“If all the world be worth thy winning.
Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.”

—  John Dryden

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 97–106.
Context: Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying.
If all the world be worth thy winning.
Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.

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John Dryden 196
English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century 1631–1700

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