Brad’s Kindle Notes & Highlights for The Complete English Poems

6%

charming false friends

7%

take no byways;

7%

Continence hath his joy: weigh both; and so If rottenness have more, let Heaven go.

7%

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.

7%

Fly idleness,

7%

God gave thy soul brave wings; put not those feathers Into a bed, to sleep out all ill weathers.

8%

For he, that needs five thousand pound to live, Is full as poor as he, that needs but five.

8%

The way to make thy son rich, is to fill 110 His mind with rest, before his trunk with riches: For wealth without contentment, climbs a hill To feel those tempests, which fly over ditches. But if thy son can make ten pound his measure, Then all thou addest may be called his treasure.

8%

By all means use sometimes to be alone.

9%

Laugh not too much: the witty man laughs least: 230 For wit is news only to ignorance. Less at thine own things laugh; lest in the jest Thy person share, and the conceit advance. Make not thy sport, abuses: for the fly That feeds on dung, is coloured thereby.

9%

Towards great persons use respective boldness: That temper gives them theirs, and yet doth take 255 Nothing from thine: in service, care or coldness Doth rateably thy fortunes mar or make. Feed no man in his sins: for adulation Doth make thee parcel-devil in damnation.

9%

Envy not greatness:

9%

Thy friend put in thy bosom: wear his eyes Still in thy heart, that he may see what’s there. If cause require, thou art his sacrifice; Thy drops of blood must pay down all his fear: 275 But love is lost; the way of friendship’s gone, Though David had his Jonathan, Christ his John.

10%

A civil guest Will no more talk all, than eat all the feast.

10%

Mark what another says: for many are 320 Full of themselves, and answer their own notion. Take all into thee; then with equal care Balance each dram of reason, like a potion. If truth be with thy friend, be with them both: Share in the conquest, and confess a troth.

10%

A grain of glory mixed with humbleness Cures both a fever and lethargicness.

10%

Scorn no man’s love, though of a mean degree; 350 (Love is a present for a mighty king). Much less make anyone thy enemy. As guns destroy, so may a little sling. The cunning workman never doth refuse The meanest tool, that he may chance to use.

10%

Let thy mind’s sweetness have his operation Upon thy body, clothes, and habitation.

10%

In Alms regard thy means, and others’ merit. Think heav’n a better bargain, than to give 375 Only thy single market-money for it. Join hands with God to make a man to live. Give to all something; to a good poor man, Till thou change names, and be where he began.

10%

Restore to God his due in tithe and time: A tithe purloined cankers the whole estate. Sundays observe: think when the bells do chime, ’Tis angels’ music; therefore come not late. God then deals blessings: If a king did so, 390 Who would not haste, nay give, to see the show?

10%

Though private prayer be a brave design, Yet public hath more promises, more love: And love’s a weight to hearts, to eyes a sign. 400 We all are but cold suitors; let us move Where it is warmest. Leave thy six and seven; Pray with the most: for where most pray, is heaven.

11%

cozen

14%

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine, Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.

14%

Yet Lord restore thine image, hear my call: And though my hard heart scarce to thee can groan, Remember that thou once didst write in stone.

14%

Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight; My heart hath store, write there, wherein One box doth lie both ink and sin: 25 That when sin spies so many foes, Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes, All come to lodge there, sin may say, No room for me, and fly away. Sin being gone, O fill the place, 30 And keep possession with thy grace; Lest sin take courage and return, And all the writings blot or burn.

15%

Holy Baptism (1) As he that sees a dark and shady grove, Stays not, but looks beyond it on the sky; So when I view my sins, mine eyes remove More backward still, and to that water fly, 5 Which is above the heav’ns, whose spring and rent Is in my dear Redeemer’s pierced side. O blessed streams! either ye do prevent And stop our sins from growing thick and wide, Or else give tears to drown them, as they grow. 10 In you Redemption measures all my time, And spreads the plaster equal to the crime: You taught the Book of Life my name, that so Whatever future sins should me miscall, Your first ...more