
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), The Lady of the Land
Canto LXXXI
The Cantos
Source: The Pisan Cantos
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), The Lady of the Land
Letter to Charles II of England (25 November 1675)
An Apology for the True Christian Divinity (1678)
Context: There is no king in the world, who can so experimentally testify of God's providence and goodness; neither is there any who rules so many free people, so many true Christians: which thing renders thy government more honorable, thyself more considerable, than the accession of many nations filled with slavish and superstitious souls.
Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be overruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne; and being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If after all these warnings and advertisements thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation.
Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those that may or do feed thee and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be to apply thyself to that Light of Christ, which shineth in thy conscience, which neither can nor will flatter thee nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins, but doth and will deal plainly and faithfully with thee as those that are followers thereof have also done.
God Almighty, who hath so signally hitherto visited thee with his love, so touch and reach thy heart, ere the day of thy visitation be expired, that thou mayest effectually turn to him so as to improve thy place and station for his name.
Reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 448.
“Know'st thou not well, with thy superior wisdom, that
On a vain tongue punishment is inflicted?”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 328–329 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), pp. 58-59
“Knight, keep well thy head, for thou shalt have a buffet for the slaying of my horse.”
Book III, ch. 12
Le Morte d'Arthur (c. 1469) (first known edition 1485)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 597.
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Context: There is no Heav'en, there is no Hell; these be the dreams of baby minds,
Tools of the wily Fetisheer, to 'fright the fools his cunning blinds.
Learn from the mighty Spi'rits of old to set thy foot on Heav'en and Hell;
In Life to find thy hell and heav'en as thou abuse or use it well.
Of The Works Of God and Man
Meditationes sacræ (1597)