Hail universal Lord, be bounteous still To give us only good; and if the night Have gathered aught of evil or concealed, Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.
These evils I deserve, and more . . . . Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon, Whose ear is ever open, and his eye Gracious to re-admit the suppliant.
And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced choir below, In service high, and anthems clear As may, with sweetness, through mine ear Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
Education of youth is not a bow for every man to shoot in that counts himself a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave to Ulysses.
Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?
Ornate rhetorick taught out of the rule of Plato.... To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less suttle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate.
By labor and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.