSSER.

And he that can rear up a pig in his house, Hath cheaper his bacon, and sweeter his souse. TUSSER.

Of barley the finest and greenest ye find, Leave standing in dallops till time ye do bind.

TUSSER.

ALCHEMY.

By fire

Of sooty coal th' empiric alchemist Can turn, or holds it possible to turn, From wheat go and rake out the titters or tine, Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold. If care be not forth, it will rise again fine.

TUSSER.

MILTON.

The starving chymist in his golden views Through cunning, with dibble, rake, mattock, Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.

and spade,

By line and by level trim garden is made.

TUSSER.

Now down with the grass upon headlands about, That groweth in shadow so rank and so stout. TUSSER.

Some commons are barren, the nature is such, And some overlayeth the commons too much.

TUSSER.

Grant harvest-lord more by a penny or two, To call on his fellows the better to do.

TUSSER.

Things thus set in order, in quiet and rest,
Shall further thy harvest, and pleasure thee best.
TUSSER.

Reap well, scatter not, gather clean that is shorn, Bind fast, shock apace, have an eye to thy corn. TUSSER.

So likewise a hovel will serve for a room
To stack on the peas, when harvest shall come.
TUSSER.

Who abuseth his cattle and starves them for meat, By carting or ploughing his gain is not great; Where he that with labour can use them aright, Hath gain to his comfort, and cattle in plight. TUSSER.

So corn in fields, and in the garden flowers Revive, and raise themselves with mod'rate

showers;

But overcharged with never-ceasing rain, Become too moist.

WALLER.

Your reign no less assures the ploughman's

peace,

Than the warm sun advances his increase. WALLER.

Such is the mould that the blest tenant feeds On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.

WALLER.

Be not with honour's gilded baits beguiled,
Nor think ambition wise, because 'tis brave;
For though we like it, as a forward child,
'Tis so unsound her cradle is her grave.
SIR W. DAVENANT: Gondibert.

Ambition, the disease of virtue, bred
Like surfeits from an undigested fulness,
Meets death in that which is the means of life.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Nature and duty bind him to obedience:
But these being placed in a lower sphere,
His fierce ambition, like the highest mover,
Has hurried with a strong impulsive motion
Against their proper course.

SIR J. DENHAM. Some through ambition, or through thirst of gold, Have slain their brothers, and their country sold. DRYDEN.

Those who to empire by dark paths aspire, Still plead a call to what they most desire. DRYDEN.

One world sufficed not Alexander's mind; Coop'd up he seem'd, in earth and seas confined. DRYDEN.

Too truly Tamerlane's successors they;
Each thinks a world too little for his sway.
DRYDEN.

O diadem, thou centre of ambition,
Where all its different lines are reconciled;
As if thou wert the burning glass of glory.

DRYDEN.

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