The Complete Poems Quotes

“Now piercèd is her virgin zone;
She feels the foe within it.
She hears a broken amorous groan,
The panting lover's fainting moan,
Just in the happy minute.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“Bawdy in thoughts, precise in words,
Ill-natured though a whore,
Her belly is a bag of turds,
And her cunt a common shore.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“Then, if to make your ruin more,
You'll peevishly be coy,
Die with the scandal of a whore
And never know the joy.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“Man differs more from man than man from beast”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“God bless our good and gracious King,
Whose promise none relies on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“This signior is sound, safe, ready, and dumb
As ever was candle, carrot, or thumb;
Then away with these nasty devices, and show
How you rate the just merits of Signior Dildo.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“A kind of losing loadum is their game,
Where the worst writer has the greatest fame.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on,
From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“Nothing suits worse with vice than want of sense”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“How blest was the created state
Of man and woman, ere they fell,
Compared to our unhappy fate:
We need not fear another hell.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“Merely for safety, after fame we thirst,
For all men would be cowards if they durst.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“For Hell and the foul fiend that rules
God's everlasting fiery jails
(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),
With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimseys, and no more.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems

“Nothing! thou elder brother even to Shade:
That hadst a being ere the world was made,
And well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid.

Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not,
When primitive Nothing Something straight begot;
Then all proceeded from the great united What.

Something, the general attribute of all,
Severed from thee, its sole original,
Into thy boundless self must undistinguished fall;

Yet Something did thy mighty power command,
And from fruitful Emptiness’s hand
Snatched men, beasts, birds, fire, air, and land.

Matter the wicked’st offspring of thy race,
By Form assisted, flew from thy embrace,
And rebel Light obscured thy reverend dusky face.

With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join;
Body, thy foe, with these did leagues combine
To spoil thy peaceful realm, and ruin all thy line;

But turncoat Time assists the foe in vain,
And bribed by thee, destroys their short-lived reign,
And to thy hungry womb drives back thy slaves again.

Though mysteries are barred from laic eyes,
And the divine alone with warrant pries
Into thy bosom, where truth in private lies,

Yet this of thee the wise may truly say,
Thou from the virtuous nothing dost delay,
And to be part with thee the wicked wisely pray.


Great Negative, how vainly would the wise
Inquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise,
Didst thou not stand to point their blind philosophies!

Is, or Is Not, the two great ends of Fate,
And True or False, the subject of debate,
That perfect or destroy the vast designs of state—

When they have racked the politician’s breast,
Within thy Bosom most securely rest,
And when reduced to thee, are least unsafe and best.

But Nothing, why does Something still permit
That sacred monarchs should at council sit
With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit,

While weighty Something modestly abstains
From princes’ coffers, and from statemen’s brains,
And Nothing there like stately Nothing reigns?

Nothing! who dwell’st with fools in grave disguise
For whom they reverend shapes and forms devise,
Lawn sleeves, and furs, and gowns, when they like thee look wise:

French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy,
Hibernian learning, Scotch civility,
Spaniards’ dispatch, Danes’ wit are mainly seen in thee.

The great man’s gratitude to his best friend,
Kings’ promises, whores’ vows—towards thee may bend,
Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems