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All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

John Dryden

For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
JOHN DRYDEN

Bound Drink Food Live Power Thinking
None but the brave deserve the fair.
JOHN DRYDEN

Brave Deserve Fair
Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.
JOHN DRYDEN

Beautiful Dangerous Surface Way
Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.
JOHN DRYDEN

Bound Divison Greatness Intelligence Mad
No government has ever been, or can ever be, wherein time-servers and blockheads will not be uppermost.
JOHN DRYDEN

Block Government Time
Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass’d; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third, she join’d the former two.
JOHN DRYDEN

Age Distant Force Herself Nature Poet
Love is not in our choice but in our fate.
JOHN DRYDEN

Choice Fate Love
Many things impossible to thought have been by need to full perfection brought.
JOHN DRYDEN

Brought Impossible Need Perfection
Errors like straws upon the surface flow, Who would search for pearls to be grateful for often must dive below.
JOHN DRYDEN

Errors Flow Gratitude Surface
For all the happiness mankind can gain Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain.
JOHN DRYDEN

Happiness Kind Man Sadness
While I am compassed round With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes, She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.
JOHN DRYDEN

Day Eyes Round Shade Sight Soul
Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
JOHN DRYDEN

Adventure First Forgiveness Reason Rule
Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.
JOHN DRYDEN

Build Destroy
Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.
JOHN DRYDEN

Best Give Up Knowledge Nature Production True
He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fountain Goodness Sense
Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.
JOHN DRYDEN

Better Health Himself Man Work

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

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All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

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