Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom nor forced him wander, but confine him home.
– John Cleveland
I am no Poet here; my pen's the spout where the rain water of my eyes run out.
– John Cleveland
Love melts the rigor which the rocks have bred; a flint will break upon a feather bed.
– John Cleveland
My tears will keep no channel, know no laws to guide their streams, but like the waves, their cause, run with disturbance till they swallow me as a description of his misery.
– John Cleveland
Some have affirm'd that what on earth we find, the sea can parallel in shape and kind; books, arts, and tongues were wanting, but in thee Neptune hath got a university.
– John Cleveland
The astrologer who spells the stars, mistakes his globes, and in her bright eye interprets heaven's physiognomies.
– John Cleveland
The marigold, whose courtier's face echoes the sun, and doth unlace her at his rise, at his full stop packs and shuts up her gaudy shop.
– John Cleveland
The People's violent Love and Hate; one in extremes lov'd and abhor'd. Riddles lie here; or in a word, here lies blood; and let it lie speechlesse still, and never crie.
– John Cleveland
Water and fire both elements our ruin do conspire. And that dissolves us which doth us compound, one Vatican was burnt, another drown'd.