Shame No Statist.

Shame is a bad attendant to a state:
He rents his crown that fears the people's hate.

Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick was a 17th-century English lyric poet and cleric. He is known for his book of poems, "Hesperides," which includes the carpe diem poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time." His works are noted for their clarity, simplicity, and musical quality. Herrick was also a vicar of Dean Prior in Devon, despite being ejected during the English Civil War and later reinstated.

Robert Herrick

Distance Betters Dignities.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

The Sum And The Satisfaction.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon Spalt.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Another. (Of God.)

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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Ill Government.

Preposterous is that government, and rude,
When kings obey the wilder multitude.

Robert Herrick

Sins Loathed, And Yet Loved.

Shame checks our first attempts; but then 'tis prov'd
Sins first dislik'd are after that belov'd.

Robert Herrick

Sonnet: Political Greatness.

Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,
History is but the shadow of their shame,
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,
Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery
Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit
By force or custom? Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Earth's Shame

Name not his deed: in shuddering and in haste
We dragged him darkly o'er the windy fell:
That night there was a gibbet in the waste,
And a new sin in hell.

Be his deed hid from commonwealths and kings,
By all men born be one true tale forgot;
But three things, braver than all earthly things,
Faced him and feared him not.

Above his head and sunken secret face
Nested the sparrow's young and dropped not dead.
From the red blood and slime of that lost place
Grew daisies white, not red.

And from high heaven looking upon him,
Slowly upon the face of God did come
A smile the cherubim and seraphim
Hid all their faces from.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

There Is A Shame Of Nobleness

There is a shame of nobleness
Confronting sudden pelf, --
A finer shame of ecstasy
Convicted of itself.

A best disgrace a brave man feels,
Acknowledged of the brave, --
One more "Ye Blessed" to be told;
But this involves the grave.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Blame.

In battles what disasters fall,
The king he bears the blame of all.

Robert Herrick