I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
John MiltonSo sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
John MiltonAnd may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew, Till old experience to attain To something like prophetic strain.
John MiltonThe other shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either,--black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand.
John Milton