“The youth, who pants to gain the amorous prize,
Forgets that Heaven with all-discerning eyes
Surveys the secret heart; and when desire
Has, in possession, quenched its short-lived fire,
The devious winds aside each promise bear,
And scatter all his solemn vows in air!”
Book X, line 24
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)
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John Hoole 24
British translator 1727–1803Related quotes
Don Alvarez in Act I, Sc. 1; also misquoted as "Reason gains all people by compelling none."
Alzira: A Tragedy (1736)

Source: The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913), The Crowning Hour, II
Context: p>If this is a dream, then perhaps our dreaming
Can touch life's height to a finer fire:
Who knows but the heavens and all their seeming
Were made by the heart's desire?One thing shines clear in the heart's sweet reason,
One lightning over the chasm runs —
That to turn from love is the world's one treason
That darkens all the suns.</p

Life Without and Life Within (1859), A Greeting
"I Think of Those Who Were Truly Great"
Poems (1933)
Context: Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
See how these names are fêted in the waving grass
And by the streamers of the white cloud
And whispers of the wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Source: The Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love, p. 124

The Parish Register (1807), Part ii, "Marriages".