Samuel Daniel

Custom, that is before all law; Nature, that is above all art.

Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!

For ever by Adversity are wrought The greatest Works of Admiration; And all the Fair Examples of Renown, Out of Distress and Misery are grown.

And who (in time) knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores This gain of our best glory shall be sent T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed Occident May come refin'd …

This is the thing that I was born to do.

And for the few that only lend their ear, That few is all the world.

Sacred religion! mother of form and fear.

O blessed letters that combine in one All ages past, and make one live with all, By you we do confer with who are gone, And the dead living unto counsel call: By you th'unborn shall have communion Of what we feel, and what doth us befall.

The stars that have most glory have no rest.

Devotion, mother of obedience.

As that the walls worn thin, permit the mind To look out thorough, and his frailty find. 1

He hath nothing done that doth not all.

The bounds once overgone that hold men in, They never stay; but on from bad to worse. Wrongs do not leave off there where they begin, But still beget new mischiefs in their course.

Who reproves the lame must go upright.

The thing possessed is not the thing it seems.

Might, That makes a title where there is no right.

When better choices are not to be had, We needs must take the seeming best of bad.

Minions too great argue a King too weak.

Shame leaves us by degrees.

Jewels, orators of Love.

Sweet, silent rhetoric of persuading eyes, Dumb eloquence, whose power doth move the blood More than the words or wisdom of the wise.

But her will must be obeyed,

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.

Care-Charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, Relieve my languish, and restore the light; With dark forgetting of my care return. And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill …