Careful Words

winning (n.)

winning (adj.)

A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat;

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

I see a wild civility,—

Do more bewitch me than when art

Is too precise in every part.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Delight in Disorder.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,

Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.

War, he sung, is toil and trouble;

Honour but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,

Fighting still, and still destroying.

If all the world be worth the winning,

Think, oh think it worth enjoying:

Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Alexander's Feast. Line 97.