Thomas Gray: Trending quotes (page 2)

“From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take.”

Thomas Gray

I. 1, Line 3
The Progress of Poesy http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=pppo (1754)

Spring

“Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.”

Thomas Gray

St. 12
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

“No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.”

Thomas Gray

The Epitaph, St. 3
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)
Variant: No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

God , Hope , Drawing

“Ah, tell them they are men!”

Thomas Gray

St. 6
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)

Men

“Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.”

Thomas Gray

St. 5
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)

Hope , Tear

“Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed.”

Thomas Gray The Bard

II. 3. lines 87-88
The Bard (1757)

“He passed the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,
Where angels tremble, while they gaze,
He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.”

Thomas Gray

III. 2, Line 4
The Progress of Poesy http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=pppo (1754)

Angels , Light , Time , Night

“See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.”

Thomas Gray

Source: Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=oopv (1754), Line 41

Pain , Sun

“Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.”

Thomas Gray

III. 1, Line 12
The Progress of Poesy http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=pppo (1754)

Tear

“The applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes.”

Thomas Gray

St. 16
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Pain , Smile , Reading

“From toil he wins his spirits light,
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.”

Thomas Gray

Source: Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=oopv (1754), Line 93

Health , Peace , Business , Light

“Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers, that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.”

Thomas Gray

St. 1
On the Death of a Favourite Cat http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?textodfc (1747)

Art , Flowers

“Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters gold.”

Thomas Gray

St. 7
On the Death of a Favourite Cat http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odfc (1747)

Law , Heart

“In glittering arms and glory dressed,
High he rears his ruby crest.
There the thundering strokes begin,
There the press and there the din;
Talymalfra's rocky shore
Echoing to the battle's roar.”

Thomas Gray

"The Triumphs of Owen. A Fragment", from Mr. Evans's Specimens of the Welch Poetry (1764) http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=trow

“Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond today.”

Thomas Gray

St. 6
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)

Sense

“I shall be but a shrimp of an author.”

Thomas Gray

Letter to Horace Walpole http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=tgal0527 (February 25, 1768)

“Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth.
And Melancholy marked him for her own.”

Thomas Gray

The Epitaph, St. 1
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Youth , Birth , Science

“Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain.”

Thomas Gray

St. 3
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

“What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe.”

Thomas Gray

Hymn to Adversity http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=otad, St. 2 (1742)

Learning

“Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasures sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of gratitude.”

Thomas Gray

Ode for Music http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=ocmu (1769), V, line 8

Music , Bee , Gratitude