Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.
Francis Bacon in Of Adversity
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Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
quote by Francis Bacon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sonnet 52: A Strife Is Grown
A strife is grown between Virtue and Love,
While each pretends that Stella must be his:
Her eyes, her lips, her all, saith Love, do this
Since they do wear his badge, most firmly prove.
But Virtue thus that title doth disprove:
That Stella (oh dear name) that Stella is
That virtuous soul, sure heir of heav'nly bliss,
Not this fair outside, which our hearts doth move;
And therefore, though her beauty and her grace
Be Love's indeed, in Stella's self he may
By no pretense claim any manner place.
Well, Love, since this demur our suit will stay,
Let Virtue have that Stella's self; yet thus
That Virtue but that body grant to us.
poem by Philip Sidney
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Doth Then The World Go Thus?
Doth then the world go thus? doth all thus move?
Is this the justice which on earth we find?
Is this that firm decree which all doth bind?
Are these your influences, Powers above?
Those souls, which vice's moody mists most blind,
Blind Fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove;
And they who thee, poor idol Virtue! love,
Ply like a feather tossed by storm and wind.
Ah! if a Providence doth sway this all,
Why should best minds groan under most distress?
Or why should pride humility make thrall,
And injuries the innocent oppress?
Heavens! hinder, stop this fate; or grant a time
When good may have, as well as bad, their prime!
poem by William Henry Drummond
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The Nature Of Love. (From The Italian)
To noble heart Love doth for shelter fly,
As seeks the bird the forest's leafy shade;
Love was not felt till noble heart beat high,
Nor before love the noble heart was made.
Soon as the sun's broad flame
Was formed, so soon the clear light filled the air;
Yet was not till he came:
So love springs up in noble breasts, and there
Has its appointed space,
As heat in the bright flames finds its allotted place.
Kindles in noble heart the fire of love,
As hidden virtue in the precious stone:
This virtue comes not from the stars above,
Till round it the ennobling sun has shone;
But when his powerful blaze
Has drawn forth what was vile, the stars impart
Strange virtue in their rays;
And thus when Nature doth create the heart
Noble and pure and high,
Like virtue from the star, love comes from woman's eye.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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My purpose is to inspire people of all walks of life to discover the virtue inherent within them and to bring forth that virtue in their daily lives.
quote by William Shirley
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A Praise of his Lady
GIVE place, you ladies, and begone!
Boast not yourselves at all!
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.
The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone;
I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.
In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy;
It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.
I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could
So fair a creature make.
She may be well compared
Unto the Phoenix kind,
Whose like was never seen or heard,
That any man can find.
In life she is Diana chaste,
In troth Penelopey;
In word and eke in deed steadfast.
--What will you more we say?
If all the world were sought so far,
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.
Her rosial colour comes and goes
With such a comely grace,
More ruddier, too, than doth the rose,
Within her lively face.
At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,
Ne at no wanton play,
Nor gazing in an open street,
Nor gadding as a stray.
The modest mirth that she doth use
Is mix'd with shamefastness;
All vice she doth wholly refuse,
And hateth idleness.
O Lord! it is a world to see
How virtue can repair,
And deck in her such honesty,
Whom Nature made so fair.
Truly she doth so far exceed
Our women nowadays,
As doth the jeliflower a weed;
And more a thousand ways.
How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?
--For all the rest are plain but chaff,
Which seem good corn to be.
This gift alone I shall her give;
When death doth what he can,
Her honest fame shall ever live
Within the mouth of man.
poem by Anonymous Olde English
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Sonet LIV
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.
poem by William Shakespeare
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A Selfish Lover
My love doth not love but love it feels
Inside my heart which is deaf and mute.
I cannot love thee but my soul peals
The song of love into sweet fruit.
Love is the virtue, I selfishly hoard
A vice to entrap mine only good.
In the miser in me, my fruit I store
And eat for myself as love should.
But my heart doth not hear
And my heart doth not speak
The rich love my soul endear
Or the love thine heart seek?
For I do love one, but only me
If thou call that love or being miserly?
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Sonnet 54: O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumèd tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their maskèd buds discloses;
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwooed and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.
poem by William Shakespeare
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Prosperity discovers vices, and adversity virtue.
A Ballad of Gentleness
The firste stock-father of gentleness,
What man desireth gentle for to be,
Must follow his trace, and all his wittes dress,
Virtue to love, and vices for to flee;
For unto virtue longeth dignity,
And not the reverse, safely dare I deem,
All wear he mitre, crown, or diademe.
This firste stock was full of righteousness,
True of his word, sober, pious, and free,
Clean of his ghost, and loved business,
Against the vice of sloth, in honesty;
And, but his heir love virtue as did he,
He is not gentle, though he riche seem,
All wear he mitre, crown, or diademe.
Vice may well be heir to old richess,
But there may no man, as men may well see,
Bequeath his heir his virtuous nobless;
That is appropried to no degree,
But to the first Father in majesty,
Which makes his heire him that doth him queme,
All wear he mitre, crown, or diademe.
poem by Geoffrey Chaucer
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It is easier to run from virtue to vice, than from vice to virtue.
Verses
The sturdy rock, for all his strength,
By raging seas, is rent in twaine;
The marble stone is pearst at length
With littel drops of drizzling raine:
The ox doth yield unto the yoke,
The steele obeyeth the hammer-stroke.
The stately stagge, that seemes as stout
By yalping hounds at day is set;
The swiftest bird, that flies about,
Is caught at length in fowler's net:
The greatest fish, in deepest brooke,
Is soon deceiv'd by subtill hooke.
Yea, man himselfe, unto whose will
All thinges are bounden to obey,
For all his wit and worthie skill,
Doth fade at length and fall away:
There nothing is but Time doth waste;
The heavens, the earth comsume at last.
But Virtue sits, triumphing still
Upon the throne of glorious fame;
Though spiteful death man's body kill
Yet hurts he not his vertuous name;
By life or death what so betides,
The state of virtue never slides.
poem by Anonymous Olde English
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The Primrose
Ask me why I send you here
The firstling of the infant year;
Ask me why I send to you
This primrose all bepearled with dew:
I straight will whisper in your ears,
The sweets of love are washed with tears.
Ask me why this flower doth show
So yellow, green, and sickly too;
Ask me why the stalk is weak
And bending, yet it doth not break:
I must tell you, these discover
What doubts and fears are in a lover.
poem by Thomas Carew
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You Who Have Never Been There....
what then doth the bird
learn from the cage?
what doth the bare limb
learn from the snow?
what doth the starving child
learn from his hunger?
what doth the homeless man
learn from the lighted window?
what doth the oppressed
learn from his oppression?
what doth the one discriminated against
learn from discrimination?
what doth the hopeless one
learn from his despair?
is it that easy for you to know,
you who have never been there?
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Over-Virtue
Over-virtue is dangerous,
Unlike over-vice, which has
Conscience as its watch dog.
Over-virtue might do more harm.
(04.02.2011)
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Virtue practiced to be seen is not real virtue; vice which fears to be seen is real vice.
To Mr. Rowland Woodward
LIKE one who in her third widowhood doth profess
Herself a nun, tied to retiredness,
So affects my Muse, now, a chaste fallowness.
Since she to few, yet to too many hath shown,
How love-song weeds and satiric thorns are grown,
Where seeds of better arts were early sown ;
Though to use and love poetry, to me,
Betroth'd to no one art, be no adultery ;
Omissions of good, ill, as ill deeds be.
For though to us it seems but light and thin,
Yet in those faithful scales, where God throws in
Men's works, vanity weighs as much as sin.
If our souls have stain'd their first white, yet we
May clothe them with faith, and dear honesty,
Which God imputes as native purity.
There is no virtue but religion.
Wise, valiant, sober, just, are names which none
Want, which want not vice-covering discretion.
Seek we then ourselves in ourselves ; for as
Men force the sun with much more force to pass,
By gathering his beams with a crystal glass,
So we—if we into ourselves will turn,
Blowing our spark of virtue—may out-burn
The straw which doth about our hearts sojourn.
You know physicians, when they would infuse
Into any oil the souls of simples, use
Places, where they may lie still warm, to choose.
So works retiredness in us. To roam
Giddily and be everywhere, but at home,
Such freedom doth a banishment become.
We are but farmers of ourselves, yet may,
If we can stock ourselves, and thrive, uplay
Much, much dear treasure for the great rent day.
Manure thyself then, to thyself be improved ;
And with vain outward things be no more moved,
But to know that I love thee and would be loved.
poem by John Donne
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Loss And Gain
Virtue runs before the muse
And defies her skill,
She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painter's will.
Star-adoring, occupied,
Virtue cannot bend her,
Just to please a poet's pride,
To parade her splendor.
The bard must be with good intent
No more his, but hers,
Throw away his pen and paint,
Kneel with worshippers.
Then, perchance, a sunny ray
From the heaven of fire,
His lost tools may over-pay,
And better his desire.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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