The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘Bermudas’ (written c.1653, published 1681)
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night.
‘Bermudas’ (written c.1653, published 1681)
And makes the hollow seas, that roar,
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The gospel’s pearl upon our coast.
‘Bermudas’ (written c.1653, published 1681)
Oh let our voice his praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heaven’s vault:
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay.
‘Bermudas’ (written c.1653, published 1681)
My love is of a birth as rare
As ’tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne’er have flown
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.
‘The Definition of Love’ (1681)
As lines (so loves) oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.
‘The Definition of Love’ (1681)
Choosing each stone, and poising every weight,
Trying the measures of the breadth and height;
Here pulling down, and there erecting new,
Founding a firm state by proportions true.
‘The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector, 1655’ l. 245
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see