Nicholas Michell

“Old scenes to visit, and old dreams to dream,Shall not to us a task of labour seem.”

“How long will conquerors trample earth,And Strength prevail o'er Right and Worth?Gaze round the world—this truth confess,The powerful still the weak oppress;New empires spring o'er empires' graves,Some must be free, and some be slaves;Some spirits rise, some sink as deep,And these must smile and those must weep:Man, as he thinks and acts below,An equal lot can never know.”

“The angel, crossing heaven on wings of light,Stooped to admire, and paused upon his flight,As Woman rose in beauty on the plain,The last and loveliest link of Being's chain.”

“[H]aving entered the lists of Poetry, should I be foiled at the first onset, I may probably, like a true knight, who, as Cid Hamete's hero says, "though he be vanquished to-day, may conquer to-morrow," re-set my lance in rest, and venture another encounter.”