If looks could . . . you know

 Careless of thunder from the clouds that break,

My only omens from your looks I take.

 

-- George Granville

Impiety begets impiety

Shall then the Son of Saturn be undone,
Like Saturn, by an impious Son!
Justly th' impartial Fates conspire,
Dooming that Son to be the Sire
Of such another Son.

-- George Granville

Limners of another kind

Poets are limners of another kind,

To copy out ideas in the mind;

Words are the paint by which their thoughts are shown,

And nature is their object to be drawn.

-- George Granville

There is little honesty in the world, but especially little in the courts of a king

A friend in need (1903) by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge

 

 

 Tygers and wolves shall in the ocean breed,

The whale and dolphin fatten on the mead,

And every element exchange its kind,

When thriving honesty in courts we find.

-- George Granville

Imagination misleads

Love is by fancy led about,

From hope to fear, from joy to doubt:

Whom we now a goddess call,

Divinely grac'd in every feature,

Strait's a deform'd, a perjur'd creature;

Love and hate are fancy all.

-- George Granville

Virtue as mastery over the self

Virtus holding olive branch and spear, shield at his side

Fearless he sees, who is with virtue crown'd,

The tempest rage, and hears the thunder sound;

Ever the same, let fortune smile or frown.

Serenely as he liv'd resigns his breath;

Meets destiny half-way, nor shrinks at death.

-- George Granville (1666-1735)

The flight of the hyperbole

Hyperboles, so daring and so bold,

Disdaining bounds, are yet by rules control'd;

Above the clouds, but yet within our sight,

They mount with truth, and make a tow'ring flight.

-- George Granville (1666-1735)