.;/////
A
COMPLETE DICTIONARY
OF
POETICAL QUOTATIONS
COMPRISING
THE MOST EXCELLENT AND APPROPRIATE PASSAGES
IN THE
OLD BEITISH POETS;
WITH
CHOICE AND COPIOUS SELECTIONS
FROM THE BEST
MODERN BRITISH AND AMERICAN POETS.
EDITED BY
SARAH JOSEPHA HALE.
As nightingales do upon glow-worms feed.
no poets live upon the living light
Of Nature and of Beauty.
Bailey's Fesius,
$nmiifttUt[ 3llttstnthfo miilj <£ngrohg3.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINC OTT & CO
1856.
v
qP
(&
*&<£**
Entered, according to th-3 Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by
«RI«G, ELLIOT & O0,>
in the Clerk's Otice of the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania.
MAY 1 5 M4
PEEFACE
On presenting to the public this Dictionary of Poetical Quotations, the only
complete work of the kind in the English language, the best preface will be its history.
About twenty years ago the plan was originated by John F. Addington, an English-
man, then residing in this city ; but he devoted his attention almost exclusively to the
old British Bards. His labours were valuable, still the work was incomplete; the
modern writers of poetry, both English and American, with a few exceptions in favour
of the former, were wholly omitted. Then his selections were not always in accordance
with the present standard of public taste. The old dramatic poets wrote according to
their light, which was often reflected through a foul medium, and revealed much that is
now considered, and justly, too, as coarse and indelicate. The text of Mr. Addington' s
selections required revision; still, he deserves much credit for his perseverance and
research, and the study he devoted " to rescue from the reckless tooth of time some of
the finest thoughts and most vivid images of the ancient fathers of English poetry."
His selections from Shakspeare were copious ; and also from Byron, the only modern poet
that he much favoured.
To the present Editor was committed the task of revising the original work, and adding
thereto selections from the modern British and American poets. This required the
examination of a multitude of volumes, and much care and study, in order to exhibit, a3
far as possible, the characteristic excellence of each author. A difficult and delicate task
it is to select from living poets, — especially when there are so many ! The index shows
an array of over four hundred authors; thus, at a glance, maybe seen how wide has
been the field of research.
Besides the new quotations introduced under every head, quite a number of new sub-
jects have been added, making the plan complete, and furnishing a Manual of Poetical
Extracts, alphabetically arranged, which will serve to interpret every passion, emotion,
and feeling of the human soul. Here, also, every condition and pursuit of life may find
\ts motto or character, and the beauties of Nature and Art their truest description. In
short, the book is a precious casket, where the most perfect gems of Genius the Anglo^
Saxon literature has preserved for the last three hundred years are garnered. The chro-
nological order of the quotations is preserved, and thus the curious reader may trace the
progressive improvements of the one language, forming now the bond of union between
two great nations, whose children of song are here, for the first time, united. In the
American portion, the striking characteristics of the poetry are devotion to nature,
patriotism, and deep religious sentiment. This sentiment it is which makes poetry so
popular in our country ; and while the work now submitted contains such treasures of
holy and beautiful thoughts as no other collection of poetry can show, the Editor ami
Publishers flatter themselves its merits will ensure it a welcome reception.
Philadelphia, January, 1850.
LIST OF AUTHORS QUOTED IN THIS WORK.
BRITISH.
Addison, Joseph
Akenside, Mark
Aleyn, Charles
Armstrong. John
Bailey, Philip J.
Baillie. Miss Joanna
Bancroft, Jnhn
Barbauld. Mrs. Anna Letitia
Baron, Rohert
Barrett, Miss Elizabeth B.
Barry, Lndovick
Ban on, Bernard
Bi.ylev, Thomas Haynes
B-attie, James
Beaumont, Sir John
Behn, Mrs. Aphra
Belloe, William
Biacklock, Dr. Thomas
Biackmore, Sir Richard
Blair. Rohert
Bloornfield, R-obert
Bowles, VS'illiam Lisle
Bnwring, Dr. /
Brandon, Samnel
Brewer. Anthony
Brome, Alexander
Broriie, Richard
Brooke, Henry Beller
Brooke, Lord
Browne. William
Browning. Robert
Brydi-es. Sir Edgerton
Buckingham, Duke of
Bulwer, Sir Edward Lytton
Burns, Robert
Butler, Mrs. Frances Kemble
Butler, Samuel
Byron. George, Lord
Campbell, Thomas
Carew, Lady
Carew, Thomas
Cartwright. William
Chamberlaine, Robert
Chapman, George
Chandler, Mary"
Churchill. Charles
Cibber, Colley
Cleayeland, John
Coleridge. Samuel Taylor
Collins, William
Colton, C. C.
Congreve, William
Conk, Miss Eliza
Cooke. Thomas
Corbel, Richard
Cotton, Charles
Cowley, Abraham
Cowper, William
Crabhe, George
Croley, George F.
Crown. John
Cumberland, Richard
Cunningham, Allan
Daniel. Samuel
Darcy, Sir Patrick
Darwin, Dr. Erasmus
Daubonie, Robert
Pavenant, Sir William
Davenport, Sir Christopher
Davis. Sir John
Day, John
Decker, Thomas
Denham, Sir John
Dennis, John
Donne, Dr. John
Dow, Alexander
Drayton, .Michael
Drummond, George Hay
Dmlen, John
Duneome, William
Dyer, John
Eil.oft. Ebenezer
Etherege, Sir George
Faber, F. W.
Falconer, William
Falkland. Lord
Cane, Sir Francis
Fawkes. Francis
Fenton, Elijah
. Henry
Flekuoe, Richard
Fleteh.-r, John
Ford, John
pointer. Dr.
Fountain, John
Franklin, Dr. Thonuw
Francis, Sir Philip
Freeman. Sir Ralph
Frowde, Philip
Garth, Sir Samuel
Gascoigne George
Gay John
? Gifford, William
J Glover, Richard
< GofTe, William
5 Goldsmith, Oliver
I Gomersal, Robert
J Graliume, James
i Gray, Thomas
i Green, Robert
' Hahbiniron, William
i Hall. John
< Hammond, Anthony
Il-la-'iKS. Ladv Flora
j Hawkins, Sir John
J Hayley, William
Havard, William
j Havwood, Mrs. Elizabeth
Heath, Rohert
, Heber, Reginald
J Hemans, Mrs. Felicia Dorothea
? Herbert, George
i Herbert, William
I Flernck, Robert
i Hervey, Thomas K.
, Hev'.'-ood. John
' Herons, Bevil
< Hill, Aaron
< Hill, George
i Hot- Thomas
" , I ford, Mrs.
Holland, Lord
Home, John
Hood, Thomas
; Hopkins, Charles
Howard, Sir Robert
Howell. James
Howitt, Mrs. Mary
Hunt, Leigh.
Hunt, Sir A.
■ Jeffreys, George
! Jephson, Rohert
; Jenyns, Soame
> Jewsbury, Miss Maria Jane
I Johnson, Charles
j Johnson, Dr. Samuel
■ Jones, Sir William
Jonson, Ben
Keats, John
Kett, Henry
Killegrew, Henry
1 King. Dr. Henry
Knowles, James Sheridan
Lamb, Charles
Lamb, Hon. George
Landon, Miss Leti:ia Elizabeth
Langhorne, Dr. John
Lansdown.George.L'd Granville
Lee, Nathaniel
Lewis, Matthew Gregory
Lillo, George
Lilly, John
Llyv.-elyn, Sion
Lodee, Dr. Thomas
Lovelace, Richard
S Lyttleton, George, Lord
i M'acauiay, Thomas Babington
> Macklm. Charles
S Madden. Dr. Samuel
' Mallet. David
/ Maimers, Lady
\ Markham. Gervase
< .Marlowe, Christopher
> Marmyon, Sheckerly
i Marsh, Narcissus
Mai
'goniery, James
> More, Mrs Hannah
' Motherwell. William
i Mottley, John
{ Murphy, Arthur
I Nabb, T.
I Nevi I, Robert
\ Norton. Hon. Mrs. Caroline
j Ogilvie, Dr. John
on, John
, Overhury, Sir Thomas
Pamell, Thomas
Patterson, James
Pattison, William
Peter, William
Philips, Ambrose
Philips, John
Pollock, Robert
Pornfret, John
Pope. Alexander
Porteus, Dr. Beilby
Powell. Georsre
Praed, Winthrop M.
Proctor, Bryan Waller
Qnarles, Francis
Raleisrh, Sir Walter
Randolph, Thomas
Rawlins, Thomas
Richards, Nathaniel
Rider, William
Robinson, Mrs. Mary
Rochester, Earl of
Rogers, Samuel
Roscommon, Earl of
Rowe, Nicholas
Rowley, Samuel
Rowley, William t
Russell, Lord John
Rutter, Joseph
Sampson. Henry
Savajre, Richard
Scott, Sir Walter
Sewell, George
Shadwell, Thomas
Shakspeare, William
Shelley. Percy Bysshe
Sbenstone, William
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
Shirley, James
Sidney, Sir Philip
Smith, Horace
Smith. William
Smollett, Dr. Tobias
Sornerville, William
Southern, Thomas
Southey, Mrs. Caroline
Sontliey, Robert
Southwell, Robert
Spenser, Edmund
Sterling. John
Stiiliugfleet "
Suckling, Sir John
Swift, Dr. Jonathan
Talfourd. Thomas Noon
Tate, Nahnm
Taylor, Henry
Tennyson, Alfred
Thomson, Jarnes
Thompson, William
Tickell. Thomas
Tnrhe, Mrs. Mary
Tonna, Mrs. Charlotte Elizabeth
Trapp, Joseph
Topper, .Martin Farquhar
Vincent, William
Waller, Edmund
Wal'on, Isaac
Watkins. Roland
Watts, Aianc A.
Webster. John
White, Henry Kirke
Whitehead, Wilham
WilKie, William
WiiKins, John
Wilson, Arthur
Wolcot. Dr. John
Wordsworth, William
Young, Edward
AMERICAN.
Adams, John Quincy
Aldrich, James
Allston, Washington
Barker, James N.
Barlow, Joel
Bates, David
Benjamin. Park
Belhune. George Washington
Bird, Robert M.
Bo-art, Miss Elizabeth
Boker, Charles
Brainard.J. G. C.
Brooks, James G.
Brouks, Mrs. Maria
Bryant, John H.
Brvant, William Cullen
Bu'rleigh. William 1L
Carey, Miss Alice
Carev, Miss Phcebe
Chandler, Mrs. Caroline H.
Chandler, Mrs Elizabeth M.
Clark, Willis Gaylord
Clarke, Miss Sara J.
Cue, Richard, Jr.
Colton, Walter
Cooke, Philip P
Coxe. Arthur Cleaveland
Cranch. C. P.
Dana, Richard H.
Davidson, Miss Lncretia M.
Davidson. Miss Margaret M.
Dawes, Rufus
Dinnies, Mrs. Anna Peyre
Doane, George Washington
Drake. Joseph Rodman
Du<:aniie, A. J. H.
Dwight. Timothy
Ean.es. Mrs. Elizabeth J.
Eastburn, James Wallis
i Ellet. Mrs. Elizabeth F.
t Embury, Mrs. Emma C.
J Emerson, Ralph Waldo
' Everest, C. W.
, Everett, Edward
< Fields. James T.
j Franklin, Dr. Benjamin
', Fr'-I.ie, Levi
Fuller, Miss S. Margaret
Gallagher, William D.
Gilrnan, Mrs. Caroline
Gould. Miss Hannah F.
< Gray, Thomas, Jr.
< Hale. Mrs. Sarah Josepha
', Hall, Mrs. Louisa J.
< Halleck, Fitz Greene
i Hillhouse, James A
j Hirst, Henry B.
' Hoffman, Charles Fenno
f Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell
' Hooper, Miss Lucy
< Hosmer, William C. H.
f Howe, Mrs. Julia W.
< Hoyt, Ralph
/ Humphreys, David
( ' Judson, Mrs. Emily C.
; Kinney, Mrs. Elizabeth C.
f Leggett, W'ilbam
; Lewis. Mrs. Sarah Anna
1 Longfellow, Henry Wordsworth
', Lowell, James Russell
( Lowell. Mrs. Maria
J Lunt, George
; Lynch, Miss Anne C.
! Mathews, Cornelius
< May, Miss Caroline
Mellen, Granville
Morris, George P.
J Morns, Robert
j Mackellar, Thomas
! McLellan, Isaac
Neal, John
* Neal, Mrs J. C.
'i Nicnol, John
< Nichols, Mrs. R. S.
Noble, L. L.
j Norton, Andrews
Oszood, Mrs. Frances S.
Pabodie, William J.
Palmer, William Pitt
Parsons, Thomas W.
Patterson, Samuel D.
Peabody, William B. O.
Percival, James Gates
Pickering, Henry
Pierpont, John
Pjerson, Lydia Jane
Pinckney, Edward C.
Poe, Edgar A.
Prentice, George D.
, Read, T. Buchanan
i Rockwell, J. O.
J Sands, Robert C.
' Sargent, Epes
Sargent, John 0.
J Sawyer, Mrs. Caroline M.
Sigourney. Mrs. Lydia H
S.inrns, William Gilmore
Smith, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes
Sprasue, Charles
Stoddard, Mrs. Lavinia
S'oddard. R. H.
Street, Alfred B.
Taylor, J. Bavard
Thomas, F. W.
Thomson, Charles West
Tuckerman, Henry T.
Very. Jones
Wallace, William
Ware, Henry, Jr.
Ward. Thomas
Welhv. Mrs. Amelia E.
Whitman, Mrs. Sarah Helen.
Whittier, Joiin G.
Wilcox, Carlos
Wilde. Richard Henry
Willis, Nathaniel Parker
Woodworth, Samuel
Worthington, Mrs. Jane T
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Absence Page 7
Absentees * 9
Abstinence 9
Accident 9
Acclammation 9
Accomplishments JO
Accusation 10
Action 10
Activity 10
Adversity 11
Advice 14
Adieu 15
Affection 15
Age 15
Agriculture 17
Alarm 17
Books ..
Bounty..
Brevity..
Bribery. .
Building.
Amazement
Calamity
Calm
Candour .
Care
Cause ....
Caution . .
Celibacy. .
Ceremony
Challenge
Change ..
17 X Character.
Ambition 17
America 22
Ancestry 23
Angels 24
Anger ... 24
AiiL'liii
Animals 26
Antipathy 27
Charj ty
Chastity
Cheerfulness
Childhood and Children
Choice
. . . 20 \ Church
Clergy and Churchmen
Church-yard
61
62
63
65
65
66
Crown 107
Cruelty 108
Curiosity 109
Curses 109
Custom Ill
Dancing 112
Dandy 112
Antiquary 27? Circumvention
Apparel 27
Appearances 28
Applause 29
Architecture 29
Arbour 29
Argument 29
Arms 30
Army
Art.
Artifice
Astonishment .
Atheist
Authors
Authority
Autumn
Avarice
Awkwardness
32
City and Citizens . .
Clouds
Comet
Comfort
Commonwealth.
Company
Compassion
Complaint
Compliments
Concealments
2 \ Conceit
Confidence
33 < Conscience
34 \ Conspiracy
34 ' t Consideration
35 < Constancy
37 > Contemplation
5 Contempt t .
5 Content
37 5 Conversation
38 I Coquette
Banishment
Bargain
Battle 38 j Corpulence
Beard 42 J Corruption ..
Beauty 42 ' Country
Bed 48 ; Country Life
Bees.. 48 > Courage
Beggar 48 \ Cou '
Benefits 49 > Courtesy
Bigotry 49 Courtier
Birds 50 > Courtship
Birth 51 \ Cowardice
Birth lay 52 Cowards
Blindness 52 Coxcomb
Bluntness 53 > Craft
Blushing 54 ? Credulity
Boasting 54 ( Critics and Criticism. .
M
Danger
Death 113
Debts 124
Decay 124
Deceit 125
Declaration 126
Defiance 126
Deformity 129 J
Deity 130 \
Delay 131
Delicacy 132 I
Deluge 132
Defendants 132 X
Deputy 132
Design 133 X
Desire 133 \
Despair 133
Despondency 138 >
Destiny 138 \
Destruction 138 5
Determination 138 \
Detraction 138 ]
Dew 138 X
Devotion 139 X
Dignity 139 j
Dinner 139 \
Disappointment 139
Discontent 139 >
Discord 140 i
Discretion 140 }
Disease 140
Dishonesty 140
Displeasure 140
Disposition 140
Doubt 141
Dreams 141
Dress 143
Drowning 143
Drums 143
Drunkenness 143
Duelling 145
Duty 145
Earth 146
Earthquake 146 j
Eating 146 ;
Ecstacv 146 i
Education 146 j
Egotism 147 i
Elegance 147
Eloquence 147 J
Emigration 149
Emulation . . 150 •
Enemy 151)
Engagsmen 150
England 150
Enjoyment 152
Ennui 153
Enthusiasm 153
Envy 153
Equality 155
Error 155
Etiquette 155
Evening 156
Evil . 157
Example J57
Excellence 158
Execution 158
Exercise 158
Exile j 158
Experience 1&t
Expectation 160
Extravagance 161
Extremes 16'
Eyes 161
F.
Faction 163
Fairies 103
Faith 164
Fall 165
Falsehood 165
Fame 166
Fancy 169
Farewell 170
Farmer 170
Father 170
Fashion 171
Fate 171
Favour 172
Fear : 172
Feasting 174
Features 175
Feeling 175
Festivity 175
Fickleness 175
Fidelity 175
Fighting 179
Firmness 179
Fishing lTii
Flag 17!'
Flattery and Flatterer t. J
Flowers 1S2
Flood 182
Fool 182
Forgetfulness 183
Forgiveness 184
Formality JS5
Fortitude 185
Fortune 185
Fortune-Tellers 187
France 188
Freedom -. 189
Free- Will ...... .. 189
Friendsuip "Oil
Funeral - _ $i
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Fury 194 ',
Futurity 194 i
G. <
Jambling 195
generosity 196 j
Genius 196 /
Gentleman 190 <
Ghost 197
Gifts 199
Glory 199
Gluttony 200
God 200
Gold 201
Goodness 202
Gossip 203
Government 203
Grace 201
Gratitude 204
Grave 205
Greatness 208
Grief 210
Guide 218
Guilt 218
H.
Hair 219
Hand 219
Hanging 220
Happiness 220
Harvest 223
Hatred 224
Health 227
Hearing 227
Heart 227
Heavens 228
Hell 229
Hermit 230
Heroes 230
History. . Historian... 232
Home 233
Honesty 236
Honour 236
Hope 239
Horsemanship 242
Hospital 243
Hospitality 243
Humility 244
Hunting 245
Husbands 247
Hypocrisy 247
Idleness 250
l2iiorance 252
Illness 253
Imagination 253
Immortality 254
Impatience 255
Imprisonment 255
Impudence 256
Inconstancy 257
Independence 257
Industry 258
Inebriety 259
Infancy 260
Infidelity 260
Ingratitude 262
Injuries 264
Inn 264
Innocence 265
Instinct .... 266
Instruction 267
Intellect 267
Invention 207
Irresolution 267
Italy 267
J.
Jail 268
Jealousy 268
Jest 272
Joy 272
Judge 274
Judgment 274
Justice 275
K.
Kindness 277
Kintra 278
Kiss 282
Knaves 283
Knighthood 283
Knowledge 284
Labour 285 ,
Law 287 >
Learning 288
Letters 290
Liberty 291
Life 293
Light 303
Lion 303
London 304
Love 304
Lovers 326
Lust 327
Luxury 328
Madness 328
Man 329
Marriage 337
Meeting 342
Melancholy 343
Memory 344
Mercy 346
Merit 347
Messenger 348
Mind 348
Mirth 350
Mischief 351
Miser 351
Misfortune 352
Mob 352
Modesty 353
Moon. Moonlight.... 354
Morning 357
Mother ""
Mountains 363
Mourning 364
Murder 365
Music 367
Name 372
Nature 372
Necessity 375
News 376
Night 377
Nightingale 381
Nobility 382
Novelty 383
Nun 383
Oaths 384
Obituary 385
Oblivion 386
Obstinacy 386
Ocean 386
Offence 388
Office 388
Opinion 389
Opportunity 389
j Oppression 390
j Orator 390
Popularity 417 '
Portrait 419 '*
Poverty 420
Praise 422
Prayer 423
Preferment 425
Press 426
Pride 426 ;
Prison 428
Prodigality 428 \
Prodigies 429 '
Promises 430 [
Proposal 430
Prosperity 432 f
Providence 433 \
Prudence 434
Punishment 434 J
Purity 435
Quacks 436
Rase 436
Rain
4:;:
Rainbow 437
Reapers 437
Reason 438
Rebellion 438
Reciprocity 442
Reconciliation 442
Refinement 442
Reflection 442
Reformation 442
Regicide 442
Religion 443
Remembrance 445
Repentance 446
Reproof 448
Reputation 448
Resolution 449
Resurrection 450
Retirement 450
Revenge 454
Riches 457
Rivers 458
Ruins 459
Rumour 460
Sportn
Stars
Stateatid.i . .
Slono
Stuooornne^r
Study
Style
Submission .
SuccffS
Suicide
Summer
Sun
Superiority . .
Superstition .
Surprise
Suspense
Suspicion
Swan
Swimming.. .
Sycophant. ..
Sympathy . . .
T.
Talking
Taste
Taxation
Teacher
Tears
Temper
Tempest
Temperance .. .
Temptation ...
Thieves
Thought
Threatening ..
Thirst
Time
Timidity
Titles
Token
To-morrow
Torture
Transport
Traveller
Treason
Triumph
Truth
Twilight
Tyranny
502
502
502
503
503
503
504
504
504
504
506
507
5)]
512
512
513
513
515
515
old
519
-■■I
525
525
526
527
527
527
5-2H
530
530
531
532
U.
t Pain 391
/ Parasite 391
i Parents 391
,' Parting 392
', Passion 395
J Patience 397
J Patriotism 398
< Peace 401
I Peasant 402
I Pen 403
} Perfection 404
Perseverance 404
Philanthropy 404
Philosophy 405
Phrenology 407
Phvsic 407
Pity 408
Plavers 409
Pleasure 409
Poets 411
Politeness 416
Politics 416
461
Safety 462
Sailor 462
Satan 462
Satiety 463
Satire 464
School 465
Scold 466
Scorn 466
Scotland 467
Secresy 467
Seduction 468
Selfishness 469
Senses 470
Sensibility « 470 J
Servants. Service 471 J
Sexton 471 f
Shame 471 {
Shepherd 472
Ship 472
Shipwreck 473 I
Shooting 475 ;
Silence 476 j
Sin 477 J
Sincerity 477
Single Life 478
Skull 479
Slander 479
Slavery 483
Sleep 485
Society 487
Soldier 489
Solitude 492
Sorrow 496
Sou] 498
Spleen 500
Splendour 500
Spring 500
Unanimity
Unbelief...,
Usurper . . .
Vanity
Variety . ..
Vice
Vicissitude
Victory . . .
Villain ....
Virtue
Voice
Volcano . .
W.
War
Water
Wealth
WidOw
Wife
Winds
Wine
Winter
Wisdom
Wit
Witches
Woman
Wonder
Words
World
535
535
535
535
536
536
537
537
538
533
541
542
548
549
550
551
553
554
555
556
556
;,v:
559
566
566
567
Y.
Yeoman..
Yes
Yew-tree.
Youth
POETICAL QUOTATIONS
ABSENCE.
Like as the culver on the bared bough,
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate,
And in her songs sends many a wishful vow
For his return that seems to linger late ;
So I, alone now left, disconsolate,
Mourn to myself the absence of my love ;
And wandering here and there all desolate,
Seek, with my plaints, to match that mournful dove.
Edmund Spenser.
Though absent, present in desires they be ;
Our souls much further than our eyes can see.
Michael Drayton.
Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion;
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
The soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run :
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
Dr. John Donne.
It is as if a night should shade noon-day,
Or that the sun was here, but forced away ;
And we were left, under that hemisphere,
Where we must feel it dark for half a year.
Ben Jonson.
Short absence hurt him more,
And made his wound far greater than before ;
Absence not long enough to root out quite
All love, increases love at second sight.
Thomas May's Henry II.
I do not doubt his love, but I could wish
His presence might confirm it : when I see
A fire well fed, shoofup its wanton flame,
And dart itself into the face of heaven ;
I grant that fire, without a fresh supply,
May for a while be still a fire ; but yet
How doth its lustre languish, and itself
Grow dark, if it too long want the embrace
Of its loved pyle ! how straight it buried lies
In its own ruins !
Robert Mead's Comfort of Love and Friendship
If she be gone, the world, in my esteem,
Is all bare walls ; nothing remains in it
But dust and feathers.
John Crown's Ambitious Statesman,
O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless ;
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
And leave no memory of what it was !
Repair me with thy presence, Sylvia ;
Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.
Shaksveare's Two Gent, of Verona-
What! keep a week away? Seven days and
nights ?
Eight score eight hours ? and lovers' absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times ?
O weary reckoning !
Shahs. Othello.
Without your sight my life is less secure ;
Those wounds you gave, your eyes can only cure ,
No balm in absence will effectual prove,
Nature provides no weapon salve for love.
Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin
Thus absence dies, and dying proves
No absence can subsist with loves
That do partake of fair perfection ;
Since, in the darkest night, they may,
By love's quick motion, find a way
To see each other in reflection.
Suckdng
(7)
6
ABSENCE.
Every moment
I'm from thy sight, the heart within my bosom
Moans like a tender infant in its cradle,
Whose nurse had left it
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years ;
And every little absence is an age.
Dryden's Amphictrion.
All flowers will droop in absence of the sun
That waked their sweets.
Dryderi's Aurenzehe.
Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more.
Pope's Eloisa.
No happier task these faded eyes pursue ;
To read and weep is all they now can do.
Pope's Eloisa.
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
'T is sure the hardest science to forget !
Pope's Eloisa.
Unequal task ! a passion to resign,
For hearts so touch'd, so pierced, so lost as mine !
Ere such a soul regains its peaceful state,
How often must it love, how often hate,
How often hope, despair, resent, regret,
Conceal, disdain — do all things but forget !
Pope's Eloisa.
There 's not an hour
Of day or dreaming night but I am with thee :
There 's not a wind but whispers of thy name,
And not a flower that sleeps beneath the moon
But in its hues or fragrance tells a tale
Of thee.
Proctor's Mirandola.
Methinks I see thee straying on the beach,
And asking of the surge that bathes thy foot
If ever it has wash'd our distant shore.
Cowper's Task.
Not to understand a treasure's worth
Till time has stol'n away the slighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is.
Cowper's Task.
Her fancy follow'd him through foaming waves
To distant shores, and she would sit and weep
At what a sailor suffers. Fancy, too,
Delusive most where warmest wishes are,
Would oft anticipate his glad return,
And dream of transports she was not to know.
Cowper's Task.
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart, untravel'd, fondly turns to thee :
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
O tell him I have sat these three long hours,
Counting the weary beatings of the clock,
Which slowly portion'd out the promis'd time
That brought him not to bless me with his sight
Joanna Baillie's Rayner
Yes,
The limner's art may trace the absent feature,
And give the eye of distant weeping faith
To view the form of its idolatry ;
But oh! the scenes 'mid which they met and
parted,
The thoughts — the recollections sweet and bitter,
Th' Elysian dreams of lovers, when they loved,
Who shall restore them?
Less lovely are the fugitive clouds of eve,
And not more vanishing.
Maturin's Bertram.
Bertram, Bertram !
How sweet it is to tell the list'ning night
The name beloved. It is a spell of power
To wake the buried slumberers of the heart,
Where memory lingers o'er the grave of passion
Watching its tranced sleep.
The thoughts of other days are rushing on me,
The loved, — the lost, — the distant, and the dead,
Are with me now, and I will mingle with them
Till my sense fails, and my raised heart is wrapt
In secret suspension of mortality.
Maturin's Bertram.
Long did his wife,
Suckling her babe, her only one, look out
The way he went at parting, — but he came not !
Rogers's Italy.
There as she sought repose, her sorrowing heart
Recall'd her absent love with bitter sighs;
Regret had deeply fix'd the poison'd dart,
Which ever rankling in her bosom lies :
In vain she seeks to close her weary eyes,
Those eyes still swim incessantly in tears,
Hope in her cheerless bosom fading dies,
Distracted by a thousand cruel fears,
While banish'd from his love for ever she appears.
Mrs. Tighe's Payche.
As slow our ship her foamy track
Against the wind was cleaving,
Her trembling pennant still look'd back
To that dear isle 'twas leaving.
So loath we part from all we love,
From all the links that bind us;
So turn our hearts, where'er we rove,
To those we've left behind us.
T. Moore.
Oh ! couldst thou but know
With what a deep devotedness of woe
ABSENTEES - ABSTINENCE - ACCIDENT - ACCLAMATIONS.
I wept thy absence, o'er and o'er again
Thinr.ing of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain,
And memory, like a drop that night and day
Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
A boat it midnight sent alone
To drift upon the moonless sea,
A lute, whose leading chord is gone,
A wounded bird, that hath but one
Imperfect wing to soar upon,
Are like what I am, without thee !
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
'Tis scarcely
Two hours since ye departed : two long hours
To me, but only hours upon the sun.
Byron's Cain.
Wives, in their husbands' absence, grow subtler,
And daughters sometimes run ofl* with the butler.
Byron's Don Juan.
Absent many a year
Far o'er the sea, his sweetest dreams were still
Of that dear voice that soothed his infancy.
Robert Southey.
We must part awhile :
A few short months — though short, they must be
long
Without thy dear society ; but yet
We must endure it, and our love will be
The fender after parting — it will grow
Intenser in our absence, and again
Burn with a tender glow when I return.
Percival's Poems.
When from land and home receding,
And from hearts that ache to bleeding,
Think of those behind, who love thee,
While the sun is bright above thee I
Then, as down the ocean glancing,
With the waves his rays are dancing,
Think how long the night will be
To the eyes that weep for thee.
Miss Gould's Poems.
Call thou me home ! from thee apart
Faintly and low my pulses beat,
As if the life-blood of my heart
Within thine own heart holds its seat, -
And floweth only where thou art :
Oh! call me home.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
ABSENTEES.
We yet retain
Some small pre-eminence ; we justly boast
At least superior jockeyship, and claim
The honours of the turf as all our own.
Go then, well worthy of the praise ye seek,
And show the shame ye might conceal at home,
In foreign eyes ! — be grooms and win the plate,
Where once your nobler fathers won a crown.
s Task
ABSTINENCE.
Against diseases here the strongest fence
Is the defensive virtue abstinence.
Robert Hcrrick
His life is parallel'd
Ev'n with the stroke and line of his great justice ;
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself, which he spurs on his pow'r
To qualify in others.
Shaks. Meas. for Meas.
Yet in abstinence in .things we must profess
Which nature fram'd for need, not for excess.
s Pastorals.
ACCIDENT.
If we consider accident,
And how repugnant unto sense
It pays desert with bad event,
We shall disparage providence.
Sir William Davenani's Cruel Brother.
As the unthought-on accident is guilty
Of what we wildly do, so we profess
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies
Of every wind that blows.
Shaks. Winter Tale
ACCLAMATIONS.
It is a note
Of upstart greatness to observe and watch
For those poor trifles, which the noble mind
Neglects and scorns.
Johnson's Sejamis
His speech was answered with a general noise
Of acclamation, doubtless signs of joys
Which soldiers uttered as they forward went,
The sure forerunner of a fair event.
Sir John Beaumont
When all thy mountains clap their hands in joy,
And all thy cataracts thunder — " That 's the Doy !"
O. W. Holme*
IC
ACCOMPLISHMENTS - ACCUSATION - ACTION - ACTIVITY.
. ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
She is of the best blood, yet betters it
With all the graces of an excellent spirit :
Mild as the infant rose, and innocent
As when heav'n lent her us. Her mind as well
As face, is yet a paradise untainted
With blemishes, or the spreading weeds of vice.
Robert Baron's Mirza.
Her even carriage is as far from coyness
As from immodesty ; — in play, in dancing,
In suffering courtship, in requiting kindness,
In use of places — hours — and companions,
Free as the sun, and nothing more corrupted ;
As circumspect as Cynthia in her vows,
And constant as the centre to observe them.
George Chapman.
Accomplishments were native to her mind,
Like precious pearls within a clasping shell,
And winning grace her every act refined,
Like sunshine shedding beauty where it fell.
Mrs. Hale.
ACCUSATION.
Give me good proofs of what you have alleged :
'Tis not enough to say — in such a bush
There lies a thief- — in such a cave a beast, —
But you must show him to me ere I shoot,
Else I may kill one of my straggling sheep :
I'm fond of no man's person but his virtue.
Crown 1 a 1st part of Henry VI.
None have accused thee ; 't is thy conscience cries,
The witness in the soul that never dies ;
Its accusation, like the moaning wind,
Of wintry midnight moves thy startled mind;
Oh ! may it melt thy hardened heart, and bring
From out thy frozen soul the life of spring.
Mrs. Hale.
ACTION.
Away then, — work with boldness and with speed,
On greatest actions greatest dangers feed.
Madoe's Lust of Dominion.
Whilst timorous knowledge stands considering'.
Audacious ignorance hath done the deed.
For who knows most, the more he knows to doubt ;
Tue ieast discourse is commonly most stout.
Daniel.
For good and well must in our actions meet ;
Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
Dr. Donnie.
Good actions crown themselves with laoting bays,
Who deserves well needs not another's praise.
Heath's Clanstella,
Of every noble action, the intent
Is to give worth reward, — vice punishment.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Captain.
If thou doest ill, the joy fades, not the pains ;
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.
George Herbert.
The body sins not, 'tis the will
That makes the action good or ill.
Herrick.
He that pursues an act that is attended
With doubtful issues, for the means, had need
Of policy and force to make ii speed.
T. Nabb's Unfortunate Mother.
Be just in all thy actions, and if join'd
With those that are not, never change thy mind ;
If aught obstruct thy course, yet stand not still,
But wind about till thou hast topp'd the hill.
Denham.
Actions rare and sudden, do commonly
Proceed from fierce necessity: or else
From some oblique design, which is asham'd
To show itself in the public road.
Sir William Davenavt.
Our unsteady actions cannot be
Manag'd by rules of strict philosophy.
Sir Robert Howard.
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.
Pope.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or sway;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us fuicner than to-day.
Longfellow's Poems
ACTIVITY.
Celerity is never more admiFed
Than by the negligent.
Shake. Ant. and Cleo,
If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harm.
Shaks. Henry VI.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven : the fated sky
Gives us free scope ; only doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
Shaks. All's weft
ADVERSITY.
11
Take the instant way ;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one hut goes abreast : keep then the path :
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue : if you give way,
Or edge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost.
Shaks. Troi. and Cress.
Let's take the instant by the forward top ;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees,
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals, ere we can effect them.
Shaks. All's well.
Come, — I have learn'd, that fearful commenting
Is laden servitor to dull delay;
Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.
Then fiery expedition be my wing,
Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king !
Go, muster men : my counsel is my shield :
We must be brief, when traitors brave the field.
Shaks. Richard III.
Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits :
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it : from this moment,
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought
and done.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Due entrance he disdain'd, and in contempt
At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound
Oi' hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
How slow the time
To the warm soul, that, in the very instant
It forms, would execute a great design !
Thomson's Coriolanus.
The keen spirit
Seizes the prompt occasion, — makes the thought
Start into instant action, and at once
Plans and performs, resolves and executes !
Hannah More's -Daniel.
My days, though few, have passed below
In much of joy though more of woe ;
Yet still, in hours of love or strife,
I've 'scap'd the weariness of life.
Byron's Giaour.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time.
Longfellow s Poems.
Let us then be up and doing ;
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Leam to labour and to wait.
Longfellow.
Run if you like, but try to keep your breath ;
Work like a man, but don't be work'd to death.
O. W. Holmes
ADVERSITY.
He who hath never warr'd with misery,
Nor ever tugg'd with fortune and distress,
Hath had n' occasion, nor no field to tiy
The strength and forces of his worthiness ;
Those parts of judgment which felicity
Keeps as conceal'd, affliction must express,
And only men show their abilities,
And what they are, in their extremities.
Daniel on the Earl of Southampton.
By adversity are wrought
The greatest works of admiration,
And all the fair examples of renown,
Out of distress and misery are grown.
Daniel on the Earl of Southampton.
Not one care wanting hour my life had tasted ;
But from the very instant of my birth,
Incessant woes my tired heart have wasted,
And my poor thoughts are ignorant of mirth.
Look how one wave another still pursueth,
When some great tempest holds their troops in
chase ;
Or as one hour another close reneweth,
Or posting day supplies another's place,
So do the billows of affliction beat me,
And hand in hand the storms of mischief go ;
Successive cares with utter ruin threat me,
Grief is enchain'd with grief, and woe with woe.
Samuel Brandon's Oclaria.
Through danger safety comes — through trouble
rest. John Marston.
Perfumes, the more they're chaf 'd the more they
render
Their pleasant scents; and so affliction
Expresseth virtue fully, whether true
Or else adulterate.
John Webstei.
Like a ball that bounds
According to the force with which 'twas tbrowr
So in affliction's violence, he that's wise,
The more he's cast down, will the higher rise,
Nabb's Microcoria*
Though affliction, at the first, doth vej
Most virtuous natures, from the sense that 'tis
12
ADVERSITY.
Unjustly laid ; yet when the amazement, which
That new pain brings, is worn away, they then
Embrace oppression straight, with such
Obedient cheerfulness, as if it came
From heaven, not man.
Sir William DavenanVs Fair Favourite.
Sweet are the uses of adversity ;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head :
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running
brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
Shaks. As you like it.
As we do turn our backs
From our companion, thrown into his grave ;
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away ; leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd : and this poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,
With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.
Shaks. Timon.
Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels,
Be sure you be not loose ; for those you make
friends,
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
Like water from ye, never found again,
But where they mean to sink ye.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Then was I a tree,
Whose boughs did bend with fruit; but, in one
night,
A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
And left me bare to weather.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
Such a house broke !
So noble a master fallen ! all gone ! and not
One friend, to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him.
Shaks. Timon.
But myself
Who had the world as my confectionary,
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of
men
At duty, more than I could frame employment;
That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves
Do on the oak, have, with one winter's brush
Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare
For every storm that blows ; I, to bear this,
That never knew but better, is some burden.
Shuks. Timon.
They answer in a joint and corporate voice,
Than now they are at fall, — want treasure — cannot
Do what they would ; are sorry — you are honour-
able —
But yet they could have wish'd — they knew not —
Something had been amiss — a noble nature
May catch a wrench — would all were all well —
'tis pity —
And so, intending other serious matters,
After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,
With certain half caps, and cold moving nods,
They froze me into silence.
Shaks. Timon.
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ; •
'Tis just the fashion : wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there ?
Shaks. As you like it.
Nay then farewell !
I have touch'd the highest point of all my great-
ness;
And, from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting ; I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more
Shaks. Henry VIII
O father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye ;
Give him a little earth for charity.
Shaks. Henry fill
His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him ,
For then, and not till then, he felt himselr*
And found the blessedness of being little
And, to add greater honours to his age
Than man could give him, he died, fea.ing God.
Shaks Kenry VIII.
'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with for-
tune,
Must fall out with men too : what tne declin'd is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes &f others,
As feel in his own fall ; for men, 'ike butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer.
Shaks. Troi. and Cres.
If I once fall, how many knees, now bending,
Would stamp' the heel of hate into my breast !
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
I am not now in fortune's power:
He that is down, can fall no lower.
Butler's Hudibras
Now let us thank th' eternal power ; convine'd
That heaven but tries our virtue by affliction :
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour,
Serves but to brighten all our future days.
Brown's Barbarossa.
ADVERSITY.
13
Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge, and torturing hour,
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan,
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied, and alone.
Gray's Hymn to Adversity.
The gods in bounty work up storms about us,
That give mankind occasion to exert
Their hidden strength, and throw out into practice
Virtues that shun the day, and lie conceal'd
In the smooth seasons and the calms of life.
Addison's Cato.
How sudden are the blows of fate ! what change,
What revolution, in the state of glory !
Cibber's Ccesar in Egypt.
I will bear it
With all the tender sufferance of a friend,
As calmly as the wounded patient bears
The artist's hand that ministers his cure.
Otway's Orphan.
Deserted at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed.
Dryden's Alexander's Feast.
To exult
Ev'n o'er an enemy oppress'd, and heap
Affliction on the afflicted, is the mark,
And the mean triumph of a dastard soul.
Smollett's Regicide.
Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue :
Where patience, honour, sweet humanity,
Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish.
Mallet and Thomson's Alfred.
Who has not known ill fortune, never knew
Himself, or his own virtue.
Mallet and Thomson's Alfred.
Ye good distress'd !
Ye noble few ! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more ;
The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all.
Thomson's Seasons.
Affliction is the good man's shining scene ;
Prosperity conceals his brightest ray;
As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.
Young's Night Thoughts.
We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile,
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry.
Young's Night Thoughts.
All evils natural are moral goods ;
All discipline, indulgence, on the whole.
Young's Night Thoughts
When a great mind falls,
The noble nature of man's gen'rous heart
Doth bear him up against the shame of ruin,
With gentle censure, using but his faults
As modest means to introduce his praise ;
For pity, like a dewy twilight, comes
To close th' oppressive splendour of his day,
And they who but admired him in his height
His altered state lament, and love him fall'n.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
For as when merchants break, o'erthrown
Like ninepins, they strike others down.
Butler's Hudibras.
Tho' losses and crosses
Be lessons right severe,
There 's wit there, ye '11 get there,
Ye '11 find nae other where.
Burns's Epistle to Davie
The brave unfortunate are our best acquaintance ;
They show us virtue may be much distress'd,
And give us their example how to suffer.
Francis's Eugenia.
In this wild world the fondest and the best,
Are the most tried, most troubled, and distress'd
Crabbe.
That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press :
But these did shelter him beneath their roof,
When less barbarians would have cheer'd him less,
And fellow countrymen have stood aloof —
In aught that tries the heart, how few withstand
the proof! Byron's Childe Harold.
Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs on the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, " J told you so,"
Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past,
Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do,
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,
And solace your slight lapse 'gainst " bonos 7nores,"
With a long memorandum of old stories.
Byron's Don Juan.
I have not quailed to danger's brow
When high and happy — need I now?
Byron's Giaour.
One thought alone he could not — dared not meet.
" Oh how these tidings will Medora greet ?"
Then — only then — his clanking hands he raised
And strain'd with rage the chain on which ho
gaz'd. Byron's Corsait
The good are better made by ill: —
As odours crush'd are sweeter still !
Rogers's Jacqueline
14
ADVICE.
Adversity's cold frosts will soon be o'er ;
It heralds brighter days : — the joyous Spring
Is cradled on the Winter's icy breast,
And yet comes flushed in beauty.
Mrs. Hemans,
ADVICE.
Let me entreat you,
For to unfold the anguish of your heart :
Mishaps are master'd by advice discreet,
And counsel mitigates the greatest smart.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Know when to speak ; for many times it brings
Danger, to give the best advice to kings.
Herrick.
Direct not him, whose way himself will choose ;
'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou
lose. Shaks. Richard II.
Let him be so,
For counsel still is folly's deadly foe.
Shaks. London Prodigal.
I pray thee, cease thy counsel.
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve.
Shales. Much ado.
Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none ; be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use ; and keep thy friend
Under thine own life's key : be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.
Shaks. AIVs well.
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel ; but being in,
Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Give every man thine ear but few thy voice :
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judg-
ment. Shaks. Hamlet.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be :
For loan oft loses both itself and friend ;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Love thyself last ; cherish those hearts that hate
thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is disposed : therefore 'tis meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes :
For wha ..o firm, that cannot be seduced ?
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel ;
But do not dull thy palm with entertaiment
Of each new hatch'd unfledged comrade.
SJiaks. Hamlet
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart.
Shaks. Hamlet.
'Tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow ;
But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency,
To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel :
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.
Shaks. Much ado.
Men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel ; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache with air, and agony with words.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet, when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
Shaks. Much ado.
What could I more ?
I warn'd thee, I admonish'd thee, foretold
The danger, and the lurking enemy
That lay in wait ; beyond this had been force,
And force upon free will hath here no place. ■>
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Learn to dissemble wrongs,' to smile at injuries,
And suffer crimes thou want'st the power to
punish :
Be easy, affable, familiar, friendly:
Search, and know all mankind's mysterious ways ;
But trust the secret of thy soul to none :
This is the way,
This only, to be safe in such a world as this is
Rome's Ulysses.
Saints,
And cool-soul'd hermits, mortify'd with care,
And bent by age and palsies, whine out maxims,
Which their brisk youth had blushed at.
HilVs Henry V
Aye free, off han', your story tell
When wi' a bosom crony;
But still keep something 1o yoursel
Ye scarcely tell to onv.
ADIEU- AFFECTION - AGE.
15
Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can
Frae critical dissection;
But keek thro' ev'ry other man,
Wi' sharpen'd shy inspection.
Buna's Epistle to a Young Friend.
The worst men often give the best advice.
Bailey's Festus.
ADIEU.
Then comes the parting hour, and what arise
When lovers part — expressive looks, and eyes
Tender and tearful — many a fond adieu,
And many a call the sorrow to renew.
Crable.
We part —
But this shall be a token thou hast been
A friend to him who pluck'd these lovely flowers,
And sent them as a tribute to a friend,
And a remembrance of the few kind hours
Which lightened on the darkness of my path.
Percival.
On the door you will not enter,
I have gazed too long — adieu !
Hope withdraws her peradventure —
Death is near me — and not you.
Miss Barrett.
(See Farewell.)
AFFECTION.
What war so cruel, or what siege so sore,
As that which strong affections do apply
Against the fort of reason, evermore
To bring the soul into captivity !
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Affection is the savage beast,
Which always us annoyeth:
And never lets us live in rest,
But still our good destroyeth.
Affection's power who can suppress,
And master when it sinneth,
Of worthy praise deserves no less,
Than he that kingdoms winneth.
Brandon's Octavia.
Of all the tyrants that the world affords,
Our own affections are the fiercest lords.
Earl of Sterline's Julius Caesar.
you much partial gods !
Why gave ye men affections, and not power
To govern them ? What I by fate should shun,
1 most affect.
Lodovick Barrey.
Affections injur'd
By tyranny, or rigour of compulsion,
Like tempest-threatened trees, unfirmly rooted,
Ne'er spring to timely growth.
John Ford's Broken Heart
O ! there is one affection which no stain
Of earth can ever darken ; — when two find,
The softer and the manlier, that a chain
Of kindred taste has fastened mind to mind ,
'T is an attraction from all sense refined ;
The good can only know it ; 'tis not blind,
As love is unto baseness ; its desire
Is but with hands entwined to lift our being higher
Percival's Poems
Ah ! could you look into my heart,
And watch your image there !
You would own the sunny loveliness
Affection makes it wear.
Mrs. Osgood
AGE.
The careful cold hath nipt my rugged rind,
And in my face deep furrows eld hath plight ;
My head besprent with hoary frost I find,
And by mine eye the crow his claw doth wright :
Delight is laid abed, and pleasure past ;
No sun now shines, clouds have all overcast.
Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
These old fellows have
Their ingratitude in them hereditary :
Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it seldom flows ;
'Tis lack of kindly warmth, they are not kind
And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
Is fashion'd for the journey — dull and heavy.
Shaks. Timon.
let us have him ; for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinkn,
And buy men's voices to commend our deeds ;
It shall be said, — his judgment rul'd our hands ;
Our youths, and wildness shall no wit appear,
But all be bury'd in his gravity.
Shaks. Julius Casar,
Youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health, and graveness.
Shaks. Hamlel
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty :
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.
Shaks. As you like U
1 know thee not, old man : fall to thy prayers .
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester •
Shahs. Henry IP
AGE.
O, sir, you arc old ;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine ; you should be rul'd and led
By some discretion, that discerns your state
Better than you yourself.
Shales. Lear.
I have liv'd long enough : my way of life
Ts fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, ob.edience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have ; but in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare
not. Sliaks. Macbeth,
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon ;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side ; *
Jlis youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
Shales. As you like it.
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion ;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
Shaks. As you like it.
Behold where age's wretched victim lies,
See his head trembling, and his half clos'd eyes,
Frequent for breath his panting bosom heaves j
To broken sleep his remnant sense he gives,
And only by his pains, awaking, finds he lives.
Prior's Solomon.
These are the effects of doting age,
Vain doubts, and idle cares, and over caution.
Dryden's Sebastian.
Thirst of power and of riches now bear sway,
The passion and infirmity of age.
Frowde's Philotas.
Age sits with decent grace upon his visage,
And worthily becomes his silver locks ;
He wears the marks of many years well spent,
Of virtue, truth well tried, and wise experience.
Rome's Jane Shore.
Those wise old men, those plodding grave state
pedants,
Forget the course of youth; their crooked pru-
dence,
To baseness verging still, forgets to take
Into their fine-spun schemes the generous heart,
That through the cobweb system bursting, lays
Their labours waste.
Tliamson's lancred and Sigismunda.
Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long,
Even wonder'd at because he dropped no sooner J
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years.
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more,
Till, like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Lee's GEdipua
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will ;
You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your
fill,
Walk sober off before a sprightlier age
Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage :
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.
Pope.
This heart, by age and grief congeal'd,
Is no more sensible of love's endearments,
Than are our barren rocks to morn's sweet dew,
That calmly trickles down their rugged cheeks.
Mitter't Mahomet
His mien is lofty, his demeanour great,
Nor sprightly folly wantons in his air,
Nor dull serenity becalms his eyes,
Such had I trusted once as soon as seen,
But cautious age suspects the flattering form,
And only credits what experience tells.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
The still returning tale, and lingering jest,
Perplex the fawning niece, and pamper'd guest,
While growing hopes scarce awe the gath'ring .
sneer,
And scarce a legacy can bribe to hear.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
Though old, he still retained
His manly sense, and energy of mind.
Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe ;
He still rcmember'd that he once was young :
His easy presence check'd no decent joy,
Him even the dissolute admir'd ; for he
A graceful looseness, when he pleas'd, put on,
And laughing could instruct.
Armstrong's Art of preserving Health,
Fresh hopes are hourly sown
In furrow'd brows : To gentle life's descent,
We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain :
We take fair days in winter, for the spring ;
And turn our blessings into bane.
Young's Night Thoughts,
O my coevals ! remnants of ourselves !
Poor human ruins tottering o'er the grave !
Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees,
Strike deeper their vile root, and closer cling,
AGRICULTURE - ALARM - AMAZEMENT - AMBITION.
17
Still more enamour'd of this wretched soil !
Shall our pale, wither'd hands be still stretch' d out,
Trembling, at once with eagerness and age ?
With av'rice, and convulsions, grasping hard ?
Grasping at air ; for what has earth beside ?
Man wants but little ; nor that little long ;
How soon must he resign his very dust,
Which frugal nature lent him for an hour !
Young's Night Thoughts.
What folly can be ranker ? like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat
Defects of judgment, and the will subdue ;
Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore
Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon.
Young's Night TJioughts.
Thus aged men, full loth and slow,
The vanities of life forego,
And count their youthful follies o'er,
Till memory lends her light no more.
Scott's Rokeby.
Yet time, who changes all, had alter'd him
In soul and aspect as in age : years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb :
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the
brim. Byron's Childe Harold.
There age, essaying to recall the past,
After long striving for the hues of youth,
At the sad labour of the toilet, and
Full many a glance at the too faithful mirror,
Prankt, forth in all the pride of ornament,
Forgets itself, and trusting to the falsehood
Of the indulgent beams, which show, yet hide,
Believed itself forgotten, and was fool'd.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
Why grieve that time has brought so soon
The sober age of manhood on ?
As idly should I weep at noon
To see the blush of morning gone.
Bryant's Poems.
True, time will sear and blanch my brow :
Well — I shall sit with aged men,
And my good glass will tell me how
A grisly beard becomes me then.
And should no foul dishonour lie
Upon my head when I am grey,
Love yet may search my fading eye,
And smooth the path of my decay.
Bryant's Poems.
I'm thirty-five, I'm thirty-five!
Nor would I make it less,
For not a year has pass'd away
Unmark'd by happiness.
B
And who would drop one pleasant link
From memory's golden chain ?
Or lose a sorrow, losing too
The love that soothed the pain ?
Oh ! still may heaven within my soul
Keep truth and love alive, —
Then angel graces will be mine,
Though over thirty-five.
Mrs. Hale.
AGRICULTURE.
In ancient times, the sacred plough employ'd
The kings, and awful fathers of mankind :
And some, with whom compared your insect tribes
Are but the beings of a summer's day,
Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm
Of mighty war, then, with unweary'd hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seized
The plough, and greatly independent lived.
Thomson's Seasons,
ALARM.
What's the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleeper of the house ? — speak, speak.
Sliaks. Macbeth
AMAZEMENT
Why stand you thus amazed ? methinks your eyes
Are fixed in meditation ; and all here
Seem like so many senseless statues ;
As if your souls had suffer'd an eclipse
Betwixt your judgment? and affections.
Swetiiam — the Woman Hater
AMBITION.
O sacred hunger of ambitious mindes,
And impotent desire of men to raine !
Whom neither dread of God, that devils bindes.
Nor lawes of men, that common weales containe,
Nor bands of nature, that wilde beastes rcstraine,
Can keep from outrage, and from doing wrong,
Where they may hope a kingdome to obtains
No faith so firm, no trust can be so strong,
No love so lasting then, that may enduren long.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Some thought to raise themselves to high degree
By riches and unrighteous reward ;
Some by close should'ring ; some by flatteree
Others through friends ; others for base regard ,
And all, by wrong waies, f» *&emselves prepared
2*
LS
AMBITION.
Those that were up themselves, kept others low ;
Those that were low themselves, held others hard,
Ne suffered them to ryse or greater grow :
But every one did strive his fellow down to throw.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Nature, that framed us of four elements,
Warring within our breasts for regimen,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds :
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world,
And measure ev'ry wand'ring planet's course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Wills us to wear ourselves, and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of a heav'nly crown.
Mario's 1st part of Tamerlane the Great.
Who soars too near the sun, with golden wings,
Melts them ; — to ruin his own fortune brings.
Shales. Cromwell.
Thriftless ambition ! that will ravin up
Thine own life's means.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition :
By that sin fell the angels ; how can man then,
The image of his maker, hope to win by't ?
Shaks. Henry VIII.
I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory :
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride
At length broke under me ; and now has left me,
Weary, and old with serfice, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Vdin pomp, and glory of this world, I hate ye ;
I feel my heart new open'd : O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours !
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have ;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
'Tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upwards turns his face :
But when he once attains the upmost round,
J fe tnen unto the ladder turns his back,
I iooks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
hy which he did ascend.
Shikt. Julius Casar.
Men at some time are masters of their fates :
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar
Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
He hath brought many captives to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill :
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ?
When that the poor have cried, Csesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Slacks. Julius Caesar.
Examples, gross as earth, exhort me :
Witness, this army, of such mass, and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince ;
Whose spirit, with divine ambition pufF'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event ;
Exposing what is mortal, and unsure,
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell.
Shaks. Hamlet.
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other side.
Shaks. Macbeth,
That is a step,
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way ; thou would'st be great ;
Art not without ambition ; but without
The illness should attend it : what thou would'st
highly,
That would'st thou holily : would'st not play false,
And yet would'st wrongly win.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Follow I must, I cannot go before,
While Gloster bears this base and humble mind.
Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
I would remove these tedious stumbling blocks,
And smooth my way upon their headless necks.
Sliaks. Henry VI.
Away with scrupulous wit ! now arms must rule,
And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns
Sliaks. Henry VL
Ambition hath but two steps : the lowest,
Blood; the highest, envy.
Lillys MidaM.
AMBITION.
19
Ambition hath one hee] nail'd in hell,
Though she stretch her fingers to touch the hea-
vens. Lilly's Midas.
Ye gods ! what havoc does ambition make
Among your works !
Addison's Cato.
How dost thou wear, and weary out thy days,
Restless ambition, never at an end ?
Daniel's Philotas.
Of all the passions which possess the soul,
None so disturbs vain mortals' minds,
As vain ambition, which so blinds
The fight of them, that nothing can control,
Nor curb their thoughts who will aspire ;
This raging, vehement desire,
Of sovereignty no satisfaction finds,
But in the breasts of men doth ever roll
The restless stone of Sisyph' to torment them,
And as his heart, who stole the heav'nly fire,
The vulture gnaws, so doth that monster rent
them:
Had they the world, the world would not content
them. Earl of Sterlings Darius.
Farewell for ever: so have I discern'd
An exhalation that would be a star
Fall, when the sun forsook it, in a sink.
Chapman's 2d part of Byron's Conspiracy.
Man was mark'd
A friend, in his creation, to himself,
And may, with Jit ambition, conceive
The greatest blessings, and the brightest honours
Appointed for him, if he can achieve them
The right and noble way.
Philip Massinger's Guardian.
Our natures are like oil ; compound us with any
thing
Yet still we strive, to swim upon the top.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Loyal Subject.
Be not with honour's gilded baits beguil'd,
Nor think ambition wise, because 'tis brave ;
For though we like it, as a forward child,
'Tis so unsound, her cradle is her grave.
Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert.
Ambition's monstrous stomach does increase
By eating, and it fears to starve, unless
It still may feed, and all it sees devour :
Ambition is not tir'd with toil nor cloy'd with
power.
Sir W. Davenant's Playhouse to let.
Ambition is the mind's immodesty.
Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert.
Ambition is a spirit in the world,
That causes all the ebbs and flows of nations.
Keeps mankind sweet by action : without that,
The world would be a filthy settled mud.
Crown's Ambitious Statesman.
Ambition's eyes
Look often higher than their merit's rise.
Rowland Watkyns.
Ambition is like love, impatient
Both of delays and rivals.
Denham's Sophy,
Ambition is a lust that's never quenched,
Grows more enflamed, and madder by enjoyment.
Otway's Caius Marius.
Ambition, like a torrent, ne'er looks back,
It is a swelling, and the last affection
A high mind can put off. It is a rebel
Both to the soul and reason, and enforces
All laws, all conscience ; treads upon religion,
And offers violence to nature's self
Ben Jonson's Catiline.
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
His trust was with th' Eternal to be deem'd
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Car'd not to be at all ; with that care lost
Went all his fear : of God, or hell, or worse,
He reck'd not
Milton's Paradise Lost
Lifted up so high
I 'sdain'd subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Therefore with manlier objects we must try
His constancy, with such that have more show
Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise,
Rocks jFhereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
O dire ambition! what infernal power
Unchain'd thee from thy native depth of hell,
To stalk the earth With thy destructive train,
Murder and lust ! to waste domestic peace
And every heartfelt joy.
Brown's Barbarossa.
O false ambition !
Thou lying phantom ! whither hast thou lured mo *
Ev'n to this giddy height ; where now I stand
Forsaken, comfortless ; with not a friend
In whom my soul can trust
Brown's Barbarosm
What 's all the gaudy glitter of a crown ;
What but the glaring meteor of ambition.
That leads the wretch benighted in his errors,
Points to the gulf, and shines upon destruction.
Brooke's Gustavus Vgm
20
AMBITION.
=
Oh ! that some villager, whose early toil
Lifts the penurious morsel to his mouth,
Had claim'd my birth I ambition had not then
Thus step'd 'twixt me and heav'n.
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa.
Ambition is at a distance
A goodly prospect, tempting to the view ;
The height delights us, and the mountain top
Looks beautiful, because 't is nigh to heaven :
But we ne'er think how sandy 's the foundation ;
What storms will batter, and what tempests shake
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Why now my golden dream is out —
Ambition, like an early friend, throws back
My curtains with an eager hand, o'erjoyed
To tell me what I dreamt is true — a crown,
Thou bright reward of ever-daring minds;
Oh ! how thy awful glory fills my soul !
Nor can the means that got thee dim thy lustre ;
For, not men's love, fear pays thee adoration,
And fame not more survives from good than evil
deeds.
Tli' aspiring youth, that fir'd th' Ephesian dome,
Outlives, in fame, the pious fool that rais'd it.
Cibber's Ricliard III.
Ambition is an idol, on whose wings
Great minds are carried only to extreme ;
To be sublimely great, or to be nothing.
Southern's Loyal Brother.
Tamerlane. — The world! — 'twould be too little
for thy pride!
Thou wouldst scale heaven —
Bajazet. — I would : — away ! my soul
Disdains thy conference.
Rowe's Tamerlane.
Great souls, g
By nature half divine, soar to the stars,
And hold a near acquaintance with the gods.
Rowe's Royal Convert.
What is ambition but desire of greatness ?
And what is greatness but extent of power ?
But lust of power's a dropsy of the mind,
Whose thirst increases, while we drink to quench it,
'Till swoln and stretch'd by the repeated draught,
We burst and perish.
Higgon's Generous Conqueror.
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes,
The glorious fault of angels and of gods ;
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen pns'ners in the body's cage ;
Dun lights of life, that burn a length of years
[l»elcs8 unsec... as lamps in sepulchres;
Like eastern kings, a lazy state they keep,
And, close confin'd to their own palace, sleep.
Pope.
The gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,
Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares,
The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state,
And to complete her bliss, — a fool for mate.
She glares in balls, front boxes, and the ring,
A vain, unquiet, glittering, wretched thing ! —
Pride, pomp, and state, but reach her outward
part;
She sighs, — and is no duchess at her heart.
Pope.
Oh, sons of earth ! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies ?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
Popels Essay on Man.
Unnumber'd suppliants crowd preferment's gate
Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great,
Delusive fortune hears the incessant call,
They mount, they shine, — evaporate and fall.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes,
This sov'reign passion, scornful of restraint,
Even from the birth affects supreme command,
Swells in the breast, and with resistless force,
O'erbears each gentler motion of the mind.
Dr. Johnson's Irene
Alas ! ambition makes my little less :
Embitt'ring the possess'd : why wish for more ?
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst ;
Philosophy's reverse, and health's decay !
Young's Night Thoughts.
Thy bosom burns for power ;
What station charms thee ? I'll install thee there ;
'Tis thine. And art thou greater than before ?
Then thou before wast something less than man.
Has thy new post bctray'd thee into pride ?
That treach'rous pride betrays thy dignity,
That pride defames humanity, and calls
The being mean, wmch staffs or strings can raise.
Young's Night Thoughts
Net kings alone,
Each villager has his ambition too;
No sultan prouder than his fetter'd slave :
Slaves build their little Babylons of straw,
Echo the proud Assyrian in their hearts,
And cry — " Behold the wonders of my might !"
And why ? because immortal as their lord ;
And souls immortal must for ever heave
At something great ; the glitter or the gold
The praise of mortals or the praise of Heaven.
Young's Night Thought*
AMBITION.
21
Fame is the shade of immortality,
And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught,
Contemn'd, — it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.
Consult th' ambitious, 'tis ambition's cure :
And is this all ? cry'd Caesar at his height,
Disgusted
Young's Night Thoughts.
So strong the zeal t' immortalize himself
Beats in the breast of man, that ev'n a few,
Few transient years won from the abyss abhorr'd
Of blank oblivion seem a glorious prize,
And even to a clown.
Compels Task.
Dream after dream ensues,
And still they dream that they shall still succeed,
And still are disappointed.
Cowper's Task.
On the summit see,
The seals of office glitter in his eyes ;
He climbs, — he pants, — he grasps them. At his
heels,
Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,
And with a dext'rous jerk soon twists him down,
And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
Cowper's Task.
Is it delusion this ?
Or wears the mind of man within itself
A conscious feeling of its destination ?
What say these suddenly imposed thoughts,
Which mark such deepen' d traces in the brain
Qn vivid real persuasion, as do make
My nerved foot tread firmer on the earth,
And my dilating form tower on its way ?
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
I am as one
Who doth attempt some lofty mountaiit's height,
And having gained what to the upcast eye
The summit's point appear'd, astonish'd sees
Its cloudy top, majestic and enlarged,
Towering aloft, as distant as before.
Joanna Bailiie's Ethwald.
It ever is the marked propensity
Of restless and aspiring minds to look
Into the stretch of dark futurity.
Joanna Bailiie's Ethwald.
To th' expanded and aspiring soul,
To be but still the thing it long has been,
Is misery, e'en though enthron'd it were
Under the cope of high imperial state.
Joanna Bailiie's Ethwald.
The cheat, ambition, eager to espouse
Dominion, courts it with a lying show,
And shines in borrow' d pomp to serve a turn :
But the match made, the farce is at an end ;
And all the hireling equipage of virtues,
Faith, honour, justice, gratitude, and friendship,
Discharg'd at once.
Jeffrey's Edwin,
You have deeply ventured,
But all must do so who would greatly win.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
Ay, — father ! — I have had those earthly visions
And noble aspirations in my youth,
To make my own the mind of other men,
The enlightener of nations : and to rise
I knew not whither — it might be to fall ;
But fall, even as the mountain cataract,
Which having leapt from its more dazzling height,
Even in the foaming strength of its abyss,
Lies low but mighty still. — But this is past,
My thoughts mistook themselves.
Byron's Manfred.
He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below. v
Though high above, the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath, the earth and ocean spread ;
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to those summits
led. Byron's Childe Harold.
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,
Aid there hath been thy bane ; there is a fire
Aid motion in the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire,
Beyond the fitting medium of desire ;
And but once kindled, quenchless evermore
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,
Fatal to him who bears, — to all who ever bore.
This makes the madmen, who have made men mad
By their contagion, conquerors and kings,
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add
Sophists, bards, statesmen, all unquiet things
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,
And are themselves the fools to those they fool ;
Envied, yet not enviable ! what stings
Are theirs ! one breast laid open were a school
Which would unteach mankind, the lust to shino
or rule. Byron's Childe Harola
Their breath is agitation, and their life
A storm whereon they ride to sink at last,
And yet so nurs'd and bigoted to strife,
That should their days, surviving perils past,
Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast
With sorrow and supineness, and so die ;
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste
AMERICA.
With its own flickering or a sword laid by,
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.
Byron's Childe Harold.
These quenched a moment her ambitious thirst —
So Arab deserts drink in summer's rain
In vain ! — As fall the dews on quenchless sands,
Blood only serves to wash ambitious hands.
Byron's Don Juan.
Before I knew thee, Mary,
Ambition was my angel : I did hear
For ever its witched voices in mine ear ;
My days were visionary —
My nights were like the slumbers of the mad : —
And every dream swept o'er me glory clad.
Willis' Poems.
What is ambition ? 'T is a glorious cheat !
Angels of light walk not so dazzlingly
The sapphire walls of Heaven.
The flow
Of life-time is a graduated scale ;
And deeper than the vanities of power,
Or the vain pomp of glory, there is writ
A standard measuring its worth for heaven.
Willis.
AMERICA.
Poor lost America, high honours missing,
Knows nought of smile and nod, and sweet hand-
kissing ;
Knows nought of golden promises of kings;
Knows nought of coronets, and stars, and strings.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic ! she has taught
Her Esau brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands have
bought
Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still,
for ever
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Dam'd, like the dull canal, with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces and then faltering : — better be
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylae,
Than stagnate in our marsh, — or o'er the deep
Fly, and one cuTcnt to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One fi eeman more America, to thee !
Byron's Ode.
America ! half-brother of the World !
With something good and bad of every land ;
Greater than thee have lost their seat —
Greater scarce none can stand.
•- Bailey- 8 Festu*. \
Land of the West ! though passing brief
The record of thine age,
Thou hast a name that darkens all
On History's wide page !
Let all the blasts of fame ring out —
Thine shall be loudest far :
Let others boast their satellites —
Thou hast the morning star.
Thou hast a name whose characters
Of light shall ne'er depart ;
'T is stamped upon the dullest brain,
And warms the coldest heart;
A war-cry fit for any land,
Where Freedom's to be won;
Land of the West ! it stands alone-
It is thy Washington.
Eliza Cook's Pi
Columbia, child of Britain, — noblest child ;
I praise the growing lustre of thy youth,
Aid fain would see thy great heart reconciled
To love the mother of so blest a birth :
For we are one Columbia ! still the same
In lineage, language, laws, and ancient fame,
The natural nobility of earth.
Tupper's Lyrics.^
Thou noblest scion of an ancient root,
Born of the forest-king ! spread forth, spn
forth,—
High to the stars thy tender leaflets shoot,
Deep dig thy fibres round the ribs of earth !
From sea to sea, from south to icy North,
It must ere long be thine, through good or i
To stretch thy sinewy boughs : Go, — wondroi
child !
The glories of thy destiny fulfil ; —
Remember then thy mother in her age,
Shelter her in the tempest, warring wild :
Stand thou with us when all the nations rage
So furiously together ! — we are one :
And, through all time, the calm historic page
Shall tell of Britain blest in thee her son.
Tupper's Poems.
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,
The queen of the world and the child of the skies.
Timothy Dwight.
Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters ofF; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength ?
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race ?
Bryant's Poems,
ANCESTRY.
And thou, my Country, thou shalt never fall
But with thy children.
BryanCs Poems.
There is no other land like thee,
No dearer shore ;
Thou art the shelter of the free,
The home, the port of liberty,
ITiou hast been, and shalt ever be,
Till time is o'er.
Ere I forget to think upon
My land, shall mother curse the son
She bore.
Percital's Poems.
Land of the forest and the rock,
Of dark blue lake and mighty river,
Of mountains reared on high to mock
The storm's career and lightning's shock,
My own green Land for ever !
Oh ! never may a son of thine,
Where'er his wandering feet incline,
Forget the sky that bent above
His childhood like a dream of love !
Whittier.
I see the living tide roll on,
It crowns with fiery towers
The icy capes of Labrador,
The Spaniard's " land of flowers !"
It streams beyond the splintered ridge
That parts the northern showers,
From eastern rock to sunset wave,
The Continent is ours.
O. W. Holmes.
America ! the sound is like a sword
To smite th' oppressor ! like a loving word
To cheer the suffering people, while they pray
That God would hasten on the promised day,
When earth shall be like heaven, and men shall
stand,
Like brothers round an altar, hand in hand.
O ! ever thus, America, be strong,
Like cataract's thunder pour the Freeman's song,
Till struggling Europe joins the grand refrain ;
And startled Asia bursts the despot's chain ;
And Afric's manumitted sons, from thee
To their own Father-land shall bear the song,
—Worth all their toils and tears — of Liberty :
For these good deeds, America, be strong !
Mrs. Hale.
ANCESTRY.
Boast not these titles of your ancestors,
Brave youths ; they 're their possessions, none of
yours;
When your own virtues, equal'd have their names,
Twill be but fair to lean upon their fames ;
For they are strong supporters ; but, till then,
The greatest are but growing gentlemen.
It is a wretched thing to trust to reeds ,
Which all men do, that urge not their own deeds
Up to their ancestors ; the river's side,
By which you're planted, shows your fruit shall
bide;
Hang all your rooms with one large pedigree :
'Tis virtue alone is true nobility;
Which virtue from your father, ripe, will fall ;
Study illustrious him, and you have all.
Jonson.
I have no urns, no dusty monuments ;
No broken images of ancestors,
Wanting an ear, or nose ; no forged tables
Of long descents, to boast false honours from.
JonsorCs Catiline
'Tis poor and not becoming perfect gentry,
To build their glories at their fathers' cost ;
But at their own expense of blood or virtue,
To raise them living monuments ; our birth
Is not our own act ; honour upon trust,
Our ill deeds forfeit ; and the wealthy sums,
Purchas'd by others' fame or sweat, will be
Our stain, for we inherit nothing truly
But what our actions make us worthy of.
Chapman and Shirley's BalL
It is, indeed, a blessing, when the virtues
Of noble races are hereditary :
And do derive themselves from th' imitation
Of virtuous ancestors.
Nabb's Covent Garden.
He that to ancient wreaths can bring no more
From his own worth, dies bankrupt on the score.
John Cleveland.
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge,
Produce their debt, instead of their discharge.
Young
He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet,
By heraldry proved valiant or discreet !
Young
Whence his name
And lineage long, it suits me not to say ;
Suffice it that, perchance they were of fame,
And had been glorious in another day.
Byron's Childe Harold,
I am one,
Who finds within me a nobility
That spurns the idle pratings of the great,
And their mean boast of what their fathers weiu,
While they themselves are fools effeminate,
The scorn of all who Know *Jie worth ot mind
And virtue.
Percival
2-1
ANGELS -ANGER.
ANGELS.
Thus they in heaven, above the starry sphere,
ITieir happy hours in joy and hymning spent.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Angels, contented with their fame in heaven,
Seek not the praise of men.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Are ye for ever to your sides departed ?
Oh ! will ye visit this dim world no more ?
Ye whose bright wings a solemn splendour darted
, Through Eden's fresh and flowery shades of
yore ? Mrs. Hemans.
White-wing'd angels meet the child
On the vestibule of life.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
Times of joy and times of woe,
Each an angel-presence know.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
ANGER.
Full many mischiefs fellow cruel wrath :
Abhorred bloodshed, and tumultuous strife,
Unmanly murder, and unthrifty scath,
Bitter despite, with rancour's rusty knife,
And fretting grief, the enemy of life ;
All these, and many evils more, haunt ire.
The sweelling spleen, and phrenzy raging rife,
The shaking palsy, and saint Francis fire :
Such one was wrath, the last of this ungodly tire.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
There is not in nature,
A thing that makes a man so deferm'd, so beastly,
As doth intemp'rate anger.
Webster's Dutchess of Malji.
Your more manly soul I find
Is capable of wrong, and like a flint
Throws forth a fire unto the striker's eyes.
You bear about you valour's whetstone, anger :
Which sets an edge upon the sword, and makes it
Cut with a spirit; you conceive fond patience
Is an injustice to ourselves; the suiT'ring
One injury invites a second, that
Calls on a third, till wrongs do multiply
And reputation bleed.
Thonms Randolph's Muse's Looking- Glass.
My rage is not malicious ; like « spark
Of tire by steel inforced out of a flint,
Tl is no sooner kindled, but extinct
(ioffi 's Careless Shepherdess.
Madness and anger differ but in this,
This is short madness, that long anger is.
Charles Aleyn's Creseey.
Where there's
Power to punish, 't is tyranny to rage ;
Anger is no attribute of justice ;
'Tis true she's painted with a sword, but looks
As if she held it not ; though war be in
Her hand, yet peace dwells in her face.
Henry Killegrew's Conspiracy,
If I stay, my rage
Will hurry me to mischief, better leave her
To certain ruin, than betray myself
To danger of it
Clapthorne's Hollander.
The winds,
Imprison'd in the caverns of the earth,
Break out in hideous earthquakes ; passions so
Increase by opposition of all scorns.
Clapthorne's Hollander.
Anger
Is blood, pour'd and perplex'd into a froth ;
But malice is the wisdom of our wrath.
Sir W. Davenant's Just Italian.
In mighty souls, passions, not soon suppress'd,
Like wounded whales, do struggle till they die ;
By their impatience they increase the smart,
Provoke their pains, and vex a harmless dart ;
Tossing the mighty mass till they're on ground,
Their rage more fatal than the little wound.
Sir Francis Fane's Sacrifice,
At this the knight grew high in wrath,
And lifting hands and eyes up both,
Three times he smote on stomach stout,
From whence at length these words broke out
Butler's Hudifr-as.
Anger is like
A full hot horse, who being allow'd his way,
Self-inettle tires him.
Shaks. Henry VIII
Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,
Well could I curse away a- winter's night,
Though standing naked on a mountain top,
Where biting cold would never let grass grow.
Shaks. Henry VI.
Give him no breath, but now
Make boot of his distraction : never anger
Made good guard for itself.
Shaks. Ant. and Clca.
Anger 's my meat ; I sup upon myself,
And so shall starve with feeding.
Shaks. Cori6lanv8.
ANGER.
25
Brutus. — Hear me, for I will speak.
Must I give way, and room to your rash choler ?
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ?
Cassius. — O gods ! ye gods ! must I endure all this ?
Bmtus. — All this ! ay more. Fret till your proud
heart break;
Go show your slate how choleric you are,
And make your bondsman tremble. Must I budge ?
Must I observe you ? must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humour ? By the gods,
You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you : for, from this day forth,
I '11 use you for my mirth, yea for my laughter,
When you are waspish.
Shake. Julius Casar.
I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath ;
A rage, whose heat hath this condition,
That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,
The blood, and dearest valued blood, of France.
Shaks. King John.
that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth !
Then with a passion would I shake the world.
Shaks. King John.
Away to heaven, respective lenity,
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord :
Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.
Shaks. Henry IV.
1 then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what
Shaks. Henry IV.
I am about to* weep ; but thinking that
We are a queen, or long have dream'd so, certain,
The daughter of a king, my drops of tears
I turn to sparks of fire.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
"What sudden anger 's this ? how have I reap'd it ?
He parted frowning from me, as if ruin
Leap'd from his eyes ; so looks the chafed lion
Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him,
Then makes him nothing.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
It were for me
To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods ;
To tell them that this world did equal theirs,
TiU they had stolen our jewel.
S}caks. Ant. and Cleo.
Those hearts that start at once into a blaze,
And open all their rage, like summer storms
At once discharged grow cool again and calm.
C. Johnson's Medea.
Thus while he spake, each passion dimm'd his
face,
Thrice changed with pale ire, envy, and despair ;
Which marr'd his borrow'd visage, and betray'd
Him counterfeit.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The elephant is never won with anger ; "
Nor must that man, who would reclaim a lion,
Take him by the teeth.
Dryden's All for Love.
Hast thou compacted for a lease of years
With hell, that thus thou ventur'st to provoke me?
Dryden's Duke of Guise.
When anger rushes, unrestrain'd, to action,
Like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way :
The man of thought strikes deepest, and strikes
safest. Savage's Sir Thomas Oterbury.
My indignation, like th' imprison'd fire,
Pent in the troubled breast of glowing iEtna,
Burnt deep and silent
TJiomson's Coriolanus.
'T is all in vain, this rage that tears thy bosom ;
Like a poor bird that flutters in its cage,
Thou beat'st thyself to death.
Rome's Jane Shore.
•Senseless, and deform'd,
Convulsive anger storms at large ; or pale
And silent, settles into full revenge.
Thomson's Seasons.
Then flash' d the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies ;
Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast,
When husbands, or when lap-dogs, breathe their
last;
Or when rich china vessels, fallen from high,
In glitt'ring dust and painted fragments lie !
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
Not youthful kings in battle seized alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refused a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her mantua's pinn'd awry,
E'er felt such rage.
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
Curse on the man that calls Ramescs friend,
| And keeps his temper at a tale like this ;
WTien rage and rancour are the proper virtues,
| And loss of reason is tne mark of men.
Young's BusitU
I For pale and trembling anger rushes in,
I W T ith faltering speech, and eyes that wildly stare
3
2(3
ANGLING -ANIMALS.
Fierce as the tiger, madder than the seas,
Desperate, and arm'd with more than human
strength.
Armstrong's An of Preserving Health.
Next anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings own'd his secret stings,
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.
Collins's Ode to the Passions.
Out upon the fool ! go speak thy comforts
To spirits tame and abject as thyself:
They make me mad.
Baillie's Ethwald.
His eye-brow dark, and eye of fire,
Showed spirit proud, and prompt to ire ;
Yet lines of thought upon his cheek
Did deep design and counsel speak.
Scott's Marmion.
His brow was bent, — his eye was glazed —
He raised his arm and fiercely raised:
And sternly shook his hand on high,
As doubting to return or fly.
Byron's Giaour.
I search'd, but vainly search'd, to find
The workings of a wounded mind;
Each feature of that sullen corse
Betray'd his rage, but no remorse.
Byron's Giaour.
And her brow cleared, but not her troubled eye :
The wind was down, but still the sea ran high.
Byron's Don Juan.
She ceased, and turn'd upon her pillow ; pale
She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,
Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,
Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears
Her streaming hair, the black curls strive, but fail,
To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears
Its snow through all; her soft lips lie apart,
And louder than her breathing beats her heart.
Byron's Don Juan.
Loud complaint, however angrily
It shakes its phrase, is little to be feared,
And less distrusted.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
Patience ! — Hence — that word was made
For bruies of burthen, not for birds of prey ;
Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine, —
I am not of thine order
Byron's Manfred.
The wildest ills that darken life,
Are rapture to the bosom's strife ;
The tempest, in its blackest torn*
Is beauty to the bosom's storm;
The ocean, lash'd to fury loud,
Its high wave mingling with the cloud,
Is peaceful, sweet serenity,
To anger's dark and stormy sea.
J. W. Eastburne,
ANGLING.
In genial spring, beneath the quiv'ring shade,
Where cooling vapours breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand,
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand:
With looks unmoved, he hopes the scaly breed,
And eyes the dancing cork, and bending reed.
Pope's Windsor Forest.
I in these flowery meads would be ;
These crystal streams should solace me ;
To whose harmonious, bubbling noise
I with my angle would rejoice.
Isaac Walton.
And angle on, and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grove.
Isaac Walton
Oh! lone and lovely haunts are thine,
Soft, soft the river flows,
Wearing the shadow of thy line,
The gloom of alder boughs.
Mrs. Hemans
ANIMALS.
Let cavillers deny
That brutes have reason ; sure 'tis something more,
'Tis heaven directs, and stratagems inspires,
Beyond the short extent of human thought.
So?nerville's Chase
The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void
Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike
To love and friendship both, that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life,
Nor feels their happiness augment his own.
Cowper's Task.
And because he loves me so,
Better than his kind will do,
Often man or woman, —
Give I back more love again,
Than dogs often take of men,
Learning from my human.
Miss Barrett
You each gentle animal
In confidence may bind,
And make them follow at your call,
If you are always kind
Mrs. Hale,
ANTIPATHY - ANTIQUARY - APPAREL.
27
ANTIPATHY.
Some men there are, love not a gaping pig ;
Some that are mad, if they behold a cat.
Masterless passion sways it to the mood,
Of what it likes or loathes.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Sooner the olive shall provoke
To am'rous clasps this sturdy oak,
And doves in league with eagles be,
Ere I will glance a smile on thee.
Sooner yon duskish mulberry
In her old white shall clothed be,
And lizards with fierce asps combine,
Ere I will twist my soul with thine.
John Hall.
May thorns be planted in the marriage bed,
And love grow sour'd and blacken into hate !
Bulwer's Lady of Lyons.
ANTIQUARY.
They say he sits
All day in contemplation of a statue
With ne'er a nose, and dotes on the decays,
With greater love than the self-lov'd Narcissus
Did on his beauty : How shall I approach him ?
Shakerly Marmyori's Antiquary.
I must rev'rence and prefer the precedent
Times before these, which consum'd their wits in
Experiments ; and 'twas a virtuous
Emulation amongst them, that nothing
Which should profit posterity, should perish.
Shakerly Marmyori's Antiquary.
They are the
Registers, the chronicles of the age
They were made in, and speak the truth of history,
Better than a hundred of your printed
Communications.
Shakerly Marmyori's Antiquary.
A copper plate, with almanacs
Engrav'd upon't ; with other nacks
Of Booker's, Lilly's, Sarah Jimmer's,
And blank schemes to discover nimmers ;
A moon dial, with Napier's hones,
And sev'ral constellation stones.
Butler's Hudibras.
What toil did honest Curio take,
What strict inquiries did he make,
To get one medal wanting yet,
And perfect all his Roman set!
'Tis found: and, O his hapj* lot!
'Tis bought, lock'd up, and lies forgot.
Prior's Alma
He had a routh o' auld nick-nackets,
Rusty aim caps, and jinglin jackets ;
Would held the Loudons three in tackets
A towmond gude;
And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets,
Afore the flude
Burnt.
How his eyes languish ! how his thoughts adore
That painted coat, which Joseph never wore !
He shows, on holidays, a sacred pin,
That touch'd the ruff that touch'd Queen Bess's
chin. Young's Love of Fame.
Rare are the buttons of a Roman's breeches,
In antiquarian eyes surpassing riches :
Rare is each crack'd, black, rotten, earthen dish,
That held, of ancient Rome, the flesh and fish.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
APPAREL.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can huy,
But not expressed in fancy ; rich, not gaudy ;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Shaks. Hamlet.
The fashion
Wears out more apparel than the man.
Shaks. Much ado about nothing.
We will unto your father's.
Ev'n in these honest, mean habiliments :
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor ;
For 't is the mind that makes the body rich :
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
What ! is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful ?
Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted skin contents the eye ?
O no, good Kate ; neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture, and mean array.
Shaks. Taming of a Shrew.
Thy gown ? why, ay : — come, tailor, let us see *U
mercy, God ! what masking stuff is here ?
What's this ? a sleeve ? 'tis like a demi-cannon •
What ! up and down, carv'd like an apple-tart ?
Here 's snip and nip, and cut, and slish, and slasn.
Like to a censer in a barber's shop : —
Why what, a'devil's name, tailor, call'st thru this 1
Shaks. Taming of a Shrew
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
1 do mistake my person all this while*
Upon my life, she finds although I cannot,
2?
APPEARANCES.
Myself to be a marvellous proper man.
I '11 be at charges for a looking-glass ;
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body,
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost
Shake. Richard III.
Sure this gay fresh suit, as seems to me,
Hangs like green ivy on a rotten tree.
Daniel's Hymen's Triumph.
I am the same, without all difference ; when
You saw me last, I was as rich, as good ;
Have no additions since of name, or blood ;
Only because I wore a thread-bare suit,
I was not worthy of a poor salute.
A few good clothes put on with small ado,
Purchase your knowledge and your kindred too.
Heyicood's Royal King.
Nor yet too brightly strive to blaze,
By stealing all the rainbow rays ;
Your gaudy, artificial fly
Will only take the younger fry.
Who has not seen, and seeing mourn'd,
And mourning smiled, and smiling scorn'd,
In wild ambitiou flaming down,
Some comet from a country town?
See, see her in her motley hues ;
Funereal blacks and brimstone blues,
And lurid green, and bonfire red,
At once their varied radiance shed ;
And skin deep gold, and would be pearls,
And oh ! those heaps of corkscrew curls,
O. W. Holmes.
From little matters let us pass to less,
And lightly touch the mysteries of dress ;
The outward forms the inner man reveal.
We guess the pulp before we eat the peel.
One single precept might the whole condense —
Be sure your tailor is a man of sense ;
But add a little care, or decent pride,
And always err upon the sober side.
Wear seemly gloves ; not black, nor yet too light ;
And least of all the pair that once was white.
Have a good hat; the secret of your looks
Lies with the beaver in Canadian brooks.
Virtue may flourish in an old cravat,
But man and nature scorn the shocking hat
Be sliy of breastpins ; plain, well-ironed, white,
With small pearl buttons, — two of them in sight, —
Is always genuine, while your gems may pass,
Thougn real diamonds, for ignoble glass.
O. W. Holmes.
APPEARANCES.
Appearances deceive,
And this one maxim is a standing rule,—
Men are not what they seem.
Havard's Scanderbeg
Why should the sacred character of virtue
Shine on a villain's countenance ? Ye powers !
Why fix'd you not a brand on treason's front
That we might know t' avoid perfidious mortals.
Dennis's Iphigenia.
Thy plain and open nature sees mankind
But in appearances, not what they are.
Frowde's Philotas.
Seems, madam ! nay, it is ; I know not seems,
T is not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of fore'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly ; These, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within, which passeth show ;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Mislike me not for my complexion, —
The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun,
To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.
Shaks. Mercliant of Venice.
You have slander'd nature in my form j
Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,
Is yet the cover of a fairer mind
Than to be butcher of an innocent child.
Shahs. King John.
There is a fair behaviour in tfiee, captain ;
And though that nature with a beauteous wall
Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
I will believe, thou hast a mind that suits
With this thy fair and outward character.
Shaks. Twelfth Night.
He has, I know not what
Of greatness in his looks, and of high fate
That almost awes me.
Dry den's Mania ge a la Mode.
That gloomy outside, like a rusty chest
Contains the shining treasure of a soul
Resolved and brave.
Dryden's Don Sebastian,
Appearances to save, his only care ;
So tilings seem right no matter what they are.
ChurchiWs Rosciad.
APPLAUSE -ARCHITECTURE -ARBOUR -ARGUMENT.
29
They form'd a> very nymph-like looking crew,
Which might have call'd Diana's chorus " Cousin,"
As far as outward show may correspond ;
I won't be bail for anything beyond.
Byron's Don Juan.
The deepest ice that ever froze
Can only o'er the surface close ;
The living stream lies quick below,
And flows, and cannot cease to flow.
Byron.
One slanting up his face did wink
The salt-rheum to the eyelid's brink,
As if to think — or — not to think!
Some trod out stealthily and slow,
As if the sun would fall in snow,
If they walked to, instead of fro.
Mis3 Barrett.
'Tis not the fairest form that holds
The mildest, purest soul within ;
'T is not the richest plant that folds
The sweetest breath of fragrance in.
Within the oyster's shell uncouth
The purest pearl may hide :—
Trust me you'll find a heart of truth
Within that rough outside.
Mrs. Osgood.
Alas ! I am but woman, fond and weak,
Without even power my proud, pure love to speak ;
But oh, by all I fail in, love not me
For what I am, but what I wish to be.
Mrs. Osgood.
Well, one may trail her silken robe,
And bind her locks with pearls,
And one may wreathe the woodland rose
Among her floating curls ;
And one may tread the dewy grass,
And one the marble floor,
Nor half-hid bosom heave the less,
Nor broider'd corset more.
O. W. Holmes.
APPLAUSE.
At which the universal host up sent
A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of chaos and old night.
MiltorCs Paradise Lost.
The hollow abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the host of hell
With deaf 'ning shout return'd them loud acclaim.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
He said, and as the sound of waters deep,
Hoarse murmur echoed to his words applause
Through the infinite host
Milton's Paradise Lost.
No sooner had th' Almighty ceased, but all
The multitude of angels, with a shout
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices, uttering joy, heaven rung
With jubilee, and loud hosannahs fill'd
Th'. eternal regions.
Milton's Paradise Lost
City, country, all,
Is in gay triumph tempest toss'd,
I scarce could press along. The trumpet's voice
Is lost in loud repeated shouts, that raise
Your name to heaven.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
Then, bursting broad, the boundless shout to
heaven,
From many a thousand hearts ecstatic sprung.
Thomson's Liberty-
Then give a general shout, and send scared echo
Even to the frighted ears of tyranny.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian
ARCHITECTURE.
Windows and doors in nameless sculpture drest,
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest ;
Forms like some bedlam statuary's dream,
The craz'd creation of misguided whim.
Burns's Brigs of Ayr.
ARBOUR.
And in the thickest covert of that shade,
There was a pleasaunt arbour, not by art,
But of the trees' owne inclination made,
Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part,
With wanton yvie twine entrayl'd athwart,
And eglantine and caprifole among,
Fashion'd above within their inmost part,
That neither Phcebus' beams could through them
throng,
Nor Aeolus' sharp blast could worke them any
wrong. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age, and whisp'ring lovers made !
♦ Goldsmith's Deserted Village
ARGUMENT.
Be calm in arguing : For fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
Why should I feel another man's mistakes
More than his sicknesses or poverty ?
In love I should ; but anger is not love,
Nor wisdom neither ; therefore gently movij
oU
ARMS -ARMY.
Calmness is great advantage : He that lets
Another chafe, may warm him at his fire,
Mark all his wand'rings, and enjoy his frets,
As cunning fencers suffer heat to tire.
Truth dwells not in the clouds: The bow that's
there,
Doth often aim at, never hit the sphere.
Herbert.
If truth be with thy friend, be with them both :
Share in the conquest, and confess a troth.
Herbert.
But all 's not true that supposition saith,
Nor have the mightiest arguments most faith.
Drayton.
For arguments, like children, should be like
The subject that begets them.
Thomas Decker's Satiromastix.
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse.
He 'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl,
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
And rooks committee-men and trustees.
Butler's Hudibras.
It is in vain
(I see) to argue 'gainst the grain,
Or, like the stars, incline men to
What they 're averse themselves to do ;
For when disputes are wearied out,
'Tis interest still resolves the doubt.
Butler's Hudibras.
A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still.
Butler's Hudibras.
For obstinacy's ne'er so stiff,
As when 'tis in a wrong belief.
Butler's Hudibras.
Examples I could cite you more;
But be contented with these four;
For when one's proofs arc aptly chosen,
Four are as valid as four dozen.
Prior's Alma.
In argument
Similes are like songs m love :
They much describe ; — they nothing prove.
Prior's Alma.
In a . guing too, the parson owned his skill,
For even tho' vanquish'd, he could argue still.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
But eveilasting dictates crowd his tongue,
Perversely grave, or positively wrong.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past,
We find our tenets just the same at last
Pope's Moral Essays,
Who shall decide when doctors disagree,
And soundest casuists doubt, like you or me.
Pope's Moral Essaija.
ARMS.
I'll ride in golden armour like the sun.
And in my helm a triple plume shall spring,
Spangled with diamonds dancing in the air,
To note me emperor of the threefold world.
Mario's 1st part of Tamberlane the Great.
Assurance now having armed all their hearts,
With proof 'gainst fear, not danger ; they prepare
To arm themselves completely at all parts,
Offensive and defensive ; one might swear,
They did such motions to their armour give,
That iron breathed, and that steel did live.
Aleyn's King Henry VII.
In nature it is fear that makes us arm ;
And fear by guilt is bred;
The guiltless nothing dread,
Defence not seeking, nor designing harm.
Sir W. Davenant.
Who is the happy warrior ? who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be ?
— It is the generous spirit who hath wrought
Among the plans of real life.
— 'T is he whose law is reason ; who depends
Upon that law as on his best of friends.
— Who if he rise to stations of command,
Rises by open means. —
— Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim.
Wordsworth.
ARMY.
So great an host
As with their weight shall make the mountain!
quake,
Even as when windy exhalations,
Fighting for passage, tilt within the earth.
Mark
From camp to camp, through the foul womb of
night,
The hum of either army stilly sounds ;
That the fix'd sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch.
Fire answers fire ; and through their paly flames.
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face.
ARMY.
31
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs, I
Piercing the night's dull ear ; and from the tents,
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
SItaks. Henry V.
We are but warriors for the working day :
Our gayness, and our gilt, are all besmirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field.
There's not a piece of feather in our host,
(Good argument I hope we will not fly,)
And time has worn us into slovenry :
But by the mass, our hearts are in the trim.
Shaks. Henry V.
Why do you stay so long, my lords of France ?
Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,
111 favour' dly become the morning field :
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Shaks. Henry V.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-staves in their hand ; and their poor
jades
Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips ;
The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes ;
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chaw'd grass, still and motionless ;
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o'er them all impatient for their hour.
Shaks. Henry V.
Their armours, thatmarch'd hence so silver-bright,
Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood ;
There stuck no plume in any English crest,
That is removed by a staff of France ;
Our colours do return in those same hands
That did display them when we first march d
forth;
A braver choice of dauntless spirits,
Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er,
Did never float upon the swelling tide,
To do offence and scath in Christendom.
The interruption of their churlish drums
Cuts off more circumstance : they are at hand.
Shaks. King John.
All the unsettled humours of the land,
Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries, '
With ladies' faces, and fierce dragons' spleens,
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
To make a hazard of new fortunes here.
Sliaks. King John.
And like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come
Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.
Shaks. King John.
Remember whom you are to cope w [thai ;
A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and run-aways.
A scum of Bretagnes, and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o'ercloy'd country vomits forth
To desperate ventures, and assur'd destruction.
Shaks. Richard III.
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we march'd on without impediment.
Shaks. Richard III.
His marches are expedient to this town,
His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
Sliaks. King John,
Within a ken our army lies ;
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best ;
Then reason wills, our hearts should be as good
Shaks. Henry I\
All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand banners rise into the air
With orient colours waving : With them rose
A forest huge of spears, and thronging helms
Appear'd, and serried shields in thick array
Of depth immeasurable.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Ten thousand ensigns high advanced,
Standards and gonfalons 'twixt van and rear
Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
Of hierarchies, of orders aud degrees ;
Or in their glittering tissues bear emblazed
Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love
Recorded eminent.
Milton's Paradise Lost,
And though redue'd to that extreme,
They have been fore'd to sing Te Deum;
Yet with religious blasphemy,
By flattering heaven with a lie,
And for their beating giving thanks,
Th' have rais'd recruits, and fill'd their ranks
Butler's Hudibrait
Yet hark ! what discords now, of every kind,
Shouts, laughs, and screams aie revelling in tho
wind!
The neigh of cavalry ; the tinkling throngs
Of laden camels, and their drivers' songs •
Ringing of arms, and flapping in the breezo
Of streamers from ten thousand canopies ;
82
ART - ARTIFICE - ASTONISHMENT.
War-music, bursting out from time to time,
With gong and tymbalon's tremendous chime ;
Or, in the pause, when harsher sounds are mute,
The mellow breathings of some horn or flute
That far off, broken by the eagle note
Of th' Abyssinian trumpet, swell and float !
Moore's Lalla RooJch.
The army, like a lion from his den,
March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay,
A human hydra issuing from its fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way,
Whose heads were heroes, which, cut off in vain,
Immediately in others grew again.
Byron's Don Juan.
They left the ploughshare in the mould,
The flocks and herds without a fold ;
The sickle in the unshorn grain,
The corn half garner'd on the plain,
And muster'd in their simple dress,
For wrongs to seek a stern redress ;
To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe,
To perish — or o'ercome the foe.
Isaac McLellan.
ART
In framing artists, art hath thus decreed,
To make some good, but others to exceed.
Sliaks. Pericles.
What thing a right line is, the learned know ;
But how avails that him, who in the right,
Of lite and manners doth desire to grow ?
What are all these human arts and lights
But seas of error ? in whose depths who sound,
Of truth find only shadows, and no ground.
Then if our arts want power to make us better,
What fool will think they can us wiser make.
Life is the wisdom, art is but the letter,
Or shell, which men oft for the kernel take ;
In moods and figures moulding up deceit,
To make each science rather hard than great.
Lord Brooke.
Such is the strength of art, rough tilings to shape,
And of rude commons rich enclosures make.
James Howell.
For though I must confess an artist can
ixmt-ive things better than another man,
Yet when the task is done, he finds his pains
Sought but to fill his belly with his brains.
Is this the guerdon due to liberal arts,
T' admire the head and then to starve the parts ?
Timely prevention though discreetly used
Before the fruits of knowledge were abused.
When learning has incurr'd a fearful damp
Tc save our oil, 'tis good to quench the lamp.
Lady Alimony.
Tir'd at first sight, with what the muse impar
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the length behind ;
But, more advanced, behold with strange surpris
New distant scenes of endless science rise.
Pope,
Art became the shadow
Of the Jear star-light of thy haunting eyes !
They call'd me vain, some mad — I heeded not,
But still toil'd on, hoped on, for it was surest,
If not to win, to feel more worthy thee.
Bulwefs Lady of Lyons,
Immortal art ! where'er the rounded sky
Bends o'er the cradle where thy children lie,
Their home is earth, their herald every tongue.
O. W. Holme*.
Art is wondrous long ;
Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair,
And patience smiles, tho' genius may despair.
O. W. Holmes.
ARTIFICE.
Shallow artifice begets suspicion,
And like a cobweb veil but thinly shades
The face of thy design : alone disguising
What should have ne'er been seen; imperfect
mischief!
Thou, like the adder, venomous and deaf,
Hast stung the traveller ; and, after, hear'st
Not his pursuing voice ; e'en when thou think'st
To hide, the rustling leaves and bended grass
Confess and point the path which thou hast crept
fate of fools ! officious in contriving ;
In executing, puzzled, lame, and lost.
Congreve,
What 's the bent brow, or neck in ft.ought reclin'd 1
The body's wisdom to conceal the mind.
A man of sense can artifice disdain,
As men of wealth may venture to go plain;
And be this truth eternal ne'er forgot,
Solemnity's a cover for a sot.
1 find the fool when I behold tbe screen;
For 'tis th* wise man's interest to be seen.
Young's Love of Fame.
ASTONISHMENT.
Adam, soon as he heard
The fatal trespass done by Eve, amaz'd
AstonishM stood and blank, while horror chill
Ran through his veins and all his joints relaxM ;
From his slack hand the garland wrcath'd for EvOj
ATHEIST - AUTHORS.
Down dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed :
Speechless he stood and pale.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
With wild surprise,
As if to marble struck devoid of sense,
A stupid moment motionless she stood.
Thomson's Seasons.
But who can paint the lover, as he stood,
Pierced by severe amazement, hating life,
Speechless and fix'd in all the death of woe !
So, faint resemblance ! on the marble tomb,
The well dissembled mourner stands,
For ever silent and for ever sad.
Thomson's Seasons.
Hear it not, ye stars !
And thou, pale moon ! turn paler at the sound.
Young's Night Thoughts.
ATHEIST.
When prejudice and strong aversions work,
All whose opinions we dislike are atheists.
Now 'tis a term of art, a bug-bear word,
The villain's engine, and the vulgar's terror.
The man who thinks and judges for himself,
Unsway'd by aged follies, reverend errors,
Grown holy by traditionary dulness
Of school authority, he is an atheist
The man who, hating idle noise, preserves
A pure religion seated in his soul,
He is a silent dumb dissembling atheist !
Sewell's Sir Walter Raleigh.
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph,
Make atheists of mankind.
Dryden's Cleomenes.
AUTHORS.
How many great ones may remember'd be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish,
Because they living cared not to cherish
No gentle wits, through pride or covetize
Which might their names for ever memorize !
Spenser's Ruins of Time.
Let authors write for glory or reward,
Truth is well paid, when she is sung and heard.
R. Corbet, Bisliop of Norwich.
He that writes,
Or makes a feast, more certainly invites
His judges than his friends ; there 's not a guest
But will find something wanting, or ill drest.
Prologue to Sir R. Howard's Smprisal.
C
Much thou hast said, which I know when
And where thou stol'st from other men ;
Whereby 'tis plain thy light and gifts,
Are all but plagiary shifts.
Butler's Kudibras.
Some write, confin'd by physic ; some by debt ;
Some, for 'tis Sunday; some, because 'tis wet;
Another writes because his father writ,
And proves himself a bastard by his wit.
Young's Epistle to Mr. Popt
Authors are judg'd by strange capricious rules,
The great ones are thought mad, the small ones
fools ;
Yet sure the best are most severely fated,
For fbols are only laugh'd at — - wits are hated.
Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor ;
But fool 'gainst fool is barb'rous civil war.
Why on all authors then should critics fall ?
Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.
Pope.
An author ! 'T is a venerable name !
How few deserve it, and what numbers claim !
Unblest with sense above their peers refhi'd,
Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind ?
Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause ?
That sole proprietor of just applause.
Young.
Authors alone, with more than savage rage,
Unnat'ral war with brother authors wage.
Pope.
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
Cowper's Progress of Error.
By custom safe, the poet's numbers flow,
Free as the light and air some years ago.
No statesman e'er will find it worth its pains,
To tax our labours, and excise our brains.
Burthens like these will earthly blessings bear,
No tribute 's laid on castles in the air.
ChurcUU
Some write a narrative of wars and feats,
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
An history. Describe the man, of whom
His own coevals took but little note,
And paint his person, character and views,
As they had known him from his mother's womb.
Cowper's Task.
And novels (witness every month's review)
Belie their name, and offer nothing new.
Cowper's Retirement-
One hates an author that 's all author, fellows
In foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink.
So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous,
One do n't know what to sav to them, or think.
34
AUTHORITY -AUTUMN.
Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows ;
Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs, e'en the pink
Are preferable to these shreds of paper,
These unquench'd snuifings of the midnight taper.
Byron's Beppo.
'T is pleasant sure to see one's name in print ;
A book 's a book, although there 's nothing in 't.
Byron.
But every fool describes in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise ;
Death to his publisher, to him 't is sport.
Byron's Don Juan.
He had written praises of a regicide ;
He had written praises of all kings whatever ;
He had written for republics far and wide,
And then against them bitterer than ever.
Byron's Vision of Judgment.
Our doctors thus with stuff'd sufficiency
Of all omnigenous omnisciency,
Began (as who would not begin
That had, like him, so much within ?)
To let it out in books of all sorts,
Folios, quartos, large and small sorts.
Moore.
Some steal a thought,
And clip it round the edge, and challenge him
Whose ' twas to swear to it. To serve things thus
Is as foul witches to cut up old moons
Into new stars. Some never rise above
A pretty fault, like faulty dahlias ;
And of whose best things it is kindly said,
The thought is fair ; but to be perfect, wants
A little heightening, like a pretty face
With a low forehead.
Bailey's Festus.
AUTHORITY.
A man in authority is but as
A candle in the wind, sooner wasted
Or blown out than under a bushel.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Four Plays in One.
Not from grey hairs authority doth flow,
Nor from bald heads, nor from a wrinkled brow ;
But our past life, when virtuously spent,
Must to our age those happy fruits present.
Denham.
Autnority kept up, old age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures.
Denham.
Authority bears off a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch,
But it confounds the breather.
Sliaks. Mea.for Mea.
Authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the voice o' the top.
Shahs. Mea.for Mea.
Man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence — like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep !
Shaks. Mea.for Mea
My soul aches
To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
The one by the other.
Shaks. Coriolari
Authority is a disease and cure,
Which men can neither want nor will endure.
Butler's Hudibraa.
Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain;
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,
And cowards make the base submit.
Butlefs Hudibras,
The monarch mind, the mystery of commanding,
The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon,
Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, binding
The hearts of millions till they seem as one,
Thou hast it.
HaUech
AUTUMN
Then came the autumne, all in yellow clad,
As though he joyed in his plenteous store,
Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad
That he had banish'd hunger, which to-fore
Had by the belly oft him pinched sore ;
Upon his head a wreath that was cnrold
With ears of corne of every sort, he bore,
And in his hand a sickle he did holdc,
To reape the ripened fruit the which the earth
had yold. Spenser's Fairy Queen,
Whate'er the wanton spring,
When she doth diaper the ground with beauties,
Toils for ; comes home to autumn ; summer sweat*
Either in pasturing her furlongs, reaping
The crop of bread, rip'ning the fruits for food,
Autumn's garners house them, autumn's jollitiea
Feed on them : I alone in every land
AVARICE.
35
Traffic my useful merchandise ; gold and jewels,
Lordly possessions are for my commodities
Mortgag'd and sold ; I sit chief moderator
Between the cheek-parch'd summer, and th' ex-
tremes
Of winter's tedious frost ; nay, in myself
I do contain another teeming spring :
Surety of health, prosperity of life
Belongs to autumn.
Ford and Decker's Sun's Darling.
The year growing ancient,
Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling wirier.
Shahs. Winter's Tale.
Thrice happy time,
Best portion of the various year, in which
"Nature rejoiceth, smiling on her works,
Lovely, to full perfection wrought
Philips' s Cider.
But see the fading many-colour'd woods,
Shade deep'ning over shade, the country round
Imbrown; crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark.
<'s
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires ; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove ;
Oft startling such as, studious, walk below,
And slowly circles thro' the waving air.
Thomson's Seasons.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields ;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. Even what remain'd
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree ;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around
The desolated prospect thrills the soul.
Thomson's Seasons.
Again the year's decline, midst storms and floods
i The thundering chase, the yellow fading woods,
Invite my song ; that fain would boldly tell
Of upland coverts, and the echoing dell,
By turns resounding loud at eve and morn
The swineherd's hallow or the shepherd's horn.
Bloomfield's Farmer Boy.
Oh, Autumn ! why so soon
Depart the hues that make thy forest glad ;
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon,
And leave thee wild and sad !
Ah ! 'twere a lot too blest
For ever in thy colour'd shades to stray ;
Amid the kisses of the soft southwest
To rove and dream for aye.
Bryant's Poems.
Those few pale Autumn flowers!
How beautiful they are !
Than all that went before,
Than all the Summer store,
How lovelier far !
Mrs. Southcy.
That loveliness ever in motion, which plays,
Like the light upon Autumn's soft, shadowy days,
Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flics
From the lips to the cheeks, from the cheek to the
eyes ! Moore.
Wild is the music of autumnal winds
Amongst the faded woods.
Wordsworth
AVARICE.
And greedy avarice by him did ride
Upon a camell loaden all with gold ;
Two iron coffers hang on either side,
With precious metall full as they might hold
And in his lap an heap of coin he told ;
For of his wicked pelf his god he made,
And unto hell himself for money sold ;
Accursed usury was all his trade,
And right and wrong ylike in equall balance
waide,
His life was nigh unto death's dore yplaste ;
And thred-bare cote and cobbled shoes he ware,
He scarce good morsell all his life did taste,
But feoth from backe and belly still did spare,
To fill his bags, and richesse to compare :
Yet child ne kinsman living had he none,
To leave them to ; but thorough daily care
To get, and nightly feare to lose his owne.
He led a wretched life unto himselfe unknowne,
Most wretched wight whom nothing might suffice,
Whose greedy lust did lack in greatest store,
Whose need had end, but no end covetise.
Whose wealth was want, whose plenty made him
poor,
Who had enough, yet wished evermore.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
And in his lap a masse of coyne he told
And turned upside downe, to feede his eye
And covetous desire with his huge treasury.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
See!
The difference 'twixt the covetous and the prodigal .
The covetous man never has money,
And the prodigal will have none shortly !
Johnson's Staple of Newt.
When all sins are old in us,
And go upon crutches, covetousnesa
Does but then lie in her cradle.
Decker
AVARICE.
Gross nurtur'd slaves, who force their wretched
souls
To crouch to profit ; nay, for trash and wealth,
Doat on some crooked or misshapen form,
Hugging wise nature's lame deformity,
Begetting creatures ugly as themselves.
John Ford's Love Sacrifice.
When I was blind, my son, I did miscall
My sordid vice of avarice, true thrift.
But now forget that lesson, I prithee do,
That cos'ning vice, although it seems to keep
Our wealth, debars us from possessing it,
And makes us more than poor.
May's Old Couple.
Of age's avarice I cannot see
What colour, ground, or reason there should
be;
Is it not folly, when the way we ride
Is short, for a long voyage to provide ?
To avarice some title youth may own,
To reap in autumn, what a spring had sown ;
And with the providence of bees or ants,
Prevent with summer's plenty winter's wants.
Dut age scarce sows, till death stands by to
reap,
And to a stranger's hand, transfers the heap;
Afraid % be so once, she's always poor,
Aid to avoid a mischief, makes it sure,
Such madness, as for fear of death to die,
Is to be poor for fear of poverty.
Denluim.
What less than fool is man to prog and plot,
And lavish out the cream of all his care,
To gain poor seeming goods which, being got,
Make firm possession but a thoroughfare ;
Or, if they stay, they furrow thoughts the deeper ;
And being kept with care, they lose their careful
keeper. Quarks.
In all the world there is no vice
Lc?s prone t' excess than avarice ;
It neither cares for food nor clothing :
Nature's content with little, that with nothing.
Butler.
L'Avare not using half his store,
Still grumbles that he has no more ;
Strikes not the present tun, for fear
The vintage should be bad next year,
And eats to-day with inward sorrow,
And dread of lancy'd want to-morrow.
Prior's Alma.
Out (lie bane miser starves amidst his store,
Ihoods on his gold, and griping still at more,
"*its sadly pining, and believes he's poor.
Drydcn's Wife of Bath.
May his soul be plung'd
In ever burning floods of liquid gold,
And be his avarice the fiend that damns him.
Murphy'' a Alzuma.
To cram the rich was prodigal expense,
And who would take the poor from Providence ?
Like some lone chartreux stands the good old hall,
Silence without and fasts within the wall ;
No rafter'd roofs with dance and tabor sound,
No noon-tide bell invites the country round :
Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey,
And turn th' unwilling steeds another way ;
Benighted wanderers, the forest e'er,
Curs'd the sav'd candle, and unopening door ;
While the gaunt mastiff growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat
Pope's Moral Essays
'Tis strange the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy ;
Is it less strange the prodigal should waste
His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste ?
Pope's Moral Essays.
Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly ;
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store
Sees but a backward steward for the poor ;
This year a reservoir, to keep and spare ;
The next a fountain, spouting through his heir,
In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
Pope's Moral Essays.
Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffus'd ;
As poison heals, in just proportions us'd ;
In heaps, like ambergris, a sink it lies,
And well dispers'd, is incense to the skies.
Pope's Moral Essays
" I give and I devise," (Old Euclio said,
And sigh'd,) " my lands and tenements to Ned."
Your money, sir ? — "My money, sir, what, all ?
Why, if I must" (then wept), " I give it Paul."
The manor, sir ? — " The manor ! hold," he cried,
"Not that — I cannot part with that," and died.
Pope's Moral Essays.
The lust of gold succeeds the lust of conquest :
The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless I
The last corruption of degenerate man.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
Some, o'er-enamour'd of their bags, run mad,
Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread.
Young's Night Thouglits.
O cursed love of gold ; when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds,
First starv'd in this, then damn'd in that to come.
Blair's Grave.
AWKWARDNESS - BANISHMENT.
C7
Who, lord of millions, trembles for his store,
And fears to give a farming to the poor ;
Proclaims that penury will be his fate,
And, scowling, looks on charity with hate.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
The love of gold, that meanest rage,
And latest folly of man's sinking age,
Which, rarely venturing in the van of life,
While nobler passions wage their heated strife,
Comes skulking last with selfishness and fear,
And dies collecting lumber in the rear !
Moore.
The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,
The copious use of claret is forbid too,
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.
Byron's Don Juan.
Oh gold ! — why call we misers miserable ?
Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall ;
Theirs is the best bower-anchor, the chain cable,
Which holds fast other pleasures great and small;
Ye who but see the saving man at table,
And scorn his temperate board, as none at all, '
And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing,
Know not what visions spring from each cheese-
paring.
Byron's Don Juan.
Why call the miser miserable ? As
I said before, the frugal life is his,
Which in a saint or cynic ever was
The theme of praise : a hermit would not miss
Canonization for the self-same cause,
And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities ?
Because, you '11 say, naught calls for such a trial ; —
Then there 's more merit in his self-denial.
Byron's Don Juan.
But whether all, or each, or none of these,
May be the hoarder's principle of action,
The fool will call such mania a disease : —
What is his own ? Go look at each transaction,
Wars, revels, loves — do these bring men more ease
Than the mere plodding through each vulgar
fraction ;
Or do they benefit mankind ? Lean miser !
Let spendthrifts' heirs inquire of yours, who's
wiser ?
Byron's Don Juan.
Why Marmnon sits before a million hearths
Where God is 'bolted out from every house.
Bailley's Festus.
The churl who holds it heresy to think,
Who loves no music but the dollar's clink,
■Who laughs to scorn the wisdom of the schools,
And deems the first of poets first of fools,
| Who never found what good from science grew,
Save the grand truth, that one and one make two, —
'Tis he, across whose brain scarce dares to creep
Aught but thrift's parent pair — to get, to keep !
Charles Spraguc.
AWKWARDNESS.
What's a fine person, or a beauteous face,
Unless deportment gives them decent grace ?
Bless'd with all other requisites to please,
Some want the striking elegance of ease,
The curious eye their awkward movement tires,
They seem like puppets led about by wires.
Churchill's Rosciad.
Awkward, embarrass'd, stiff, without the skill
Of moving gracefully, or standing still,
One leg, as if suspicious of his brother,
Desirous seems to run away from t' other.
Churchill's Rosciad.
Not all the pumice of the polish'd town
Can smooth the roughness of the barnyard clown ;
Rich, honour'd, titled, he betrays his race
By this one mark — he's awkward in his face.
O. W. Holmes
BANISHMENT.
We banish you our territories :
You, cousin Hereford, on pain of death,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet cur fair dominions,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
Shaka. Richard II
All places that the eye of heaven visits,
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus :
There is an virtue like necessity.
Shaks. Richard II.
Go say, I sent thee forth to purchase honour ;
And not the king exiled thee. Or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou goest, not whence tho.t
comest S/iaks. Richard II
Flies may do this, when I from this must fly;
They, are free men, but I am banished.
Shaks. Romeo and Julu t.
I've stoopt my neck under your injuries,
And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouas.
Eating the bitter bread of banishment ;
While you have fed upon my signories ;
38
BARGAIN -BATTLE.
Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest woods ;
From mine own windows torn my household-coat,
liaz'd out my impress ; leaving me no sign,
Save men's opinions, and my living blood,
To show the world I am a gentleman.
Shaks. Richard II.
Banished ?
O friar, the damned use that word in hell ;
Howlings attend it : how hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin absolver, and my friend profest,
To mingle me with that word — banishment?
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Banish me?
Banish your dotage : banish usury,
That makes the senate ugly.
Shaks. Timon.
BARGAIN.
I'll give thrice so much land,
To any well deserving friend ;
But in the way of bargain, mark me,
I '11 cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
Shaks. Henry IV,
The age of bargaining, said Burke,
Has come : to-day the turban'd Turk
Is England's friend and fast ally.
Halleck's Poems.
Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt,
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
The Douglas in red herrings ;
And noble name and cultur'd land,
Palace, and park, and vassal band,
Are powerless to the notes of hand
Of Rothschild or the Barings.
Halleck's Alnwich Castle.
BATTLE.
Therewith they gan, both furious and fell,
To thunder blowcs, and fiercely to assaile
Each other, bent his enemy to quell,
That with their force they perst both plate and
maile,
And made wide furrows in their fleshes fraile,
That it would pity any living eie.
L:irge floods of blood adowne their sides did raile,
Hut floods of blood could not them satisfie :
Doth hongred after death ; both chose to win or die.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Then to the rest his wrathful hand he bends,
I )f whom he makes such havocke and such hew,
That swarms of damned soules to hell he sends ;
The rest, that scape his sword and death eschew
Fly like a flocke of doves before a falcon's view.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
All sodainly enflam'd with furious fit,
Like a fell lionesse, at him she flew,
And on his head-piece him so fiercely smit,
That to the ground him quite she overthrew,
Dismay'd so with the stroke that he no colours
knew. Spenser's Fairy Queen,
The eager armies meet to try their cause,
Our English lords in four battalias
Bring on their forces, but so furious grows
In little time the fight, so near the blows,
That soon no order we perceive at all,
For, like one body, closely move they all.
May's Edward III.
In single opposition, hand to hand,
He did confound the best part of an hour
In changing hardiment with great Glendower :
Three times they breath'd, and three times did
they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift ^Severn's flood.
Shaks. Henry IV.
Much work for tears in many an English mother,
Whose sons lie scatter'd on the bleeding ground :
Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,
Coldly embracing the discolour'd earth :
And victory, with little loss, doth play
Upon the dancing banners of the French.
Shaks. King John
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss ; and if to live,
The fewer men the greater share of honour.
Shaks. Henry V.
A thousand hearts are great within my bosom ;
Advance our standards, set upon our foes ;
Our ancient word of courage, fair saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons !
Upon them I Victory sits on our helms.
Shaks. Richard III.
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath ;
And ready mounted are they to spit forth
Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls.
Shaks. King John.
My sons — God knows what hath bechanced them :
But this I know — they have demean'd themselves
Like men born to renown, by life, or death.
Three times did Richard make a lane to me ;
And thrice cried — Courage, father, jigld it out!
And full as oft came Edward on my side,
With purple faulchion, painted to the hilt,
In blood of those that had encounter'd him.
Shaks. Henry VI.
BATTLE.
30
Methought, he bore him in the thickest troop,
As doth a lion in a herd of neat :
Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs ;
Who having pinch'd a few, and made them cry,
The rest stand all aloof, and bark at him.
Shaks. Henry VI.
And now their mightiest quell'd, the battle swerv'd,
With many an inroad gor'd ; deformed rout
Enter'd and foul disorder ; all the ground
With shiver'd armour strown, and on a heap
Chariot and charioteer lay overturn'd,
And fiery foaming steeds.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
'Twixt host and host but narrow space was left,
A dreadful interval, and front to front
Presented stood in terrible array
Of hideous length ; before the cloudy van
On the rough edge of battle ere it join'd,
Satan, with vast and haughty strides advanc'd,
Came tow'ring, arm'd in adamant and gold.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The shout
Of battle now began, and rushing sound
Of onset ended soon each milder thought.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Now night her course began, and over heaven
Inducing darkness, grateful truce, impos'd
Her silence on the odious din of war :
Under her cloudy covert hath retir'd,
Victor and vanquish' d.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Each at the head
Levell'd his deadly aim ; their fatal hands
No second stroke intended.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
When one, that bare a link,
O' th' sudden clapp'd his flaming cudgel,
Like linstock, to the horse's touch-hole ;
And straight another with his flambeau,
Gave Ralpho o'er the eyes a damn'd blow.
Butler's Hudibras.
'Tis not the least disparagement
To be defeated by th' event,
Nor to be beaten by main force,
That does not make a man the worse;
But to turn tail, and run away,
And without blows give up the day,
Or to surrender ere th' assault,
That's no man's fortune, but his fault.
Butler's Hudibras.
Full oft the rivals met, and neither spar'd
His utmost force, and each forgot to ward.
The head of this was to the saddle bent,
The other backward to the crupper sent.
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.
Hark — the death-denouncing trumpet sounds
The fatal charge, and shouts proclaim the onset-
Destruction rushes dreadful to the field,
And bathes itself in blood : havoc let loose
Now undistinguish'd, rages all around ;
While ruin, seated on her dreary throne,
Sees the plain strewed with subjects truly hers,
Breathless and cold.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
Even like an arrow on the wind he rode
His winged courser, and with noble daring
Swept with his chivalrous escort past our front,
Even at the stormy edge of chafing battle.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian,
Here might you see
Barons and peasants on th' embattled field,
Slain or half dead, in one huge ghastly heap,
Promiscuously amass'd. With dismal groans,
And ejaculation, in the pangs of death,
Some call for aid, neglected ; some o'erturn'd
In the fierce shock, lie gasping, and expire,
Trampled by fiery coursers : Horror thus,
And wild uproar, and desolation, reign'd
Unrespited.
Philips's Cider.
When Greeks join'd Greeks, then was the tug of
war;
The labour'd battle sweat, and conquest bled.
Lee's Alexander.
Behold in awful march and dread array,
The long extended squadrons shape their way !
Death, in approaching, terrible, imparts
An anxious horror to the bravest hearts ;
Yet do their beating breasts demand the strife,
And thirst of glory quells the love of life.
Addison's Campaign.
A thousand glorious actions that might claim
Triumphant laurels, and immortal fame,
Confus'd in clouds of glorious actions lie,
And troops of heroes undistinguish'd die.
Addison's Campaign,
It was a goodly sight
To see the embattled pomp, as with the step
Of stateliness the barbed steeds came on,
To see the pennons rolling their long waves
Before the gale, and banners, broad and bright.
Tossing their blazonry.
South ej
Then more fierce
The conflict grew; the din of arms — the yell
Of savage rage — the shriek of agony —
The groan of death, commingled in one sound
Of undistinguish'd horrors ; while the sun,
40
BATTLE.
Retiring slow beneath the plain's far verge,
Shed o'er the quiet hills his fading light.
Southey's Madoc
Yet more ! yet more ! how fair arrayed
They file from out the hawthorn shade,
And sweep so gallant by !
With all their banners bravely spread,
And all their armour flashing high,
Saint George might waken from the dead,
To see fair England's standard fly.
Scott's Marmion-
The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale,
And — Stanley! was the cry; —
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye :
With dying hand, above his head,
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted " Victory !" —
"Charge, Chester, charge! — On, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.
ScoWs Marmion.
His hand still strained the broken brand ;
His arms were smeared with blood and sand.
Scotfs Marmion.
All in the castle were at rest;
When sudden on the windows shone
A lightning flash, just seen and gone !
A shot is heard — again the flame
Flashed thick and fast — a volley came!
Then echoed wildly, from within,
Of shcut and scream the mingled din,
And weapon clash, and maddening cry,
Of those who kill and those who die !
As filled the hall with sulphurous smoke,
More red, more dark, the death-flash broke,
And forms were on the lattice cast,
That struck, or struggled, as they past.
Scotfs Rokehy.
And O! amid that waste of life,
What various motives fired the strife!
The aspiring noble bled for fame,
The patriot for his country's claim,
This knight his youthful strength to prove,
And that to win his lady's love.
Scotfs Lord of the Isles.
impetuous, active, fierce, and young,
Upon the advancing foes he sprung.
Woe to the wretch at whom is bent
His brandish'd faulchion's sheer descent.
Scotfs Rokehy.
His back against a rock he bore,
And firmly placed his foot before : —
" Come one, come all ! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I."
Scotfs Lady of the Lake.
Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain,
As what they ne'er might see again ;
Then, foot, and point, and eye opposed,
In dubious strife they darkly closed.
Scotfs Lady of the Lake.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave !
Wave, Munich ! all thy banners wave !
And charge with all thy chivalry!
Few, few, shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.
Campbell's Hohenlindau
Our bugles sang truce — for the night-cloud had
lower'd,
And the centinel stars set their watch in the sky ;
And thousands had sunk on the ground over-
power'd,
The weary to sleep and the wounded to die.
Campbell's Soldier's Dream.
Twice hath the sun upon their conflict set,
And risen again, and found them grappling yet;
While steams of carnage, in his noon-tide blaze,
Smoke up to heav'n.
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Did ye not hear it ? — No : 't was but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ;
On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ;
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet. —
But hark! — that heavy sound breaks in once
more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before !
Arm! arm! it is — it is — the cannon's opening
roar ! Byron's Childe Harold.
By heaven ! it is a splendid sight to see
(For one who hath no friend, no brother there)
Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery,
Their various arms that glitter in the air !
What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their
lair,
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey !
All join the chase, but few the triumph share ;
The grave shall bear the chiefest prize away,
And havoc scarce for joy can number their array.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Hark to the trump, and the drum,
And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,
And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're
borne,
And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's
hum,
And the clash, and the shout " they come, they
come !" Byron's Siege of Corinth.
BATTLE.
41
Hand to hand and foot to foot :
Nothing there, save death, was mute ;
Stroke and thrust, and flash and cry
For quarter or for victory
Mingle there with the volleying- thunder.
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
One effort — one — to break the circling- host!"
They form — unite — charge — waver — all is lost !
Within a narrow ring compressed, beset,
Hopeless, not heartless, strive and struggle yet, —
Ah ! now they fight in firmest file no more,
Hemmed in — cut off — cleft down — and tram-
pled o'er,
But each strikes singly, silently, and home,
And sinks outwearied rather than o'ercome,
His last faint quittance rendering with his breath,
Till the blade glimmers in the grasp of death.
Byron's Corsair.
No dread of death — if with us die our foes —
Save that it seems even duller than repose :
Come when it will — we snatch the life of life —
When lost — what recks it — by disease or strife.
Byron's Corsair.
And one enormous shout of "Allah !" rose
In the same moment, loud as even the roar
Of war's most mortal engines, to their foes
Hurling defiance : city, stream, and shore
Resounded "Allah !" — and the clouds which close
With thick'ning canopy the conflict o'er,
Vibrate to the eternal name. Hark I through
All sounds it pierceth, "Allah ! Allah ! Hu !"
Byron's Don Juan.
Here pause we for the present — as even then
That awful pause, dividing life from death,
Struck for an instant on the hearts of men,
Thousands of whom were drawing their last
breath !
A moment, and all will be life again !
The march!- -the charge ! — the shouts of either
faith!
Hurra ! and Allah ! and — one moment more —
The death-cry drowning in the battle's roar.
Byron's Don Juan.
With cheek unchanging from its sallow gloom, !
However near his own or other's tomb ;
With hand whose almost careless coolness spoke,
Its grasp well-used to deal the sabre stroke ;
With eye, though calm, determined not to spare,
Did Lara too his willing weapon bare.
Byron's Lara.
Though far and near the bullets hiss,
I've scap'd a bloodier hour than this.
Byron's Giaour.
The fight was o'er, the flashing through the gloom.
Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb,
Had ceased ; and sulphury vapours upward driven
Had left the earth, and but polluted heaven.
Byron's Island
— Ay, now the soul of battle is abroad,
It burns upon the air ! — The joyous winds
Are tossing warrior plumes, the proud white foam
Of battle's roaring billows !
Mrs. Hemans
-If to plunge
In the mid-waves of combat, as they bear
Chargers and spearmen onwards ; and to make
A reckless bosom's front the buoyant mark,
On that wild current, for ten thousand sorrows ;
If thus to dare were valour's noblest aim,
Lightly might fame be won !
Mrs. Hemans.
He battles heart and arm, his own blue sky
Above him, and his own green land around.
Halleck's Poems.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !
Longfellow
Then said the mother to her son,
And pointed to his shield —
"Come with it, when the battle's done,
Or on it, from the field."
R. Montgomery.
Our fathers live, they guard in glory still
The grass-grown bastions of the fortress'd hill
Still ring the echoes of the trampled gorge
To God and Freedom! England and St. George!
The royal cipher on the captured gun
blocks the sharp night-dews and the blistering sun !
O. W. Holmes.
Point to the summits where the brave had bled,
Where every village claims its glorious dead ;
Say, where their bosoms met the bayonet's shocji,
Their only corslet was the rustic frock ;
Say, when they mustered to the gathering horn,
The titled chieftain curled his lip in scorn ;
Yet, when their leader bade his lines advance,
No musket wavered in the lion's glance ;
Say, when they fainted in their forced retreat,
They tracked the snow-drifts with their bleeding
feet;
Yet still their banners, tossing in the blast,
Bore Ever Ready, faithful to the last,
Through storm and battle, till they waved again
On Yorktown's hills and Saratoga's plain.
0. W. Holme*
42
BEARD -BEAUTY.
BEARD.
His beard is directly brick colour,
And perfectly fashion'd like the husk
Of a chesnut; he kisses with the driest lip!
Marston's Wliat you will.
It has no bush below ;
Marry «. little wool, as much as an unripe
Peach doth wear :
Just enough to speak him drawing towards a man.
Suckling's Goblins.
His tawny beard was th' equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face ;
In cut and dye so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile;
The upper part thereof was whey ;
The nether, orange mix'd with grey.
Butler's Hudibras.
BEAUTY.
Nought under heaven so strongly doth allure
The sense of man, and all his mind possess,
As beauty's lovely bait, that doth procure
Great warriors oft their rigour to repress ;
And mighty hands forget their manliness,
Drawn with the power of an heart-robbing eye,
And wrapt in fetters of a golden tress,
That can with melting pleasaunce mollify
Their harden'd hearts, enur'd to blood and cruelty.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
For sure of all that in this mortal frame
Contained is, nought more divine doth seem,
Or that resembleth more th' immortal flame
Of heavenly light, than beauty's glorious beam.
What wonder then if with such rage extreme
Frail men, whose eyes seek heavenly things to see,
At sight thereof so much enravish'd be ?
Spenser.
For beauty is the bait which, with delight,
Doth man allure, for to enlarge his kind ;
Beauty, the burning lamp of heaven's light,
Darting her beams into each feeble mind,
Against whose power nor god nor man can find
Defence, reward the daunger of the wound ;
But, being hurt, seek to be medicin'd
Of her that first did stir that mortal stownd.
Spenser.
Ye tradeful merchants ! that with weary toil
Do seek most precious things to make your gaine,
And both the Indies of their treasures spoil ;
What noedcth you to seek so far in vain ?
For lo ! my love doth in herself contain
/\\\ this world's riches that may far be found;
If saphyrs, lo ! her eyes be saphyrs plain;
If rubies, lo ! her lips be rubies sound ;
If pearls, her teeth be pearls, both pure and round.
If ivory, her forehead ivory ween ;
If gold, her locks are finest gold on ground ;
If silver, her fair hands are silver sheen :
But that which fairest is, but few behold,
Her mind, adorn'd with vertues manifold.
Spenser
Her looks were like beams of the morning sun,
Forth-looking through the windows of the east,
When first the fleecie cattle have begun
Upon the pearled grass to make their feast.
Spenser.
The fairness of her face no tongue can tell,
For she the daughters of all wemen's race,
And angels eke, in beautie doth excell,
Sparkled on her from God's own glorious face,
And more increast by her own goodly grace,
That it doth far exceed all human thought,
Ne can on earth compared be to aught.
Spenser's Hymne of Heavenly Beautie
For she was full of amiable grace,
And manly terror mixed therewith all ;
That as the one stirr'd up affections base,
So th' other did men's rash desires appall,
And hold them backe, that would in error fall :
As he that hath espied a virmill rose,
To which sharpe thornes and breeres the way
forstall,
Dare not for dread his hardy hand expose,
But wishing it farr off his ydle wish doth lose.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heav'n,
And, had she liv'd before the siege of Troy,
Helen, whose beauty summon'd Greece to arms,
And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos,
Had not been nam'd in Homer's Iliad ;
Her name had been in every fine he wrote.
Mario's Tamberlane the Great.
Beauty 's a slipp'ry good, which decreaseth
Whilst it is increasing : resembling the
Medlar, which, in the moment of his full
Ripeness, is known to be in a rottenness.
Whilst you look in the glass, it waxcth old
With time ; if on the sun, parched with heat ; if
On the wind, blasted with cold. A great care
To keep it, a short space to enjoy it,
A sudden time to lose it.
Lilly's SappJio.
Why did the gods give thee a heavenly form,
And earthly thoughts to make thee proud of it ?
Why do I ask ? 'T is now the known disease
That beauty hath, to bear too deep a sense
Of her own self-conceived excellence.
Jonson's Cynthia's Revels.
BEAUTY.
43
So fair, that had you beauty's picture took,
It must like her, or not like beauty look.
Aleyn's Henry VII
What greater torment ever could have been,
Than to enforce the fair to live retir'd ?
For what is beauty if it be not seen ?
Or what is 't to be seen — if not admir'd ?
And though admir'd, unless in love desir'd ?
Never were cheeks of roses, locks of amber,
Ordain'd to live imprison'd in a chamber.
Nature created beauty for the view,
(Like as the fire for heat, the sun for light :)
The fair do hold this privilege as due,
By ancient charter, to live most in sight,
And she that is debarr'd it, hath not right.
[n vain our friends from this do us dehort,
For beauty will be where is most resort.
Daniel's Rosamund.
Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew,
Whose short refresh upon the tender green,
Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show ;
And straight is gone, as it had never been.
Daniel.
Nature was here so lavish of her store,
That she bestow'd until she had no more ;
Whose treasure being weaken'd by this dame,
She thrusts into the world so many lame.
Brown's Pastorals.
Beauty, my lord, 'tis the worst part of woman,
A weak poor thing, assaulted ev'ry hour
By creeping minutes of defacing time ;
A superficies, which each breath of care
Blasts off; and ev'ry hum'rous strea^pi of grief,
Which flows from forth these fountains of our eyes,
Washeth away, as rain doth winter's snow.
Gqffe's Courageous Turk.
I long not for the cherries on the tree,
So much as those which on a lip I see.
And more affection bear I to the rose,
That in a cheek, than in a garden grows.
Randolph.
There 's no miniature
In her face, but is a copious theme,
Which would, discours'd at large of, make a
volume.
What clear arch'd brows ! what sparkling eyes !
the lilies
Contending with the roses in her cheeks,
Who shall most set them off. What ruby lips ! —
Or unto what can I compare her neck,
But to a rock of crystal ? Every limb
Proportion'd to love's wish, and in their neatness
Add lustre to the richness of her habit,
Not borrow'd from it.
Massinger,
No autumn, nor no age ever approach
This heavenly piece, which nature having wrought.
She lost her needle, and did then despair
Ever to work so lively and so fair.
Massinger and Field's Fatal Doiory.
Do not idolatrize ; beauty 's a flow'r,
Which springs and withers almost in an hour.
William Smith's Hector of Germany.
We can distinguish
Of beauty there, and wonder without spectacles,
Write volumes of your praise, and tell the world
How envious diamonds, 'cause they could not
Reach to the lustre of your eyes, dissolv'd
To angry tears ; the roses droop, and gath'ring
Their leaves together, seem to chide their blushes
That they must yield your cheek the victory :
The lilies when they're censur'd for comparing
With your more clear and native purity,
Want white to do their penance in.
Shirley's Royal Master.
Heav'n meant that beauty, nature's greatest force,
Having exceeding pow'r, should have remorse ;
Valour, and it, the world should so enjoy,
As both might overcome, but not destroy.
Lord Orrery's Henry V.
My beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise :
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues.
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost.
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright !
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear :
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear !
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety : other women cloy
The appetites they feed ; but she makes hungry,
Where most she satisfies.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatta,
Beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
Shaks. Much Ado.
'T is beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
Sliaks. Twelfth Night
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss that fadeth suddenly,
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud,
A brittle glass that 's broken presently :
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, faded, broken, dead with an hour.
Shakspeart
44
BEAUTY.
Give me a look, give mc a face
That makes simplicity a grace
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free !
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Than all the adulteries of art;
That strike mine eyes but not my heart.
Ben Johnson.
Beauty is nature's coin, must not be hoarded,
But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss,
Unsavoury in th' enjoyment of itself:
If you let slip time, like a neglected rose,
It withers on the stalk with languished head.
Milton's Camus.
Beai ty, like the fair Hesperian tree,
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
Of dragon watch with unenchanted eye,
To save her blossoms and defend her fruit
From the rash hand of bold incontinence.
Milton's Comus.
With goddess-like demeanour forth she went,
Not unattended, for on her as queen
A pomp of winning graces waited still,
And from about her shot darts of desire
Into all eyes to wish her still in sight.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Grace was in all her steps, heav'n in her eye,
In ev'ry gesture dignity and love.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
When I approach
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,
All higher knowledge in her presence falls
Degraded, wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discount'nane'd, and like folly shows.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Her hcav'nly form
Angelic, but more soft and feminine,
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture or least action ovcraw'd
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereav'd
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought
Milton's Paradise Lost.
She seizes hearts, not waiting for consent,
Like sudden death, that snatches, unprepared;
Like fire from heaven, scarce seen so soon as felt
Lansdown's Heroic Love.
J fatal beauty ! why art thou bestow'd
On hapless woman still to make her wretched!
ttciray'd by thee, how many are undone !
Patterson's Arminius.
Beauty stands
In the admiration only of weak minds
Led captive ; cease to admire, and all her plume*
Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy,
At every sudden slighting quite abash'd.
Milton's Paradise Regained
What is beauty ? Not the show
Of shapely limbs and features. No :
These are but flowers
That have their dated hours,
To breathe their momentary sweets, then go.
'T is the stainless soul within
That outshines the fairest skim
Sir A. Hunt
Oh ! she has beauty might ensnare
A conqueror's soul, and make him tear his crown
At random, to be scuffled for by slaves.
Otway's Orphan
Mark her majestic fabric ! she's a temple
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine ;
Her soul 's the deity that lodges there ;
Nor is the pile unworthy of the god.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
The holy priests gaze on her when she smiles,
And with heav'd hands, forgetting gravity,
They bless her wanton eyes. Ev'n I, who hate her,
With a malignant joy behold such beauty,
And, while I curse, desire it
Dryden's All for Love.
At her feet were laid
The sceptres of the earth, exposed on heaps,
To choose where she would reign.
Dryden's All for Love.
Her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, her shapes, her
features,
Seem to be drawn by love's own hrnd; by love
Himself in love.
Dryden's Love Triumphant.
One who would change the worship of all climates,
And make a new religion where'er she comes,
Unite the differing faiths of all the world,
To idolize her face.
Dryden's Love Triumphant.
A native grace
Sat fair proportion'd on her polish'd limbs,
Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of drc^s : for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most
Thomson's Seasons.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose,
When the dew wets its leaves ; unstain'd, and pure,
As is the lily, or the mountain snow.
Thomson's i
BEAUTY.
45
'T is not a set of features, or complexion,
The tincture of a skin, that I admire ;
Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, ,
Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
Addison's Cato.
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,
Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide ;
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
Is she not brighter than a summer's morn,
When all the heav'n is streak'd with dappled fires,
And fleck'd with blushes like a rifled maid ?
Lee's Duke of Guise.
O she is all perfections !
All that the blooming earth can send forth fair ;
All that the gaudy heavens could drop down
glorious. Lee's Theodosius.
A lavish planet reign'd when she was born,
And made her of such kindred mould to heav'n,
She seems more heav'n's than ours.
Lee's OEdipus.
The bloom of opening flowers' unsullied beauty,
Softness, and sweetest innocence she wears,
And looks like nature in the world's first spring.
Rowe's Tamerlane.
Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love ?
Rowe's Fair Penitent.
O how I grudge the grave this heav'nly form !
Thy beauties will inspire the arms of death,
And warm the pale cold tyrant into life.
Southern's Loyal Brother.
Her grace of motion and of look, the smooth
And swimming majesty of step and tread,
The symmetry of form and feature, set
The soul afloat, even like delicious airs
Of flute or harp.
Milman.
What tender force, what dignity divine,
What virtue consecrating every feature !
Around that neck what dross are gold and pearl !
Young's Busiris.
What's female beauty, but an air divine,
Through which the mind's all gentle graces shine ?
They, like the sun, irradiate all between ;
The body charms, because the soul is seen.
Hence men are often captives of a face,
They know not why, of no peculiar grace :
Some forms, though bright, no mortal man can
bear;
Some, none resist, though not exceeding fair.
Young.
Beauty ! thou pretty playtliing ! dear deceit,
That steals so softly o'er the stripling's heart,
And gives it a new pulse unknown before !
The grave discredits thee : thy charms expung'd,
Thy roses faded, and thy lilies soil'd,
What hast thou more to boast of? will thy lovers
Flock round thee now, to gaze and do thee homage ?
Methinks I see thee with thy head laid low ;
Whilst surfeited upon thy damask cheek,
The high-fed worm, in lazy volumes roll'd,
Riots unscar'd. For this was all thy caution ?
For this thy painful labours at thy glass,
T 'improve those charms and keep them in repair,
For which the spoiler thanks thee not? Foul
feeder !
Coarse fare and carrion please thee full as well,
And leave as keen a relish on the sense.
Blair's Grave.
To make the cunning artless, tame the rude,
Subdue the haughty, shake th' undaunted soul ;
Yea, put a bridle in the lion's mouth,
And lead him forth as a domestic cur,
These are the triumphs of all-powerful beauty.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart.
Rogers's Italy.
Beauty,
That transitory flower : even while it lasts
Palls on the roving sense, when held too near,
Or dwelling there too long : by fits it pleases ;
And smells at distance best ; its sweets, familiar
By frequent converse, soon grow dull and cloy you
Jeffery's Edwin
With head upraised, and look intent,
An eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back, and lips apart,
Like monument of Grecian art
In listening mood, shs seemed to stand,
The guardian naiad of the strand.
Scott's Lady of the Lukt.
The rose, with faint and feeble streak,
So slightly tinged the maiden's cheek,
That you had said her hue was pale;
But if she faced the summer-gale,
Or spoke, or sung, or quicker moved,
Or heard the praise of those she loved,
Or when of interest was expressed
Aught that waked feeling in her breast,
The mantling blood in ready play
Rivalled the blush of rising d;ty.
Scott's Rokeby,
40
BEAUTY.
riiere was a soft and pensive grace,
A cast of thought upon her face,
That suited well the forehead high,
The eye-lash dark, and downcast eye,
The mild expression spoke a mind
In duty firm, composed, resigned.
Scott's Rokeby.
Fair all the pageant — but how passing fair
The slender form, which lay on couch of Ind !
O'er her white bosom stray'd her hazel hair,
Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pined.
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Such harmony in motion, speech and air,
That without fairness, she was more than fair.
Crabbe.
Lo ! when the buds expand the leaves are green,
Then the first opening of the flower is seen ;
Then come the honied breath and rosy smile,
That with their sweets the willing sense beguile :
But as we look, and love, and taste, and praise,
And the fruit grows, the charming flower decays ;
Till all is gathered, and the wintry blast
Moans o'er the place of love and pleasure past.
So 'tis with beauty, — such the opening grace
And dawn of glory in the youthful face ;
Then are the charms unfolded to the sight,
Then all is loveliness and all delight ;
The nuptial tie succeeds, and genial hour,
And, lo ! the falling off of beauty's flower.
So through all nature is the progress made, —
The bud, the bloom, the fruit, — and then we fade.
Crabbe.
Oh ! how refreshing seemed the breathing wind,
To her faint limbs I and while her snowy hands
From her fair brow her golden hair unbind,
And of her zone unloose the silken bands,
More passing bright unveiled her beauty stands ;
For faultless was her form as beauty's queen,
And every winning grace that love demands
With mild attempered dignity was seen
Play o'er each lovely limb, and deck her angel
mien. Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
Ev'n then her presence had the power
To soothe, to warm, — nay, ev'n to bless —
If ever bliss could graft its flower
On stem so full of bitterness —
Ev'n then her glorious smile to me,
Brought warmth and radiance, if not balm
Like moonlight on a troubled sea,
'lightening the storm it cannot calm.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
As rising on its purple wing
The insect queen of eastern spring,
J'er emerald meadows of Kashmere,
Invites the young pursuer near,
And leads him on from flower to flower,
A weary chase and wasted hour,
Then leaves him, as it soars on high,
With panting heart and tearful eye:
So beauty lures the full-grown child,
With hue as bright and wing as wild ;
A chase of idle hopes and fears,
Begun in folly, closed in tears.
Byron '* Giaour.
She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,
The morning star of memory.
Byron's Giaour.
Such was Zuleika ! such around her shone
The nameless charms unmarked by her alone :
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole—
And, oh 1 that eye was in itself a soul !
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Alone and dewy, coldly pure and pale ;
As weeping beauty's cheek at sorrow's tale.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
So bright the tear in beauty's eye
Love half regrets to kiss it dry,
So sweet the blush of bashfulness
Even pity scarce can wish it less.
Byron's Bride of Abydos
Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray ?
Who dotli not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess
The might — the majesty of loveliness?
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Her glance, how wildly beautiful ! how much
Hath Phoebus woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek,
Which glows yet smoother from his amorous
clutch !
Who round the north for paler dames would seek ?
How poor their forms appear ! how languid, wan
and weak ! Byron's Childe Harold.
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
Byron's Btppo.
Her overpowering presence made you feel
It would not be idolatry to kneel.
Byron's Don Juan.
Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth ;
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
BEAUTY.
47
Mounting-, at times, to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning.
Byron's Don Juan.
\n eye's an eye, and whether black or blue,
Is no great matter, so 'tis in request,
'Tis nonsense to dispute about a hue, —
The kindest may be taken as a test.
The fair sex should be always fair ; and no man,
Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman.
Byron's Don Juan.
She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew —
As seeking not to know it ; silent, lone,
As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew,
And kept her heart serene within its zone.
There was awe in the homage which she drew,
Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne
Apart from the surrounding world, and strong
In its own strength — -most strange in one so
young. Byron's Don Juan.
We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart
Reels with its fulness.
Byron.
The beautiful is vanish'd, and returns not.
Coleridge.
There's beauty all around our paths,
If but our watchful eyes
Can trace it 'midst familiar things
And through their lowly guise.
Mrs. Hemans.
True beauty never was defin'd —
And features painted to the mind
Are perfect only to the blind,
Who never scan the image o'er.
Mrs. Hale.
Some souls lose all things but the love of beauty;
And by that love they are redeemable.
For in love and beauty the}' acknowledge good,
And good is God.
Bailey's Festus.
The beautiful are never desolate;
i But some one always loves them.
Bailey's^Festus.
Beauty gives
The features perfectness, and to the form
Its delicate proportions : she may stain
The eye with a celestial blue — the cheek
With carmine of the sunset ; she may breathe
Grace into every motion, like the play
Of the least visible tissue of a cloud :
I She may give all that is within her own
i Bright ccstus — and one glance of intellect,
Like stronger magic, will outshine it all.
Willis.
Beautiful, yes ! but the blush will fade,
The light grow dim which the blue eyes wear
The gloss will vanish from curl and braid,
And the sunbeam die in the waving hair.
Turn from the mirror, and strive to win
Treasures of loveliness still to last ;
Gather earth's glory and bloom within,
That the soul may be bright when youth is past.
Mrs. Osgood.
Thou art beautiful, young lady, —
But I need not tell you this;
For few have borne, unconsciously,
The spell of loveliness.
Wkittier
Mrs. Welly
Coleridge.
I've gaz'd on many a brighter face,
But ne'er on one for years,
Where beauty left so soft a trace
As it had left on hers.
The face, O call it fair, not pale.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.
Shelley.
No wonder that cheek in its beauty transcendant,
Excelleth the beauty of others by far ;
No wonder that eye is so richly resplendent,
For your heart is a rose and your soul is a star.
Mrs. Osgood.
• — Her cheek had the pale pearly pink
Of sea-shells, the world's sweetest tint, as though
She lived, one half might deem, on roses sopp'd
In silver dew.
Bailey's Festus.
When I forget that the stars shine in air,
When I forget that beauty is in stars —
Shall I fbrget thy beauty.
Bailey.
Thy glorious beauty was the gift of heaven, —
As such thou should'st have priz'd it, and have
died
Ere thou didst yield it up to mortal touch,
Unless thy heart went with it, to make pure
And sanctify the offering.
Mrs. Osgood.
What right have you, madam, gazing in your
shining mirror daily,
Getting so by heart your beauty, which all other3
must adore ;
While you draw the golden ringlets down your
fingers, to vow gayly,
You will wed no man that's only good to God,- ••
and nothing more. Miss Barral
Beauty — the fading rainbow's Dride.
Halleck
46
BED -BEES -BEGGAR.
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh, what were man ! — a world without a sun !
Campbell.
Beauty has gone ; but yet her mind is still
As beautiful as ever ; still the play
Of light around her lips has every charm
Of childhood in its freshness.
Percival.
O, say not, wisest of all the kings,
That have risen on Israel's throne to reign,
Say not, as one of your wisest things,
That grace is false and beauty vain.
John Pierpont.
Is beauty vain because it will fade ?
Then are earth's green robe and heaven's light
vain ;
For this shall be lost in evening's shade,
And that in winter's sleety rain.
John Pierpont.
I would that thou mightst ever be
As beautiful as now;
That time might ever leave as free
Thy yet unwritten brow.
Willis.
She was like
A dream of poetry, that may not be
Written or told — exceeding beautiful.
Willis.
Beauty was lent to nature as the type
Of heaven's unspeakable and holy joy,
Where all perfection makes the sum of bliss.
Mrs. Hale.
BED.
• Oh ! thou gentle scene
Of sweet repose, where, by th' oblivious draught
Of each sad toilsome day to peace restor'd.
Unhappy mortals lose their woes awhile ;
Thou hast no peace for me !
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.
Night is the time for rest; —
How sweet, when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tir'd limbs and lay the head
Down on our own delightful bed!
James Montgomery.
BEES.
So work the honey-bees;
Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach
The art of orde- to a peopled kingdom.
Shaks. Henry V,
Look on the bee upon the wing 'mong flower* ;
— How brave, how bright his life ! then mark
him hiv'd,
Cramp'd, cringing in his self-built, social cell.
Thus is it in the world-hive : most where men
Lie deep in cities as in drifts.
Bailey's Festu3.
BEGGAR.
Art thou a man ? And sham'st thou not to beg ?
To practise such a servile kind of life?
Why, were thy education ne'er so mean,
Having thy limbs, a thousand fairer courses
Offer themselves to thy election.
Jonson's Every Man in his Humour.
Men of thy condition feed on sloth,
As doth the beetle on the dung she breeds in ;
Not caring how the metal of your minds
Is eaten with the rust of idleness.
Jonson's Every Man in his Humour
When beggars grow thus bold,
No marvel then though charity grow cold.
Drayton.
Base worldlings, that despise all such as need;
Who to the needy beggar still are dumb,
Not knowing unto what themselves may come.
Heywood's Royal King.
He makes a beggar first that first relieves him ;
Not us'rers make more beggars where they live,
Than charitable men that use to give.
Heywood's Royal King.
Beggar? — the only free men of our common-
wealth,
Free above scot-free, that observe no laws,
Obey no governor, use no religion,
But what they draw from their own ancient
custom,
Or constitute themselves, yet are no rebels.
Brome.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wand'rings but relicv'd their pain ;
The long rcmembcr'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
The beggar, as he strctch'd his shrivcl'd hand,
Rais'd not his eyes — and those who dropp'd the
mite
Pass'd on unnotie'd.
Bailey.
A beggar through the world am I,
From place to place I wander by;
— Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me,
For Christ's sweet sake and charity!
James Russell Lowell
BENEFITS - BIGOTRY.
See yonder poor, o'er-labour'd wight,
So abject, mean and vile,
Who begs a brother of the eiirth
To give him leave to toil ;
And see his lordly fellow-worm
The poor petition spurn!
Burns.
BENEFITS.
A benefit upbraided, forfeits thanks.
Lady Carew's Mariam.
And 't is not sure so full a benefit,
Freely to give, as freely to require.
A bounteous act hath glory following it,
They cause the glory, that the act desire.
Lady Careio's Mariam.
He that neglects a blessing, though he want
A present knowledge how to use it,
Neglects himself.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother.
To brag of benefits one hath bestown,
Doth make the best seem less, and most seem
none ;
So oftentimes the greatest courtesy
Is by the doer made an injury.
Bronze's Novella.
BIGOTRY.
Sure 'tis an orthodox opinion,
That grace is founded in dominion.
Butler's Hudibras.
Nor does it follow, 'cause a herald
Can make a gentleman scarce a year old,
To be descended of a race
Of ancient kings in a small space,
That we should all opinions hold
Authentic that we can make old.
Butler's Hudibras.
Soon their crude notions with each other fought ;
The adverse sect deny'd what this had taught ;
And he at length the amplest triumph gain'd,
Who contradicted what the last maintain'd.
Prior's Solomon.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ;
His can 't be wrong, whose life is in the right.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Heav'n never took a pleasure or a pride,
In starving stomachs, or a horsewhipp'd hide.
Dr. Wolcofs Peter Pindar.
Yet some there are, of men I think the worst,
Poor imps ! unhappy, if they can 't be curst.
Dr. Wolcofs Peter Pindar.
D
The good old man, too eager in dispute,
Flew high ; and, as his Christian fury rose,
Damn'd all for heretics who durst oppose.
Dryderi's Religio Laid.
The guiltless victim groan'd for their offence,
And cruelty and blood was penitence ;
If sheep and oxen could atone for men,
Ah ! at how cheap a rate the rich might sin !
And great oppressors might heaven's wrath be
guile,
By offering his own creatures for a spoil.
Dryderi's Religio Laid.
The slaves of custom and establish'd mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road,
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.
Coivper's Tirocinium.
To follow foolish precedents, and wink
With both our eyes, is easier than to think.
Cowpefs Tirocinium.
Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree ?
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
If he kneel not before the same altar with me
From the heretic girl of my soul shall I fly,
To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss ?
No ! perish the hearts, and the laws that try
Truth, valour, or love, by a standard like this.
Moon.
And many more such pious scraps,
To prove (what we 've long prov'd perhaps)
That mad as Christians us'd to be
About the thirteenth century,
There 's lots of Christians to be had
In this, the nineteenth, just as mad !
Moore's Twopenny Post Bag.
Yet spite of tenets so flagitious
(Which must, at bottom, be seditious ;
As no man living would refuse
Green slippers, but from treasonous views ;
Nor wash his toes but with intent
To overturn the government!)
Such is our mild and tolerant way,
We only curse them twice a day,
(According to a form that's set)
And far from torturing, only let
All orthodox believers beat 'em,
And twitch their beards, where'er they meet 'em.
Moore's Twopenny Post Bag.
Where frugal monks their little relics show,
And sundry legends to the stranger tell •
Here impious men have punish'd been, and lo '
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell
In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.
Byron's Childe Harmd
so
BIRDS.
If this be true, indeed,
Some Christians have a comfortable creed.
Bijron's Don Juan.
Tliou wilt absolve me from the deed,
For he was hostile to thy creed !
The very name of Nazarene
Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen.
Byron's Giaour.
And soul — but who shall answer where it went?
'Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead ; and they
Who doom to hell, themselves are on the way,
Unless these bullies of eternal pains
Are pardoned their bad hearts fbr their worse
brains. Byron's Island.
My soul had drawn
Light from the Book whose words are graved in
light,
There at the well-head had I found the dawn,
And day, and noon, of freedom : — but too bright
It shines on that which man to man hath given,
And call'd the truth — the very truth from heaven ;
And therefore seeks he, in his brother's sight
To cast the mote, — and therefore strives to bind
With his strong chain to earth, what is not
Earth's — the Mind.
Mrs. Hemans.
Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll,
Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul ;
The God of love, who gave the life that warms
All breathing dust in all its varied forms,
Asks not the tribute of a world like this
To fill the measure of his perfect bliss.
O. W. Holmes.
BIRDS.
But like the birds, great nature's happy com-
moners,
That haunt in woods, in meads and flow'ry gardens
Rifle the sweets and taste the choicest fruits,
Yet scorn to ask the lordly owner's leave.
Rowe's Fair Penitent
Up springs the lark,
.Shrill voie'd, and loud, the messenger of morn ;
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations.
Thomson's Seasons.
Every copse
fJeep tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Kending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads
Of the coy quiristcrs that lodge within,
Axe orodigai of harmony. The thrush
And wood-lark, o'er the kind contending throng
Superior heard, run through the sweetest length
Of notes ; when listening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes in thought
Elate, to make her night excel the day.
Thomson's Seasons.
All abandon'd to despair, she sings
Her sorrows through the night ; and, on the bough
Sole sitting, still at every dying fall
Takes up again her lamentable strain
Of winding woe ; till, wide around, the woods
Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.
Thomson's Seasons.
'Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love ;
That even to birds, and beasts, the tender arts
Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind
Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates
Pour forth their little souls.
Thomson's Seasons.
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The live-long night : nor these alone whose notes
Nice finger'd art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud ;
The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
Cowper's Task.
Loud sung the lark, the awaken'd maid
Beheld him twinkling in the morning light,
And wish'd for wings and liberty like his.
Southey's Thalaba.
Amid the flashing and feathery foam
The stormy Petrel finds a home.
Proctor.
A light broke in upon my soul —
It was the carol of a bird ;
It ceased — and then it came again,
The sweetest song ear ever heard.
Byron.
See the enfranchised bird, who wildly springs
With a keen sparkle in his glowing eye,
And a strong effort in his quivering wings
Up to the blue vault of the happy sky.
Mrs. Norton.
The star of our forest dominions,
The humming-bird darts to its food,
Like a gem or a blossom, on pinions,
Whose glory illumines the woods.
Mrs. Oegooa.
With sonorous notes
Of every tone, mix'd in confusion sweet
Our forest rings.
Carlos Wilcox.
BIRTH.
51
Fair is the swan, whose majesty prevailing
O'er breezeless water, on Locano's lake,
Bears him on, while proudly sailing
He leaves behind a moon-illumin'd wake ;
Behold ! the mantling spirit of reserve
Fashions his neck into a goodly curve ;
An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings
Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs,
To which, on some unruffled morning clings
A flaky weight of winter's purest snows.
Wordsworth.
Is that a swam that rides upon the water ?
O no, it is that other gentle bird,
A goose.
O. W. Holmes.
The noisy geese that gabbled in the pool.
Goldsmith.
And the ruffling bird of Juno, —
And the wren in the old wall,
Each knew her loving carefulness
And came at her soft call.
Mrs. Hale's Alice Ray.
The robin to the garden or green yard,
Close to the door repairs to build again
Within her wonted tree.
Carlos Wilcox.
The brown vultures of the woods
Flock'd to these vast uncover'd sepulchres
And sat unscar'd and silent at their feast.
Bryant.
Lone whippoorwill ;
There is much sweetness in thy fitful hymn,
Heard in the drowsy watches of the night.
Isaac McLellan, Jr.
Seeing one crow is lucky, 'tis true,
But sure misfortune attends on two,
And meeting with three is the devil.
M. G. Lewis.
With storm-daring pinion, and sun-gazing eye,
The Grey Forest Eagle is king of the sky.
Alfred B. Street.
An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty and high
Is the Grey Forest Eagle, that king of the sky,
It scorns the bright scenes, the gay places of
earth —
By the mountain and torrent it springs into birth ;
There rock'd by the wild wind, baptiz'd by the
foam,
It is guarded and cherish'd, and there is its home.
Alfred B. Street.
Hark ! how with lone and fluttering start
The sky-lark soars above,
And with her full, melodious heart,
She pours her strains of love.
Mrs. Welby.
The pilgrim swallow cometh
To her forsaken nest, —
So must each heart, that roameth,
Return to find its rest
Where love makes summer lustre.
Mrs. Hale
Ever, my son, be thou like the dove ;
In friendship as faithful, as constant in love.
Bishop Doane.
There from a neighbouring thicket the mocking.
bird, wildest of singers,
Swung aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er
the water,
Shook from his little throat such floods of delicious
music,
That the whole air and the woods and the waves
seem'd to listen.
Longf dime's Evangeline.
Hark ! that sweet carol ! what delights,
The scene no more is dumb, —
The little blue-bird is in sight,
Spring, glorious Spring, has come.
Street's Poems.
The partridge, whose deep-rolling drum,
Afar has sounded on my ear,
Ceasing its beatings as I come,
Whirrs to the sheltering branches near.
Street's Poems
The quail's quick whistle echoed clear,
From the red buckwheat-stubble near.
Street's Poems
This great solitude is quick with life ;
And birds that scarce have learn'd the fear of men
Are here. Bryant
BIRTH.
Verily,
I swear, 't is better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
Shales. Henry VIll
Madam, you haply scorn the vulgar earth
Of which I stand compacted : and because
I cannot add a splendour to my name,
Reflective from a royal pedigree,
You interdict my language ; but be pleas'c
To know, the ashes of my ancestors,
If intermingled in the tomb with kings,
Could hardly be distinguish'd. The stars shoot
An equal influence on th' open cottage,
Where the poor shepherd's child is rudely nurs'd,
As on the cradle where the prince is rock'd
With care and whisper.
Habbington's Queen of Amiga*
m
BIRTHDAY - BLINDNESS.
No distinction is 'tween man and man,
But as his virtues add to him a glory,
Or vices cloud him.
Habbington's Queen of Arragon.
Put off your giant titles, then I can
Stand in your judgment's blank and equai man,
Though hills advanced are above the plain,
They are but higher earth, nor must disdain
Alliance with the vale : we see a spade
Can level them, and make a mount a glade.
Howe'er we differ in the herald's book,
He that mankind's extraction shall look
In nature's rolls, must grant we all agree
In our best parts, immortal pedigree.
Dr. Henry King, Bishop of Chichester.
Let high birth triumph ! what can be more great ?
Nothing — but merit in a low estate.
To virtue's humblest son let none prefer
Vice, though descended from the Conqueror.
Shall man, like figures, pass for high, or base,
Slight or important, only by their place ?
Titles are marks of honest men, and wise ;
The fool, or knave, that wears a title, lies.
Young.
Look up, my young American,
Stand firmly on the earth,
Where noble deeds and mental power
Give titles over birth.
Mrs. Caroline Gilman.
Tradition's pages
Tell not the planting of thy parent tree.
Halleck.
I have had dreams of greatness, glorious dreams,
How I would play the lord ! — How I would spurn
The littleness of that false pride which seeks
To build on pedigree its high renown: —
How I would lend my influence to suppress
The haughtiness of titled rank, and teach
That brain, not blood was proof of noble birth.
Mrs. Hale's Grosvenor ; a Tragedy.
I 've learned to judge of men by their own deeds,
I do not make the accident of birth
The standard of their merit.
Mrs. Hale's Grosvenor.
He was poor and lowly born, and lived
Where merit must be heralded by birth,
( )r bought with gold.
Mrs. Hale's Grosvenor.
BIRTHDAY.
Alas ! this day
first gave me birth, and (which is strange to tell)
'Hie fates e'er sin-.c, as watching its return,
Have caught it as it flew, and mark'd it deep
With something great ; extremes of good or ill.
Young's Busiris
If any white-winged power above
My joys and griefs survey,
The day when thou wert born, my love, —
He surely blessed that day.
And duly shall my raptured song,
And gladly shall my eyes
Still bless this day's return, so long
As thou shalt see it rise.
Campbell.
Another year ! another leaf
Is turned within life's volume brief,
And yet not one bright page appears
Of mine within that book of years.
Yet all I've learnt from hours rife
With painful brooding here,
Is, that amid this mortal strife,
The lapse of every year
But takes away a hope from life,
And adds to death a fear.
Why should we count our life by years,
Since years are short, and pass away !
Or, why by fortune's smiles or tears,
Since tears are vain and smiles decay
O! count by virtues — these shall last
When life's lame-footed race is o'er;
And these, when earthly joys are past,
May cheer us on a brighter shore,
Hoffman.
Hoffman.
My birthday! O, beloved mother!
My heart is with thee o'er the seas.
I did not think to count another,
Before I wept upon thy knees.
Mrs. Hale.
Willis.
BLINDNESS.
Where am I now ?
I thought the way to death had been so broad,
Tho' I were blind, I could not miss the road :
Death's lodgings such perpetual darkness have,
And I seem nothing but a walking grave.
Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin.
O happiness of blindness ! now no beauty
Inflames my lust; no other's good my envy;
Or misery, my pity ; no man's wealth
Draws my respect ; nor poverty my scorn *
Yet still I see enough ! man to himself
Is a large prospect, rais'd above the level
Of his low creeping thoughts ; if then I have'
A world within myself, that world shall be
BLUNTNESS.
My empire ; there I '11 reign, commanding freely,
And willingly obey'd, secure from fear
Of foreign forces, or domestic treasons,
And hold a monarchy more free, more absolute,
Than in my father's seat ; and looking down
With scorn, or pity, on the slipp'ry state
Of kings, will tread upon the neck of fate.
Denliam's Sophy.
These eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot ;
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overpiied
In liberty's defence, my noble task,
Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
This might lead me through the world's vain mask
Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
Milton.
loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeons or beggary or decrepid age !
Light, the prime work of God, to me 's extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd which might in part my grief have eas'd.
Milton's Samson Agonistes.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrevocably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day !
O first created beam, and thou great word,
Let there be light, and light was over all ;
Why am I thus bereav'd the prime decree ?
Milton's Samson Agonistes.
Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with an universal blank
Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. '
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Ye have a world of light,
Where love in the loved rejoices ;
But the blind man's home is the house of night,
And its beings are empty voices.
Bulwer.
I ken the night and day,
For all ye may believe,
And often in my spirit lies
A clear light as of mid-day skies ;
And splendours on my vision rise,
Like gorgeous hues of eve.
Mary Howiti,
For oh ! while others gaze on Nature's face,
The verdant vale, the mountains, woods and
streams,
Or with delight ineffable survey
The sun, — bright image of his parent God ; —
Whilst others view Heaven's all-involving arch,
Bright with unnumber'd worlds, and lost in joy,
Fair order and utility behold; —
To me those fair vicissitudes are lost,
And grace and beauty blotted from my view.
Dr. Thomas Blacklcck.
Thou walk 'st the world in daily night :
In vain they gleam, in vain for thee,
The morn upon the mountain height,
The golden sunset on the sea.
Mrs. Osgood,
He, whom Nature thus bereaves,
Is ever Fancy's favourite child;
For thee, enchanted dreams she weaves
Of changeful beauty, bright and wild.
Mrs. Osgood
BLUNTNESS.
This is some fellow,
Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb,
Quite from his nature : he can't flatter, he ! —
An honest mind and plain, — he must speak truth '
An they will take it, so ; if not, he 's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plain
ness
Harbour more craft, and far corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly ducking observants,
That stretch their duty nicely.
Shahs. Lear
This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.
Shaks. Julius Co&ai.
I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Nor actions, nor utterance, nor the power a'
speech,
To stir men's blood : I only speak right on.
Shahs. Juhus Ccbsw
5*
54
BLUSHING - BOASTING.
BLUSHING.
The doubtful! mayd, seeing herselfe descryde,
Was all abasht, and her pure yvory
Jnto a clear carnation suddeine dyde ;
As fayre Aurora rysing hastily
Doth by her blushing; tell that she did lye
All night in old Tithonus' frozen bed,
Whereof she seems ashamed inwardly.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Confusion thrill'd me then, and secret joy,
Fast throbbing, stole its treasures from my heart,
And mantling upward, turn'd my face to crimson.
Brooke's Gustavw Vasa.
From every blush that kindles in thy cheeks,
Ten thousand little loves and graces spring
To revel in the roses.
Rome's Tamerlane.
Confound me not with shame, nor call up all
The blood that warms my trembling heart,
To fill my cheeks with blushes.
Trap's Albramule.
With every change his features played,
As aspens show the light and shade.
Scott's RoJcely.
Truly his penetrating eye
Hath caught that blush's passing dye, —
Like the last beam of evening thrown
On a white cloud, — just seen and gone.
Scott's Lord of the Isles.
Alas ! that in our earliest blush
Our danger first we feel,
And tremble when the rising flush
Eetrays some angel's seal!
Alas ! for care and pallid woe
Sit watchers in their turn,
Where heaven's too faint and transient glow
So soon forgets to burn !
Maiden ! through every change the same
Sweet semblance thou mayst wear;
Ay, scorcli thy very soul with shame,
Thy brow may still be fair:
But if thy lovely cheek forget
The rose of purer years —
Say, docs not memory- sometimes wet
That changeless cheek with tears ?
O. W. Holmes.
Give me the eloquent cheek,
Where blushes burn and die;
l-ike thine its changes speak
The spirit's purity!
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
On Beauty's lids the gem-like tear
Oft sheds its evanescent ray,
But scarce is seen to sparkle, ere
'Tis chased by beaming smiles away:
Just so the blush is formed — and flies —
Nor owns reflection's calm control :
It comes, it deepens — fades and dies,
A gush of feeling from the soul.
Mrs. Dinni
The lilies faintly to the roses yield,
As on thy lovely cheek they struggling vie,
(Who would not strive upon so sweet a field
To win the mastery ?)
And thoughts are in thy speaking eyes reveal'd,
Pure as the fount the prophet's rod unseal'd.
Hoffman,
BOASTING.
O Jove ! let it become
To boast my deeds, when he whom they concern
Shall thus forget them.
Jonson's Sejanua.
The honour is overpaid,
When he that did the act is commentator.
Shirley.
He that vaunts
Of a received favour ought to be
Punish'd as sacrilegious persons are.
'Cause he doth violate that sacred thing,
Pure, spotless honour.
CartwrigM's Royal Slave.
For then we wound our modesty, and make
Foul the clearness of our deservings, when
Of ourselves we publish them.
Shahs. All's Well
Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this; for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
Shahs. All's Well
Here 's a large mouth, indeed,
That spits forth death, and mountains, rocks, anc
seas;
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions,
As maids of thirteen do of puppy dogs.
Shahs. King John
I know them, yea,
And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple:
Scambling, out-facing, fashion mong'ring boys,
That lie, and coy, and flout, deprave and slander,
Go antickly, and show outward hideousness,
And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,
How they might hurt their enemies if they durst;
And this is all.
Shahs. Much Ado.
BOOKS.
65
I '11 turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride ; and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth ; and tell quaint lies,
How honourable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died :
I could not do with all : — then I will repent,
And wish, for all that, that I had not kill'd them,
And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,
That men shall swear I have discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth.
Skaks. Merchant of Venice.
What art thou ? Have not I
An arm as big as thine ? a heart as big ?
Thy words, I grant, are bigger ; for I wear not
My dagger in my mouth.
Shales. Cymheline.
He made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman
Of guns, and drums, and wounds (God save the
mark !)
And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmacity, for an inward bruise ;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly : and but for these wild guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
. Shahs. Henry IV.
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand ; and (in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will)
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside;
As many other mannish cowards have,
That do outface it with their semblances.
Shahs. As you lihe it.
Here is a silly, stately style indeed !
The Turk that two and fifty kingdoms hath,
Writes not so tedious a style as this.
Shahs. Henry IV.
Nay, an thou 'It mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.
Shaha. Hamlet.
A mad-cap ruffian, and a swearing jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out
Shahs. Taming the Shrew.
So spake the apostate angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
We rise in glory, as we sink in pride ;
Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.
Young's Night Thoughts.
For men (it is reported) dash and vapour
Less on the field of battle than on paper.
Thus in the hist'ry of each dire campaign
More carnage loads the newspaper than plain.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
BOOKS.
And though books, madam, cannot make this
mind,
Which we must bring apt to be set aright ;
Yet do they rectify it in that kind,
And touch it so, as that it turns that way
Where judgment lies. And though we cannot find
The certain place of truth, yet do they stay,
And entertain us near about the same.
Daniel.
A book ! O rare one !
Be not, as is our fangled word, a garment
Nobler than that it covers.
Shahs. Cymheline
Books should to one of these four ends conduce
For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
Denliam
Learning is more profound
When in few solid authors 't may be found.
A few good books, digested well, do feed
The mind ; much cloys, or doth ill humours breed
Robert Heath.
Give me
Leave to enjoy myself. That place that does
Contain my books, the best companions, is
To me a glorious court, where hourly I
Converse with the old sages and philosophers ;
And sometimes for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their coun-
sels;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account ; and in my fancy,
Deface their iil-plac'd statues. Can I then
Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace
Uncertain vanities ? No : be it your care
To augment a heap of wealth : it shall be mine
To increase in knowledge.
Fletche*
Books are part of man's prerogative,
In formal ink they thought and voices hold,
That we to them our solitude may give,
And make time present travel that of old.
Our life, fame pieceth longer at the end,
And books it farther backward doth extend.
Sir Thomas Ovxourtt
'Tis in books the chief
Of all perfections to be plain and bne£
Butlei
5f?
BOUNTY - BREVITY - BRIBERY.
"Twere well with most, if books, that could engage
Their childhood, pleas'd them at a riper age ;
The man approving what had charm'd the boy,
Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy;
And not with curses on his art, who stole
The gem of truth from his unguarded soul.
Cowper.
Books are men of higher stature,
And the only men that speak aloud for future
times to hear ! Miss Barrett's Poems.
Come let me make a sunny realm around thee,
Of thought and beauty! — Here are books and
flowers,
With spells to loose the fetters which hath bound
thee,
The ravell'd evil of this world's feverish hours.
Mrs. Hemans.
The past but lives in words : a thousand ages
Were blank, if books had not evok'd their ghosts,
And kept the pale, unbodied shades to warn us
From fleshless lips.
Bulwer.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book 's a book although there 's nothing in 't.
Byron.
'T was heaven to lounge upon a couch, said Gray,
And read new novels on a rainy day.
Charles Sprague.
A blessing on the printer's art! —
Books are the Mentors of the heart.
Mrs. Hale.
The burning soul, the burden'd mind
In books alone companions find.
Mrs. Hale.
Turn back the tide of ages to its head,
And hoard the wisdom of the honour'd dead.
Charles Sprague.
What he has written seems to me no more
Than I have thought a thousand times before.
Willis.
We never speak our deepest feelings;
Our holiest hopes have no revealings,
Save in the gleams that light the face,
Or fancies that the pen may trace.
And hence to books the heart must turn
When with unspoken thoughts vVe yearn,
And gather from the silent page
The just reproof, the counsel sage,
7 he consolation kind and true
7'hat soothes and heals the wounded heart.
Mrs. Hale's Vigil of Love.
|..i« there's a fever of the soul
I icy on d this opiate control,
v*' hen the doojc charm its influence loses.
Mrs. Hale's Vigil of Love.
BOUNTY.
What you desire of him, he partly begs
To be desir'd to give. It much would please hira
That of his fortunes you would make a staff
To lean upon.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
For his bounty,
There was no winter in 't ; an autumn 't was
That grew the more by reaping.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra,
O blessed bounty, giving all content !
The only fautress of all noble arts,
That lend'st success to every good intent,
A grace that rests in the most godlike hearts,
By heav'n to none but happy souls infus'd,
Pity it is, that e'er thou wast abus'd.
Drayten.
He that's liberal
To all alike, may do a good by chance,
But never out of judgment.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Spanish Curate.
Such moderation with thy bounty join,
That thou may'st nothing give that is not thine
That liberality is but cast away,
Which makes us borrow what we cannot pay.
DenJiam.
Large was his bounty and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send ;
He gave to misery all he had — a tear ; —
He gain'd from heaven — 'twas all he wish'd-
a friend ! Gray.
BREVITY.
Since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
Shaks. Hamlet.
'T is of books the chief
Of all perfections to be plain and brief!
Butler.
Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet
To spin your wordy fabric in the street ;
While you are emptying your colloquial pack,
The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back.
0. W. Holmes
BRIBERY.
What ! shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers ; — shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?
BUILDING - CALAMITY.
57
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash, as may be grasped thus ?
I'd rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.
Shahs. Julius CcEsar.
None does offend, none, I say none ; I '11 able 'em :
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal the accuser's lips.
Shales. Lear.
Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm;
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.
Shales. Julius C&sar.
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law :
The world affords no law to make thee rich ;
Then be not poor, but break it and take this.
Shahs. Romeo and Juliet.
Who thinketh to buy villany with gold,
Shall ever find such faith so bought — so sold.
Marsion's Sophonisba.
Silver, though white,
Yet it draws black lines ; it shall not rule my palm
There to mark forth his base corruption.
Middleton and Rowley's Fair Quarrel.
Petitions not sweetened
With gold, are but unsavoury and oft refused ;
Or if received, are pocketed, not read.
A suitor's swelling tears by the glowing beams
Of choleric authority are dried up
Before they fall, or if seen, never pitied.
Massinger.
No, I '11 not trust the honour of a man :
Gold is grown great, and makes perfidiousness
A most common waiter in most princes' courts :
He 's in the check-roll : I '11 not trust my blood :
I know none breathing but will cog a dye
For twenty thousand double pistolets.
Marston.
BUILDING.
Here the architect
Did not with curious skill a pile erect
Of carved marble, touch, or porphyry,
But built a house for hospitality;
No sumptuous chimney-piece of shining stone
Invites the stranger's eye to gaze upon,
And coldly entertain his sight, but clear
And cheerful flames cherish and warm him here.
Carew.
Not walls, but subjects' love
Do to a prince the strongest castle prove.
GoJJ'e's Raging Turk.
CALAMITY.
Do not insult calamity :
It is a barb'rous grossness, to lay on
The weight of scorn, where heavy misery
Too much already weighs men's fortunes down.
DanieVs Philotas.
Calamity is man's true touch-stone.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Four Plays in One.
How wisely fate ordain'd for human kind
Calamity ! which is the perfect glass
Wherein we truly see and know ourselves.
How justly it created life too short !
For being incident to many griefs,
Had it been destin'd to continue long,
Fate, to please fools, had done the wise great
wrong.
Sir W. Covenant's Law against Lovers.
Know, he that
Foretells his own calamity, and makes
Events before they come, twice over doth
Endure the pains of evil destiny.
But we must trust to virtue, not to fate ;
That may protect, whom cruel stars will hate.
Sir W. Davenanfs Distresses.
Thus, sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud;
And, after summer, ever more succeeds
Barren winter with his wrathful nipping cold ;
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.
Shahs. Henry VI.
When men once reach their autumn, sickly joys
Fall off apace, as yellow leaves from trees,
At every little breath misfortune blows ;
'Till left quite naked of their happiness,
In the chill blasts of winter they expire.
This is the common lot.
Young.
Tell me no more
Of my soul's lofty gifts ! Are they not vain
To quench its haunting thirst for happiness ?
Have I not loved, and striven, and failed to bind
One true heart unto me, whereon my own
Might find a resting-place, a home for all
Its burden of affection ? I depart
Unknown, though Fame goes with me ; I must
leave
The earth unknown.
Mrs. Hemant.
I turn rne back, and find a barren waste,
Joyless and rayless ; a few spots arc there,
Where briefly it was granted me to 'aste
The tenderness of youthful love — in air
The charm is broken.
Percwal
58
CALM -CANDOUR.
CALM.
Pure was the temp'rate air, an even calm
Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland
Breath'd o'er the blue expanse.
Thomson's Seasons.
Gradual sinks the breeze
Into a perfect calm ; that not a breath
I heard to quiver thro' the closing- woods,
Or rustling- turn the many twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffus'd
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse,
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation.
Thornton's Seasons.
The wind breathed soft as lovers sigh,
And oft renew'd seem'd oft to die,
With breathless pause, between.
O who with speech of war and woes,
Would wish to break the soft repose
Of such enchanting scene !
Scoffs Lord of the Isles.
St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray
Less bright, and less, was flung ;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.
Scott's Marmion.
Twas one of those ambrosial eves
A day of storm so often leaves
At its calm setting — when the west
Opens her golden bowers to rest,
And a moist radiance from the skies
Shoots trembling down, as from the eyes
Of some meek penitent, whose last
Bright hours atone for dark ones past,
And whose sweet tears, o'er wrong forgiven,
Shine as they fall with light from heaven !
Moore's Lalla RooJch.
How calm, — how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone,
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off and leave the land and sea,
Sleeping in bright tranquillity; —
When the blue waters rise and fall,
la sleepy sunshine mantling all;
And ev'n that swell the tempest leaves,
In like the full and silent heaves
Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest,
Toe newly to be quite at rest !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
The sea is like a silvery lake,
And o'er its calm the vessel glides
Gently as if it fcar'd to wake
The slumbers of the silent tides.
Moore
Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,
Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the dead,
And the spirit becalm'd but remember'd their
power,
As the billow the force of the gale that was fled !
Moore.
And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry,
And dolphin's leap, and little billow crost
By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret
Against the boundary it scarcely wet.
Byron's Don Juan.
So calm the waters scarcely seem to stray,
And yet they glide like happiness away.
Byron's Lara.
When all the fiercer passions cease, i
(The glory and disgrace of youth) ;
When the deluded soul in peace,
Can listen to the voice of truth;
When we are taught in whom to trust,
And how to spare, to spend, to give ;
(Our prudence kind, our pity just,)
'Tis then we rightly learn to live.
Crabb
Thy beauty is as undenied
As the beauty of a star ;
And thy heart beats just as equally,
Whate'er thy praises are ;
And so long without a parallel
Thy loveliness hath shone,
That, followed like the tided moon,
Thou movest as calmly on.
Willis
CANDOUR.
Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick
And welcome, Somerset : — I hold it cowardice
To rest mistrustful where a noble heart
Hath paw'd an open hand in sign of love.
Sliaks. Henry VIII
Make my breast
Transparent as pure crystal, that the world,
Jealous of me, may see the foulest thought
My heart does hold.
Bucldngham
The brave do never slum the light ;
Just arc their thoughts, and open are their tempers
Truly without disguise they love or hate •
Still are they found in the fair face of day,
And heav'n and men are judges of their actions
Rowe's Fair Penitent
CARE.
59
You talk to me in parables :
You may have known that I 'm no wordy man ;
Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves
Or fools that use them, when they want good
sense ;
But honesty
Needs no disguise nor ornament : be plain.
'Tis great — 'tis manly to disdain disguise;
It shows our spirit, or it proves our strength.
Young's Night Thoughts.
No haughty gesture marks his gait,
No pompous tone his word,
No studied attitude is seen,
No palling nonsense heard ;
He '11 suit his bearing to the hour,
Laugh, listen, learn or teach,
With joyous freedom in his mirth
And candour in his speech.
Eliza Cook.
CARE.
Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent,
Ne better had he, ne for better cared ;
With blist'red hands amongst the cinders brent,
And fingers filthy, with long nayles unpared,
Right fit to rend the food on which he fared :
His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade,
That neither day nor night from working spared,
But to small purpose yron wedges made :
Those be unquiet thoughts that careful minds in-
vade. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
In care they live, and must for many care ;
And such the best and greatest ever are.
Lord Brooks's Alaham.
Of all proceedings in this great affair,
We must not use our fortunes, but our care.
Clapthorne's Albertus Wallenstein.
Although my cares do hang upon my soul
Like mines of lead, the greatness of my spirit
Shall shake the sullen weight off.
Clapthorne's Albertus Wallenstein.
What bliss, what wealth, did e'er the world be-
stow
On man, but cares and fears attended it ?
May's Agrippina,
Care that is enter'd once into the breast,
Will have the whole possession ere it rest.
Jonson's Tale of a Tub
Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,
And after summer ever more succeeds
Barren winter with his wrathful nipping cold ;
So cares and joys abound as seasons fleet.
Shaks. Henry VI.
Care keeps his watch" in every old man's eye,
And where care lodgeth sleep * ill never he.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,
For things that are not to be remedied.
Shaks. Henry VI
You have ungently, Brutus,
Stole from my bed : and yesternight, at supper,
You suddenly arose, and walk'd about,
Musing, and sighing, with your arms across :
And when I ask'd you what the matter was,
You star'd upon me with ungentle looks.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar
Care that in cloisters only seals her eyes,
Which youth thinks folly, age and wisdom owns ■
Fools by not knowing her, outlive the wise ;
She visits cities, but she dwells on thrones.
Sir W. Davenanh
But human bodies are sic fools,
For a' their colleges and schools,
That when nae real ills perplex them,
They mak' enow themsels to vex them.
Burns.
He woke, — to watch the lamp, and tell
From hour to hour the castle-bell,
Or listen to the owlet's cry,
Or the sad breeze that whistles by,
Or catch by fits the tuneless rhyme
With which the warden cheats the time ;
And envying think, how, when the sun
Bids the poor soldier's watch be done,
Couched on his straw, and fancy-free,
He sleeps like careless infancy.
Scott's Rokeby.
And on, with many a step of pain,
Our weary race is sadly run;
And still, as on we plod our way,
We find, as life's gay dreams depart,
To close our being's troubled day,
Nought left us but a broken heart
Percival.
What shouldst thou have ever known
Of that blind goddess which deludes the world /
Or what of Care ? Oh, if the joys of life
Are linked with wealth, and fortune's gifts alone
Can make us happy, then thy cup of life
Is full to overflowing !
H. Pickering
Ah ! who can say, however fair his view
Through what sad scenes his path may lie ?
Let careless youth its seeming joys pursue,
Soon will they learn to scan with thoughtful eyo
The illusive past and dark futurity.
Kirk Whit*
CO
CAUSE - CAUTION - CELIBACY.
I do not starve,' 1 not yet, not yet :
But wait to-morrow ! Famine will be here.
In the mean time, we've still grim Care — (whose
tooth
Is like the tiger's — sharp,) lest dreams should fall,
And shadow us with sweet forgctfulncss.
Barry Cornwall.
CAUSE.
Circumstance must make it probable
Whether the cause's justness may command
Th' attendance of success : For an attempt
That's warranted by justice, cannot want
A prosperous end.
Nabb's Hannibal and Scipio.
Justness of cause is nothing,
When things are risen to the point they are : ■
'Tis either not examin'd or believ'd
Among the warlike.
Suckling's Brennoralt.
This is a cause which our ambition fills ;
A cause, in which our strength we should not
waste
In vain, like giants, who did heave at hills ;
'T is too unwieldy for the force of haste.
Sir W. DavenanVs Gondibert.
Small are the seeds fate does unheeded sow
Of slight beginnings to important ends ;
Whilst wonder, which does best our rev'rence
show
To hcav'n, all reason's sight in gazing spends.
Sir W. DavenanVs Gondibert.
CAUTION.
But now so wise and wary was the knight
By triall of his former harms and cares,
That he descry'd, and shunned still his slight:
The fish, that once was caught, new bait will
hardly bite. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Who 'scapes the snare
Once, has a certain caution to beware.
Chapnan's Revenge for Honour.
They that fear the adder's sting, will not come
Near his hissing.
Chapman's Widow's Tears.
None pities him that's in the snare,
Anil wam'd before, would not beware.
Herrick.
The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure ; but modest doubt is called
'Hie beacon of inc wise, the tent that searcnes
'» o lue bottom of the worst.
Shaks. Troi. and Cres.
It seems it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion.
Shales. Hamlet.
When clouds are seen, wise men put on their
cloaks ;
When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand ;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night ?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth :
All may be well ; but if God sort it so,
'T is more than we deserve, or I expect.
SMcs. Riclmrd III,
Be advis'd ;
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it doth singe yourself; we may outrun,
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running. Know you not,
The fire, that mounts the liquor till it run o'er,
In seeming to augment it, wastes it ? Be advis'd.
SJtaks. Henry VIII.
Trust none ;
For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer cakes,
And hold-fast is the only dog.
Shaks. Henry V.
Man's caution often into danger turns,
And his guard falling, crushes him to death.
Young's Night Thoughts.
He knows the compass, sail, and oar,
Or never launches from the shore ;
Before he builds, computes the cost,
And in no proud pursuit is lost
Gay's Fables.
All 's to be fear'd where all is to be lost.
Byron.
Let no man know thy business save some friend,
A man of mind.
Bailey.
CELIBACY.
But earlier is the rose distill'd,
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
SItakxpeare
Lady, you are the crudest she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave,
And leave no copy.
Shakspeare.
Most women's weak resolves, like reeds, will fly,
SliaKe with each breath, and bend with every sigh
Mine, like an oak whose firm roots deep descend,
Nor breath of love can shake, nor sigh can bend.
Gay,
CEREMONY - CHALLENGE - CHANGE.
61
If I am fair, T t is for myself alone ;
I do not wish to have a sweetheart near me,
Nor would I call another's heart my own,
Nor have a gallant lover to revere me ;
For surely I would plight my faith to none,
Though many an amorous wit might jump to
hear me ;
For I have heard that lovers prove deceivers,
When once they find that maidens are believers.
From Michel Angelo.
From her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall ;
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride,
She seems to soar and beam above them all !
Mrs. Welby.
And thus she wanders on — half sad, half blest —
Without a mate for the pure lonely heart,
That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast,
Never to find its lovely counterpart.
Mrs. Welby.
I'm an old maid! — and though I suffer by it I
Must change my style, and leave off gay society.
Willis.
O many a summer's morning glow
Has lent the rose its ray,
And many a winter's drifting snow
Has swept its bloom away;
But she has kept the faithless pledge
To this, her winter hour,
And keep3 it still, herself alone,
And wasted like the flower.
0. W. Holmes.
CEREMONY.
Ceremony was but devis'd at first,
To set a gloss on faint deeds, — hollow welcomes,
Recanting goodness, sorry e'er 'tis shown ;
But where there is true friendship, there needs
none. Shales. Timon.
And what art thou, thou idol, ceremony ?
What kind of god art thou ? that sufferest more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers^
What are thy rents ? What are thy comings in ?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth :
What is thy toll, O adoration ?
Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men ?
Wherein thou art less happy, being fear'd,
Than they in fearing.
What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery ? O be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.
Shaks. Henry V.
Then ceremony leads her bigots forth,
Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth ;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend :
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand ;
Happy to fill religion's vacant place
With hollow form, and gesture and grimace.
Cowper
It was withal a highly polished age,
And scrupulous in ceremonious rite,
When stranger stranger met upon the way,
First each to other bowed respectfully,
And large professions made of humble service.
Pollock.
CHALLENGE.
I never in my life
Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,
Unless a brother should a brother dare
To gentle exercise and proof of arms.
Shaks. Henry IV.
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
And mark my greeting well ; for what I speak,
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven :
Thou art a traitor and a miscreant.
Shaks. Richard II
CHANGE.
Weep not that the world changes — did it keep
A stable, changeless course, 'twere cause to weep.
Bryant
Not in vain the distance beckons,
Forward, forward let us range;
Let the peoples' spin for ever
Down the ringing grooves of change.
Tennyson.
I ask not what change
Has come over thy heart,
I seek not what chances
Have doomed us to part;
I know thou hast told me
To love .thee no more,
And I still must obey
Where I once did adore.
Hoffman
In bower and garden rich and rare
There 's many a cherish'd flower,
Whose beauty fades, whose fragrance flits
Within the flitting hour.
Not so the simple forest leaf,
Unprized, unnoticed, lying —
02
CHARACTER.
The same through all its little life —
It changes but in dying-.
Be such, and only such, my friends ;
Once mine, and mine for ever ;
And here 's a hand to clasp in theirs,
That shall desert them never.
And thou be such, my gentle love,
Time, chance, the world defying ;
And take, 'tis all I have, a heart
That changes but in dying.
G. W. Doane.
Ah ! if a fairy's magic might were mine,
I 'd joy to change with each new wish of thine ;
Nothing to all the world beside I'd be,
And everything thou lovest in turn to thee.
Mrs. Osgood.
CHARACTER.
Good name, in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls :
Who steals my purse, steals trash ; 't is something,
nothing,
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to
thousands ;
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that, which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
SJtaks. Othello.
Gnats are unnoticed wheresoe'er they fly,
But eagles gazed upon by every eye.
Shakspeare.
Stand free and fast,
And judge him by no more than what you know
Ingenuousty, and by the right laid line
Of truth, he truly will all styles deserve,
Of wise, good, just ; a man both soul and nerve.
Shirley's Ad?niral of France.
She can't be parallel'd by art, much less
By nature : she 'd battle painters to decypher
Her exactly, as bad as agues puzzle doctors.
Robert Neville's Poor Scholar.
As through the hedgerows' shade the violet steals,
And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals,
Her softer charms, but by their influence known,
Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own.
Rogers.
Though gay as mirth, as curious thoughts sedate ;
As elegance polite, as power elate;
Profound as reason, and as justice clear ;
Soft as compassion, yet as truth severe.
vVith mo-ie capacity for love than earth
Bestow a on most of mortal mould and birth,
His earlv dreams of good out-stripped the truth,
And troubled manhood followed baffled youth.
Byron.
The eye of the hale one,
With joy in its gleam,
Looks up in the noontide,
And steals from the beam ;
But the cheek of the pale one
Is marked with despair,
To feel itself fading,
When all is so fair.
Eliza Cook.
Bespeak the man who acted out the whole —
The whole of all he knew of high and true.
Hoffman.
Though looks and words,
By the strong mastery of his practised will,
Are overruled, the mounting blood betrays
An impulse in its secret spring, too deep
For his control.
Southey
And though, as you have said, the vernal bloom
Of his first spirits fading, leaves him changed —
'T is not to worse. His mind is as a meadow
Of various grasses, rich and fresh beneath,
But o'er the surface some that come to seed
Have cast a colour of sobriety.
Taylor's Edwin.
His talk is like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses ;
He slips from politics to puns,
Passes from Mahomet to Moses ;
Beginning with the laws that keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shoeing horses.
Praed — The Vicar
It is not mirth, for mirth she is too still ;
It is not wit, which leaves the heart more chill,
But that continuous sweetness, which with ease
Pleases all round it from the wish to please.
The New Timon
Those who see thee in thy full-blown pride,
Know little of affections crushed within,
And wrongs which frenzy thee.
Talfourd's Ion.
She was the pride
Of her familiar sphere — the daily joy
Of all who on her gracefulness might gaze,
And in the light and music of her way
Have a companion's portion.
Willis' Poems.
The angels sang in heaven when she was bcrn.
Longfcilow.
Devoted, anxious, generous, void of guile,
And with her whole heart's welcome in her s-nile.
Mrs. Nortt**.
CHARITY.
63
A gentle maiden, whose large, loving eyes
Enshrine a tender, melancholy light,
Like the soft radiance of the starry skies,
Or autumn sunshine, mellow'd when most bright;
She is not sad, yet in her gaze appears
Something that makes the gazer think of tears.
Mrs. Embury.
She has a glowing heart, they say,
Though calm her seeming be ;
And oft that warm heart's lovely play
Upon her cheek I see.
Mrs. Osgood.
Though time her bloom is stealing,
There's still beyond his art —
The wild flower wreath of feeling,
The sunbeam of the heart.
HaUeck.
Bold in the cause of God he stood
Like Templar in the Holy Land;
And never knight of princely blood
In lady's bower more bland.
Mrs. Hale.
His high broad forehead, marble fair,
Told of the power of thought within ;
And strength was in his raven hair —
But when he smiled a spell was there
That more than strength or power could win.
Mrs. Hale's Vigil of Love.
CHARITY.
Good is no good, but if it be spend ;
God giveth good for none other end.
Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
Charity ever
Finds in the act reward, and needs no trumpet
In the receiver.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Sea Voyage.
It was sufficient that his wants were known,
True charity makes others' wants their own.
Robert Dauborne's Poor Man's Comfort.
For true charity
Though ne'er so secret finds a just reward.
May's Old Couple.
For his bounty,
There was no winter in 't ; an autumn 't was
That grew the more by reaping.
SJiaks. Ant. and Cleo.
Nothing truly can be term'd mine own
But what I make mine own by using well.
Those deeds of charity which we have done
Shall stay for ever with us : and that wealth
Which we have so bestow' d, we only keep ;
The other is not ours.
Middleton.
'Mongst all your virtues
I see not charity written, which some call
The first-born of religion ; and I wonder,
I cannot see it in yours. Believe it, sir,
There is no virtue can be sooner miss'd,
Or later welcom'd ; it begins the rest,
And sets them all in order.
Middleton
Take physic, pomp ;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel ;
That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
Shaks. Lear
Think not, the good,
The gentle deeds of mercy thou hast done,
Shall die forgotten all ; the poor, the pris'ner,
The fatherless, the friendless, and the widow,
Who daily own the bounty of thy hand,
Shall cry to heav'n, and pull a blessing on thee.
Rowe's Jane Shoie,
How few, like thee, inquire the wretched out,
And court the offices of soft humanity !
Like thee, reserve their raiment for the naked,
Reach out their bread to feed the crying orphan,
Or mix the pitying tears with those that veep !
Rowe's Jane SJwre.
Great minds, like heaven, are pleas'd in doing
good,
Though the ungrateful subjects of their favours
Are barren in return.
Rowe's Tamerlane.
The secret pleasure of a generous act
Is the great mind's great bribe.
Dryden's Don Sebastiai*.
Is there a variance ? enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing quacks with curses left the place,
And vile attorneys, now an useless race.
Pope's Moral Essays.
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity :
All must be false that thwart this one great end ;
And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Self-love thus push'd to social, — to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart ?
Extend it — let thy enemies have part,
Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life and senst,
In one close system of benevolence :
Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree
And height of bliss but height of charity.
Pope's Essay op Mat*
54
CHARITY.
The generous pride of virtue,
Disdains to weigh too nicely the returns
Her bounty meets with — like the liberal gods,
From her own gracious nature she bestows,
Nor stops to ask reward.
Thomson's Coriolanus.
But to the generous still-improving mind,
That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,
Diffusing kind beneficence around,
Boastless, as now descends the silent dew ;
To him the long review of order'd life,
Is inward rapture, only to be felt.
Thomson's Seasons.
The truly generous is the truly wise ;
And he who loves not others, lives unblest.
Home's Douglas.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings but reliev'd their pain :
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow' d.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to
glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe ;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
There are, while human miseries abound,
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth,
Without one fool or flatterer at our board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Pure in her aim, and in her temper mild,
Her wisdom seems the weakness of a child :
She makes excuses where she might condemn,
Revil'd by those that hate her, prays for the.Tn ;
Suspicion lurks not in her artless breast,
The worst suggested, she believes the best ;
Not soon provok'd, however stung and teas'd,
And, if perhaps made angry, soon appeas'd ;
She rather waves than will dispute her right,
And injur'd makes forgiveness her delight.
Cowper's CJiarity.
True charity, a plant divinely nurs'd,
Fed by the love, from which it rose at first,
Thrives against hope, and in the rudest scene,
Storms but enliven its unfading green ;
Exuberant is the shadow it supplies,
Its fruit on earth, its growth above the skies.
Cowper's Charity.
iJid chanty prevail, the press would prove
A vemclc of virtue, truth, and love.
Cowper's Charity
I mean the man, who when the distant poor
Need help, denies them nothing but his name.
Cowper's Task.
Far may we search before we find
A heart so manly or so kind.
But not around his honour' d urn,
Shall friends alone and kindred mourn;
The thousand eyes his care had dried,
Pour at his name a bitter tide;
And frequent falls the grateful dew,
For. benefits the world ne'er knew.
Scott's Marmion
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
Byron's Don Juan.
And — not from piety but pride,
Gives wealth to walls that never heard
Of his own holy vow or word.
Byron's Giaour.
To the blind, the deaf, the lame,
To the ignorant, and vile,
Stranger, captive, slave, he came,
With a welcome and a smile.
Help to all he did dispense,
Gold, instruction, raiment, food;
Like the gifts of Providence,
To the evil and the good.
James Montgomery.
Amid all life's quests
There seems but worthy one — to do men good.
Baihy.
A poor man serv'd by thee, shall make thee rich.
Miss Barrett.
O, rich man's son ! there is a toil,
That with all others level stands ;
Large charity doth never soil,
But only whitens soft white hands; —
This is the best crop for thy lands;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.
J. R. Lowell
When poverty, with mien of shame,
The sense of pity seeks to touch, —
Or, bolder, makes the simple claim
That, I have nothing, you have much, —
Believe not either man or book,
That bids you close the opening hand,
And with reproving speech and look,
Your first and free intent withstand.
R. M. MUnes.
Why not believe the homely letter
That all you give will God restore ?
The poor man may deserve it better,
And surely, surely wants it more ;
CHASTITY - CHEERFULNESS.
6&
Let but the rich man do hie> part,
And whatsoe'er the issue be,
To those who nsk, his answering heart
Will gain anil grow in sympathy.
R. M. Milnes.
Then ger.tly scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman, s.
ITiough both may gang a kennie wrang,
To step aside is human.
Burns.
Cast not the clouded gem away.,
Quench not the dim but living ray —
My brother man, beware !
With that deep voice, which from the skies,
Forbade the Patriarch's sacrifice,
God's angel cries, Forbear
Whittier.
Still to a stricken brother true,
Whatever clime hath nurtur'd him ;
He stoop'd to heal the wounded Jew,
The worshipper of Gerizim.
But by all thy nature's weakness,
Hidden faults and follies known,
e thou, in rebuking evil,
Conscious of thine own.
And when religious sects ran mad,
He held, in spite of all his learning,
That if a man's belief is bad,
It will not be improv'd by burning.
As the rivers, farthest flowing,
In the highest hills have birth;
As the banyan, broadest growing,
Oftcncst bows its head to earth, —
Bo the noblest minds press onward,
Channels far of good to trace ;
So the largest hearts bend downward,
Circling all the human race.
Whittier.
Whittier
Praed.
Mrs. Hale.
CHASTITY.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die ;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity ;
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds ;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
Shakspeare,
Chaste as the icicle
That's ourdled by the frost of purest snow,
And liar gs on Dian's temple.
Sliakspeare.
E
Thou, my love, art sweeter far than balmy
Incense in the purple smoke ; pure and
Unspotted as the cleanly ermine, ere
The hunter sullies her with his pursuit ;
Soft as her skin ; chaste as th' Arabian bird
That wants a sex to woo, or as the dead,
That are divorc'd from warmth, from objects,
And from thought.
Sir W. DavenanVs Platonic Loiters.
So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liv'ry'd angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.
Milton's Comus.
Oh ! she is colder than the mountain's snow.
To such a subtile purity she 's wrought,
She 's pray'd and fasted to a walking thought :
She's an enchanted feast, most fair to sight,
And starves the appetite she does invite ;
Flies from the touch of sense, and if you dare
To name but love she vanishes to air.
Crown's Destruction of Jerusalem,
In thy fair brow there 's such a legend writ
Of chastity, as blinds the adulterous eye :
Not the mountain ice, ,
Congeal'd to crystals, is so frosty chaste,
As thy victorious soul, which conquers man,
And man's proud tyrant-passion.
Dryderi's Albion and Albanus.
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy ?
What art can wash her guilt away ?
The only art her guilt to cover,
And hide her shame from every eye,
And give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom is — to die.
Goldsmith.
Beneath the cares of earth she does not bow,
Though she hath ofttimes drain'd its bitter cup;
But ever wariders on with heavenward brow,
And eyes whose lovely orbs are lifted up !
Mrs. Welly.
CHEERFULNESS.
And her against sweet cheerfulness was planed,
Whose eyes like twinkling stars in evening clesu
Were deck't with smyles, that all sad humoum
chased,
And darted forth delights, the which her goodly
graced. Spenser's Fairy Queen-
Cheerful looks make every dish a feast.
And 't is that c owns a welcome,
6*
Massing^
m
CHILDHOOD AND CHILDREN.
:
Let mc play the fool :
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come ;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man whose hlood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes ? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish ?
Shahs. Merchant of Venice.
What then remains but well our power to use,
And keep good humour still, whate'er we lose ?
And trust me, dear, good humour can prevail,
When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding
fail ;
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll ;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Pope's Rape of the Loch
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,
Belinda smil'd and all the world was gay.
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
When cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulders flung,
Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew.
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung.
Collins's Passions.
Thus without share in coin or land,
But well content to hold
The wealth of nature in my hand,
One flail of virgin gold, —
My love above me like a sun, —
My own bright thoughts my wings, —
Through life I trust to flutter on
As gay as aught that sings.
R. M. Milnes.
Were it not worse than vain to close our eyes
Unto the azure sky and golden light,
Because the tempest cloud doth sometimes rise,
And glorious day must darken into night ?
Douglas Jer old's Magazine.
A sweet heart-lifting cheerfulness,
Li Ke spring-time of the year,
Seem'd ever on her steps to wait.
Mrs. Hale's Alice Ray.
T/ie seasons all had cha.nns for her, —
She wclcom'd each with joy;
The charm that in her spirit liv'd
No changes Ctrald destroy.
Mrs. Hale.
CHILDHOOD AND CHILDREN.
Die whining schoolboy with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
I Willingly to school. ,
Shaks. As you like it.
At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Shaks. As you like
Behold, my lords,
Although the print be little, the whole matter
And copy of the father: eye, nose, lip,
The trick of his frown, his forehead; nay, the
valley,
The pretty dimples of his chin, and cheek ; his
smiles ;
The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.
Sliaks. Winter Tale.
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
Which, mellowed by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty,
And make no doubt us happy by his reign
Shaks. Richard III
Hath he set bounds between their love and me ?
I am their mother, who shall bar me from thcm'i
Shaks. Richard III
O 'tis a parlous boy;
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable ;
He's all the mother's from the top to toe.
Shaks. Richard III
Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face ;
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his .
This little abstract doth contain that large,
Which died in Geffrey : and the hand of time,
Shall draw this brief unto as large a volume.
Shaks. King John, j
Father Cardinal, I have heard you say,
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven ! j
If that be true, I shall see my boy again ;
For since the birth of Cain, the first male-child, :
To him that did but yesterday suspire.
There was not such a gracious creature born.
Shaks. King John. |
O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ;
My life, my joy, my soul, my all the world ;
My widow's comfort, and my sorrow's care.
Shaks. King John, I
The poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
The young ones in her nest against the owl.
SJtaks. Macb
Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricots,
Which, like unruly children make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.
Shaks. Richard.
Children blessings seem, but torments are,
When young our folly, and when old our fear
Otway's Don Carlt
•
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CHILDHOOD AND CHILDREN.
(17
Crying they creep among us like young cats.
Cares and continual crosses keeping with them,
They make time old to tend them, and experience
An ass, they alter so ; they grow and goodly
Ere we can turn our thoughts, like drops of water
They fall into the main, are known no more.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Mad Lover.
What benefit can children be
But charges and disobedience ? what 's the
Love they render at one and twenty years ?
I pray die, father : when they are young, they
Are like bells rung backwards, nothing but noise
And giddiness.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money.
Look here and weep with tenderness and transport !
What is all tasteless luxury to this ?
To these best joys, which holy love bestows ?
Oh nature, parent nature, thou alone
Art the true judge of what can make us happy.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
O what passions then,
What melting sentiments of kindly care,
On the new parents seize.
Thomson's Seasons.
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows ; and every day.
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Thomson's Seasons.
Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast !
Thomson's Seasons.
Thanks to the gods, my boy has done his duty !
— Portius, when I am dead, be sure you place
His urn near mine.
Addison's Cato.
Self-flattered, unexperienced, high in hope,
When young, with sanguine cheer, and streamers
We cut our cable, launch into the world,
And fondly dream each wind and star our friend.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Why was my prayer accepted ? why did heav'n
In anger hear me, when I ask'd a son ?
Hannah More's Moses.
Then gathering round his bed, they climb to
share
His kisses, and with gentle violence there,
Break in upon a dream not half so fair.
Rogers's Human Life.
The hour arrives, the moment wish'd and fear'd ■
The child is born by many a pang cndear'd,
And now the mother's car has caught his cry ;
O grant the cherub to her asking eye !
He comes — she clasps him. To her bosom press'd
He drinks the balm of life, and drops to rest.
Rogers's Human Life.
When heaven and angels, earth and earthly things
Do leave the guilty in tli^ir guiltiness —
A cherub's voice doth whisper in a child's
There is a shrine within thy little heart
Where I will hide, nor hear the trump of doom.
Maturin's Bertram.
Thou art my daughter — never lov'd as now —
Thou mountain maid, — thou child of liberty !
Urilda ! Well from Uri's height I nam'd thee,
Free as its breezes, — purer than its snows !
Maturin's Fredolfo.
Lo ! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy —
"Sleep, image of thy father, sleep my boy:
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine ;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine ;
Bright as his manly sire, the sun shall be,
In form and soul ; but ah ! more bless'd than he .
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past,
With many a smile my solitude repay,
And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away."
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
He smiles and sleeps ! — sleep on
And smile, thou little young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young : sleep on and smile !
Thine are the hours and days when both are
cheering
And innocent
Byron's Cain.
Look ! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,
To hail his father; while his little form
Flutters as wing'd with joy. Talk not of pain !
The childless cherubs well might envy thee
The pleasures of a parent ! Bless him, Cain !
As yet he hath no words to thank thee, but
His heart will, and thine too.
Byron's Cain
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers ! O'er the sea,
And from the mountains where I now respiro
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,
As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been
to me. Byron's Childe Harold
OS
CHILDHOOD.
To aid thy mind's development — to watch
Thy dawn of little joys — to sit and see
Almost thy very growth — to view thee catch
Knowledge of objects— wonders yet to thee !
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft check a parent's kiss —
This, it should seem, was not rcserv'd for me !
Yet this was in my nature : — as it is,
I know not what is there, yet something- like to
this. Byron's Childe Harold.
Bat thou wilt burst this transient sleep,
And thou wilt wake, my babe, to weep ;
The tenant of a frail abode,
Thy tears must flow as mine have flow'd :
Beguil'd by follies every day,
Sorrow must wash the faults away,
And thou may'st wake, perchance to prove
The pang of unrequited love.
Byron to his Daughter.
Yet a fine family is a fine thing,
(Provided they don't come in after dinner;)
'Tis beautiful to see a matron bring
Hor children up (if nursing them don't thin her.)
Byron's Don Juan.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
Wordsworth.
The young ! Oh, what should wondering fane}'
bring,
In life's first spring-time, but the thought of spring !
Mrs. Norton.
And thou, my boy ! that silent at my knee
Dost lift to mine thy soft, dark, earnest eyes,
Fill'd with the love of childhood. —
Mine own ! whose feelings fresh before me rise ;
Is it, not much that I may guide thy prayer,
And circle thy glad soul with free and healthful
air ? Mrs. Hemans.
Thou art looking now at the birds, Genie,
But oh, do not wish their wing ; /
That would tempt the fowler, Genie, —
Stay thou on earth and sing.
Stay in the nursing nest, Genie,
Be not soon thence beguil'd ;
Thou wilt ne'er find a second, Genie,
Never be twice a child.
Miss Jewsbury.
Oh ! dear to memory are those hours
When every pathway led to flowers;
When sticks of peppermint posscss'd
A sceptre's power to sway the breast,
And heaven was round us while we fed
• >n rich ambrosial gingerbread.
Eliza Cook
--Slow pass our days in childhood, —
Kvery day seems like a century.
/ Bryant.
Ah ! well may sages bow to thee,
Dear, loving, guileless Infancy !
And sigh beside their lofty lore
For one untaught delight of thine,
And feel they 'd give their learning's store
To know again thy truth divine.
Mrs. Osgood,
'Tis the work
Or many a dark hour, and of many a prayer
To bring the heart back from an infant gone.
. Willis.
The history of Paradise
To Woman's faith is clear,
For happy childhood ever brings
The Eden vision near ;
The vision when the earth was sway'd
By Innocence and Love,
That summon'd with an equal trust
The tiger or the dove.
Mrs. Hale.
It lay upon its mother's breast, a thing
Bright as a dew-drop when it first descends,
Or as the plumage of an angel's wing,
Where every tint of rainbow beauty blends.
Mrs. Well}
'Tis aye a solemn thing to me
To look upon a babe that sleeps — ■
Wearing in its spirit-deeps
The unrevealcd mystery
Of its Adam's taint and woe,
Which, when they revealed lie,
Will not let it slumber so.
Miss Barrett.
And yet we check and chide
The airy angels as they float about us,
With rules of so-call'd wisdom, till they grow
The same tame slaves to custom and the world.
Mrs. Osgood
I know he's coming by this sign,
That baby 's almost wild ;
See how he laughs and crows and starts —
Heaven bless the merry child !
He 's father's self in face and limb,
And father's heart is strong in him.
Shout, baby, shout ! and clap thy hands,
For father on the threshold stands.
Mary HowilU
Of all the joys that brighten suffering earth,
What joy is welcom'd like a new-born child!
Mrs. Notion.
Sleep, little baby ! sleep !
Not in thy cradle bed,
Not on thy mother's breast —
But with the quiet dead.
Mrs. Southey
ett.
CHOICE -CHURCH.
oy
CHOICE.
A wise man likes that best, that is itself;
N A that which only seems, though it look fairer.
Middlelon's Widow.
When better cherries are not to be had,
We needs must take the seeming best of bad.
Daniel.
Now this he tastes, then that he glances on,
Diversity confounds election.
Baron.
Election is an act
Of will, not voice ; of an internal suffrage,
Not outward sound.
Tragedy of Cicero.
So much to win, so much to lose,
No marvel that I fear to choose.
Miss London .
Think not too meanly of thy low estate ;
Thou hast a choice ; to choose is to create !
Remember whose the sacred lips that tell,
Angels approve thee when thy choice is well ;
Use well the freedom which thy Master gave.
O. W. Holmes.
CHURCH.
To kirk the nar, to God more far,
Has been an old said saw;
And he that strives to touch a star,
Oft stumbles at a straw.
Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
You rais'd these hallow'd w T alls ; the desert smil'd,
And paradise was open'd in the wild.
No weeping orphan saw his father'., stores,
Our shrines irradiate, or emblaze the floors ;
No silver saints by dying misers given,
Here bribe the rage of ill requited heaven ;
But such plain roofs as piety could raise,
And only vocal with the maker's praise.
Pope's Eloisa to Ahelard.
Here some are thinkin' on their sins,
An' some upo' their claes ;
Ane curses feet that fyl'd his shins,
Anither sighs an' prays :
On this hand sits a chosen swatch,
Wi' screw'd up, grace-proud faces :
On that, a set o' chaps at watch,
Thrang winkin' on the
Burns.
Why should we crave a hallow'd spot <
An altar is in each man's cot,
A church in every grove that spreads
Its living roof above our heads.
Wordsworth.
What is a church ? — Our honest sexton tells
'T is a tall building, with a tower and bells.
Crabbe'8 Borough.
— Piety first laid
A strong foundation, but she wanted aid ;
To wealth unwieldy was her prayer address'd,
Who largely gave.
Vralbe
The perfect world, by Adam trod,
Was the first Temple — built by God —
His fiat laid the corner-stone,
And heaved its pillars, one by one.
Willis.
On other shores, above their mould'ring towns,
In sullen pomp the tall cathedral frowns,
Pride in its aisles, and paupers at the door,
Which feeds the beggars whom it fleeced of yore,
Simple and frail, our lowly Temples throw
Their slender shadows on the paths below ;
Scarce steal the winds, that sweep his woodland
tracks,
The larch's perfume from the settler's axe,
Ere, like a vision of the morning air,
His slight framed steeple marks the house of
prayer ! O. W. Holmes
But when the sabbath gatherings press,
Like armies from the wilderness,
'T is then the dim, old woods afford
The sanctuary of the Lord :
The Holy Spirit breathes around —
That forest glade is sacred ground,
Nor Temple built with hands could vie
In glory with its majesty.
The trees, like living columns rise,
Whose tops sustain the bending skies ;
And o'er those earnest worshippers
God's love, like holy roof is spread,
And every leaf the zephyr stirs
Some heavenly promise seems to shed.
Mrs. Hale.
Look on this edifice of marble made —
How fair it swells too beautiful to fade.
See what fine people in its portals crowd,
Smiling and greeting, talking, laughing loud !
What is it ! Surely not a gay Exchange
Where Wit and Beauty social joys arrange,
Not a grand shop where late Parisian styles
Attract rich buyers from a thousand miles ?
But step within : no need of further search,
Behold, admire a fashionable church !
Look how its oriel window glints and gleams.,
What tinted light magnificently streams
On the proud pulpit, carved with quaint devico
Where velvet cushions exquisitely nice,
Press'd by the polish'd preacher's dainty *iaud«
Hold a large volume clasp'd by golden bands
Park Ben,amxn
70
CLERGY AND CHURCHMEN.
CLERGY AND CHURCHMEN.
Cut if thee list unto the court to throng,
And there to hunt after the hoped prey,
Then must thou thee dispose another way;
For there thou needs must learn to laugh, to lie,
To face, to forge, to scoff to company,
To cranch, to please to be a beetle-stock
Of thy great master's will, to scorn, to mock ;
So maist thou chance mark out a benefice,
Unless thou canst one conjure by device,
Or cast a figure for a bishoprick ;
And if one could, it were but a school trick.
These be the ways by which without reward,
Livings in courts be gotten, though full hard.
Spenser's Mother Hubbard's Tale.
Their sheep have crusts, and they the bread ;
The chips and they the cheer :
They have the fleece, and eke the flesh,
(O seely sheep the while !)
The corn is theirs — let others thresh,
Their hands they may not file.
Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
Schoolmen must war with schoolmen, text with
text;
The first 's the Chaldee's paraphrase ; the next
Tr.e Septungint's : opinion thwarts opinion;
The Papist holds then the first, th' last th' Ar-
minian;
And then the councils must be call'd t' advise,
What this of Lat'ran says, what that of Nice.
F. Quarles.
Free will 's disputed, consubstantiation,
And the deep ocean of predestination,
Where, daring venture oft too far into 't,
They, Pharaoh like, are drown'd both horse and
foot. F. Quarks.
My trade is a fine, easy, gainful cheat;
/low easy 'tis saintship to counterfeit,
And pleasing fables to invent and spread,
And lbols ne'er find the cheat till they are dead.
Crown's English Friar.
Make not the church to us an instrument
Of bondage, to yourselves of liberty :
Obedience there confirms your government ,
Our sovereigns, God's subalterns, you be.
Lord Brooks's Alaliam.
It never was a prosperous world
Since priests have interfer'd with temporal matters ;
The custom of their ancestors they slight,
And change their shirts of hair for robes of gold;
"J 'bus luxury and interest rule the church,
WbiR piety and conscience dwell in caves.
Bancroft's Fall of Mortimer.
Hood an ass with rev'rend purple,
So you can hide his two ambitious ears,
And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor.
Jon8on'8 Volponi
Love and meekness, lord,
Become a churchman better than ambition :
Win straying souls with modesty again,
Cast none away.
Shahs. Henry VIII
But you misuse the reverence of your place ;
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a favourite doth his prince's name
In deeds dishonourable.
Shaks. 2d pari of Henry IV
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven ;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own road.
Sliaks. Hamlet
Babble on, ye priests, amuse mankind
With idle tales of flames and torturing fiends,
And starry crowns, for patient sufferings here :
Yes, gull the crowd, and gain their earthly goods,
For feign'd reversions in a heavenly state.
W. Shirley's Parricide
Then might you see
Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers tost
And fluttcr'd into rags ; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
The sport of winds ; all these upwhirl'd aloft
Fly to the rearward of the world far off
Into a limbo large and broad, since call'd
The paradise of fools.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,
Who all the sacred mysteries of heaven
To their own vile advantages shall turn,
Of lucre and ambition, and the truth
With superstitions and traditions taint.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names,
Places, and titles, and with these to join
Secular power, though feigning still to act
By spiritual, to themselves appropriating
The spirit of God, prouiis'd alike and given
To all believers ; and from that pretense,
Spiritual laws by carnal pow'r shall force
On every conscience ; laws which none shall find
Left them cnroll'd, or what the spirit within
Shall on the heart engrave.
Milton's Paradise Lost
CLERGY AND CHURCHMEN.
71
For this the clergy will still argue on,
Deny for pique, assert from prejudice ;
Show us the lesson, seldom the example,
And preach up laws which they will ne'er obey.
Hazard's King Charles I.
He could raise scruples dark and nice,
\nd after solve 'cm in a trice ;
As if divinity had catch'd
The itch on purpose to be scratch'd.
Butler's Hudibras
But preaching- was his chiefest talent,
Or argument, in which being valiant,
He us'd to lay about and stickle,
Like ram or bull at conventicle ;
For disputants, like rams and bulls,
Do fight with arms that spring from skulls.
Butler's Hudibras.
Denounc'd and pray'd, with fierce devotion,
And bended elbows on the cushion ;
Stole from the beggars all their tones,
And gifted mortifying groans :
Had lights where better eyes were blind,
As pigs are said to see the wind.
Butler's Hudibras.
For he was of that stubborn crew,
O p errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant ;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun ;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery ;
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By aptetolic blows and knocks.
Butler's Hudibras.
What makes a church a den of thieves ?
A dean and chapter, and white sleeves.
Butler's Hudibras.
Is't not ridiculous, and nonsense,
A saint should be a slave to conscience,
That ought to be above such fancies,
As far as above ordinances ?
Butler's Hudbiras.
The godly may allege,
For any thing their privilege ;
And to the devil himself may go,
If they have motives thereunto,
For, as there is a war between
The devil and them, it is no sin,
If they by subtle stratagem
Make use of him, as he does them.
Butler's Hudibras.
For saints may do the same things by
The spirit, in sincerity,
Which other men are tempted to,
And at the devil's instance do ;
And yet the actions be contrary,
Just as the saints and wicked vary.
Butler's Hudibras
You want to lead
My reason blindfold like a hamper'd lion,
Check'd of his noble vigour: then, when baited
Down to obedient tameness, may it couch,
And show strange tricks, which you call signs of
faith :
So silly souls are gull'd, and you get money !
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Is not the care of souls a load sufficient ?
Are not your holy stipends paid for this ?
Were you not bred apart from worldly noise
To study souls, their cures, and their diseases ?
The province of the soul is large enough
To fill up every cranny of your time,
And leave you much to answer, if one wretch
Be damn'd by your neglect
Dry den's Don Sebastian.
I tell thee, Mufti, if the world were wise,
They would not wag one finger in thy quarrels :
Your heav'n you promise, but our earth you covet :
The Phaetons of mankind, who fire that world
Which you were sent, by preaching but to warm.
Dry den's Don Sebastian.
Bloated with ambition, pride and avarice,
You swell to counsel kings and govern kingdoms.
Content you with monopolizing heav'n,
And let this little hanging ball alone :
For give you but a foot of conscience there,
And you, like Archimedes, top the globe.
Dry den's Don Sebastian.
I met a reverend, fat, old, gouty friar,
With a paunch swoll'n so high, his double chin
Might rest upon 't : a true son of the church !
Fresh-colour'd and well-thriving on his trade.
Dryden's Spanish Fair.
Priesthood, that makes a merchandise of Heav'n !
Priesthood, that sells ev'n to their pray'rs and
blessings,
And force us to pay for our own cos'nage.
Dryden's Troilus and Cressida.
The proud he tam'd, the penitent he cheer'd :
Nor to rebuke the rich offender fear'd.
His preaching much, but more his practice
wrought,
(A living sermon of the truths he taught,)
For this by rules severe his life he squar'd •
That all might see the doctrine which they heard
Dryden's Character of a Good Fart>itr.
A fox, full fraught with seeming sanctity,
That fear'd an oath, but like the devil would !>o
Who look'd like lent, and had the holy leer,
And durst not sin before he sa/d his prayer.
Dryd-e*
?2
CLERGY AND CHURCHMEN.
IDs talk was now of tythcs and dues ;
He smok'd his pipe, and read the news ;
Knew how to preach old sermons next,
Vamp'd in the preface and the text ;
At christenings well could act his part,
And had the service all by heart;
Wish'd women might have children fast,
Aid thought whose sow had farrow'd last ;
Against dissenters would repine,
And stood up firm for right divine ;
Found his head fill'd with many a system,
But classic authors — he ne'er miss'd 'em.
Spiffs Baucis and Philemon.
If such dinners you give,
You '11 ne'er want for parsons as long as you live :
I ne'er knew a parson without a good nose,
But the devil's as welcome wherever he goes.
Swift.
Why seek we truth from priests ?
The smiles of courtiers, and the harlot's tears,
The tradesman's cath, and mourning of an heir,
Are truths to what priests tell !
Oh why has priesthood privilege to lie !
And yet to be believed ?
Zee's (Edipus.
If we must pray,
Rear in the streets bright altars to the gods,
Let virgin's hands adorn the sacrifice ;
And not a grey-beard forging priest come here,
To pry into the bowels of their victim,
And with their dotage mad the gaping world.
Lee's (Edipus.
Ill befall
Such meddl'-.ig priests, wh_ kindle up confusion,
And vex the quiet world with their vain scruples ;
Byheav'n 'tis done in perfect spite of peace.
Rome's Jane Shore.
Others of graver mien, behold, adorn'd
With holy ensigns, how sublime they move,
And bending oft their sanctimonious eyes,
Take homage of the simple-minded throng ;
Ambassadors of heaven !
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
i»car yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year ;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
N T or e'er had chang'd nor wish'd to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour ;
l';ir other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
At church with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place ;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
Goldsmith's Deseiied Village
Ev'n children followed with endearing wile
And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's
smile. Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Or prophecy, which dreams a lie,
That fools believe, and knaves apply.
Green's Grotto.
Of right and wrong he taught
Truths as refined as ever Athens heard ;
And (strange to tell!) he practised what he
preach'd.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health,
The royal letters are a thing of course,
A king, that would, might recommend his horse ;
And deans, no doubt, and chapters with one voice,
As bound in duty, would confirm the choice.
Behold your bishop ! — well he plays his part,
Christian in name, and infidel in heart,
Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan,
A slave at court, elsewhere a lady's man.
Dumb as a senator, and as a priest;
A piece of mere church-furniture at best
Coicper's Tirocinium
Your lordship and your grace, what schools can
teach
A rhetoric equal to those parts of speech ?
What need of Homer's verse, or Tully's prose,
Sweet interjections ! if he learn but those :
Let reverend churls his ignorance rebuke
Who starve upon a dog's-ear'd Pentateuch,
The parson knows enough who knows a duke.
Coicper's Tirocinium.
In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.
Coicper's Task
Behold the picture ! Is it like ? Like whom ?
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip
Aid then skip down again. Pronounce a text,
Cry hem ; and reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.
Coicper's Task
From such apostles, oh ye mitred heads,
Preserve the church ; and lay not careless hands
On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn.
Cowper's Task
CHURCH-YARD.
73
I vener»te the man whose heart is warm,
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose
life
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof
That he is honest in the sacred cause.
Cowper's Task.
He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech. "Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul ;
To break a jest, when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation ; and address
The skittish fancy with facetious tales,
When sent with God's commission to the heart.
Cowper's Task.
Church ladders are not always mounted best,
By learned clerks, and Latinists profess'd
Coioper.
Learn three-mile pray'rs, an' half-mile graces,
Wi' weel-spread looves, an' lang, vrty faces ;
Grunt up a solemn, lengthen'd groan,
And damn a' parties but your own ;
I '11 warrant then ye 're nae deceiver,
A steady, sturdy, staunch believer.
Burns.
Hear how he clears the points o' faith
Wi' rattlin an' thumpin !
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He 's stampin, an' he 's jumpin !
Burns's Holy Friar.
Haughty of heart and brow the warrior came,
In look and language proud as proud could be,
Vaunting his lordship, lineage, fights and fame ;
Yet was that bare-foot monk more proud than he.
ScoWs Vision of Don Roderick.
Such vast impressions did his sermons make,
He always kept his flock awake.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
In short, no dray-horse ever work'd so hard,
From vaults to drag up hogshead, tun, or pipe,
As this good priest, to drag, for small reward,
The souls of sinners from the devil's gripe.-
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Did gentlemen of fortune die,
And leave the church a good round sum ;
Lo ! in the twinkling of an eye,
The parson frank'd their souls to kingdom come.
Dr. Wolcofs Peter Pindar.
Whate'er
I^may have been, or am, doth rest between
Heaven and myself — I shall not choose a mortal
To be my mediator.
Byron's Manfred.
Around his form his loose long robe was thrown ,
And wrapp'd a breast bestow'd on heaven alone.
Byron's Corsair.
Father! thy days hare pass'd in peace,
'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer.
To bid the sins of others cease,
Thyself without a crime or care,
Save transient ills that all must bear,
Has been thy lot, from youth to age.
Byron's Giaour.
Dark and unearthly is the scowl,
That glares beneath his dusky cowl —
The flash of that dilating eye
Reveals too much of times gone by.
Byron's Giaour.
But the unfaithful Priest, what tongue
Enough shall execrate ?
Pollock.
" What is a Church ?" Let truth and reason speak ;
They should reply — "The faithful, pure, and
meek,
From Christian folds, the one selected race,
Of all professions, and of every place."
Crabbe
I like a church, I like a cowl,
I love a prophet of the soul,
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles,
Yet not for all his faith can see,
Would I that cowled churchman be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
By the white neck-cloth, with its straiten'd tie,
The sober hat, the Sabbath-speaking eye,
Severe and smileless, he that runs may read
The stern disciple of Geneva's creed.
O. W. Holmes.
A livelier bearing of the outward man,
The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan,
Now smartly rais'd or half-profanely twirl'd, —
A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day world,- ■
Tell their plain story; — yes, thine eyes behold
A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold.
O. W. Holmes
CHURCH-YARD.
The solitary, silent, solemn scene,
Where Caesars, heroes, peasants, hermits lie,
Blended in dust together; where the slave
Rests from his labours ; where th' insulting prouo
Resigns his power, the miser drops his board.
Where human folly sleeps.
Dyer's Ruins of Rom*
M
CIRCUMVENTION -CIGAR- CITY AND CITIZENS.
StraDge thing?, the neighbours say, have happen'd
there :
Wild shrieks have issued from the hollow tombs,
Dead men have come again, and walk'd about;
And the great bell has toll'd unrung, untouch'd.
Sucli tales their cheer at wake or gossipping,
When it draws near to 'witching time of night.
Blair's Grave.
There lay the warrior and the son of song,
And there — in silence till the judgment day —
The orator, whose all-persuading tongue
Had mov'd the nations with resistless sway.
Mrs. Norton.
What to us the grave ?
It brings no real homily ! we sigh,
Pause for awhile and murmur — "All must die!"
Then rush to pleasure, action, sin, once more,
Swell the loud tide and fret unto the shore.
The New Timon.
In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom,
What holy awe invests the sacred tomb !
There pride will bow, and anxious care expand,
And creeping avarice come with open hand ;
The gay can weep, the impious can adore,
From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel
floor
Till dying sunset shed his crimson stains
Through the faint halos of the iris'd panes.
O. W. Holmes.
Yet there are graves, whose rudely shapen sod
Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod ;
Graves where the verdure has not dar'd to shoot,
Where the chance wildflower has not fix'd its root,
Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name,
The eternal record shall at length proclaim
Pure as the holiest in the long array
Of hooded, mitred, or tiara'd clay !
O. W. Holmes.
CIRCUMVENTION.
They must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery : Let it work —
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard; and't shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon.
Shahs. Hamlet,
Thib work requires long time, dissembling looks,
Comrnixt with undermining actions,
Watching advantages to execute
Our foes are mighty, and their number great,
It tnerefore follows that our stratagems
Must branch forth into manifold deceits,
Kndless devices, bottomless conclusions.
Cliapman's Alplwnsus,
Bear your wrongs conceal'd, •
And patient as the tortoise ; let this camel
Stalk o'er your back unbruis'd : sleep with
lion,
And let this brood of secure foolish mice
Play with your nostrils, till the time be ripe
For the bloody audit, and the fatal gripe :
Aim like a cunning fowler, close one eye,
That you the better may your game espy.
Webster's White
CIGAR. — (See Smoking.)
CITY AND CITIZENS.
These base mechanics never keep their words
In any thing they promise. 'T is their trade
To swear and break ; they all grow rich by breaking
More than their words ; their honesties and credits,
Are still the first commodities they put off.
Jonson's New Inn.
Indeed all our chief living, is by fools
And knaves ; we could not keep open shop else :
Fools that enter into bands, and knaves bind them.
Middleton's Phoenix.
The fawning citizen, whose love's bought dearest,
Deceives his brother when the sun shines clearest,
Gets, borrows, breaks, lets in and stops out light,
And lives a knave, to leave his son a knight.
Brown's Pastorals.
Take heed what you say, sir.
An hundred honest men ! why, if there were
So many i' th' city, 'twere enough to forfeit
Their charter.
Shirley's Gamester
So merchant has his house in town,
And country-seat near Banstead down :
From one he dates his foreign letters,
Sends out his goods, and duns his debtors ;
In t' other, at his hours of leisure,
He smokes his pipe, and takes his pleasure.
Prior's Alma.
Religious, punctual, frugal, and so forth ;
His word would pass for more than he was worth.
One solid dish his week-day meal affords,
And added pudding solemniz'd the Lord's;
Constant at church and 'change, his gains were
sure,
His givings rare, save farthings to the poor.
Pope's Moral Essays.
Or at some banker's desk, like many more,
Content to tell that two and two make four,
His name had stood in city annals fair,
And prudent dulness mark'd him for a mayor.
ChurchilVe Rosciad
CLOUDS.
75
The cit — a common councilman by place,
Ten thousand mighty nothings in his face,
By situation as by nature great,
With nice precision parcels out the state ;
Proves and disproves, affirms and then denies,
Objects himself, and to himself replies :
Wielding aloft the politician's rod,
Makes Pitt by turns a devil and a god :
Maintains ev'n to the very teeth of pow'r,
The same tiling right and wrong in half an
hour, ,
Now all is well, now he suspects a plot,
And plainly proves whatever is — is not :
Fearfully wise, he shakes his empty head,
And deals out empires as he deals out thread;
His useless scales are in a corner flung,
And Europe's balance hangs upon his tongue.
Churchill's Rosciad.
Suburban villas, highway-side retreats,
That dread th' encroachment of our growing
streets,
Tight boxes, neatly sash'd, and in a blaze
With all a July's sun's collected rays,
Delight the citizen, who gasping there
Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air.
Cowper's Retirement.
I dwell amid the city,
And hear the flow of souls !
I do not hear the several contraries
I do not hear the separate tone that rolls
In art or speech.
For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly,
I hear the confluence and sum of each,
And that is melancholy ! —
Thy voice is a complaint, O crowned city,
The blue sky covering thee, like God's great
pity.
Miss Barrett.
Come out, love — the night is enchanting !
The moon hangs just over Broadway ;
The stars are all lighted and panting —
(Hot weather up there, I dare say !)
'T is seldom that " coolness" entices,
And love is no better for chilling —
Yet come up to Thompson's for ices
And cool your warm heart for a shilling!
N. P. Willis.
Flow tenderly Rousseau review'd
His periwinkles ! Mine are stew'd !
My rose blooms on a gown !
I hunt in vain for eglantine,
Ajid find my blue-bell on the sign
That marks the Bell and Crown 1
Hood.
Where are ye, linnet ! lark ! and thrush !
That perch on leafy bough and bush,
And tune the various song ?
Two hurdy-gurdies, and a poor
Street-Handel grinding at my dcor,
Are all my " tuneful throng."
Hood
CLOUDS.
The clouds were touch'd,
And in their silent faces could be read
Unutterable love.
Wordsworth
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.
Wordsworth
There 's not a cloud in that blue plain,
But tells of storms to come or past ; —
Here, flying loosely as the mane
Of a young war-horse in the blast ; —
There, roll'd in masses dark and swelling
As proud to be the thunder's dwelling.
Moore.
The clouds consign their treasure to the fields,
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion o'er a freshen'd world.
Thomson
That cloud was beautiful, — was one
Among a thousand round the sun :
The thousand shared the common lot ;
They came, — they went, — they were forgot ;
This fairy form alone impress'd
Its perfect image in my breast,
And shines as richly blazon'd there
As in its element of air.
J. Montgomery
Now a cloud,,
Massive and black, strides up ; the angry gieam
Of the red lightning cleaves the frowning folds.
Street's Poems
Wafted up,
The stealing cloud with soft grey blinds the sky
And in its vapory mantle onward steps
The summer shower.
Street's Pocm»
Ye clouds, that are the ornament of heaven ,
Who give to it its gayest shadowings
And its most awful glories ; ye who roll
In the dark tempest, or at dewy evening
Bow low in tcnderest beauty ; — ye are to o»
A volume full of wisdom.
PercivaVs Poema
COMET-COMFORT-COMMONWEALTII-COMPANY-COMPASSION.
COMET.
Lo! from the dreud immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course,
The rushing comet to the sun descends :
And as he sinks below the shading earth,
With awful train projected o'er the heavens,
The guilty nations tremble.
Thomson's Seasons.
Hast thou ne'er seen the comet's flaming flight ?
Th' illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds
On gazing nations, from his fiery train
Of length enormous, takes his ample round
Through depths of ether ; coasts unnumber'd
worlds,
Of more than solar glory; doubles wicte
Heaven's mighty cape ; and then revisits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Lone traveller through the fields of air,
What may thy presence here portend?
Art come to greet the planets fan - ,
As friend greets friend ?
Whate'er thy purpose, thou dost teach
Some lessons to the humble soul ;
Though far and dim thy pathway reach,
Yet still thy goal
Tends to the fountain of that light
From whence thy golden beams are won ;
So should we turn, from earth's dark night,
To God our sun.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
COMFORT.
What is comfort,
When the poor patient's heart is past relief?
It is no doctor's art can cure my grief
Middleton.
There is a heaven yet to rest my soul on
In midst of all unhappiness, which I look on
With the same comfort, as a distress'd seaman
A far off views the coast he would enjoy,
When yet the ^ca3 do toss his reeling bark,
'Twixt hope and danger.
Shirley's Maid's Revenge.
How can your griefs
Rxpect comfort from him, who knows not how
Me can redress his own?
Sir W. Davcnani s Unfortunate Lover.
For in a dearth of comforts, we are taught
To be contented with the least.
Sir W. Daveimnt's Fair Favourite.
So dying men receive vain comforts
From those visitants they love, when they
Persuade them to be patient at the loss of life,
With saying they are mortal too, and mean
T' endure the like calamity ; as if
To die were from good fellowship, from free
Intent t' accompany departing friends,
When such last courtesy proceeds not from
Their will, but nature's obstinate decree.
Sir W. Davenani's Fair Favourite.
Your comforts
Come as in draughts the elemental dew
Does on the earth ; it wets, but leaves no moisture
To give the sear'd plants growth.
Clapthorne's AlberLus Wallenstein.
Comfort cannot soothe
The heart whose life is centred in the thought
Of happy loves, once known, and still in hope,
Living with a consuming energy.
Percival.
And should thy comfort with my efforts cease,
And only then — perpetual is thy peace.
Crabbe.
It is a little thing to speak a phrase
Of common comfort, which by daily use
Has almost lost its sense ; yet on the ear
Of him who thought to die unmourn'd 't will fall
Like choicest music.
Talfourd.
COMMONWEALTH.
We will renew the times of truth and justice,
Condensing in a fair free commonwealth
Not rash equality, but equal rights,
Proportion'd like the columns of the temple.
Giving and taking strength reciproca.,
And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,
So that no part could be removed without
Infringement of the general symmetry.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
COMPANY.— (See Society.)
COxMPASSION. — (See Mercy.)
COMPLAINT.
To tell thy mis'rics will no comfort breed ;
Men help thee most, that think thou hast no need;
But if the world once thy nrisfortijies know,
Thou soon shalt lose a friend and find a foe.
Randolph.
COMPLIMEXTS-COXCEALMENT-CONCEIT-COXFIDEXCE-CONSCIENCE. 77
O say, why age, and grief, and pain,
Shall long to go, but long in vain ;
Why vice is left to mock at time,
And, grey in years, grow grey in crime ;
While youth, that every eye makes glad,
And beauty, all in radiance clad,
And goodness, cheering every heart,
Come, but come only to depart ;
Sunbeams, to cheer life's wintry day —
Sunbeams, to flash, then fade away.
Sprague.
Come, now again thy woes impart,
Tell all thy sorrows, all thy sin ;
We cannot heal the throbbing heart,
Till we discern the wounds within.
Crabbe.
And is there none with me to share
The glories of the earth and sky ?
The eagle through the pathless air
Is follow'd by one burning eye.
O. W. Holmes.
COMPLIMENTS.
Banish all compliments, but single truth,
From ev'ry tongue, and ev'ry shepherd's heart,
Let them use still persuading, but no art.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess.
Treachery oft lurks
In compliments. You have sent so many posts
Of undertakings, they outride performance ;
And make me think your fair pretences aim
At some intended ill, which my prevention
Must strive to avert.
NabVs Tottenham Court.
Marry, their wits were not so changeable
As their faces, and having but one suit
Of compliment, and that not unfashionable,
They were fain to supply it with legs and silence.
Killegrew's Conspiracy.
When stranger stranger met upon the way,
First, each to each bow'd most respectfully,
And large profession made of humble service,
And then the stranger took the other's purse,
And he that stabb'd his neighbour to the heart,
Stabb'd him politely, and return'd the blade
Reeking into its sheath with graceful air.
Pollock.
CONCEALMENT.— (See Secrest.)
CONCEIT.
Conceit in weakest bodies, strongest works.
Shahs. Hamlet.
This self-conceit is a most dangerous shelf,
Where many have made shipwreck unawares :
He who doth trust too much unto himself,
Can never fail to fall in many snares.
Earl of StcrUne^s Crassus.
A strong conceit is rich ; so most men deem :
If not to be, 'tis comfort yet to seem.
Marston's Antonio and Mellida.
Drawn by conceit from reason's plan,
How vain is that poor creature, man !
How pleas'd is ev'ry paltry elf
To prate about that thing, himself.
Churchill.
CONFIDENCE.
Set on your food ;
And with a heart new fir'd I follow you,
To do I know not what But it sufficeth,
That Brutus leads me on.
Shahs. Julius Casar
I took him for the plainest harmless't creature,
That breath'd upo» the earth, a Christian ;
Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded
The history of all my secret thoughts.
Shahs. Richard III.
Thou know'st how fearless is my trust in thee.
Miss London,
' Trust in thee ?' Ay, dearest, there 's no one but
must,
Unless truth be a fable, in such as thee trust !
For who can see heaven's own hue in those eyes,
And doubt that truth with it came down from the
skies ;
While each thought of thy bosom, like morning's
young light,
Almost ere 't is born, flashes there on his sight !
C. F. Hoffman.
CONSCIENCE.
The sweetest cordial we receive at last,
Is conscience of our virtuous actions past.
Gqffe's Orestes.
Conscience !
Poor plodding priests and preaching friars make
Their hollow pulpits ; and empty aisles
Of churches ring with that round word ; but we
That draw the subtile and more piercing air
In that sublimed region of a court,
Know all is good we make so, ami go on
Secur'd by the prosperity of our enemies.
Ben Jorson
7*
CONSCIENCE.
When tyrannizing pain shall stop
The passage of thy breath,
And thee compel to swear thyself
True servant unto death :
Then shall one virtuous deed impart
More pleasure to thy mind,
Than all the treasures that on earth,
Ambitious thoughts can find.
The well-spent time of one short day,
One hour, one moment then,
Shall be more sweet than all the joys
Amongst us mortal men.
Then shalt thou find but one refuge
Which comfort can retain:
A guiltless conscience pure and clear
From touch of sinful stain.
Brandorfs Octavia to Antonius.
Consider all thy actions, and take heed
On stolen bread, tho' it is sweet, to feed
Sin, like a bee, unto thy hive may bring
A little honey, but expect the sting.
Thou may'st conceal thy sin by cunning art,
But conscience sits a witness in thy heart;
Which will disturb thy peace, thy rest undo,
For that is witness, judge, and prison too.
Watkins.
Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.
Shaks. Richard III.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Sliaks. Richard III,
Oh — I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 't were to buy a world of happy days :
So full of dismal terror was the time.
Sliaks. Richard III.
O, Brackcnbury, I have done these things,
That now give evidence against my soul.
Sliaks. Richard HI.
It is a dang'rous
Tiling, it makes a man a coward : a man
Cannot steal but it accuseth him ; a man
Cannot swear, but it checks him.
'Tis a blushing shame-fae'd spirit, that
Mutinies in a man's bosom ; it fills
One full of obstacles. It made me once
Restore a purse of gold, that by chance I
round. It beggars any man that keeps it.
It is turn'd out of towns and cities for
A dang'rous thing ; and every man that means
To live well, endeavours to trust to himself,
And live without it
Shaks. Richard III.
Give me another horse, — bind uj^ ir/ v^ouiido,
Have mercy, Jesu! — soft; — T did but dream. —
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict mo :—
The lights burn blue. — It is now dead midnight
Cold fearful drops stand on my fearful flesh.
What do I fear? myself?
Shaks. Richard Hi
Suspicion haunts the guilty mind ;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
Shake. Henry VI. Part III
What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted
Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just ;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part II
Their great guilt,
Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now 'gins to bite the spirits.
Shaks. Tempest.
O, it is monstrous ! — monstrous !
Methought, the billows spoke and told me of it ;
The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronoune'd
The name of Prosper.
Sliaks. Tempest.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickly'd o'er with the pale cast of thought ;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.
Shaks. Hamlet.
O, Hamlet, speak no more :
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul ;
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.
Sliaks. Hamlet,
Foul whisp'rings are abroad ; and unnat'ral deeds
Do breed unnat'ral troubles : infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstacy.
Shaks. Macbeth.
The colour of the king doth come and go
Between his purpose and his conscience,
Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set :
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.
Shaks. King John
CONSCIENCE.
79
I feel within me
A. peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
Shake. Henry VIII.
He that has light within his own dear breast,
May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day :
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Denighted walks under the mid-day sun ;
Himself is his own dungeon.
Milton's Comus.
But his doom
Reserv'd him to more wrath ; for now the thought,
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain,
Torments him
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Now conscience wakes despair
That slumber'd, wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse ; if worse deeds, worse sufferings must
ensue. Milton's Paradise Lost.
conscience, into what abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driven me ; out of which
1 find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Why should not conscience have vacation
As well as other courts o' th' nation ;
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance and return.
Butler's Hudibras.
What's tender conscience? 'Tis a botch,
That will not bear the gentlest touch ;
But breaking out despatches more
Than the epidemical'st plague-sore.
Butler's Hudibras.
Here, here it lies ; a lump of lead by day ;
And in my short, distracted, nightly slumbers,
The hag that rides my dreams.
Dryden.
'Tis ever thus
With noble minds, if chance they slide to folly ;
Remorse stings deeper, and relentless conscience,
Pours more of gall into the bitter cup
Of their severe repentance.
Mason's Elfrida.
Some scruple rose, but thus he eas'd his thought,
I '11 now give sixpenee where I gave a groat ;
Where once I went to church I '11 now go twice,
And am so clear too of all other vice.
Pope's Moral Essays.
See, from behind her secret stand,
The sly informer minutes ev'ry fault,
And her dread diary with horror fills.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Conscience, what art thou? thou tremendout
power !
Who dost inhabit us without our leave ;
And art within ourselves, another self,
A master-self, that loves to domineer,
And treat the monarch frankly as the slave :
How dost thou light a torch to distant deeds ?
Make the past, present, and the future frown ?
How, ever and anon, awake the soul,
As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors,
In this long restless dream, which idiots hug —
Nay, wise men flatter with the name of life.
Young's Brother $
Conscience, and nice scruples
Are taxes that abound in none but meagre soils,
To choke the aspiring seeds of manly daring :
Those puny instincts, which in feeble minds,
Unfit for great exploits, are miscall'd virtue.
Jephson's Braganza.
Knowledge or wealth to few are given,
But mark how just the ways of Heaven ;
True joy to all is free.
Nor wealth nor knowledge grant the boon,
'Tis thine, O conscience, thine alone,
It all belongs to thee.
Mickle.
Thus oft it haps, that when within,
They shrink at sense of secret sin,
A feather daunts the brave ;
A fool's wild speech confounds the wise,
And proudest princes veil their eyes,
Before their meanest slave.
Scott's Marmion.
Oh ! conscience ! conscience ! man's most faithful
friend,
Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend :
But if he will thy friendly checks forego,
Thou art, oh ! woe for me, his deadliest foe !
Crabbe
There is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd
He deals on his own soul.
Byron's Manfred,
Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep,
There are shades which will not vanish,
There are thoughts thou canst not banish.
Byron's Manjrea.
Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through God's silence, and o'er glory's diu
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God !
Byron's Island
PU
CONSPIRACY.
Though I know not
That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears
Which are not ominous of right.
Byron's Heaven and Earth. Pari I.
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the accounts of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.
Byron..
A quiet conscience makes one so serene !
Christians have burnt each other quite persuaded
That all the apostles would have done as they did.
Byron.
The mind, that broods o'er guilty woes,
Is like the scorpion girt by fire,
In circle narrowing as it glows,
The flames around their captive close,
Till inly search'd by thousand throes,
And maddening in her ire,
One and sole relief she knows,
The sting she nourish'd for her foes,
Whose venom never yet was vain,
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,
And darts into her desperate brain.
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt by fire ;
So writhes the mind remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death !
Byron's Giaour.
There is no power in holy men,
Nor charms in prayer — nor purifying form
Of penitence — nor outward look — nor fast —
Nor agony — nor, greater than all these,
The innate tortures of that deep despair,
Which is remorse without the fear of hell,
But all in all sufficient to itself,
Would mak« a hell of heaven — can exercise,
From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense
Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge
Upon itself.
Byron's Manfred.
Not all the glory, all the praise,
That decks the hero's prosperous days,
The shout of men, the laurel crown,
The poaling anthems of renown,
May conscience' dreadful sentence drown.
Mrs. Holford.
Who born so poor,
Of intellect so mean, as not to know
What seem'd the best ; and knowing not to do ?
A3 not to know what God and conscience bade,
And v/nat they bade not able to obey ?
Pollock's Course of Time.
With peace of conscience, like to innocent men.
Massinger
Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign
Can match the fierce, unutterable pain
He feels, who night and day devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.
Gifford's Juvenal.
He cannot look on her mild eye ;
Her patient words his spirit quell,
Within that evil heart there lie
The hates and fears of hell.
His speech is short ; he wears a surly brow —
There 's none will hear her shriek ; what fear ye
now?
The workings of the soul ye fear !
Dana's Buccaneer.
Dear mother! in ourselves is hid
The holy spirit-land,
Where Thought, the flaming cherub, stands
With its relentless brand;
We feel the pang, when that dread sword
Inscribes the hidden sin,
And turneth everywhere to guard
The paradise within !
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
He fears not dying — 'tis a deeper fear, —
The thunder-peal cries to his conscience — " Hear !"
The rushing winds from memory lift the veil,
And in each flash his sins, like spectres pale,
Freed, from their dark abode, his guilty breast,
Shriek in his startled ear — "Death is not rest!"
Mrs. Hale.
CONSPIRACY.
O conspiracy!
Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free ? O, then by day,
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none,
, conspiracy,
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou put thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough,
To hide thee from prevention.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing,
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream ;
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council ; and the state of a man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
CONSIDERATION - CONSTANCY.
8J
To be head
We '11 cut off any member, and condemn
Virtue or folly for a diadem,
Banish religion, and make blood as cheap,
As when two armies, turn'd into one heap
Of carcasses, lye groV'ling : what care we
For the slight tainture of disloyalty ?
None will commend the race till it be run,
And these are deeds, not prais'd till they are done.
Robert Gomersall.
Provide what money, and what arms you can ;
Who has the gold, shall never want the man.
Baron's Merza.
My plots fall short, like darts, which rash hands
throw,
With an ill aim, and have too far to go ;
Nor can I long discoveries prevent,
I deal too much among the innocent.
Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin.
Oh ! think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods ;
Oh ! 't is a dreadful interval of time,
Fill'd up with horror, and big with death.
Addison's Cato.
Conspiracies no sooner should
Than executed.
form'd
Addison's Cato.
Conspiracies,
Like thunder-clouds, should in a moment form
And strike, like lightning, ere the sound is heard.
Dowels Sethona.
CONSIDERATION.
Consideration like an angel came,
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him
Leaving his body as a paradise,
To envelope and contain celestial spirits.
Shaks. Henry V.
Hang consideration !
When this is spent, is not our ship the same,
Our courage too the same, to fetch in more ?
The earth, where it is fertilest, returns not
More than three harvests, while the glorious sun
Posts through the zodiac, and makes up the year.
But the sea, which is our mother (that embraces
Both the rich Indies in her outstretch'd arms,)
; Yields every day a crop if we dare reap it.
\ No, no, my mates, let tradesmen think of thrift,
And usurers hoard up ; let our expense
I Be as our comings in are, without bounds.
Massinger.
F
CONSTANCY.
I am constant as the northern star ;
Of whose true, fix'd and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Sooner I'll think the sun would cease to cheer
The teeming earth, and then forget to bear ;
Sooner that rivers would run back, or Thames
With ribs of ice in June would bind his streams .
Or nature, by whose strength the world endures,
Would change her course before you alter yours.
Jonson
It is a noble constancy you show
To this afflicted house : that not like others,
The friends of season, you do follow fortune,
And in the winter of their fate, forsake
The place, whose glories warm'd you.
Jonson's Sejanus.
First shall the heav'n's bright lamp forget to shine,
The stars shall from the azur'd sky decline :
First shall the orient with the west shake hand,
The centre of the world shall cease to stand :
First wolves shall league with lambs, the dolphins
fly,
The lawyer and physician fees deny :
The Thames with Tagus shall exchange her bed,
My mistress' locks with mine shall first turn red :
First heav'n shall lie below,- and hell above,
Ere I inconstant to my Delia prove.
Howell.
When all things have their trial, you shall find
Nothing is constant but a virtuous mind.
Shirley's Witty Fair One
Make my breast
Transparent as pure crystal, that the world
Jealous of me, may see the foulest thought
My heart does hold. Where shall a woman lurn
Her eyes to find out constancy.
Buckingham.
No never from this hour to part,
We '11 live and love so true,
The sigh that rends thy constant heart,
Shall break thy Edwin's too.
, Goldsmith' 1 8 Hern.tt.
''Yes, let the eagle change his plume,
The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom,
But ties around that heart were spun,
Which would not, could not be undone.
Campbeu
The mountain rill
Seeks with no surer flow the far, bright sea,
Than my unchang'd affections flow to thee.
Park Benjamin
CONTEMPLATION - CONTEMPT - CONTENT.
The love that is kept in the beauty of trust,
Cannot pass like the foam from the seas,
Or a mark that the finger hath trae'd in the dust,
Where 't is swept by the breath of the breeze.
Mrs. Welby.
There is nothing but death .
Our affections can sever,
And till life's latest breath
Love shall bind us for ever.
Percival.
I have won
Thy heart, my gentle girl ! but it hath been
When that soft eye was on me ; and the love
I told beneath the evening influence,
Shall be as constant as its gentle star.
Willis.
Though youth be past, and beauty fled,
The constant heart its pledge redeems,
Like box, that guards the flowerless bed
And brighter from the contrast seems.
Mrs, Hale.
CONTEMPLATION.— See Reflec-
tion.)
CONTEMPT.
As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious :
Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
Did scowl on Richard.
Skaks. Richard II.
Hold, Clifford ; do not honour him so much,
To prick tliy finger, though to wound his heart ;
What valour were it when a cur doth grin,
For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his foot away ?
Skaks. Henry VI. Part III.
T is true, I am hard buffeted,
Though few can be my foes,
Harsh words fall heavy on my head,
And unresisted blows.
R. M. Milnes.
I, to herd with narrow foreheads,
Vacant of our glorious gains,
Like a beast with lower pleasures,
Like a beast with lower pains !
Tennyson.
Shall it not lie scorn to me
To harp on such a moulder'd string ?
J am sham'd through all my nature
To have lov'd so slight a thing.
Tennyson.
CONTENT.
There is a jewel which no Indian mine can buy
No chemic art can counterfeit;
It makes men rich in greatest poverty,
Makes water wine, turns wooden cups to gold,
The homely whistle to sweet music's strain ;
Seldom it comes, to few from heaven sent,
That much in little — all in naught — content.
Wilbyt
Contentment gives a crown,
Where fortune hath deny'd it
Thomas Ford's Love's Labyrinth
Oh calm, hush'd, rich content,
Is there a being, blessedness, without thee ?
How soft thou down'st the couch where thou dost
rest,
Nectar to life, thou sweet ambrosian feast.
Maston's first part of Antonio and Mellida,
Yet oft we see that some in humble state
Are cheerful, pleasant, happy, and content :
When those indeed that are of higher state,
With vain additions do their thoughts torment
Lady Carew's Mariam.
How man's desire
Pursues contentment ! 'T is the soul of action,
And the propounded reason of our life.
NabVs Tottenham Court.
The mind's content
Sweetens all suff'rings of th' afflicted sense,
Those that are bred in labour think it sport
Above the soft delight which wanton appetite
Begets for others, whom indulgent fortune
Prefers in her degrees, though equal nature
Made all alike.
Nabb's Tottenham Court
Each good mind doubles his own free content,
When in another's use they give it vent
Sir Giles Goosecap.
I swear, 'tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Poor and content, is rich and rich enough ;
But riches, finelcss, is as poor as winter,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
SJmks. Othello
My crown is in my heart not on my head ;
Not deck'd with diamonds, and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen : my crown is call'd content ;
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
CONTENT.
83
Best state, contentless,
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
Worse than the worst content
Shales. Timon.
Most miserable
Is the desire that's glorious: blessed be those
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
Which seasons comfort
Shaks. Cyrnb.
He that commends me to mine own content,
Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
Shaks. Cymb.
Much will always wanting be
To him who much desires. Thrice happy he
To whom the wise indulgency of heaven,
With sparing hand, but just enough has given.
Cowley.
Cellars and granaries in vain we fill
With all the bounteous summer's store,
If the mind thirst and hunger still :
The poor rich man's emphatically poor.
Slaves to the things we too much prize,
We masters grow of all that we despise.
Cowley.
The cynic hugs his poverty,
The pelican her wilderness;
And 'tis the Indian's pride to be
Naked on frozen Caucasus:
Contentment cannot smart ; stoics, we see,
Make torments easy to their apathy.
Anon.
O may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see;
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tam'd, my wishes laid;
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul;
'Tis then the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.
Dyer's Grongar Hill,
O grant me, heav'n, a middle state,
Neither too humble nor too great ;
More than enough for nature's ends,
With something left to treat my friends.
Mallet.
Unfit for greatness, I her snares defy,
And look on riches with untainted eye
To others let the glitt'ring baubles fall,
Content shall place us far above them all.
Churchill.
What tho' we quit all glittering pomp and greatness,
The busy noisy flattery of courts,
We shall enjoy content; in that alone
Is greatness, power, wealth, honour, all summ'd up.
Powell's King of Naples.
Contentment, rosy, dimpled maid,
Thou brightest daughter of the sky,
Why dost thou to the hut repair,
And from the gilded palace fly ?
I've trae'd thee on the peasant's cheek;
I 've mark'd thee in the milkmaid's smi.e ;
I 've heard thee loudly laugh and speak,
Amid the sons of want and toil ;
Yet in the circles of the great,
Where fortune's gifts are all combin'd,
I've sought thee early, sought thee late,
And ne'er thy lovely form could find.
Since then from wealth and pomp you flee,
I ask but competence and thee !
Lady Mann*>$
Life's but a short chase; our game — content
Which most pursued, is most compell'd to fly :
And he that mounts him on the swiftest hope,
Shall soonest run his courser to a stand ;
While the poor peasant from some distant hill,
Undanger'd and at ease, views all the sport,
And sees content take shelter in his cottage.
Cibber's Richard III
Her poverty was glad ; her heart content,
Nor knew she what the spleen or vapours mean!
Dryden.
Contentment parent of delight,
So much a stranger to our sight,
Say, goddess in what happy place,
Mortals behold thy blooming face ;
Thy gracious auspices impart,
And for thy temple choose my heart,
They whom thou deignest to inspire,
Thy science learn, to bound desire ;
By happy alchymy of mind,
They turn to pleasure all they find.
Green's Spleen
The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind
No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear
Why has not man a microscopic eye ?
For this plain reason — man is not a fly.
Say for what use were finer optics given
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n I
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore ?
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain ?
If nature thund'red in his op'ning ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the sphertv
How would he wish that heaven had left him stiJl
The whisp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill ?
Who finds not providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives and what denies.
pope's Essay on M**.
m
CONVERSATION - COQUETTE.
Honour and shame from no condition rise ;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade ;
The cobler apron'd, and the parson gown'd,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.
" What differ more," you cry, " than crown and
cowl,"
1 11 tell you, friend ! — a wise man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk,
Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow ;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Cease then, nor order imperfection name :
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point ; this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, heav'n bestows on thee,
•submit — in this or any other sphere,
Secure to be as bless'd as thou canst bear.
Pope's Essay on Man.
As in those domes, where Csesars once bore sway,
Defac'd by time, and tott'ring in decay,
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed ;
And wondering man could want a larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
He, fairly looking into life's account,
Saw frowns and favours were of like amount ;
And viewing all — his perils, prospects, purse,
He said, " content; — 'tis well it is no worse."
Crabbe.
Happy the life, that in a peaceful stream,
Obscure, unnoticed through the vale has flow'd ;
The heart that ne'er was charm'd by fortune's
gleam
Is ever sweet contentment's blest abode.
Percival.
Lo now, from idle wishes clear,
I make the good I may not find ;
Adown the stream I gently steer,
And shift my sail with every wind.
And half by nature, half by reason,
Can still with pliant heart prepare,
The mind, attuned to every season,
The merry heart that laughs at care.
H. M. Milman.
Think'st thou the man whose mansions hold
The worldling's pomp and miser's gold,
Obtains a richer prize
Than he who, in his cot at rest,
Kinds heavenly peace a willing guest,
And bears the promise in his breast
••f treasure ill the skies?
Mrs. Sigourney.
Content dwells with him, for his mind is fed,
And temperance has driven out unrest.
Willi!
CONVERSATION. — (See Talking.)
COQUETTE.
While to his arms the blushing bride he took,
To seeming sadness she compos'd her look ;
As if by force subjected to his will,
Though pleas'd, dissembling, and a woman still.
Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia
She lik'd his soothing lutes, his presents more,
And granted kisses, but would grant no more.
Gay's Trivia.
Then in a kiss she breath'd her various arts,
Of trifling prettily with wounded hearts ;
A mind for love, but still a changing mind,
The lisp affected, and the glance design'd ;
The sweet confusing blush, the secret wink,
The gentle swimming walk, the courteous sink ;
The stare for strangeness fit, for scorn the frown
For decent yielding, looks declining down ;
The practis'd languish, where well-feign'd desire
Would own its melting in a mutual fire ;
Gay smiles to comfort ; April showers to move ;
And all the nature, all the art of love.
Parnell's Hesml.
From loveless youth to unrespected age
No passion gratified, except her rage,
So much the fury still outran the wit,
The pleasure mist her, and the scandal hit.
Pope's Moral Essays.
There affectation, with a sickly mien,
Shows in her cheeks the roses of eighteen ,
Practis'd to lisp, and hang the head aside,
Faints into airs, and languishes with pride :
On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe,
Wrapt in a gown, for sickness and for show.
Pope's Rape of the Lock
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those ;
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends,
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
See how the world its veterans rewards !
A 3'outh of frolics, an old age of cards ;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end ;
Young without lovers, old without a friend ;
A fop their passion, but their prize a sot ;
Alive, ridiculous ; and dead, forgot !
Pope's Moral Essays.
CORPULENCE.
BR
Odious! in woollen ! 'twould a saint provoke,
'Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke)
" No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace,
" Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face :
"One would not, sure, be frightful when one's
dead — ■
"And — Betty — give this cheek a little red."
Pope's Mitral Essays.
With every pleasing, every prudent part,
Say, " what can Chloe want ?" — she wants a heart
She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought;
But never, never reach'd one generous thought
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in decencies for ever.
So very reasonable, so unmov'd,
As never yet to love, or to be lov'd.
Pope's Moral Essays.
Nymph of the mincing mouth and languid eye,
And lisping tongue so soft, and head awry,
And flutt'ring heart, of leaves of aspen made ;
Who were thy parents, blushful virgin ? — say;
! Perchance dame Folly gave thee to the day,
With Gaffer Ignorance's aid.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd,
Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips ;
To some she whispers, others speaks aloud,
To some she curtsies, and to some she dips.
Byron's Beppo.
Such is your cold coquette, who can't say " no ;"
And won't say " yes," and keeps you on and offing
On a lee shore, till it begins to blow ;
Then sees your heart wreck'd with an inward
This works a world of sentimental woe,
And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin ;
But yet is merely innocent flirtation,
Not quite adultery, but adulteration.
Byron.
The vain coquette each suit disdains,
And glories in her lover's pains ;
With age she fades — each lover flies,
Contemn'd, forlorn, she pines and dies.
Gay's Fables.
Who has not heard coquettes complain
Of days, months, years, mis-spent in vain ?
For time misus'd they pine and waste,
And love's sweet pleasures never taste.
Gay.
Can I again that look recall,
That once could make me die for thee ? —
No, no ! — the eye that beams on all,
Shall never more be priz'd by me.
Moore.
Would you teach her to love?
For a time seem to rove ;
At first she may frown in a pet;
But leave her awhile,
She shortly will smile,
And then you may win your coquette.
Byron.
Now I pray thee do not call
My cousin a coquette,
When I tell you she had danglers
By the dozen in her net;
For she was very beautiful,
Bewildering and bright
Mrs. Osgood
But why, oh why, on all thus squander
The treasures one alone can prize, —
Why let the looks at random wander,
Which beam from those deluding eyes ?
Those syren tones, so lightly spoken,
Cause many a heart, I know, to thrill ;
But mine, and only mine, till broken,
In every pulse must answer still. 4
C. F. Hoffman
1 would sooner bind
My thoughts to the open sky :
I would worship as soon a familiar star,
That is bright to every eye.
'Twere to love the wind that is free to all —
The wave of the beautiful sea —
'Twere to hope for all the light in heaven,
To hope for the love of thee.
Willis.
CORPULENCE.
Would he were fatter : — But I fear him not :
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar,
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights :
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much ; such men are dangerous.
Sliaks. Julius Ccesai
Now Falstaff sweats to death.
And lards the lean earth as he walks along :
Were 't not for laughing I should pity him.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I
Still she strains the aching clasp
That binds her virgin zone ;
I know it hurts her, though she looks
As cheerful as she can,
Her waist is larger than her life
For life is but a span.
0. W. Holm*
8
CORRUPTION.
CORRUPTION.
My bu-iness in this state,
Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,
Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble,
Till it o'errun the stew.
Shahs. Mea.for Mea.
Corruption is a tree, whose branches are
Of an immeasurable length ; they spread
Ev'ry where ; and the dew that drops from thence
Hath infected some chairs and stools of authority.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune.
Justice herself, that sitteth whimpled 'bout
The eyes, doth it not because she will take
No gold, but that she would not be seen blushing
When she takes it ; the balances she holds
Are not to weigh the rights of the cause, but
The weight of the bribe : she will put up her
Naked sword, if thou offer her a golden scabbard.
Lilly's Midas.
TTe whi^tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
The tempted with dishonour foul, suppos'd
Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
Against temptation.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
As some of us, in trusts, have made
The one hand with the other trade :
Gain'd vastly by their joint endeavour,
The right a thief, the left receiver ;
And what the one, by tricks, forestall' d,
The other, by as sly, retail'd.
Butler's Hudihras.
He that complies against his will,
Is of his own opinion still ;
Which he may adhere to, yet disown,
For reasons to himself best known.
Butler's Hudihras.
Know what a leading voice is worth.
A seconding, a third, or fourth ;
How much a casting voice comes to,
That turns up trumps of ay, or no:
And by adjusting all at th' end,
Share every one his dividend.
Butler's Hudihras.
Far as the sun his radiant course extends,
Interest, my friend, with sway despotic rules,
Some fight for interest, some for interest pray,
And were not honesty the road to want,
T< wou,d not be that slighted thing it is.
Gentleman's Osman.
Hence, wretched nation ! all thy woes arise,
Avnw'd corruption, licens'd perjuries,
Eternal taxes, treaties for a day,
Ni/vants that rule, and senates that obey.
Lord Lytlleton.
'T is hence you lord it o'er your servile senates ;
How low the slaves will stoop to gorge their lusts
When aptly baited : ev'n the tongues of patriots,
Those sons of clamour, oft relax the nerve
Within the warmth of favour.
Brooke's Gvstavus Vasa
The impious man, who sells his country's freedom
Makes all the guilt of tyranny his own.
His are her slaughters, her oppressions his ;
Just heav'n ! reserve your choicest plagues for him,
And blast the venal wretch.
Martyn's Timoleon.
If, ye. powers divine !
Ye mark the movements of this nether world,
And bring them to account, crush, crush, those
vipers,
Who, singled out by a community
To guard their rights, shall, for a grasp of air,
Or paltry office, sell 'em to the foe.
Miller's Mahomet.
Unless corruption first deject the pride,
And guardian vigour of the free-born soul,
All crude attempts of violence are vain ;
Too firm within, and while at heart untouch'd,
Ne'er yet by force was freedom overcome.
Thomson's Liberty.
But though bare merit might in Rome appear
The strongest plea for favour, 't is not here ;
We form our judgment in another way ;
And they will best succeed, who best can pay ;
Those, who would gain the votes of British tribes,
Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.
Churchill's Rosciad.
In Britain's senate, he a seat obtains,
And one more pensioner St. Stephen gains.
My lady falls to play ; so bad her chance,
He must repair it ; takes a bribe from France :
The house impeach him, Coningsby harangues,
The court forsake him, and Sir Balaam hangs :
Wife, son, and daughter, Satan, are thy own,
His wealth, yet dearer, forfeit to the crown :
The devil and the king divide the prize,
And sad Sir Balaam curses God and dies.
Pope's Moral Essays
Ask men's opinion ; Scoto, now shall tell,
How trade increases, and the world goes well :
Strike off his pension by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.
Pope's Moral Essays
The veriest hermit in the nation
May yield, God knows, to strong temptation.
Pope
Who having lost his credit, pawn'd his rent,
Is therefore fit to have a government
Pope.
COUNTRY.
87
This mournful truth is every where confess'd,
Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd :
But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold,
Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold :
When won by bribes, by flatteries implor'd,
The groom retails the favour of his lord.
Dr. Johnson's London.
Here let those reign, whom pensions can incite,
To vote a patriot black, a courtier white,
Explain their country's dear-bought rights away,
And plead for pirates in the face of day ;
With slavish tenets taint our poison'd youth,
And lend a lie the confidence, of truth.
Dr. Johnson's London.
Ere masquerades debauch'd, excise oppress'd,
Or English honour grew a standing jest.
Dr. Johnson's London.
Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats,
And ask no questions but the price of votes.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
Talk not of a grant :
What a king ought not, that he cannot give ;
And what is more than meet from princes' bounty,
Is plunder, not a grant.
Young's Brothers.
Thieves at home must hang ; but he that puts
Into his overgorged and bloated purse,
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
Cowper's Task.
He burns with most intense and flagrant zeal
To serve his country. Ministerial grace
Deals him out money from the public chest, i
Or if that mine be shut, some private purse
Supplies his need with an usurious loan,
To be refunded duly, when his vote,
Well-managed, shall have earn'd its worthy price.
Camper's Task.
Whoso seeks an audit here
Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish,
Wild fowl or ven'son, and his errand speeds.
Cowper'e Task.
Examine well
His milk-white hand, the palm is hardly clean —
But here and there an ugly smutch appears.
Foh ! 'T was a bribe that left it. He has touch'd
Corruption.
Cowper's Task.
To bribe the mob, with brandy, beer, and song,
To put their greasy fists to court addresses,
Full of professions kind, and sweet caresses,
And with a fiddle lead the hogs along.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
E'en grave divines submit to glittering gold !
The best of consciences are bought and sold.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
A close state-.eech, who, sticking to the nation,
As adders deaf to honour's execration,
Sucks from its throat the blood by night, by day,
Nor till the state expires, will drop away.
Dr. Wolcofs Peter Pindar
And conscience, truth, and honesty are made
To rise and fall, like other wares of trade.
Moore.
'T is pleasant, purchasing our fellow-creatures,
And all are to be sold, if you consider
Their passions, and are dext'rous ; some by features
Are bought up, others by a warlike leader,
Some by a place, as tend their years or natures ;
The most by ready cash — but all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.
Byron
COUNTRY.
I can make any country mine : I have
A private coat for Italian stilettos, .
I can be treach'rous with the Walloon, drunk with
The Dutch, a chimney-sweeper with the Irish,
A gentlemen with the Welch, and turn arrant
Thief with the English. What then is my countrj
to me ? j
Rowley's Noble Spanish Soldier.
Stand
Firm for your country, and become a man
Honour' d and lov'd : It were a noble life,
To be found dead embracing her.
Johnson's Catiline.
He who loves not his country can love nothing.
Byron,
And lives there man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said —
This is my own, my native land !
Sir Walter Scott
They love their land because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why.
Halleck
Who dies in vain
Upon his country's war-fields and within
The shadow of her altars ? Feeble heart !
I tell thee that the voice of patriot blood,
Thus pour'd for faith and freedom, hath a tone
Which from the night of ages, from the gulf
Of death shall burst and make its high appeal
Sound unto earth and heaven !
Mrs. Hsmunt*
My country ! ay, thy sons are proud,
True heirs of freedom's glorious dower ;
For never here has knee been bow'd
In homage to a mortal power 1
Mrs. Hair
COUNTRY LIFE.
No fearing, no doubting, thy soldier shall know,
When here stands his country, and yonder her foe ;
One look at the bright sun, one prayer to the sky,
One glance where our banner floats glorious on
high :
Then on, as the young lion bounds on his prey ;
Let the sword flash on high, fling the scabbard
away ;
Roll on, like the thunderbolt over the plain ! —
Wc come back in glory, or come not again.
Thomas Gray, Jr.
Thou, O, my country, hast thy foolish ways,
Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise, —
But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws,
Off goes the velvet, and out come the claws !
O. W. Holmes.
COUNTRY LIFE.
None can describe the sweets of country life,
But those blest men that do enjoy and taste them.
Plain husbandmen, tho' far below our pitch
Of fortune plac'd, enjoy a wealth above us :
To whom the earth with true and bounteous justice,
Free from war's cares returns an easy food.
They breathe the fresh and uncorrupted air,
And by clear brooks enjoy untroubled sleeps.
Their state is fearless and secure, enrich'd
With several blessings, such as greatest kings
Might in true justice envy, and themselves
Would count too happy, if they truly knew them.
May's Agrippina.
The fields did laugh, the flowers did freshly spring,
The trees did bud and early blossoms bore,
And all the quire of birds did sweetly sing,
And told that gardin's pleasures in their caroling.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Oh, this life
Is nobler than attending for a check ,
Richer than doing nothing for a bauble ;
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk :
Such gain the cap of him, that makes them fine,
Yet keeps his book uncross'd.
Shahs. Cymbelinc.
Abused mortals ! did you know
Where joy, heart's-ease, and comforts growj
You 'd scorn proud towers,
And seek them in these bowers,
Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may
shake,
Unt blustering care could never tempest make,
Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us,
Saving of fountains that glide by us.
Sir W. Raleigh.
Blest silent groves ! O may ye be
For ever mirth's best nursery!
May pure contents
For ever pitch their tents
Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these
mountains,
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains !
Which we may every year
Find when we come a fishing here !
Sir W. Raleigh.
This is a beautiful life now, privacy,
The sweetness and the benefit of essence :
I see there is no man but may make his paradise,
And it is nothing but his love and dotage
Upon the world's foul joys that keeps him out on 't
Beaumont and Fletcher's Nice Valour.
Under a tuft of shade that on the green
Stood whisp'ring soft, by a fresh fountain side
They sat them down ; and after no more toil
Of their sweet gard'ning labour than suffic'd
To recommend cool zephyr, and made ease
More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite
More grateful, to their supper fruits they fell.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair : now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The flow'ry lap
Of irriguous valley spread her store,
Flow'rs of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
A wilderness of sweets : for nature here
Wanton'd as in her prime, and play'd at will
Her virgin fancies, pouring forth more sweets ;
Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
'T is a goodly scene —
Yon river, like a silvery snake, lays out
His coil, i' th' sunshine lovingly — it breathes
Of freshness in this lap of flowery meadows.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
O happy if ye knew your happy state,
Ye rangers of the fields ! whom nature's boon
Cheers with her smiles, and ev'ry element
Conspires to bless.
Somerville's Clutse.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear ;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Gray's Churcli-Yard.
UJUNTRY LIFE.
BQ
happy plains ! remote from war's alarms,
And all the ravages of hostile arms !
And happy shepherds, who, secure from fear,
On open downs preserve your fleecy care !
Whose spacious barns groan with increasing store,
And whirling flails disjoint the cracking floor !
No barbarous soldier, bent on cruel spoil,
Spreads desolation o'er your fertile soil ;
No trampling steed lays waste the ripen'd grain ;
Nor crackling fires devour the promis'd gain ;
No flaming heavens cast their blaze afar,
; The dreadful signal of invasive war ;
No trumpet's clangour wounds the mother's ear,
And calls the lover from his swooning fair.
Gay's Rural Sports.
What happiness the rural maid attends,
In cheerful labour while each day she spends !
She gratefully receives what heaven has sent,
And, rich in poverty, enjoys content.
(Such happiness, and such unblemish'd fame,
j Ne'er glad the bosom of the courtly dame :)
I She never feels the spleen's imagin'd pains,
| Nor melancholy stagnates in her veins ;
i She never loses life in thoughtless ease,
Nor on the velvet couch invites disease ;
Her home-spun dress in simple neatness lies,
And for no glaring equipage she sighs :
Her reputation, which is all her boast,
In a malicious visit ne'er was lost,
No midnight masquerade her beauty wears,
And health, not paint, the fading bloom repairs.
Gay's Rural Sports.
Ye happy fields, unknown to noise and strife,
The kind rewarders of industrious life ;
Ye shady woods, where once I us'd to rove,
Alike indulgent to the muse and love ;
• Ye murmuring streams that in meanders roll,
The sweet composers of the pensive soul,
Farewell ! The city calls me from your bowers ;
Farewell, amusing thought, and peaceful hours.
Gay's Rural Sports.
Perhaps thy lov'd Lucinda shares thy walk,
With soul to thine attun'd. Then nature all
Wears to the lover's eye a look of love ;
And ail the tumult of a guilty world,
Toss'd by ungenerous passions, sinks away.
Thomson's Seasons.
Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride :
Almost on nature's common bounty fed ;
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Thomson's Seasons.
Thrice happy he ! who on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest crown'd,
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines:
Or in the gelid caverns, wood-bine wrought,
And fresh bedew'd with ever-spouting streams,
Sits coolly calm ; while all the world without,
Unsatisfied and sick, tosses at noon.
Emblem instructive of the virtuous man,
Who keeps his temper'd mind serene and pure,
And every passion aptly harmonis'd,
Amid a jarring world with vice inflam'd.
Thomson'' 8 Seasims.
The lovely young Lavinia once had friends ;
And fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth ;
For in her helpless years depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, save innocence and heaven,
She with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale ;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty conceal'd.
Thomson's Seasor.s
Here too dwells simple truth ; plain innocence ;
Unsullied beauty ; sound unbroken youth,
Patient of labour, with a little pleas'd ;
Health ever blooming ; unambitious toil ;
Calm contemplation; and poetic ease.
s Seasons
He when young spring protrudes the bursting gems,
Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale
Into his freshen'd soul ; her genial hours
He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening blossom breathes in vain.
Thomson's Seasons
Be full, ye courts, be great who will ;
Search for peace with all your skill ;
Open wide the lofty door,
Seek her on the marble floor ;
In vain you search, she is not there ;
In vain you search the domes of care :
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads,
Along with Pleasure close ally'd,
Ever by each other's side :
And often by the murm'ring rill,
Hear the thrush, while all is still
Within the groves of Grongar HilL
Dyt,
Thus is nature's vesture wrought,
To instruct our wandering thought ;
Thus she dresses green and gay,
To dispense our cares away.
Dyer'3 Grongar HuJ
S*
L-0
COUNTRY LIFE.
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view !
The fountains fall, the rivers flow,
The woody valleys, warm and low,
The windy summit, wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky !
The pleasant scat, the ruin'd tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower,
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each gave each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.
Dyer's Grongar Hill.
Secure and free they pass their harmless hours,
Gay as the birds that revel in the grove,
And sing the morning up.
Tate's Loyal General.
Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,
The good man walk'd innoxious through his age ;
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolmen's subtle art,
No language but the language of the heart,
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temperance and exercise ;
His life, though long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was instant and without a groan.
O grant me thus to live, and thus to die !
Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
Pope.
Give me, indulgent gods ! with mind serene,
And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene,
No oplendid poverty, no smiling care,
No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur there.
Young's Love of Fame.
Nature I '11 court in her sequester'd haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell ;
Where the pois'd lark his evening ditty chants,
And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell.
Smollet's Ode to Independence.
Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose ;
There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below ;
The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young ;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school ;
The watch -dog's voice that bay'd the whisp'ring
wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
Vid fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
Goldsmiths Deserted Village.
A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When ev'ry rood of ground maintain'd its man,
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life rcquir'd, and gave no more.
His best companions, innocence and health,
And his best wishes, ignorance of wealth.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Around in sympathetic mirth
Its tricks the kitten tries;
The cricket chirrups in the hearth,
The crackling fagot flies.
Goldsmith's Hermit
God made the country and man made the town ;
What wonder then, that health and virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound
And least be threaten' d in the fields and groves ?
Cowper's Task.
Scenes must be beautiful which daily view'd
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.
Cowper's Task.
The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns;
The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown,
And sullen sadness that o'ershade, distort,
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears,
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet smiles and blooms less transient than her
own. Cowper's Task.
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds
Exhilarate the spirits, and restore
The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds,
That sweep the skirt of some fair-spreading wood
Of ancient growth, make music not unlike
The dash of ocean on his winding shore,
And lull the spint while they fill the mind.
Cowper's Task.
They love the country, and none else, who seek
For their own sake its silence and its shade :
Delights which who would leave, that has a heart
Susceptible of pity, or a mind
Cultured and capable of sober thought?
Cowper's Task.
Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the
heart
May give an useful lesson to the head,
And learning wiser grow without his books.
Cowper's Task
This pure air
Braces the listless nerves, and warms the blood :
I feel in freedom here.
Joanna Baillie's De Montfort
COUNTRY LIFE.
91
O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which nature to her votary yields !
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
Th.e pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven,
O how canst thou renounce and hope to be forgiven !
Beattie's Minstrel.
There health, so wild and gay, with bosom bare,
And rosy cheek, keen eye, and flowing hair,
Trips with a smile the breezy scene along,
And pours the spirit of content in song.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
But peace was on the cottage, and the fold,
From court intrigue, from bickering faction far ;
Beneath the chestnut tree love's tale was told ;
And to the tinkling of the light guitar,
Sweet stoop' d the western sun, sweet rose the
evening star.
ScoWs Vision of Don Roderick.
There shall be love, when genial morn appears,
Like pensive beauty, smiling in her tears,
To watch the brightening roses of the sky,
And muse on nature with a poet's eye !
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
The moon is up — the watch-tower dimly burns —
And down the vale his sober step returns ;
But pauses oft, as winding rocks convey
The still sweet fall of music far away ;
And oft he lingers from his home awhile
To watch the dying notes ; and start, and smile.
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
It was in this lone valley she would charm
The ling'ring noon, where flow'rs a couch had
strewn ;
Her cheek reclining, and her snowy arm
On hillock by the palm-tree half o'ergrown :
And aye that volume on her lap is thrown,
Which every heart of human mould endears ;
With Shakspeare's self she speaks and smiles alone,
And no intruding visitation fears,
To shame th' unconscious laugh, or stop her sweet-
est tears.
Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming,
From the white-thorn the May-flower shed
Its dewy fragrance round our head :
Not Ariel lived more merrily
Under the blossom'd bough than we.
Scott's Marmion.
To pass their lives in fountains and on flowers,
And never know the weight of human hours.
Byron.
The nightingale, their only vesper-bell,
Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell.
Byron's Island
— View them near
At home, where all their worth and power is
placed ;
And there their hospitable fires burn clear,
And there the lowest farm-house hearth is graced
With manly hearts in piety sincere,
Faithful in love, in honour stern and chaste,
In friendship warm and true, in danger brave,
Beloved in life and sainted in the grave.
Halleck's Poems
And the winds and the waters
In pastoral measures,
Go winding around us, with roll upon roll,
Till the soul lies within
In a circle of pleasures,
Which hideth the soul.
Miss Barrett.
Thanks to my humble nature, while I 've limbs,
Tastes, senses, I'm determined to be rich;
So long as that fine alchymist, the sun,
Can transmute into gold whate'er I like
On earth, in air, or water ! while a banquet
Is ever spread before me, in a hall
Of heaven's own building, perfumed with the breath
Of nature's self, and ringing to the sounds
Of her own choristers.
J. N. Barker-
Poor drudge of the city !
How happy he feels,
With burrs on his legs
And the grass at his heels;
No dodger behind,
His bandannas to share,
No constable grumbling —
" You cannot go there !"
O. W. Holmes
Your love in a cottage is hungry,
Your vine is a nest for flies —
Your milkmaid shocks the graces
And simplicity talks of pies !
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning
Is shod like a mountaineer.
Willis
Rich, though poor !
My low-roof'd cottage is this hour a heaven,
Music is in it — and the song she sings,
That sweet-voiced wife of mine, arrests the ea,
i Of my young child awake upon her knee
And with his calm eye on his master's face
My noble hound lies couchant.
WtUu
92
COURAGE.
I 'm weary of my lonely hut
And of its bias ,jd tree,
The very lake is like my lot,
So silent constantly —
I've liv'd amid the forest gloom
Until I almost fear —
When will the thrilling voices come
My spirit thirsts to hear?
Willis.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome ;
And when I am strctch'd beneath the pinea
When the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and pride of man,
At the Sophist's schools, and the learned clan ;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet ?
R. W. Emerson.
Within the sun-lit forest,
Our roof the bright blue sky,
Where fountains flow, and wild flowers blow,
We lift our hearts on high.
Ebenezer Elliott.
I sigh for the time
When the reapers at morn
Come down from the hill
At the sound of the horn ;
Or when dragging the rake,
I follow'd them out
While they toss'd the light sheaves
With their laughter about ;
Through the field, with boy-daring,
Barefooted I ran;
But the stubbles foreshadow'd
The path of the man.
Now the uplands of life
Lie all barren of sheaves —
While my footsteps are loud
In the withering leaves.
T. Buchanan Read.
COURAGE.
It is held,
That valour is the chiefest virtue, and
Most dignifies the haver : If it be,
The man I speak of cannot in the world
Re singly counterpois'd.
SJiaks. Coriolanus.
He stopp'd the fliers;
And, by his rare example, made the coward
Turn terrot into «port ; as wii ves before
A vessel under sail, so men obey'd
Aj»a fell before his stern.
Stoks. Coriolanus.
Methinks I see him stamp thu?, and call thus,—
Come on, you cowards, you were got in fear,
Though you were borne in Rome.
SJiaks. Coriolanut
Come all to ruin ;
Let thy mother rather feel thy pride, than fcpr
Thy dangerous stoutness ; for I mock at death,
With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from
me;
But own thy pride thyself.
Shaks. Coriolanus
False hound !
If you have writ your annals true, 't is there,
That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
Flutter'd your voices in Corioli :
Alone I did it
Shales. Coriolanus.
The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Pr'ythee, peace :'
I dare do all that may become a man ;
Who dares do more, is none.
Shaks. Macbeth.
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we '11 not fail.
Shaks. Macbeth.
I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd,
Than what I fear ; for always I am Caesar.
' Shaks. Julius Cassar
Think not, thou noble Roman,
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome ;
He bears too great a mind.
Shaks. Julius C&sar
I dare assure thee that no enemy
Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus :
The Gods defend him from so great a shame !
When you do find him, or alive, or dead,
He will be found like Brutus, — like himself.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
A thousand hearts are great within my bosom :
Advance our standards, set upon our foes ;
Our ancient word of courage, fair St. George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons !
Upon them ! Victory sits upon our helms.
Shaks. Ricltard III.
If we be conqucr'd, let men conquer us,
And not these bastard Brctagnes ; whom our fathers
Have in their own land beaten,bobb'd, and thump'd,
And, on record, left them the heirs of shame.
Shaks. Richard III
COURAGE.
93
Fight, gentlemen of England ; fight, bold yeomen :
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head.
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood :
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves.
Shahs. Richard III.
King Richard. — A horse ! a horse! my kingdom
for a horse !
Calesby. — Withdraw, my lord : I '11 help you to a
horse.
King Richard. — Slave, I have set my life upon a
cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
Shaks. Richard III.
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on ;
And doves will peck, in safeguard of their brood.
Shaks. Richard III.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood ;
Yet lives our pilot still. Is 't meet that he
Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,
With tearful eyes add water to the sea,
And give more strength to that which hath too
much,
Whiles, in his moan, the ship slips on the rock,
Which industry and courage might have sav'd ?
Ah, what a shame ! ah, what a fault were this !
Shaks. Henry IV. Pari III.
In despite of all mischance,
Of thee thyself, and all thy complices,
Edward will always bear himself a king :
Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,
My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part III.
They call'd us for our fierceness, English dogs ;
Now, like to whelps, we crying ran away.
Hark, countrymen ! either renew the fight,
Or tear the lions out of England's coat ;
Renounce your soil, give sheep in lion's stead.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake, endeavour for defence ;
For courage mounteth with occasion.
SItaks. King John.
He 's truly valiant that can suffer
The worst that man can breathe ; and make his
wrongs
His outsides; to wear them like his raiment, care-
lessly ;
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.
Shaks. Timon.
His valour, shown upon our crests to-day,
Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
You must not think,
That we are made of stuff" so flat and dull,
That we can let our beard be shook with danger
And think it pastime.
Shaks. HamleL
Let us die instant : once more back again ;
The man that will not follow Bourbon now,
Let him go home, and with his cap in hand,
Like a base pander hold the chamber door,
Whilst, by a slave, no gentler than my dog,
His fairest daughter is contaminate.
Shaks. Henry V
A valiant man
Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger,
But worthily, -and by selected ways.
He undertakes by reason, not by chance.
His valour is the salt t' his virtues,
They 're all unseason'd without it.
Ben Jonson's New Inn.
Brave spirits are a balsam to themselves,
There is a nobleness of mind, that heals
Wounds beyond salves.
Cartwrighfs Lady Errant
What, though the field be lost,
All is not lost ; th' ungovernable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome ;
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the arch-angel : but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows
Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride,
Waiting revenge.
Milton's Paradise Lost
To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his pow'r,
Who from the terror of this arm so late
Doubted his empire ; that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall.
Milton's Paradise Lou
But he his wonted pride
Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore
Semblance of worth not substance, gently rais'd
Their fainting courage, and dispell'd their fears.
Milton's Paradise Lost
No thought of flight,
None of retreat, no unbecoming deed
That argu'd fear : each on himself rely'd,
As only in his arm the moment lay
Of victory.
Milton's Parodist Los>
COURAGE.
I should ill become this throne, O peers,
\nd this imperial sov'reignty, adorn'd
With splendour, arm'd with pow'r, if aught pro-
pos'd
And judg'd of public moment, in the shape
Of difficulty or danger, could deter
Me from attempting.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Th' undaunted fiend what this might be admir'd,
Admir'd, not fear'd ; God and his son except,
Created thing nought valued he or shunn'd.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
lncens'd with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Let fortune empty her whole quiver on me,
I have a soul, that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more :
Fate was not mine, nor am I fate's :
Souls know no conquerors.
Dry den's Don Sebastian.
'Tis not now who's stout and bold ?
But who bears hunger best and cold ?
And he 's approv'd the most deserving,
Who longest can hold out at starving ;
And he that routs most pigs and cows,
The formidablcst man of prowess.
So th' emperor Caligula,
That triumph'd o'er the British sea,
Took crabs and oysters prisoners,
And lobsters 'stead of cuirassiers ;
Engag'd his legions in fierce bustles,
With periwinkles, prawns, and mussels,
And led his troops with furious gallops,
To charge whole regiments of scallops ;
Not like their ancient way of war,
To wait on his triumphal car ;
But when he went to dine or sup,
More bravely ate his captives up,
And left all war by his example,
Reduc'd to vict'ling of a camp well.
Butler.
The brave man seeks not popular applause,
Nor, overpowei'd with arms, deserts his cause;
I 'nshixm'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can,
Force is of brutes, but honour is of man.
Dryden's Palemon and Arcite.
Wnatc'ei betides, by destiny 'tis done,
And better bear like men, than vainly seek to shun.
JPryderi'8 Palemon and Arcite.
Be not dismay'd — fear nurses up a danger;
And resolution kills it in the birth.
Phillips's Duke of Gloucester
True valour, friends, on virtue founded strong,
Meets all events alike.
Mallei's Mustapha.
The human race are sons of sorrow born ;
And each must have his portion. Vulgar minds
Refuse or cranch beneath their load : the brave
Bear theirs without repining.
Mallet and Thomson's Alfred.
True valour
Lies in the mind, the never-yielding purpose,
Nor owns the blind award of giddy fortune.
Thomson's Coriolanus.
But while hope lives,
Let not the generous die. 'T is late before
The brave despair.
Thomson's Sophonisba.
Is there a man, into the lion's den
Who dares intrude to snatch his young away ?
Thomson's Britannia.
To a mind resolved and wise,
There is an impotence in misery,
Which makes me smile, when all its shafts are
in me. Young's Revenge.
True fortitude is seen in great exploits
That justice warrants, and that wisdom guides ;
All else is tow'ring, phrenzy and distraction.
Addison's Cat*
My heart is firm :
There 's nought within the compass of humanity
But I would dare and do.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
The wise and active conquer difficulties,
By daring to attempt them : sloth and folly
Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and hazard,
And make the impossibility they fear.
Route's Ambitious Step-Mother.
True courage scorns
To vent her prowess in a storm of words ;
And to the valiant action speak alone.
Smollett's Regicide.
Not to the ensanguin'd field of death alone
Is valour limited : she sits serene
In the deliberate council, sagely scans
The source of action ; weighs, prevents, provides,
And scorns to count her glories, from the feats
Of brutal force alone.
Smotlett'3 Regicide.
The intent and not the deed
Is in our power ; and therefore who dares greatly,
Does greatly.
Brown's Barbarossa.
COURAGE.
95
This is true courage, not the brutal force
Of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve
Of virtue and of reason. He who thinks
Without their aid to shine in deeds of arms,
Builds on a sandy basis his renown ,
A dream, a vapour, or an ague-fit
May make a coward of him.
Whitehead' 's Roman Father.
The brave man is not he who feels no fear,
For that were stupid and irrational ;
But he whose noble soul its fear subdues,
And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
As for your youth, whom blood and blows delight,
Away with them ! there is not in their crew
One valiant spirit.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
Rocks have been shaken from their solid base ;
But what shall move a firm and dauntless mind ?
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
I would, God knows, in a poor woodman's hut
Have spent my peaceful days, and shar'd my crust
With her who would have cheer'd me, rather far
Than on this throne ; but being what 1 am,
I '11 be it nobly.
Joanna Baillie's Constantine Paleologus.
Her look compos'd, and steady eye,
Bespoke a matchless constancy.
Scott's Marmion.
My soul hath felt a secret weight,
A warning of approaching fate :
A priest had said, return, repent !
As well to bid that rock be rent.
Firm as that flint I face mine end ;
My heart may burst, but cannot bend.
Scott's Rokeby.
False wizard, avaunt ! I have marshall'd my clan ;
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are
one !
They are true to the last of their blood and their
breath,
And, like reapers, descend to the harvest of death.
Campbell's Lochiel.
The minstrel fell ! — but the foeman's chain
Could not bring his proud soul under ;
The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder ;
And said " No chains shall sully thee,
" Thou soul of love and bravery !
" Thy songs were made for the pure and free,
u They shall never sound in slavery !"
Moore.
A careless thing, who plac'd his choice in chance,
Nurst by the legends of his land's romance ;
Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear,
Acquainted with all feelings, save despair.
Byron's Island.
A real spirit,
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.
Byron
" You fool ! I tell you no one means you harm "
"So much the better," Juan said, " for them,"
Byron
Nor need'st thou doubt this speech from mc,
Who would but do — what he hath done.
Byron's Giaour
A spirit yet unquell'd and high
That claims and seeks ascendancy.
Byron's Giaour
Whate'er my fate,
I am no changeling — 'tis too late :
The reed in storms may bow and quiver,
Then rise again ; the tree must shiver.
Byron's Siege of Corinth
Have I not had my brain sear'd, my hear t riven,
Hopes snapp'd, name blighted, life's life lied
away?
And only not to desperation driven,
Because not altogether of such clay,
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.
Byron's Childe Harold.
The torture ! you have put me there already,
Daily since I was doge ; but if you will
Add the corporeal rack, you may : these limbs
Will yield with age to crushing iron ; but
There 's that within my heart shall strain youi
engines. Byron's Doge of Venice.
Fate made me what I am — may make me no-
thing —
But either that or nothing must I be ;
I will not live degraded.
Byron's Saraanapalus
I had a sword — and have a breast
That should have won as haught a crest
As ever wav'd along the line
Of all these sovereign sires of thine.
Byron's Parisivn
But still he fac'd the shock,
Obdurate as a portion of the rock
Whereoa he stood, and fix'd his levell'd gun,
Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun.
Byion
There is strength
Deep bedded in our hearts, of which we recn
But little till the shafts of heaven have pierc'd
Its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent
Before her gems are found ?
Mrs. HettMn»
90
COURT.
Think'st thou there dwells no courage but in
breasts
That set their mail against the ringing spears,
When helmets are struck down? Thou little
knowest
Of nature's marvels.
Mrs. Ilemans.
Ah, never shall the land forget
How gush'd the life-blood of the brave,
Gush'd warm with hope and courage yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save !
Bryant.
Like a mountain lone and bleak,
With its sky-encompass'd peak,
Thunder riven,
Lifting its forehead bare,
Through the cold and blighting air,
Up to heaven,
Is the soul that feels its woe,
And is nerv'd to bear the blow.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
COURT.
Whoso in pompe of prowd estate (quoth she)
Does swim, and bathe himself in courtly bliss,
Does waste his dayes in dark obscuritie,
And in oblivion ever buried is.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
O happy they that never saw the court,
Nor ever knew great men but by report.
Webster's White Devil.
And what are courts but camps of misery !
That do besiege men's states, and still are press'd
T' assail, prevent, complot and fortify;
In hope t' attain, in fear to be suppress'd :
Where all with shows, and with apparency,
Men seem as if for stratagems address'd :
Where fortune, as the wolf, doth still prefer
The foulest of the train that follows her.
Daniel.
Our courtiers say, all 's savage, but at court.
Experience, O thou disprov'st report.
Shaks. Cymb.
Revolve what tales I have told you
Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war:
This service is not service, so being done
But being so allow'd.
Shaks. Cymb.
Virtue must be thrown off, 'tis a coarse garment,
Too heavy fo r the sunshine of a court
Dryden's Spanish Friar.
onurts can give nothing to the wise and good,
T
ys do they keep the walls,
And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I.
I speak not this as doubting any here :
For did I but suspect a doubtful man,
He should have leave to go away betimes ;
Lest, in our need, he might infect another,
And make him of like spiri to himself.
If any such be here, as God forbid !
Let him depart, before we need his help.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart, his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convey put into his purse :
We would not die in that man's company,-
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
Shaks. Henry V.
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sit mocking in our plumes.
Shaks. Henry V.
Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch ?
Death of thy soul those linen cheeks of thine
Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
Shaks. Macbeth
Art thou afear'd
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in desire ? wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem ;
Letting — I dare not — wait upon — I would ?
Shaks. Macbeth.
You souls of geese,
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
From slaves that apes would beat ? Pluto and hell :
All hurt behind ; backs red, and faces pale
With flight and agued fear ! mind, and charge
home,
Or by the fires of heaven, I leave the foe,
And make my wars on you.
Shaks. Coriohnus
that a mighty man, of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit !
Shaks. Taming the Shrex
Am I a coward ?
Who calls me villain ? breaks my pate across ?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face ?
Tweaks me by the nose ? g-ives me the lie i' Us*
throat,
As deep as to the lungs ? who does me this ?
Ha ! why, I should take it ; for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter ; or, ere this
1 should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offaL
Shaks Hamui
104
COWARDS - COXCOMB.
That which in mean men we entitle patience,
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
Shaks. Richard II.
The like may of the heart be said ;
Courage and terror there are bred,
All those whose hearts are loose and low,
Start, if they hear but the tattoo:
And mighty physical their fear is ;
For, soon as noise of combat near is,
Their heart descending to their breeches,
Must give their stomachs cruel twitches.
But heroes who o'ercome or die,
Have their hearts hung extremely high.
Prior's Alma.
Those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.
Hence timely running 's no mean part
Of conduct, in the martial art,
By which some glorious feats achieve,
As citizens by breaking thrive,
And cannons conquer armies while
They seem to draw off and recoil ;
Is held the gallant'st course and bravest,
To great exploits, as well as safest.
That spares th' expense of time and pains,
And dangerous beating out of brains ;
And in the end, prevails as certain
As those that never trust to fortune ;
But make their fear do execution
Beyond the stoutest resolution.
As earthquakes kill without a blow,
And only trembling, overthrow.
Butler's Hudibras.
Go — let thy less than woman's hand
Assume the distaff — not the brand.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
COWARDS.
Whom neither glory or danger can excite,
'Tis vain t' attempt with speech; for the mind's
fear
Keeps all brave sounds from ent'ring at that ear.
Jonson's Catiline.
Think not, coward, wit can hide the shame
Of hearts ; which, while they dare not strike for
fear,
Would make it virtue in them to forbear.
Lord Brooke's Alaham.
Fear is my vassal, when I frown he flies ;
A hundred times in life a coward dies.
Marston's Insatiate Countess.
But look for ruin when a coward wins ;
For frar and cruelty were ever twins.
Aleyri'8 Poictiers.
Let valiant fools
Brag of their souls ; no matter what they say,
A coward dares, in ill, do more than they.
Shirley's Example
All mankind
Is one of these two cowards;
Either to wish to die
When he should live, or live when he should die.
Sir Robert Howard's Blind Lady.
Cowards fear to die ; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.
Sir Walter Raleigh on the Snuff of a Candle.
Cowards die many times before their deaths ;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar
By laws of learned duellists,
They that are bruis'd with wood or fists,
And think one beating may for once
Suffice, are cowards and poltroons :
But if they dare engage t' a second,
They're stout and gallant fellows reckon'd.
Butler's Hudibras
The coward wretch whose hand and heart
Can bear to torture aught below,
Is ever first to quail and start
From slightest pain or equal foe.
The coward never on himself relies,
But to an equal for assistance flies.
Eliza Cook
Crabbe
COXCOMB.
But, I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage, and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd :
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest home.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I
He was perfum'd like a milliner :
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb, he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose : and still he smil'd and talk'd ;
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly.
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corpse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
This is he,
That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy ;
This is the ape of form, Monsieur the nice,
That when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms.
Shaks. Love's Labour
CRAFT.
105
Our court, you know, is haunted
With a refined traveller of Spain ;
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain ;
One, whom the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony ;
A man of compliments.
Shaks. Lore's Labour.
I know him a notorious liar,
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward ;
Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind : withal, full oft we
see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Shaks. All 's WeU.
Let me not live, quoth he,
After my flame lacks oil, to be the snufF
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain : whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments ; whose constan-
cies
Expire before their fashions.
Shaks. All's Well.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.
Shaks. Richard III.
A barren-spirited fellow, one that feeds
On objects, arts, and im itations ;
Which, out of use, and stall'd by other men,
Begin his fashion : do not talk of him,
But as a property.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
All smatterers are more brisk and pert,
Than those that understand an art ;
As little sparkles shine more bright
Than glowing coals that give them light,
Butler.
A six-foot suckling, mincing in its gait :
Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate ;
Fearful it seem'd, tho' of athletic make,
Lest brutal breezes should too roughly shake
Its tender form, and savage motion spread,
O'er its pale cheeks, the horrid manly red.
ChurchiW8 Rosciad.
So by false learning is good sense defac'd :
Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs, nature meant but fools.
Pope.
Nature made ev'ry fop to plague his brother,
Just as one beauty mortifies another.
Pope.
My lord advances with majestic mien,
Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen.
Pope's Moral Essays.
Sir Plume, (of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane,)
With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face,
He first the snuff-box open'd, then the case.
Pope's Rape of the Lock
Absence of mind Brabantia turns to fame,
Learns to mistake, nor knows his brother's name;
Has words and thoughts in nice disorder set,
And takes a memorandum to forget
Young's Love of Fame.
He would not with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own ;
With hesitation admirably slow,
He humbly hopes, — presumes it may be so.
Cowper's Conversation
Knows what he knows as if he knew it not,
What he remembers, seems to have forgot.
Cowper's Conversation
A graver coxcomb we may sometimes see,
Quite as absurd, though not so light as he :
A shallow brain behind a serious mask,
An oracle within an empty cask,
The solemn fop ; significant and budge ;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge ;
He says but little, and that little said
Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead.
His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock it never is at home.
Cowper.
Puppies ! who, though on idiotism's dark brink,
Because they 've heads dare fancy they can think.
Dr. Wokott's Peter Pindar.
In lovers' parts his passion more to breathe,
Having no heart to show, he shows his teeth.
Byron.
I saw the curl of his waving lash,
And the glance of his knowing eye,
And I knew the thought he was cutting a dash,
As his steed went thundering by,
O. W. Holmes.
So gentle, yet so brisk, so wondrous sweet,
So fit to prattle at a lady's feet
ChurchiU
Fops take a world of pains
To prove that bodies may exist sang brains ;
The former so fantastically dress'd,
The latter's absence may be safely guess'd.
Park Benjamin
CRAFT
For craft once known,
Does teach fools wit; leaves the dece'vers none
Muidhton
106
CREDULITY -CRITICS AND CRITICISM.
For he
That sows in craft, does reap in jealousy.
Middleton.
This is the fruit of craft :
Like him that shoots up high, looks for the shaft
And finds it in his forehead.
Middleton.
CREDULITY.
Your noblest natures are most credulous.
Chapman.
O credulity,
Security's blind nurse, the dream of fools,
The drunkard's ape, that feeling- for his way,
Ev'n when he thinks, in his deluded sense,
To snatch at safety, falls without defence.
Mason's Muleasses.
Blessed credulity, thou great great god of error,
Thou art the strong foundation of huge wrongs,
To thee give I my vows and sacrifice ;
By thee, great deity, he doth believe
Falsehoods, that falsehood's self could not invent ;
And from that misbelief doth draw a course
T' o'erwhelm e'en virtue, truth and sanctity.
Let him go on, blest stars, 't is meet he fall,
Whose blindfold judgment nath no guide at all.
Machen'8 Dumb Knight.
Generous souls
Are still most subject to credulity.
Sir W. DavenanVs Albovine.
CRITICS AND CRITICISM.
Those fierce inquisitors of wit,
The critics, spare no flesh that ever writ,
But just as toothdraw'rs find among the rout,
Their own teeth work in pulling others out,
So they, decrying all of all that write,
Think to erect a trade of judging by 't.
Butler.
antics to plays for the same end resort,
That surgeons wait on trials in a court;
For innocence condemn'd they 'vc no respect,
Provided they've a body to dissect.
Congreve.
Till critics blame and judges praise,
The poet cannot claim his bays ;
On me when dunces are satiric,
I take it for a panegyric.
Hated by fools, and fools to ha.e,
Pe that my motto, and my fate.
Swift.
Shall we not censure all the motley train
Whether with ale irriguous or champaign?
Whether they tread the vale of "rose, or climb.
And whet their appetites on cliffs of rhyme ?
The college sloven, or embroider'd spark j
The purple prelate or the parish clerk ;
The quiet quidnunc, or demanding prig ;
The plaintiff tory, or defendant whig ;
Rich, poor, male, female, young, old, gay, or sad ;
Whether extremely witty, or quite mad ;
Profoundly dull, or shallowly polite ;
Men that read well or men that only write ;
Whether peers, porters, tailors, tune the reeds,
And measuring words to measuring shapes suc-
ceeds ;
For bankrupts write when ruin'd shops are shut;
As maggots crawl from out a perish'd nut :
His hammer this, and that his trowel quits,
And wanting sense for tradesmen, serve for wits.
Young.
What ambitious fools are more to blame
Than those who thunder in the critic's name ?
Good authors damn'd have their revenge in this,
To see what wretches gain the praise they miss.
Young.
Critics on verse, as squibs on triumphs wait,
Proclaim the glory, and augment the state ;
Hot, envious, noisy, prom', the scribbling fry
Burn, hiss, and bounce, waste paper, ink, and die.
Young.
Cold-blooded critics, by enervate sires,
Scarce hammer'd out, when nature's feebler fires
Glimmer'd their last ; whose sluggish blood, half
froze,
Creeps lab'ring thro' their veins ; whose heart ne'er
glows
With fancy-kindled heats : — a servile race,
Who in mere want of fault all merit place ;
Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools,
Bigots to Greece, and slaves to rusty rules.
ChurchiU.
Who shall dispute what the reviewers say ?
Their word 's sufficient ; and to ask a reason,
In such a state as theirs, is downright treason.
ChurchiU.
One finds out, — he 's of stature somewhat low —
Your hero always should be tall, you know.
True natural greatness all consists in height,
Produce your voucher, critic — Serjeant Kite.
Churchill.
The coxcomb felt a lash in ev'ry word,
And fools, hung out, their brother fools deterr'd.
Churchill
CROWN.
1CT
A critic was of old a glorious name,
Whose sanction handed merit up to fame ;
Beauties as well as faults he brought to view :
His judgment great, and great his candour too.
No servile rules drew sickly taste aside ;
Secure he walked, for nature was his guide.
But now, O strange reverse ! our critics bawl
In praise of candour with a heart of gall.
Conscious of guilt, and fearful of the light ;
They lurk enshrouded in the veil of night :
Safe from destruction, seize th' unwary prey,
And stab, like bravoes, all who come that way.
Churchill.
Critics I saw, that other names deface,
And fix their own, with labour, in their place.
Pope's Temple of Fame.
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise ;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can ;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Tust hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuihnot.
Commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.
Young's Love of Fame.
A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade,
Save censure ; critics all are ready made,
Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote ;
A mind well skill' d to find or forge a fault,
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt ;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet :
Fear not to lie, 't will seem a lucky hit ;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 't will pass for wit ;
Care not for feeling, pass your project jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,
Condemn'd to drudge the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind ;
Himself a living libel on mankind.
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
j Elope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff,
[ Believe a woman, or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that 's false, before
You trust in critics who themselves are sore.
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame,
The cry is up and scribblers are my game.
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose : ■
This is true criticism, and you may kiss
Exactly as you please, or not, the rod.
Byron.
For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish,
I 've bribed my grandmother's review — the British.
Byron.
His " bravo" was decisive, for that sound
Hushed " academic" sighed in silent awe ;
The fiddlers trembled as he looked around,
For fear of some false note's detected flow.
Byron's Beppo.
Lords of the quill, whose critical assaults
O'erthrow whole quartos with their quires of faults ;
Who soon detect and mark where'er we fail,
And prove our marble with too nice a nail !
Democritus himself was not so bad ;
He only thought, but you would make us mad.
Byron.
A modern critic is a thing who runs
All ways, all risks, to evitiate his duns ;
Let but an- author ask him home to dine,
And lend him money while he gave him wine ;
However dull the trash the man might write,
Its praise the grateful guest would still endite.
Byron.
John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, without Greek
Contrived to talk about the gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow ! His was an untoward fate,
'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff 'd out by an article.
Byrun.
After us all are critics to a man,
Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear
Glean after what it can.
Bailey
CROWN.
Why doth the crown lie ihere upon his pillow.
Being so troublesome a bed-fellow ?
O polish'd perturbation ! Golden care !
That keeps the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night ! he sleeps with 't now.
Yet not so sound, and half so sweet
As he, whose brow, with homely biggin bound.
Snores out the watch of night
Shaks. Henry IV. Part tj
108
CRUELTY.
Do but think,
How severe a thing it is to wear a crown ;
Within whose circuit is elysium,
And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.
Sliaks. Henry IV. Part III.
Empires to-day are upside down,
The castle kneels before the town,
The monarch fears a printer's frown,
A brickbat's range ;
Give me. in preference to a crown,
Five shillings change
Halleck.
CRUELTY.
Oft those whose cruelty makes many mourn,
Do by the fires which they first kindle burn.
Earl of Sterline.
No council from our cruel wills can win us,
But ills once done, we bear our guilt within us.
John Ford's Love's Sacrifice.
I must be cruel only to be kind :
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural ;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none ;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.
Shaks. Hamlet.
She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of
France,
Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth !
How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex
To triumph, like an Amazonian trull,
Upon their woes, whom fortune captivates.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
O tiger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide !
How could'st thou drain the life blood of the child ?
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
That face of his the hungry cannibals
Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd
with blood;
But you are more inhuman, more inexorable, —
O ten times more than tigers of Hyrcania.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Thou art come to answer
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch
Incapable of pity void and empty
From ev'ry drachm of mercy.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Neither bended knees, pure hands held up,
^ad sighs, deep groans, nor silver shedding tears,
tV.Ud penetrate her uncompassionate sire.
Shaks Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Was this a face
To be expos'd against the warring winds ?
To stand against the deep dread bottled thunder ?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick cross lightning ? mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit mc, should have stood that night
Against my fire.
Shaks. King Lear.
Spare not the babe,
Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their
mercy;
Think it a bastard, whom the oracle
Hath doubtfully pronounced thy throat shall cut,
And mince it sans remorse
Shaks. Txmcn.
My lord of Winchester, you are a little,
By your good favour, too sharp ; men so noble,
However faulty, yet should find respect
For what they have been : 't is a cruelty
To load a falling man.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Do not insult calamity ;
It is a barbarous grossness to lay on
The weight of scorn, where heavy misery
Too much already weighs men's fortunes down.
DanieVs Philotas.
O barbarous men ! your cruel breasts assuage,
Why vent ye on the generous steed your rage ?
Does not his service earn your daily bread ?
Your wives, your children, by his labours fed 1
If, as the Samian taught, the soul revives,
And shifting seats in other bodies lives ;
Severe shall be the brutal coachman's change,
Doom'd in a hackney horse the town to range ;
Car-men transformed, the groaning load shall
draw,
Whom other tyrants with the lash shall awe.
Gay's Trivia
breasts of pity void ! t' oppress the weak,
To point your vengeance at the friendless head,
And with one mutual cry insult the fallen !
Emblem too just of man's degenerate race.
Somerville's Chase.
Villain, abhorred villain !
Hath he not push'd me to extremity ?
Are these wild limbs, these scarr'd and scathed
limbs,
This wasted frame, a mark for human malice ?
There have been those who from the high bark's
side
Have whelm'd their enemy in the flashing deep ;
But who have watch'd to see his struggling hands,
To hear the sob of death ?
Maturing Bertram.
CURIOSITY -CURSES.
10U
I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine
sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path,
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside and let the reptile live.
Compels Task.
Thou fairest flower,
Why didst thou fling thyself across my path ?
My tiger spring must crush thee in its way,
But cannot pause to pity thee.
Maturin's Bertram.
Cruel of heart, and strong of arm,
Loud in his sport, and keen for spoil,
He little reck'd of good or harm,
Fierce both in mirth and toil ;
Yet like a dog could fawn, if need there were;
Speak mildly, when he would, or look in fear.
Dana's Buccaneer.
CURIOSITY.
The over curious are not over wise.
Masstnger.
He who would pry
Behind the scenes oft sees a counterfeit
Dryden.
Conceal yersel' as weel 's ye can
Fra' critical dissection ;
But keek thro' every other man
With lengthen'd, sly inspection.
Burns.
Eve,
With all the fruits of Eden blest,
Save only one, rather than leave
That one unknown lost all the rest.
Moore.
I loathe that low vice, Curiosity.
Byron.
— Curiosity ! who hath not felt
Its spirit, and before its altar knelt ?
Sprague's Curiosity.
How many a noble art, now widely known,
Owes its young impulse to this power alone !
Sprague.
What boots it to your dust, your son were born
An empire's idol or a rabble's scorn ?
Think ye the franchis'd spirit shall return,
To share his triumph, his disgrace to mourn ?
Ah, curiosity ! by thee inspir'd
This truth to know how oft has man enquir'd !
Sprague.
Faith we may boast, undarken'd by a doubt,
We thirst to find each awful secret out
Sprague.
The enquiring spirit will not be controll'd,
We would make certain all, and all behold.
Sprague.
The curious questioning eye,
That plucks the heart of every mystery.
Grenville Mellen
CURSES.
But curses are like arrows shot upright,
That oftentimes on our own heads do light ;
And many times ourselves in rage prove worst ;
The fox ne'er better thrives, but when accurst.
Valiant Welshman.
I do not wish them Egypt's plagues, but e'en
As bad as they : I '11 add unto them seven.
I wish not grasshoppers, frogs, and lice come dow n,
But clouds of moths in ev'ry shop i' th' town.
Then, honest devil to their ink convey
Some aqua fortis, that may eat away
Their books.
Randolph.
I could
Accuse my unkind destiny ; declaim
Against the pow'r of love ; rail at the charms
Of language and proportion, that betray us
To hasty sorrow and too late repentance ;
But breath is this way lost.
Shirley^ Love's Cruelty.
All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make
him
By inch-meal a disease ! His spirits hear me,
And yet I needs must curse him.
Shaks. Tempest.
As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven feathers from unwholesome fen,
Drop on you both ! a south-west blow on ye,
And blister you all o'er !
Shaks. Tempest.
If heaven have any grievous plagues in store,
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, the trouble of the poor world's peace I
Shaks. Ricnard III
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
May fright the hopeful mother at the view;
And that be heir to his unhappiness.
Shaks. Richard Hi
10
110
CURSES.
Take with thee thy most heavy curse ;
Which in the day of battle tire thee more,
Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st !
Shaks. Richard III.
The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul !
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends !
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils !
Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog !
Shaks. Richard II.
Let this pernicious hour
Stand aye accursed in the calendar !
Shaks. Macbeth.
May never glorious sun reflex his beams
Upon the country where you make abode !
But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
Environ you till mischief and despair
Drive you to break your necks, or hang yourselves.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I.
Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
And occupations perish!
. Shales. Coriolanus.
All the contagion of the south light on you,
You shames of Rome ! you herd of Boils and
Plaster you o'er ; that you may be abhorred
Further than seen, and one infect another
Against the wind a mile !
Shaks. Coriolanus.
If he say so, may his pernicious soul
Rot half a grain a day ! — he lies to the heart.
SJiaks. Othello.
You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames
Into her scornful eyes ! — Infect her beauty,
You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,
To fall and blast her pride !
Shaks. King Lear.
Feed not thy sovereign's foe, thou gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his rav'nous sense :
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited roads, lie in their way.
Shaks. Richard II.
Piety and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest and neighbourhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries and trades,
Degrees, observances, customs and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And yet confusion live ! — Plagues incident to men
Your potent and infectious fevers heap
On Athens ripe for stroke !
Shaks. Timon.
A plague upon them ! wherefore should I curse
them?
Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
I would invent as bitter searching terms,
As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-fae'd Envy in her loathsome cave.
My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,
Mine hair be fixed on end like one distract —
Ay, ev'ry joint should seem to curse and ban,
And even now my burden'd heart would break,
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink '.
Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest meat they taste !
Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees !
Their choicest prospects murd'ring basilisks !
Their softest touch, as smart as lizards' stings !
Their music frightful as the serpents' hiss !
And boding screech-owls make the concert full !
Shaks. Henry VI. Part II.
Oh ! I will curse thee till thy frighted soul
Runs mad with horror.
Lee's Ccesar Borgia.
May sorrow, shame, and sickness overtake her,
And all her beauties, like my hopes, be blasted.
Rome's Royal Convert,
Plagues and palsy,
Disease and pestilence consume the robber,
Infest his blood, and wither ev'ry pow'r.
Brown's Athelstan.
I curse thee not !
For who can better curse the plague or devil,
Than to be what they are : that curse be thine.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
Ruin seize thee, ruthless king !
Confusion on thy banners wait,
Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears.
Gray's Bard.
May curses blast, thy arm ! may ^Etna's fires
Convulse the land ; to its foundation shake
The groaning isle. May civil discord bear
Her flaming brand thro' all the realms of Greece:
And the whole race expire in pangs like mine.
Murphy's Grecian Daughter.
But no, I will not curse them : thro' the world
A curse will follow them, like the black plague,
Tracking their footsteps ever, — day and night,
Morning and eve, summer and winter — ever.
Proctor's Miramlola.
CUSTOM.
Ill
Go, virtuous dame, to thy most happy lord,
And Bertram's image taint your kiss with poison.
Maturin's Bertram.
Blast, blast her charms, some bloom-destroying air !
And turn his love to loathing ; but let her's
Know no decrease, that disappointment,
Lover's worst hell, may meet her warmest wishes,
And make her curse the hour in which she wedded.
Elizabeth Haywood's Duke of Brunswick.
May the swords
And wings of fiery cherubim pursue him,
By day and night — snakes spring up in his path —
Earth's fruit be ashes in his mouth — the leaves
On which he lays his head to sleep be strew'd
With scorpions ! may his dreams be of his victim,
His waking a continual dread of death !
Byron's Cain.
May the grass wither from thy feet ! the woods
Deny thee shelter ! earth a home ! the dust
A grave ! the sun his light ! and heaven her God.
Byron's Cain,
By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By that shut soul's hypocrisy,
By the perfection of thine art
Which pass'd for human thine own heart,
By the delight in others' pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee and compel
Thyself to be thy proper hell.
Byron's Manfred.
Cursed be the social wants
That sin against the strength of youth,
Cursed be the social lies
That warp us from the living truth !
Cursed be the sickly forms
That err from honest nature's rule !
And cursed be the gold that gilds
The straighten'd forehead of a fool !
Tennyson.
A curse is like a cloud — it passes.
Bailey.
He turns and curses in his wrath
Both man and child; then hastes away
Shoreward, or takes some gloomy path;
But there he cannot stay ;
Terror and darkness drive him back to men ;
His hate of man to solitude again.
Dana's Buccaneer.
CUSTOM.
Custom in course of honour, ever errs :
And tney are best, who.n fortune least prefers.
Jonson's Poetaster.
Custom in ills that do affect the sense,
Make reason useless when it should direct
The ills reforming : men habituate
In any evil, 'tis their greatest curse :
Advice doth seldom mend, but makes them worse
Nabb's Microcosmua
'Tis base,
And argues a low spirit, to be taught
By custom, and to let the vulgar grow
To our example.
Mead's Combat of Love and Friendship
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habits evil, is angel yet in this ;
That to the use of actions fair and good,
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on : refrain to-night ;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence ; the next, more easy ;
For use can almost change the stamp of nature,
And master ev'n the devil, or throw him out,
With wondrous potency.
Shdks. Hamlet.
But to my mind ; — though I am native here,
And to the manner born, — it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach, than the observance.
Sliaks. Hamlet.
The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.
Shaks. Othello.
Thou, nature, art my goddess ; to thy law
My services are bound ; wherefore should I
Stand to the plague of custom.
Shaks. Lear
Custom's the world's great idol we adore,
And knowing this, we seek to know no more.
What education did at first conceive,
Our ripen'd eye confirms us to believe.
The careful nurse, and priest, are all we need,
To learn opinions, and our country's creed.
The parents' precepts early are instill'd,
And spoil the man, while they instruct the child.
John Pomfret
Custom does often reason overrule,
And only serves for reason to the fool.
Rochester
Custom forms us all ;
Our thoughts, our morals, our most fix'd belief
Are consequences of our place of birth.
Hill's Zen*.
Custom, 't is true, a venerable tyrant,
O'er servile man extends her blind dominion.
Thomson's TancreO, ana Sigismundn
112
DANCING -DANDY.
Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To rev'rcnce what is ancient, and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.
Cowper's Task.
Man yields to custom as he bows to fate,
In all things ruled — mind, body and estate;
In pain, in sickness, we for cure apply
To them we know not, and we know not why.
Crabbe.
Habit with him was all the test of truth,
" It must be right : I' ve done it from my youth."
Crabbe.
DANCING.
Dear creature ! you'd swear,
When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round,
That her steps are of light, that her home is the air,
And she only, "par complaisance" touches the
ground. Moore's Fudge Family.
How sweetly Marian sweeps along !
Her step is music, and her voice is song.
Silver-sandall'd foot ! how blest
To bear the breathing heaven above,
Which on thee, Atlas-like, doth rest,
And round thee move.
Bailey.
Such a dancer !
Where men have souls or bodies she must answer.
Byron.
And then he danced — all foreigners excel
The serious Angles in the eloquence
Of pantomime ; — he danced, I say, right well,
With emphasis, and also with good sense —
A thing in footing indispensable :
He danced without theatrical pretence,
Not like a ballet-master in the van
Of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.
Byron.
Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound,
And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure ;
Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground,
And rather held in than put forth his vigour.
And then he had an ear for music's sound,
Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigour.
Such classic pas — sans flaws — set off our hero,
He glanced like a personified Bolero.
Byron's Childe Harold.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell.
Byron's Childe Harold.
What ! the girl I adore by another embraced !
What ! the balm of her lips shall another man taste !
What ! touch'd in the twirl by another man's knee !
What ! pant and recline on another than me !
Sir ! she 's yours ! From the grape you have press'd
the soft blue !
From the rose you have shaken the tremulous dew !
What you've touch'd, you may take ! Pretty
waltzer, adieu !" Byron.
I gaz'd upon the dance, where ladies hight
Were moving in the light
Of mirrors and of lamps. With music and with
flowers,
Danced on the joyous hours ;
And fairest bosoms
Heav'd happily beneath the winter roses' blossoms :
And it is well;
Youth hath its time,
Merry hearts will merrily chime.
C. P. Cranch.
I saw her at a country ball ;
There when the sound of flute and fiddle
Gave signal sweet in that old hall,
Of hands across and down the middle.
Hers was the subtlest spell by far
Of all that sets young hearts romancing ;
She was our queen, our rose, our star ;
And when she danced — oh, heaven, her dancing !
Praed.
I love to go and mingle with the young
In the gay festal room — when every heart
Is beating faster than the merry tune,
And their blue eyes are restless, and their lips
Parted with eager joy, and their round cheeks
Flush'd with the beautiful motion of the dance.
Willis.
DANDY.
Ev'ry morning does
This fellow put himself upon the rack,
With putting on 's apparel, and manfully
Endures his taylor, when he screws and wrests
His body into the fashion of
His doublet.
Shirley's Bird in a Cage.
The boot pinched hard — the suffering dandy
sighed !
Jane fondly thought the sigh her beauty's due ;
" Bootless your passion, Sir !" she proudly cried,
" Ah !" sighed the fop, " would I were bootless
too !" Mrs. Osgood.
Oh ! save me, ye powers, from these pinks of the
nation,
These tea-table heroes ! these lords of creation.
Salmagundi
DANGER -DEATH.
113
DANGER.
The absent danger greater still appears ;
Less fears he, who is near the thing he fears.
DanieVs Cleopatra.
Speak, speak, let terror strike slaves mute,
Much danger makes great hearts most resolute.
Marston's Sophonisba.
What is danger
More than the weakness of our apprehensions ?
A poor cold part o' th' blood ; who takes it hold of?
Cowards and wicked livers : valiant minds
Were made the masters of it.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Chances.
Our dangers and delights are near allies ;
From the same stem the rose and prickle rise.
Alyen's Poictiers.
Danger knows full well,
That Caesar is more dangerous than he :
We are two lions litter'd in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontents
I '11 read you matter deep and dangerous ;
As full of peril, and advent'rous spirit,
As to o'erwalk a current, roaring loud,
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear !
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
He that stands upon a slippery place,
Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.
Shaks. King John.
Thus have I shunn'd the fire, for fear of burning;
And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it,
She '11 close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell !
I took thee for thy better ; take thy fortune :
Thou find'st, to be too busy, is some danger.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Then mounte ! then mounte, brave gallants, all,
And don your helmes amaine :
Deathe's couriers, Fame and Honor, call
Us to the field againe.
Motherwell.
Now, gallant Saxon ! hold thy own ;
No maiden's arm is round thee thrown !
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel
Through bars of brass and triple steel.
Scott.
H
Moore.
Moore,
There 's not a cloud in that blue plain,
But tells of storm to come or past ; —
Here, flying loosely as the mane
Of a young war-horse in the blast ; -—
There, roll'd in masses dark and swelling,
As proud to be the thunder's dwelling.
Thou little know'st
What he can brave, who, born and nurst
In danger's paths, has dared her worst !
Upon whose ear the signal-word
Of strife and death is hourly breaking ;
Who sleeps with head upon the sword
His fever'd hand must grasp in waking.
Was none who could be foremost
To lead such dire attack ;
But those behind cried " Forward !"
And those before cried " Back !"
And backward now and forward
Wavers the deep array ;
And on the tossing sea of steel
To and fro the standards reel,
And the victorious trumpet-peal
Dies fitfully away.
Macauley.
He led on ; but thoughts
Seem'd gathering round which troubled him. The
veins
Grew visible upon his swarthy brow,
And his proud lip was press'd as if with pain.
He trod less firmly ; and his restless eye
Glanc'd forward frequently, as if some ill
He dared not meet were there.
Willis.
To-night yon pilot shall not sleep,
Who trims his narrow'd sail ;
To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep
Her broad breast to the gale.
O. W. Holm-*.
DEATH.
And after all came life, and lastly death ;
Death with most grim and griesley visage seene,
Yet he is nought but parting of the breath,
Ne ought to see, but like a shake to weene,
Unbodied, unsoul'd, unheard, unseene.
Spenser's Fairy Quun.
Come then, come soon ; come, sweetest death to me
And take away this long lent loathed light .
Sharpe be thy wounds, but sweete the medicines be
That long captived soules from weary thraldomo
free. Spenser's Fairy Queen
10*
114
DEATH.
This world death's region is, the other life's ;
And here, it should be one of our first strifes,
So to front death, as each might judge us past it :
For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
Jonson
Death is the port where all may refuge find,
The end of labour, entry unto rest ;
Death hath the bounds of misery confin'd,
Whose sanctuary shrouds affliction best.
Earl of Sterline.
What life refus'd, to gain by death he thought:
For life and death are but indiff'rent tilings,
And of themselves not to be shunn'd nor sought,
But for the good or ill that either brings.
Earl of Sterline.
For though the soul of man
Be got when he is made ; 't is born but then
When man doth die : our body's as the womb,
And, as a midwife death directs it home.
Dr. Donne.
Our lives, cut off
In our young prime of years, are like green herbs,
With which we strew the hearses of our friends :
For as their virtue gather'd, when they 're green,
Before they wither, or corrupt, is best ;
So we in virtue are the best for death,
While yet we have not liv'd to such an age,
That the increasing canker of our sins
Hath spread too far upon us.
Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy.
He could no longer death's expectance bear,
For death is less than death's continual fear.
Alcyn's Henry VII.
O death ! why art thou fear'd ? why do we think
'T is such a horrid terror not to be ?
Why, not to be, is not to be a wretch,
Why, not to be, is to be like the heav'ns,
Not to be subject to the pow'r of fate :
there 's no happiness but not to be.
GojnersalVs Lodovick Sforza.
1 buried sorrow for his death,
In the grave with him. I did never think
He was immortal, though, I vow, I grieve,
And see no reason why the vicious,
Virtuous, valiant, and unworthy men
Should die alike.
Massinger and Field's Fatal Dowry.
Fond, foolish man ! with fear of death surpris'd,
Which either should be wish'd for, or despis'd :
This, if our souls with bodies death destroy ;
That, if our souls a second life enjoy :
Wiiat else is to be fear'd? when we shall gain
K tenia! life, or have no sense of pain.
DenJiam.
The bad man's death is horror ; but the just
Keeps something of his glory in his dust.
Habbington , s Castara
The wisest men are glad to die ; no fear
Of death can touch a true philosopher.
Death sets the soul at liberty to fly,
Which, whilst imprison'd in the body here,
She cannot learn : a true philosopher
Makes death his common practice, while he lives.
And every day, by contemplation, strives
To separate the soul, far as he can,
From off the body.
May's Continuation of Lucan
'Tis mere fondness in our nature,
A certain clownish cowardice, that still
Would stay at home, and dares not venture
Into foreign countries, though better than
Its own — ha — what countries? for we receive
Descriptions of the other world from our divines,
As blind men take relation of this from us.
Suckling's Brennorath
Death is honourable, advantageous,
And necessary : honourable in
Old men to make room for younger ;
Advantageous to those that get legacies
By it ; and necessary for married
People, that have no other gaol-delivery.
Fane's Love in the Dark.
Oh death ! death ! death ! thou art not half so cruel
In thy destructions of the prosperous
As in not killing wretches that would die.
Fountain's Rewards of Virtue.
The sense of death is most in apprehension ;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Shaks. Mea.for Mea.
That life is better life, past fearing death,
Than that which lives to fear.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts
Imagine howling! — 'tis too horrible !
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ache, penury, imprisonment,
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
SJtaks. Mea.for Mea.
If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.
SJiaks. Mea.for Mea
DEATIL
115
Yes, thou must die :
Thou art too noble to conserve a life
In base appliances.
Shaks. Mea.for Mea.
O I do fear thee, Claudio ; and I quake,
Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour.
Sluiks. Mea.for Mea.
Cowards die many times before their deaths ;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I jet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear ;
Seeing that death a necessary end,
Will come, when it will come.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Why he that cuts off twenty years of life,
Cuts off so many years of fearing death.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
mighty Caesar ! dost thou he so low ?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure ?
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
But yesterday the word of Csesar might
Have stood against the world : now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Fates ! we will know your pleasures : —
That we shall die, we know ; 't is but the time,
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
O, our lives' sweetness !
That with the pain of death we 'd hourly die
Rather than die at once.
Shaks. King Lear.
O you mighty gods !
This world I do renounce ; and in your sight,
Shake patiently my great affliction off.
Shaks. King Lear.
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
1 had liv'd a blessed time ; for, from this instant,
There 's nothing serious in mortality :
All is but toys ; renown and grace is dead :
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag o£
Shaks. Macbeth.
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Duncan is in his grave ;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well :
Treason has done his worst : nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
Shaks. Macbeth,
The sleeping, and the dead,
Are but as pictures : 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil.
Shaks. Macbeth,
Receive what cheer you may ;
The night is long that never finds a day.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
Ah ! dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair ? shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous,
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour ?
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Herein fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom : it is still her use,
To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
To view with hollow eyes and wrinkled brow
An age of poverty; from which lingering penanco
Of such misery doth she cut me off.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Mutest for death ; the weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
The tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony ;
Where words are scarce, they 're seldom spent ir
vain;
For they -breathe truth, that breathe their words
in pain. Shaks. Richard IL
All comfort go with thee !
For none abides with me: my joy is — death;
Death, at whose name I oft have been afear'd,
Because I wish'd this world's eternity.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part II.
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,
When death's approach is seen so terrible !
Shaks. Henry VI. Part IL
Ah, who is nigh ? come to me, friend or foe,
And tell me who is victor, York, or Warwick?
Why ask I that ? my mangled body shows,
My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows
That I must yield my body to the earth,
And by my fall, the conquest to the foe. '
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept;
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree.
And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I [I
116
DEATH.
The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,
Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres ;
For who liv'd king, but 1 could dig his grave ?
And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow ?
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
T>o now my glory smear'd in dust and blood !
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me ; and, of all my lands
Is nothing left me, but my body's length !
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and
dust?
And live we how we can, yet die we must.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part HI.
O amiable, lovely death !
Thou odoriferous stench ! sound rottenness !
Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
And I will kiss thy detestable bones ;
And ring these fingers with thy household worms ;
And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
And be a carrion monster like thyself:
Come, grin on me ; and I will think thou smil'st,
And buss thee as my wife ! Mercy's love,
come to me !
Shaks. King John.
It is iOO late ; the life of all his blood
Is touch'd corruptibly ; and his pure brain
( Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling.
house)
Dolh, by the idle comments that it makes,
Forctel the ending of mortality.
Shaks. King John.
There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust ;
1 am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment ; and against this fire
Do I shrink up.
Shaks. King John.
Wo medicine in the world can do thee good,
In thee there is not half an hour's life.
Shake. Hamlet.
Lay her i' the earth ;
\nd from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring ! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,
When thou licst howling.
Shaks. Hamlet.
])o not for ever with thy veiled lids
Seek tor thy noble father in the dust :
Tiiou know'st, 'tis common; all that live, must
die,
PaHfiinf through nature to eternity.
Shaks. Hamlet.
To die — to sleep —
No more ; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.
Shaks. Hamlet.
To die — to sleep —
To sleep! perchance to dream; — ay, there's the
rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause : There 's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life.
Shaks. Hamlet.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life ;
But that the dread of something after death —
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will ;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Shaks. Hamlet.
About the hour of eight, (which he himself
Foretold should be his last,) full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
For further life in this world I ne'er hope ;
Nor will I sue ; although the king have mercies
More than I dare make faults.
Shahs. Henry VIII
What, old acquaintance ! could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life ? Poor Jack, farewell !
I could have better spared a better man.
Slutks. Henry I V. Part I.
My cloud of dignity
Is held from falling with so weak a mind,
That it will quickly drop ; my day is dim.
Shahs. Henry IV. Part II.
I better brook the loss of brittle life,
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me ;
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword
my flesh :
But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool;
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I
DEATH.
117
Brave Percy : fare thee well !
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk :
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound ;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I.
I, in my own woe charm'd
Could not find death where I did hear him groan ;
Nor feel him, where he struck : Being an ugly
monster,
'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,
Sweet words ; or hath more ministers than we
That draw his knives i' the war.
Shaks.- Cymb.
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea,
Some lay in dead men's skulls ; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Shaks. Richard III.
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges ; here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.
Shaks. Titus Andronicus.
Here is my journey's end, here is my birth,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Shaks. Othello.
O my life ! — my wife !
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty :
Thou art not conquer'd : beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Let no man fear to die, we love to sleep all,
And death is but the sounder sleep.
Beaumont's Humorous Lieutenant.
Why should man's high aspiring mind
Burn in him with so proud a breath ;
When all his haughty views can find
In this world, yield to death ;
The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,
The rich, the poor, and great and small,
Are each but worms' anatomies,
To strew his quiet hall.
Marvel.
My soul
The warm embraces of her flesh is now,
Even now forsaking ; the frail body must
Like a lost feather fall from off the wing
Of vanity.
W. Chamberlain.
Death levels all things in his march,
Nought can resist his mighty strength ;
The palace proud, — triumphal arch,
Shall mete their shadow's length ;
The rich, the poor, one common bed
Shall find in the unhonour'd grave,
Where weeds shall crown alike the head
Of tyrant and of slave.
Marvel.
On death and judgment, heaven and hell,
Who oft doth think, must needs die well.
-Sir Walter Raleigh
When our souls shall leave this dwelling,
The glory of one fair and virtuous action
Is above all the scutcheons on our tomb,
Or silken banners over us.
Shirley
That must end us, that must be our cure,
To be no more ; sad cure ; for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
These thoughts that wander through eternity ;
To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion.
Milton's Paradise Lost
The other shape,
If shape it may be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either ; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart ; what seem'd hi*
head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Death
Grinn'd horribly a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be fill'd, and bless'd his maw
Destin'd to that good hour.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Why am I mock'd with death, lengthened out
To deathless pain ? how gladly would I meet
Mortality my sentence, and be earth
Insensible, how glad would lay me down,
As in my mother's lap ; there I should rest
And sleep secure.
Milton's Paradise Los>
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; despai*
Tended the sick busiest from couch to couch
And over them triumphant death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invoK'a
With vows, as their chief good and final hope.
Milton's Paradise Lus.
US
DEATH.
Grim death in different shapes
Depopulates the nations ; thousands fall
His victims ; youths, and virgins, in their flower,
Reluctant die, and sighing leave their loves
Unfinish'd, by infectious heaven destroy'd.
Phillips's Cider.
i r et tell me, frighted senses ! what is death ?
Blood only stopp'd, and interrupted breath ;
The utmost limit of a narrow span,
And end of motion, which with life began.
As smoke that rises from the kindling fires,
Is seen this moment, and the next expires ;
As empty clouds by rising winds are tost,
Their fleeting forms scarce sooner found than lost ;
So vanishes our state, so pass our days ;
So life but opens now, and now decays ;
The cradle and the tomb, alas ! .so nigh,
To live is scarce distinguish'd from to die.
Prior's Soloman.
Why is the hearse with 'scutcheons blazon' d round,
And with the nodding plume of ostrich crown'd ?
No : the dead know it not, nor profit gain ;
It only serves to prove the living vain.
Gay's Trivia.
.She 's gone ! for ever gone ! The king of terrors
Lays his rude hands upon her lovely limbs,
And blasts her beauties with his icy breath.
Dennis's Appius and Virginia.
Death came on amain,
And exercis'd below his iron reign ;
Tien upward to the seat of life he goes :
Sense fled before him ; what he touch'd he froze.
Dryden's Palemon and Arcite.
Then 't is our best, since thus ordain'd to die,
To make a virtue of necessity.
Take what he gives, since to rebel is vain,
The bad grows better, which we well sustain,
And could we choose the time, and choose aright,
'Tis best to die, our honour at the height.
Dryden's Palemon and Arcite.
Poor abject creatures ! how they fear to die
Who never knew one happy hour in life,
Yel shake to lay it down ! Is load so pleasant ?
Or nas heav'n hid the happiness of death,
That man may dare to live.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
I feel death rising higher still, and higher
Within my bosom; every breath I fetch
Shutf up my life within a shorter compass :
Ami, like the vanishing sound of bells, grows less
And lobs each pulse, till it be lost in air.
Dryden's Rival Ladies.
Oh ! I less could fear to lose this being !
Which, like a snow-ball in my coward hand,
The more 't is grasp'd, the faster melts away
Dryden's All for Love,
Death is not dreadful to a mind rcsolv'd,
It seems as natural as to be born.
Groans and convulsions, and discolour'd faces,
Friends weeping round us, blacks, and obsequies,
Make death a dreadful thing. The pomp of death
Is far more terrible than death itself
Lee's Lucius Junius Brutus.
The dead are only happy, and the dying :
The dead are stiff, and lasting slumbers hold 'cm.
He who is near his death, but turns about,
Shuffles awhile to make his pillow easy,
Then slips into his shroud and rests for ever.
Lee's Ccesar Borgia.
O death ! thou gentle end of human sorrows,
Still must my weary eye-lids vainly wake,
In tedious expectation of thy peace :
Why stand thy thousand, thousand doors still open
To take the wretched in, if stern religion
Guards every passage, and forbids my entrance ?
Rome's Tamerlane.
There life gave way, and the last rosy breath
Went in that sigh ; death, like a brutal victor
Already enter'd, with rude haste defaces
The lovely frame he 's master'd.
Rowe's Jane Shore
'Tis but to die,
'Tis but to venture on that common hazard
Which many a time in battle I have run ;
'T is but .to do, what, at that very moment,
In many nations of the peopled earth,
A thousand and a thousand shall do with me.
Rowe's Jane Shore
Death is the privilege of human nature ;
And life without it were not worth our taking.
Thither the poor, the pris'ner, and the mourner,
Fly for relief, and lay their burdens down.
Rowe's Fair Penitent.
'T is not the Stoic's lessons got by rote, '
The pomp of words and pedant dissertations,
That can sustain thee in that hour of terror :
Books have taught cowards to talk nobly of it,
But when the trial comes they stand aghast.
Hast thou consider'd what may happen after it ?
How thy account may stand, and what to answer 1
Rome.
The reconciling grave
Swallows distinction first, that made us foes,
That all alike lie down in peace together
Southern's Fatal Marriage.
DEATH.
119
The death of those distinguish'd by their station,
But by their virtue more, awakes the mind
To solemn dread, and strikes a saddening awe.
Not that we grieve for them, but for ourselves,
Left to the toil of life. And yet the best
Are, by the playful children of this world,
At once forgot, as they had never been.
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.
To die, I own
Is a dread passage — terrible to nature,
Chiefly to those who have, like me, been happy.
Thomson's Edward and Eleanora.
Thus o'er the dying lamp th' unsteady flame
Hangs quivering on the point, leaps off by fits
And falls again, as loath to quit its hold.
Addison's Cato.
. Let guilt, or fear,
Disturb man's rest, Cato knows neither of them ;
Indifferent in his choice, to sleep or die.
Addison's Cato.
Will toys amuse, when med'cines cannot cure ?
When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight,
As lands and cities, with their glittering spires,
To the poor shatter'd bark by sudden storm
Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there ?
Will toys amuse ? No: thrones will then be toys,
And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Each friend snatch'd from us, is a plume
Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us stoop from our aerial heights,
And, dampt with omen of our own disease,
On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd,
Just skim earth's surface, ere we break it up,
O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust,
And save the world a nuisance.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Death is the crown of life :
Were death deny'd, poor men would live in vain ;
Were death deny'd, to live would not be life :
Were death deny'd, ev'n fools would wish to die.
Young's Night Thoughts.
J Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
i She sparkled, was exhal'd, and went to heaven.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Like other tyrants, death delights to smite, .
What, smitten, most proclaims the pride of pow'r,
And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme,
To bid the wretch survive the fortunate ;
The feeble wrap the athletic in his shroud ;
And weeping fathers build their children's tomb.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Why start at death ? where is he ? death arriv'd.
Is past ; not come or gone, he 's never here.
Ere hope, sensation fails ; black-boding man
Receives, not suffers death's tremendous blow.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave ;
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm ,
These are the bug-bears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead.
Imagination's fool, and error's wretch,
Man makes a death, which nature never made ;
Then on the point of his own fancy falls ;
And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Death leads the dance, or stamps the deadly die,
Nor ever fails the midnight bowl to crown.
Gaily carousing to his gay compeers,
Inly he laughs, to see them laugh at him,
As absent far : and when the revel burns,
When fear is banish'd, and triumphant thought,
Calling for all the joys beneath the moon,
Against him turns the key, and bids him sup
With their progenitors, he drops his mask ;
Frowns out at full ; they start, despair, expire
Young's Night Thoughts
That man lives greatly,
Whate'er his fate, or fame, who greatly dies ;
High flush'd with hope, where heroes shall despair.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Where the prime actors of the last year's scene ;
Their post so proud, their buskin, and their plume ;
How many sleep, who kept the world awake
With lustre and with noise !
Young's Night Thoughts.
When down thy vale, unlock'd my midnigh
thought,
That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,
O death ! I stretch my view ; what visions rise !
What triumphs ! toils imperial ! arts divine !
In wither'd laurels glide before my sight !
What lengths of far-famed ages, billow'd high
With human agitation, roll along
In unsubstantial images of air 1
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whisp'ring faint echoes of the world's applause
With penitential aspect, as they pass,
All point at earth, and hiss at human pride,
The wisdom of the wise and prancings of the great
Young's Night Thoughit
Now every splendid object of ambition,
Which lately, with their various glosses, pass'!
Upon my brain, and fool'd my idle heart,
Are taken from me by % little mist.
And all the world is vanish'd.
Ywng's Busiru
120
DEATH.
How shocking must thy summons be, O death,
To him that is at ease in his possessions !
Who, counting on long years of pleasure here,
Is quite unfurnish'd for that world to come !
In that dread moment, how the frantic soul
Raves round the walls of her clay tenement,
Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help,
But shrieks in vain.
Blair's Grave.
Sure, 't is a serious thing to die. my soul !
What a strange moment must it be, when near
Thy journey's end thou hast the gulph in view !
That awful gulph no mortal e'er repass'd,
To tell what 's doing on the other side !
Nature runs back and shudders at the sight,
And every life-string bleeds at thought of parting.
Blair's Grave.
Death's shafts fly thick ! Here falls the village
swain,
And there his pamper'd lord ! The cup goes round,
And who so artful as to put it by !
Blair's Grave.
O great man-eater
Whose every day is carnival, not sated yet !
Unheard-of epicure ! without a fellow !
The veriest gluttons do not always cram ;
Some intervals of abstinence are sought
To edge the appetite ; thou seekest none.
Blair's Grave.
Death 's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God.
Parnell.
The world recedes ; it disappears !
Heav'n opens on my eyes ! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring :
Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly !
O grave ! where is thy victory ?
O death ! where is thy sting ?
Pope.
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death ;
Cold is the breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Pope.
Thy fate unpity'd, end thy rites unpaid !
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear,
Ploas'd thy pale ghost, or grae'd thy mournful
bier.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
\iy foreign nands thy decent limbs compos'd,
Uy foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
i»V strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd.
Pope.
How pale appear
Those clay-cold cheeks where grace and vigour
glow'd !
O dismal spectacle ! How humble now
Lies that ambition which was late so proud !
Smollett's Regicide.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Gray's Church-Yard.
Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?
Gray's Church-Yard.
That hour, O long belov'd, and long deplor'd !
When blooming youth, nor gentlest wisdom's arts,
Nor hymen's honours gather'd for thy brow,
Nor all thy lover's, all thy father's tears,
Avail'd to snatch thee from the cruel grave;
Thy agonizing looks, thy last farewell
Struck to the inmost feeling of my soul,
As with the hand of death.
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
Heav'n ! what enormous strength does death pos-
sess !
How muscular the giant's arm must be,
To grasp that strong-boned horse, and, spite of all
His furious efforts, fix him to the earth !
Yet, hold, he rises ! no — the struggle's vain,
His strength avails him not. Beneath the gripe
Of the remorseless monster, stretch'd at length
He lies with neck extended, head hard press'd,
Upon the very turf where late he fed.
Blacket's Dying Horse
"Enlarge my life with multitude of days !" —
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays :
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know,
That life protracted, is protracted woe.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
In life's last scene what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise ?
From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage
flow,
And Swift expires a driv'ler and a show.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
Since, howe'er protracted, death will come,
Why fondly study with ingenious pains
To put it off! — To breathe a little longer
Is to defer our fate, but not to shun it :
Small gain ! which wisdom with indiff 'rent eye
Beholds.
Hannah More's David and Goliah.
DEATH.
121
I fear to die. And were it in my power,
By suffering of the keenest racking pains,
To keep upon me still these weeds of nature,
I could such things endure, that thou wouldst
marvel,
And cross thyself to see such coward bravery.
For oh ! it goes against the mind of man
To be turn'd out from its warm wonted home,
Ere yet one rent admits the winter's chill.
Joanna Baillie's Rayner.
O thou most terrible, most dreaded power,
In whatsoever power thou meet'st the eye !
Whether thou bidd'st thy sudden arrow fly
In the dread silence of the midnight hour ;
Or whether, hovering o'er the lingering wretch,
Thy sad cold javelin hangs suspended long,
While round the couch the weeping kindred throng
With hope and fear alternately on stretch ;
Oh, say for me what horrors are prepared ?
Am I now doom'd to meet thy fatal arm ?
Or wilt thou first from life steal every charm,
And bear away each good my soul would guard ?
That thus, deprived of all it loved, my heart
From life itself contentedly may part.
Mrs. Tighe.
Death ! to the happy thou art terrible,
But how the wretched love to think of thee,
O thou true comforter, the friend of all
Who have no friend beside !
Southey's Joan of Arc.
Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame
Forsake its languid melancholy frame !
Soon may these eyes their trembling lustre close,
Welcome the dreamless night of long repose ;
Soon may this woe-worn spirit seek the bourn
Where, lull'd to slumber, grief forgets to mourn !
Campbell.
All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades,
Like the fair flow'r dishevell'd in the wind ;
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream ;
The man we celebrate must find a tomb,
And we that worship him, ignoble graves.
Cowper's Task.
Hush'd were his Gertrude's lips! but still their
bland
And beautiful expression seem'd to melt
With love that could not die ! and still his hand
She presses to the heart no more* that felt.
Ah, heart! where once each fond affection dwelt,
And features yet that spoke a soul more fair.
Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt, —
Of them that stood encircling his despair,
He heard some friendly words ; but knew not what
they were.
Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming.
Friend to the wretch whom every friend forsakes,
I woo thee, death !
Porteus's Death.
Oft, too, when that disheartening fear,
Which all who love beneath this sky
Feel when they gaze on what is dear —
The dreadful thought that it must die !
That desolating thought, which comes
Into men's happiest hours and homes,
Whose melancholy boding flings
Death's shadow o'er the brightest things,
Sicklies the infant's bloom, and spreads
The grave beneath young lovers' heads !
Moore's Loves of the Angeit.
None to watch near him — none to slake
The fire that in his bosom lies,
With ev'n a sprinkle from that lake,
Which shines so cool before his eyes.
No voice well-known through many a day,
To speak the last — the parting word,
Which, when all other sounds decay,
Is still like distant music heard.
That tender farewell on the shore
Of this rude world, when all is o'er,
Which cheers the spirit, ere its bark
Puts off into the unknown dark.
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Great God ! how could thy vengeance light
So bitterly on one so bright ?
How could the hand, that gave such charms,
Blast them again ?
Moore.
And then I dived,
In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death,
Searching its cause in its effect ; and drew
From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd up dust,
Conclusions most forbidden.
Byron's Manfred.
Can this be death ? there 's bloom upon her cheek,
But now I see it is no living hue,
But a strange hectic — like the unnatural red
Which autumn plants upon the perish'd leaf
It is the same ! Oh God ! that I should dread
To look upon the same — Astarte !
Byron's Manfred
I know no evil death can show, which life
Has not already shown to those who live
Embodied longest. If there be indeed
A shore, where mind survives, 't will be as m\no
All unincorporate : or if there flits
A shadow of this cumbrous clog of clay.
Which stalks, methinks, between our souis mu*
heaven,
And fetters us to earth — at least the phantom,
Whate'er it have to fear, will not fear deatli.
Byron's Sardanapaliu
122
DEATH.
Alas ! thou art pnlc, and on thy brow the drops
Gather like night-dew. My beloved, hush —
Calm thee. Thy speech seems of another world,
And thou art loved of this. Be of good cheer ;
All will go well.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
S.nce I heard
Of death, although I know not what it is,
Yet it seems horrible. I have look'd out
In the vast desolate night in search of him ;
And when I saw gigantic shadows in
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequer'd
By the far flashing of the cherubs' swords,
I watch'd for what I thought his coming ; for
With fear rose longing in my heart to know
What 't was which shook us all — but nothing came,
And then I turn'd my weary eyes from off
Our native and forbidden paradise,
Up to the lights above us, in the azure,
Which are so beautiful : — shall they, too, die ?
Byron's Cain.
I live,
But live to die : and living, see nothing
To make death hateful, save an innate clinging,
A loathsome and yet all-invincible
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome —
And so. I live. Would I had never lived !
Byron's Cain.
Death is but what the haughty brave,
The weak must bear, the wretch must crave.
Byron's Giaour.
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress.
Byron's Giaour.
The very cypress droops to death —
Dark tree, still sad when others' grief is fled,
The only constant mourner o'er the dead.
Byron's Giaour.
His breast with wounds uhnumbcr'd riven,
His back to earth, his face to heaven,
Fall'n Hassan lies — his unclos'd eye,
Yet lowering on his enemy,
As if the hour that seal'd his fate,
Surviving left his quenchless hate.
Byron's Giaour.
'Tis morn — and o ur his altered features play
The beams — without the hope of yesterday.
What shall he be ere night? perchance a thing
O'er which the raven flaps her wing :
Ify his closed eye unheeded and unfelt,
While sets that sun and dews of evening melt,
Chill — wet — and misty round each stiffen'd limb,
Refreshing earth — reviving all but him !
Byron's Corsair.
He died too in the battle broil,
A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;
One cry to Mahomet for aid,
One prayer to Allah all he made.
Byron's Giaour.
Can this be death ? then what is life or death?
" Speak !" but he spoke not : " wake !" but still he
slept :
But yesterday, and who had mightier breath ?
A thousand warriors by his word were kept
In awe : he said, as the centurion saith,
" Go," and he goeth ; " come," and forth he stepp'd.
The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb,
And now nought left him but the muffled drum.
Byron.
Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus ; at last,
Without a groan, or sigh, or glance to show
A parting pang, the spirit from her past :
And they who watch'd her nearest could not know
The very instant, till the change that cast
Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow,
Glazed o'er her eyes — the beautiful, the black —
Oh ! to possess such lustre — and then lack !
Byron.
** Whom the gods love die young" was said of yore,
And many deaths do they escape by this :
The death of friends, and that which slays even
more,
The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is,
Except mere breath ; and since the silent shore
Awaits at last even those who longest miss
The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave
Which men weep over may be meant to save.
Byron.
Happy they !
Thrice fortunate ! who of that fragile mould,
The precious porcelain of human clay,
Break with the first fall : they can ne'er behold
The long year link'd with heavy day on day,
And all which must be borne, and never told.
Byron.
Thus lived — thus died she; — never more on her
Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth.
Byron.
Perchance she died in youth ; it may be, bow'd
With woes, far heavier than the ponderous tomb
That wcigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom
Heaven gives its favourites — early death.
Byron's Childe Harold.
DEATH.
12b
"Strike!" — and as the word he said,
Upon the block he bow'd his head ;
These the last accents Hugo spoke :
"Strike !" — and flashing fell the stroke —
Roll'd the head, and, gushing, sunk
Back the stain'd and heaving trunk
In the dust, which each deep vein
Slaked with its ensanguined rain ;
H-s eyes and lips a moment quiver,
Convulsed and quick — then fix for ever.
Byron's Parisina.
Of an
The fools .vho flock'd to swell or see the show,
Who cared about the corpse ? The funeral
Made the attraction, and the black the woe.
Byron's Vision of Judgment.
Hark ! to the hurried question of despair :
"Where is my child ?" an echo answers "where ?"
Byron's Bride of Ahydos.
What recks it, though that corpse shall lie
Within a living grave ?
The bird that tears that prostrate form
Hath only robb'd the meaner worm.
Byron's Bride of Ahydos.
Peace to thy broken heart and virgin grave !
Ah ! happy ! but of life to lose the worst I
That grief— though deep — though fatal — was my
first!
Thrice happy ! ne'er to feel nor fear the force
Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse !
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,
But where he died his grave was dug as deep !
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,
Though priest nor bless'd, nor marble deck'd the
mound. Byron's Lara.
And grieve what may above thy senseless bier,
And earth nor sky will yield a single tear ;
Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall,
Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all ;
But creeping things shall revel in their spoil,
And fit thy clay to fertilize the soil.
Byron's Lara.
The soul, too soft its ills to bear,
Has left our mortal hemisphere,
And sought, in better world, the meed
To blameless fife by heaven decreed.
Scott's Rokeby.
By tenfold odds oppress'd at length,
Despite his struggles and his strength,
He took an hundred mortal wounds,
As mute as fox 'mongst mangling hounds ;
And when he died, his mortal groan
Had more of laughter than of moan.
Scott's Robeky.
Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore
Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marvelling boyhood legends store,
Of strange adventures happ'd by land or sea,
How are they blotted from the things that be .
Scott's Lady of the Lake,
When musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone.
Scott's Marmion.
O Death ! the poor man's dearest friend,
The kindest and the best !
Welcome the hour, my aged limbs
Are laid with thee at rest !
Burns.
What a world were this,
How unendurable its weight, if they
Whom Death hath sunder'd did not meet again !
Southcy.
Voice after voice hath died away,
Once in my dwelling heard ;
Sweet household name by name hath chang'd
To grief's forbidden word !
From dreams of night on each I call,
Each of the far remov'd ;
And waken to my own wild cry,
Where are ye, my belov'd ?
Mrs. Kemans.
Not where Death hath power may love be blest.
Mrs. Hemar.s
Let them die,
Let them die now, thy children ! so thy heart
Shall wear their beautiful image all undimm'd,
Within it to the last.
Mrs. Hemans
E'en as the tenderness that hour distils,
When summer's day declines along the hills ;
So feels the fulness of the heart and eyes,
When all of Genius that can perish — dies.
Byron's Monody on the Death of Sheridan
Nor would I change my buried love
For any one of living mould.
Campbel'
Can that man be dead
Whose spiritual influence is upon his kind ?
He lives in glory ; and his speaking dust
Has more of life than half its breathing mould i
Miss Landon
Let music make less terrible
The silence of the dead ;
I care not, so my spirit last
Long after life has fled.
Miss Lana-m
We must not Dluck aeath from the Maker's han«j
EaiJev'i Fesat*
124
DEBTS - DECAY.
Death is another life,
Death, thou art infinite ;
Bailey.
'tis Life is little.
Bailey.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death !
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath ;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke ;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm ;
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet-song and dance and wine ;
And thou art terrible — the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier ;
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.
Halleclc's Marco Bozzaris.
Death should come
Gently to one of gentle mould, like thee,
As light winds, wandering through groves of
bloom,
Detach the delicate blossoms from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes calmly, and without pain,
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.
Bryant.
So live, that, when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
Tc that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but sustain'd and
sooth 'd
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one that draws the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Bryants TJwnatopsis.
Weep not for those
Who sink within the arms of death
Ere yet the chilling wintry breath
Of sorrow o'er them blows ,
But weep for them who here remain,
The mournful heritors of pain,
Condemn'd to see each bright joy fade,
And mark grief's melancholy shade
P'lung o'er Hope's fairest rose.
Mrs. Embury.
Weep not for him who dieth —
For he sleeps and is at rest ;
And the couch whereon he lieth
U the green earth's quiet breast
Mrs. Norton.
DEBTS.
Oh, how you wrong our friendship, valiant youth !
With friends there is not such a word as debt:
Where amity is ty'd with band of truth,
All benefits are there in common set.
Lady Carew's Marianu
Dost think, friend,
The sense of all my debts could shake me thus ?
I know 'twould come, and in my fears examin'd
The mischief they present; 'tis not their weight
Affrights me : let the vultures whet their talons ;
And creditors, with hearts more stubborn than
The metal they adore, double their malice ;
Had I a pile of debts upon me, more
Heavy than all the world, it could not, but with
The pressure, keep this piece of earth beneath 'em :
My soul would be at large, and feel no burthen.
Shirley's Example.
You have outrun your fortune ;
I blame you not that you would be a beggar ;
Each to his taste ! But I do charge you, Sir,
That, being beggar'd, you should win false moneys
Out of that crucible call'd debt !
Bulwer.
The ghost of many a veteran bill
Shall hover around his slumbers.
O. W. Holmes.
The ghostly dun shall worry his sleep,
And constables cluster around him,
And he shall creep from the wood-hole deep
Where their spectre eyes have found him.
O. W. Holmes.
DECAY.
I 've touched the highest point of all my greatness :
And from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting.
Shaks. King Henry VIII.
Before decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.
Byron's Giaour.
But in the glow of vernal pride,
If each warm hope at once hath died,
Then sinks the mind, a blighted flower,
Dead to the sunbeam and the shower ;
A broken gem, whose inborn light
Is scatter'd — ne'er to reunite.
Mrs. Hemans.
I sorrow that all fair things must decay.
Halleck.
Alas ! the morning dew is gone,
Gone ere the full of day.
O. W. Holmes.
DECEIT.
125
It is sad.
To see the light of beauty wane away,
Know eyes are dimming, bosoms shrivelling, feet
Losing their springs, and limbs their lily roundness ;
But it is worse to feel the heart-spring gone,
To lose hope, care not for the coming thing,
And feel all things go to decay within us.
Bailey's Festus.
DECEIT.
What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware,
As to descry the crafty cunning train,
By which deceit doth mask in visor fair,
And cast her colours dyed deep in grain,
To seem like truth, whose shape she well can feign,
And fitting gestures to her purpose frame,
The guiltless man with guile to entertain ?
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
He secretly
Puts pirate's colours out at both our sterns,
That we might fight each other in mistake,
That he should share the ruin of us both !
Crown's Ambitious Statesman.
Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
Skaks. Twelfth Night.
Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice !
Shahs. Richard III.
Smooth runs the water, where the brook is deep ;
And in his simple show he harbours treason.
The fox barks not, when he would steal the lamb.
Xo, no, my sovereign ; Gloster is a man
Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit
Shales. Henry VI.
Get thee glass eyes ;
And like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not.
Shaks. Lear.
They say this town is full of cozenage ;
As nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye,.
Bark-working sorcerers, that change the mind,
Soui-kiUing witches, that deform the body ;
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such like libertines of sin.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou did'st bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh? —
Was ever book containing such vile matter,
So fairly bound ? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace.
S/iaks. Romeo and Juliet.
O serpent heart, hid with a flow'rlng face !
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave ?
Beautiful tyrant ! fiend angelical !
Dove-feather'd raven ! Wolvish-ravcning lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show !
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st .
Sluzks. Romeo and Juliet
Thus do I ever make my fool my purse,
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe,
But for my sport and profit
Shaks. Othello.
So are those crisped snaky golden locks,
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in a sepulchre.
Olway's Venice Preserved.
Every man in this age has nclPa soul
Of crystal, for all men to read their actions
Through : men's hearts and faces are so far asunder
That they hold no intelligence.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-plac'd words of glossy courtesy,
Baited with reason not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares.
Milton's Comus.
He seem'd
For dignity compos'd and high exploit :
But all was false and hollow.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
A villain, when he most seems kind,
Is most to be suspected.
Lansdown's Jew of Venice
Thou hast prevaricated with thy friend,
By under-hand contrivances undone me;
And while my open nature trusted in thee,
Thou hast stepp'd in between me and my hopes,
And ravish'd from me all my soul held dear,
Thou hast betray'd me.
Rowe's Lady Jane 6??cj.
Were men t' appear themselves,
Set free from customs that restrain our nature,
Nor wolves nor tigers would dispute more fiercely!
Yet all we boast above the brute is — what ?
That in our times of need we dare dissemble ■
Cibber's King J&'ttt
The man who dares to dress misdeeds,
And colour them with virtue's name, deserved
A double punishment from gods and men.
Ch. Johnson's Medea
11*
126
DECLARATION- DEFIANCE.
T i t my talent to conceal my thoughts,
Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face,
When discontent sits heavy at my heart.
Addison's Cato.
Our innocence is not our shield :
They take offence, who have not been offended ;
ITicy speak our ruin too, who speak us fair ;
And death is often ambush'd in our smiles :
We know not whom we have to fear.
Young 's Revenge.
The world's all title-page ; there 's no contents ;
The world 's all face ; the man who shows his
heart
Is hooted for his nudities and scorn'd.
Young's Night Thoughts.
what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive !
Scotfs Marmwn.
They may be false who languish and complain,
But they who sigh for money never feign.
Lady Mary W. Montague.
He that hangs or beats out his brains
The devil 's in him if he feigns.
Hudibras.
False wave of the desert, thou art less beguiling
Than false beauty over the lighted hall shed :
What but the smiles that have practised their
smiling,
Or honey words measured, and reckon'd as said.
Miss Landon.
But now I look upon thy face,
A very pictured show,
Betraying not the slightest trace
Of what may work below
Miss Landon.
1 live among the cold, the false,
And I must seem like them;
And such I am, for I am false
As these I most condemn —
1 teach my lip its sweetest smile,
My tongue its softest tone ;
I borrow others' likeness, till
I almost lose my own.
Ah! many hearts have changed since we two
parted,
And many grown apart, as time hath sped —
Till we have almost deem'd that the true-hearted
Abided only with the faithful dead.
And some we trusted with a fond believing,
Have turn'd and stung us to the bosom's core ;
And life hath seem'd but as a vain deceiving
From which we turn aside heart-sick and sore.
Mrs. C. M. Chandler.
Oh ! colder than the mind that freezes
Founts, that but now in sunshine play'd,
Is that congealing pang that seizes
The trusting bosom when betray'd.
Moore.
DECLARATION. — (See Proposal.)
DEFIANCE.
Fly they that need to fly;
Wordes fearen babes. I mcane not to thee entreat
To passe ; but maugre thee will passe or dy.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Herald, save thou thy labour ;
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald ;
They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints:
Which if they have as I will leave 'em to them,
Shall leave them little.
Shahs. Henry V.
I pray thee, bear my former answer back ;
Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones,
Good God ! why should they mock poor fellows
thus?
The man that once did sell the lion's skin
While the beast liv'd, was kill'd with hunting him.
Shaks. Henry V.
Scorn, and defiance ; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not mis-become
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Shaks. Henry V.
What man dare, I dare :
Approach thou like the ragged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinocerus, or the Hyrcan tiger,
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble ; or be alive again,
And dare me to the desert, with thy sword ;
If trembling I inhibit thee, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow !
Unreal mockery, hence !
SJtaks. Macbeth.
Gentle heaven,
Cut short all intermission ; front to front,
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself;
Within my sword's length set him ; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too.
Shaks. Macbeth.
If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,
Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,
I '11 strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime,
Or I'll so m?.ul you and your toasting-iron,
That you shall think the devil has come from hell.
Shtike. King John.
DEFIANCE.
127
Thou losest labour :
As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed :
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests.
ShaJcs. Macbeth.
Marry,
Thou dost wrong- me, thou dissembler, thou ; —
Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword,
I fear thee not.
Shaks. Much Ado.
I pry'thee take thy fingers from my throat ;
For though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Why, I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Must I give way and room to your rash choler ?
Shall I be frighted, when a madman stares ?
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Neither the king, nor him that loves him best,
The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
Dares stir a wing, if Warwick stir his bells.
I '11 plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,
And with the other fling it at thy face,
Than bear so low a sail, to strike to thee.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
My ashes, as the Phoenix, may bring forth
A bird that will revenge upon you all :
And, in that hope, I throw mine eyes to heaven,
Scorning whate'er you can afflict me with.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
What I did, I did in honour,
Led by th' impartial conduct of my soul ;
And never shall you see, that I will beg
A ragged and forestall'd remission.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
Vagabond, exile, flaying : Pent to linger
But with a grain a day, I would not buy
Their mercy at the price of one fair word.
Shaks. Coriolanvs.
Behold ! I have a weapon :
A better never did itself sustain
Upon a soldier's thigh : I have seen the day,
That with this little arm, and this good sword,
I havr made my way through more impediments
Thar, twenty times your stop.
Shaks. Othello,
Let him do his spite :
My services, which I have done the signiory,
Shall out-tongue his complaints.
Shaks. Othelln
The elements
Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with be-mocked-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowle that 's in my plume.
Shaks. Tempest.
Let them come ;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war,
All hot and bleeding, will we offer them.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I
If thou deny'st it, twenty times thou liest ;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
Shaks. Richard II.
Who sets me else ? by heaven I '11 throw at all ;
I have a thousand spirits in my breast,
To answer twenty thousand such as you.
Shaks. RicJmrd II.
I do defy hirU, and I spit at him ;
Call him — a slanderous coward, and a villain :
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds ;
And meet him, were I ty'd to run a-foot,
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps.
Shaks. Richard II
Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest .
Shaks. Richard II
Thou trumpet, there 's my purse,
Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe :
Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek
Outswell the cholic of puff 'd Aquilon :
Come stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout
blood ;
Thou blow'st for Hector.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
Whence and what art thou, execrable shape,
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front athwart my way
To yonder gates ? through them I mean to pass
That be assur'd, without leave ask'd of thee :
Retire or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,
Hell-born, not to contend with spirits of heaven.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Reckonest thou thyself with spirits of heaven,
Hell-doom'd, and breathest defiance here and scorn.
Where I reign king, and to enrage thee more,
Thy king and lord ?
Milton's Paradise Lo»t
123
DEFIANCE.
If I must contend, said he,
Dest with the best, the sender not the sent,
Or all at once ; more glory will be won,
Ot less be lost.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Then, when I am thy captive, talk of chains,
Proud limitary cherub, but ere then
Far heavier load thyself expect to feel
From my prevailing arm, though heav'n's king
Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,
Us'd to the yoke, draw'st his triumphant wheels
In progress through the road of heav'n star-pav'd.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Our puissance is our own ; our own right hand
Shall teach us highest deeds, by proof to try
Who is our equal : then thou shalt behold
Whether by supplication we intend
Address, and to begirt the Almighty throne
Beseeching or besieging.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
I scorn (quoth she) thou coxcomb silly,
Quarter or counsel from a foe, ""
If thou canst force me to it, do.
Butler's Hudibras.
Enough for me : with joy I see
The different doom our fates assign ; >
Be thine despair and sceptred care,
To triumph and to die are mine.
Gray's Bard
Torture thou may'st, but thou shalt ne'er despise
me :
The blood will follow, where the knive is driven ;
The flesh will quiver, where the pincers tear ;
And sighs and cries by nature grow on pain :
But these are foreign to the soul : not mine
The groans that issue, or the tears that fall ;
They disobey me ; — on the rack I scorn thee.
Young's Revenge.
Thou think'st I fear thee, cursed reptile,
Aid hast a pleasure in the damned thought.
Though my heart's blood should curdle at thy
sight,
I'll stay and face thee still.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
On this spot I stand,
The champion of despair — this arm my brand —
This breast my panoply — and for my gage —
(Oh thou hast reft from me all knightly pledge !)
Take these black hairs torn from a head that hates
thee,
Deep be their dye before that pledge is ransom'd —
In UiiCe heart's blood or mine.
Maturin's Bertram.
Let them wield the thunder,
Fell is their dint, who 're mailed in despair.
Maturin's Bertictm.
(Nay, never look upon your lord,
And lay your hand upon your sword,)
I tell thee thou 'rt defied !
And if thou said'st, I am not peer
To any lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or highland, far or near,
Lord Angus, thou hast lied.
Scott's Marmion.
He halts, and turns with clenched hand,
And shout of loud defiance pours,
And shook his gauntlet at the towers.
Scott's Marmion.
The mountaineer cast glance of pride
Along Benledi's living side,
Then fix'd his eye and sable brow,
Full on Fitz- James — "How say'st thou now?"
These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true ;
And, Saxon, — I am Roderic Dhu!"
Scott's Lady of the Lale.
The shivering band stood oft aghast,
At the impatient glance he cast ; —
Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As from the cliffs of Ben-venue
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And high in middle heaven reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warbler of the brake.
Scott's Lady of the Lalct
On his dark face a scorching clime,
And toil had done the work of time,
Roughen'd the brow, the temples bared,
And sable hairs with silver shared,
Yet left — what age alone could tame —
The lip of pride, the eye of flame,
The full-drawn lip that upward curled,
The eye that seem'd to scorn the world.
Scott's Iiokeby
Go, wretch ! and give
A life like thine to other wretches — live '.
Byron's Heaven and Earth,
Go, sun, while mercy holds me up
On Nature's awful waste
To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste.
Go, tell that night that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,
On Earth's sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy
To quench his immortality,
Or shake his trust in God !
Campbell.
DEFORMITY.
129
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock !
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the
rock !
But wo to his kindred, and wo to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws.
Campbell.
Though all around is dark and cheerless,
And on high my star looks pale,
My heart is steadfast still and fearless,
Still my lips disdain to wail.
My spirit still stands up undaunted,
Still I on myself rely ;
No craven thought my brain e'er haunted,
Fate and Fortune I defy !
Frazer's Magazine.
Mine own death 's in this clenched hand ;
I know the noble trust ;
These limbs must rot on yonder strand, —
These lips must lick its dust,
But shall this dusky standard quail
In the red slaughter-day ;
Or shall this heart its purpose fail,
This arm forget to slay ?
Motherwell.
No — though of all earth's hope bereft,
Life, swords, and vengeance still are left.
We '11 make yon valley's reeking caves
Live in the awe-struck minds of men,
Till tyrants shudder, when their slaves
Tell of the Gheber's bloody glen.
Moore.
Stand ! the ground 's your own, my braves !
Will ye give it up to slaves ?
Will ye look for greener graves ?
Hope ye mercy still ?
What 's the mercy despots feel ?
Hear it in yon cannon's peal,
See it on yon bristling steel,
Ask it ye who will !
Pierpont.
Woe to the British soldiery
That little dread us near !
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear:
When waking to their tents on fire,
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again.
Bryant.
The Lord rebuke thee, thou smiter of the meek,
Thou robber of the righteous, thou trampler of the
weak!
Go, light the dark, cold hearth-stones — go turn the
prison lock
Of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou wolf amid
the flock. Whittier.
DEFORMITY.
Deform'd, unflnish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up.
And that so lamely and unfashionably,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them.
But I, — that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass ;
I that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty.
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph.
Shaks. Richard III
Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb :
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub,
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to make my body ;
To shape my legs of an unequal size ;
To disproportion me in every part,
Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp,
That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be belov'd ?
Shahs. Henry VI. Fart III
Nature herself started back when thou wert born.
And cried, the work 's not mine.
The midwife stood aghast ; and when she saw
Thy mountain-back, and thy distorted legs,
Thy face itself
Half-minted with the royal stamp of man,
And half o'ercome with beast, she doubted long
Whose right in thee were more ;
And knew not if to burn thee in the flames
Were not the holier work.
Lee's CEdipus.
Am I to blame, if nature threw my body
In so perverse a mould ! yet when she cast
Her envious hand upon my supple joints,
Unable to resist, and rumpled them
On heaps in their dark lodging ; to revenge
Her bungled work, she stamped my mind more
fair,
And as from chaos, huddled and deform'd,
The gods struck fire, and lighted up the lamps
That beautify the sky ; so she inform'd
This ill-shap'd body with a daring soul,
And, making less than man, she made me more
Lee's (Edipvt
Deformity is daring ;
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal -
Ay, the superior of the rest. There is
A spur in its halt movements, to become
All that the others cannot, in such things
As still are free for both, to compensate
For stepdame "Nature's avarice at first.
Byron's Deformed Transjormi*
130
DEITY.
Do you -dare you I These are thy glorious works, parent of good,
mv linrn Hffnrmitv ? Almi«rhtv tliinp. this universal frame.
To taunt me with my born deformity ?
Byron's Deformed Transformed
Glorious ambition !
I love thee most in dwarfs.
Byron's Deformed Transformed
DEITY.
Of the gods we are forbid to dispute,
Because their deities come not within
The compass of our reasons.
Lilly's Endymion.
There is one
That wakes above, whose eye no sleep can bind ;
He sees through doors, and darkness, and our
thoughts :
And therefore as we should avoid with fear,
To think amiss ourselves before his search ;
So should we be as curious to shun
All cause, that others think not ill of us.
Chapman.
Nature
Neve* did bring forth a man without a man ;
Nor could the first man, being but
The passive subject, not the active mover,
Be the maker of himself; so of necessity
There must be a superior pow'r to nature.
Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy.
It is not so with him that all things knows,
As 't is with us, that square our guess by shows :
But most it is presumption in us, when
The help of heav'n, we count the act of men.
Shaks. All's Well.
It did not please the gods, who instruct the people :
And their unquestion'd pleasures must be serv'd.
They know what 's fitter for us, than ourselves :
And 't were impiety to think against them.
Jonson's Catiline.
'T is hard to find God, but to comprehend
Him, as he is, is labour without end.
Herrick.
And chiefly thou, O spirit, that dost prefer,
Before all temples, the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know'st.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
For wonderful indeed are all his works,
Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all
Had in remembrance always with delight ;
But what created mind can comprehend
Their number, or the wisdom infinite
That brought them forth, but hid their causes deep.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Almighty thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sit'st above these heavens,
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and pow'r divine.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Beyond compare the son of God was seen
Most glorious ; in him all his father shone
Substantially express'd ; and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appear'd,
Love without end, and without measure grace.
Milton's Paradise Lost
From nature's constant or eccentric laws,
The thoughtful soul this general inference draws,
That an effect must pre-suppose a cause :
And, while she does her upward flight sustain,
Touching each link of the continued chain,
At length she is oblig'd and fore'd to see
A first, a source, a life, a deity ;
What has for ever been, and must for ever be.
Prior's Soloman.
Repine not, nor reply ;
View not what heaven ordains with reason's eye,
Too bright the object is ; the distance is too high.
The man who would resolve the work of fate,
May limit number and make crooked straight:
Stop thy inquiry then and curb thy sense,
Nor let dust argue with omnipotence.
PHor's Soloman.
In this wild maze their vain endeavours end ;
How can the less the greater comprehend,
Or finite reason reach infinity ?
For what could fathom God were more than He.
Dryden's Religio Laici.
Hail, source of being ! universal soul
Of heaven and earth ! essential presence, hail !
To thee I bend the knee ; to thee my thoughts
Continual climb ; who, with a master hand,
Hast the great whole into perfection touch'd.
Thomson's Seasons.
With what an awful world-revolving power
Were first the unwieldy planets launch'd along
The illimitable void ! Thus to remain
Amid thn flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men,
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless in their course ■
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day.
And of the seasons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful : such the all-perfect hand !
That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady whole.
Thomson's Season*
DELAY.
131
And yet was every falt'ring tongue of man,
Almighty father ! silent in thy praise,
Thy works themselves would raise a general voice,
Even in the depth of solitary woods,
By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power,
And to the quire celestial TJiee resound,
The eternal cause, support, and end of all !
Tltomson's Seasons,
Let no presuming impious railer tax
Creative wisdom as if aught was fbrm'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of his mind ?
Thotison's Seasont.
Yet providence, that ever-waking eye,
Looks down with pity on the feeble toil
Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe
Through all the dreary labyrinth of fate.
Thomson's Seasons.
Father of light and life, thou good supreme !
O teach me what is good ! — teach me thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit ! and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure ;
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss !
Thomson's Seasons.
In the vast, and the minute, we see
The unambitious footsteps of the God
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,
And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds.
Cowper's Task.
What prodigies can power divine perform
More grand than it produces year by year,
And all in sight of inattentive man ?
Familiar with th' effect, we slight the cause,
And in the constancy of nature's course,
The regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,
See naught to wonder at.
Compels Task,
Thou dread source,
Prime, self-existing cause and end of all
That in the scale of being fill their place ;
Above our human region or below,
Set and sustain'd. Thou, thou alone, O ! Lord,
Art everlasting !
Wordsworth.
O, God ! Thou wondrous One in Three,
As mortals must Thee deem ;
Thou only canst be said to be,
We but at best to seem.
Bailey's Festus.
The blue, deep, glorious heavens ! I lift mine eye
And bless thee, O my God ! that I have met
And own'd thine image in the majesty
Of their calm temple still ! — that never yet
There hath thy face been shrouded from my sight
By noontide blaze, or sweeping storm of night:
I bless thee, O my God !
Mrs. Heman's Poemt
He who reigns on high
Upholds the earth, and spreads abroad the sky,
With none his name and power will he divide,
For He is God and there is none beside.
James Montgomeiy
DELAY.
Shun delays, they breed remorse ;
Take thy time, while time is lent thee ;
Creeping snails have weakest force ;
Fly their fault, lest thou repent thee ;
Good is best when soonest wrought,
Ling'ring labours come to naught.
Hoist up sail while gale doth last,
Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure ;
Seek not time, when time is past,
Sober speed is wisdom's leisure,
After-wits are dearly bought,
Let thy fore-wit guide thy thought
Robert Southwell.
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger ;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
O my good lord, that comfort comes too late ;
'T is like a pardon after execution :
That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me •
But now I 'm past all comfort here but prayers.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Away towards Salisbury ; — while we reason here,
A royal battle might be won and lost.
Shaks. Richard III.
Your gift is princely, but it comes too late,
And falls, like sun-beams, on a blasted blossom.
Suckling's BrennoralL
Go, fool, and teach a caratact to creep !
Can thirst, empire, vengeance, beauty, wait ?
Young's Brother:
Be wise to-day ; 't is madness to defer ;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead
Thus on, till wisdom is nush'd out of life.
Young's Night Thought*
182
DELICACY - DELUGE - DEPENDANTS - DEPUTY,
Procrastination is the thief of time ;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Our greatest actions, or of good or evil,
The hero's and the murderer's, spring- at once
From their conception : Oh ! how many deeds
Of deathless virtue and immortal crime
The world had wanted, had the actor said,
I will do this to-morrow !
Lord John EusseVs Don Carlos.
Wilt thou sit among- the ruins,
With all words of cheer unspoken,
Till the silver cord is loosen'd,
Till the golden bowl is broken ?
Anne C. Lynch.
He came too late ! Neglect had tried
Her constancy too long ;
Her love had yielded to her pride,
And the deep sense of wrong.
She scorn'd the offering of a heart '
Which linger'd on its way,
Till it would no delight impart,
Nor spread one cheering ray.
Elizabeth Eogart.
DELICACY. — (See Purity.)
DELUGE
We, we shall view the deep's salt sources pour'd,
Until one element shall do the work
Of all in chaos ; until they,
The creatures proud of their poor clay,
Shall perish, and their bleached bones shall lurk
In caves, in dens, in clefts of mountains, where
The deep shall follow to their latest lair ;
Where even the brutes, in their despair,
Shall cease to prey on man and on each other,
And the striped tiger shall lie down and die
Eeside the lamb, as though he were his brother :
Till all things shall be as they were,
Silent and uncreated, save the sky.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
The heavens and earth are mingling — God ! Oh
God!
What have we done ? yet spare !
Hark ! even the forest beasts howl forth their pray'r !
The dragon crawls from out his den,
t'o herd in terror innocent with men ;
And the birds scream their agony through air !
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
Hark ! hark ! the sea-birds cry !
In clouds they overspread the lurid sky,
And hover round the mountain, where before
Never a white wing, wetted by the wave,
Yet dared to soar,
Even when the waters wax'd too fierce to brave ;
Soon it shall be their only shore.
And then, no more !
Byron's Heaven and Earth
Earth shall be ocean !
And no breath,
Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave !
Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot :
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave
Shall lift its point to save,
Or show the place where strong despair hath
died,
After long looking o'er the ocean wide
For the expected ebb which cometh not :
All shall be void,
Destroyed !
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
DEPENDANTS.
Who would rely upon these miserable -
Dependencies, in expectation
To be advanced to-morrow ? what creature
Ever fed worse than hoping Tantalus ?
Nor ever died any man more fearfully,
Than he that hop'd for a pardon ?
Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
I hate dependence on another's will,
Which changes with the breath of ev'ry whisper,
Just as the sky and weather with the winds :
Nay with the winds, as they blow east or west,
To make his temper pleasant or unpleasant :
So are our wholesome or unwholesome days.
Crown's Ambitious Statesman.
DEPUTY.
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by ; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main waters.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
We have with special soul
Elected him our absence to supply ;
Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love ;
And given his deputation all the organs
Of our own power.
Shaks. Mea.for Mea.
DESIGN - DESI RE - DESPAIR.
133
DESIGN.
The noble heart, that harbours virtuous thought,
And is with child of glorious great intent,
Can never rest, until it forth have brought
Th' eternal brood of glory excellent.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
He that intends well, yet deprives himself
Of means to put his good thoughts into deed,
Deceives his purpose of the due reward.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
When men's intents are wicked, their guilt haunts
them,
But when they are just they 're arm'd, and nothing
daunts them. Middleton.
When any great design thou dost intend,
Think on the means, the manner, and the end.
Denham.
Honest designs
Justly resemble our devotions,
Which we must pay and wait for the reward.
Sir Robert Howard.
I do believe, you think what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break :
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth but poor validity ;
Which now, like fruits unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Shahs. Hamlet.
DESIRE.
O fierce desire, the spring of sighs and tears,
Reliev'd with want, impoverish'd with store,
Nurst with vain hopes, and fed with doubtful fears
Whose force withstood, increaseth more and more
Brandon's Octavia.
'Tis most ignoble, that a mind unshaken
By fear should by a vain desire be broken ;
Or that those powers no labour e'er could vanquish,
Should be o'ercome and thrall'd by sordid pleasure.
Chapman.
How large are our desires ! and yet how few
Events are answerable ! So the dew,
Which early on the top of mountains stood,
Meaning, at least, to imitate a flood ;
When once the sun appears, appears no more,
And leaves that parch'd which was too moist
before. Gomersall.
The desire of the moth for the star —
Of the night for the morrow —
The devotion to something afar-
Frorn the sphere of our sorrow.
Shelley.
Vhou blind man's mark ; thou fool's self-chosen
snare,
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scatter'd thoughts;
Band of all evils; cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of ill, whose end is never wrought
Desire ! Desire ! I have too dearly bought
With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware,
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought,
Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare.
Sir P. Sidney.
Vain are these dreams, and vain these hopes ;
And yet 'tis these give birth
To each high purpose, generous deed,
That sanctifies our earth.
He who hath highest aim in view,
Must dream at first what he will do.
Miss London.
I look into my heart,
And see how full it is of mighty schemes,
Some that shall ripen, some be ever dreams,
And yet, though dreams, shall act a real part.
F. W. Faler.
Labour shall be my lot ;
My kindred shall be joyful in my praise ;
And fame shall twine for me in after days,
A wreath I covet not.
Prcsd.
Oh, fountains that I have not reach' d,
That gush far off even now,
Where shall I quench my spirits' thirs
When your sweet waters flow !
Miss Lynch.
DESPAIR.
To doubt
Is worse than to have lost : And to despair,
Is but to antedate those miseries
That must fall on us.
Massinger's Dulce of Milan.
Despair takes heart, when there's no hope tn
The coward then takes arms and does the deed.
Herrick.
Thou hast the noblest issues of all ill,
Which frailty brings us to ; for to be worse
We fear not, and who cannot lose,
Is ever a frank gamester.
Sir Robert Howard
So cowards fight, when they can fly no further,
So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons
So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives.
Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officer''.
Shahs. Henry VI. Part 111
12
m
DESPAIR.
I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun, |
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. '
Sltaks. Macbeth.
I pull in resolution: and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,
That lies like truth.
Shahs. Macbeth.
They have ty'd me to a stake ; I cannot fly,
But bear-like, I must fight the course.
Sliaks. Macbeth.
I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Have so incens'd, that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world
Shaks. Macbeth.
And I another,
So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance
To mend it, or be rid on 't.
Shaks. Macbeth.
O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me ;
That life, a very rebel to my will,
May hang no longer on me.
Sfiaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more :
Fortune and Antony part here ; even here
Do we shake hands. — All come to this ? — The
hearts
That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On blossoming Csesar ; and this pine is bark'd
That overtopp'd them all.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
There 's nothing in this world can make me joy :
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
Shaks. King John.
Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
Art thou damn'd.
Shales. King John.
If thou didst but consent
To this most cruel act, do but despair,
And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
That ever spider twisted from her womb
Will serve to strangle thee ; a rush will be a
beam
To hang thee on ; or, would'st thou diown thyself,
Put a little water in a spoon,
And it snail be as all the ocean,
tiwugh to stifle such a villain up.
Shaks. King John.
Let order die,
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act :
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain .
Reign in all bosoms; that, each heart being det
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead !
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environ'd with a wilderness of sea ;
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
Shaks. Titus Andronicus.
Thus roving on
In confus'd march forlorn, th' advent'rous bands
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,
View'd their lamentable lot, and found
No rest
Milton's Paradise Lost.
All sat mute,
Pond'ring the danger with deep thoughts ; and each
In other's count'nance read his own dismay
Astonish'd.
Milton's Paradise Lost
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse ; all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Horror and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The hell within him ; for within him hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from hell
One step no more than from himself can fly
By change of place.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Me miserable ! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair ?
Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell ;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
Milton's Paradise Lost
With what delight could I have walk'd the round
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill and valley, rivers, woods ( and plains,
Now land, now sea, and shores with forests crown'd
Rocks, dens and caves ; but I in none of these
Find place or refuge ; and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries.
Milton's Paradise Lost
DESPAIR.
135
There they him laid
Gnashing for anguish, and despite and shame,
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbled by such rebuke.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
All hope is lost
Of my reception into grace ; what worse,
For where no hope is left, is left no fear.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
Consider how the desperate fight ;
Despair strikes wild, — but often fatal too —
And in the mad encounter wins success.
Havard's Regulus.
All judging heav'n,
Was there no bolt, no punishment above ? —
No, none is equal to despairing love :
Hell loudly owns it, and the damn'd themselves
Smile to behold a wretch more curs'd than they.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
My loss is such as cannot be repair'd ;
And to the wretched, life can be no mercy.
Dryden's Marriage a la Mode.
Tell me why, good heaven,
Thou mad'st me what I am, with all the spirit,
Aspiring thoughts and elegant desires,
That fill the happiest man ? Ah ! rather, why
Did'st thou not form me sordid as my fate,
Base.minded, dull and fit to carry burdens ?
Why have I sense to know the curse that 's on me ?
Is this just dealing, nature ?
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Talk not of comfort, 'tis for lighter ills ;
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way
To all the pangs and fury of despair.
Addison's Cato.
O Lucius, I am sick of this bad world !
The day-light and the sun grow painful to me.
Addison's Cato.
Methinks we stand on ruin ; nature shakes
About us ; and the universal frame 's
So loose, that it but wants another push
To leap from its hinges.
Lee's (Edipus.
What miracle
Can work me into hope ! Heav'n here is bankrupt,
The wond'ring gods blush at the want of power,
And quite abash'd confess they cannot help me.
Lee's Mithridates.
Curs'd fate ! malicious stars ! you now have drain'd
Yourselves of all your poisonous influence ;
Ev'n the last baleful drop is shed upon me !
Lee's Mithridates.
Let her rave,
And prophesy ten thousand thousand horrors ;
I could join with her now, and bid 'em come ;
They fit the present fury of my soul.
The stings of love and rage are fix'd within,
And drive me on to madness. Earthquakes, whirl-
winds,
A general wreck of nature now would please me.
Rowe's Royal Convert.
Whether first nature, or long want of peace,
Has wrought my mind to this, I cannot tell ;
But horrors now are not displeasing to me ;
I like this rocking of the battlements.
Rage on, ye winds ; burst clouds, and waters roar !
You bear a just resemblance of my fortune,
And suit the gloomy habit of my soul !
Young's Revenge.
Why let them come : let in the raging torrent :
I wish the world would rise in arms against me ;
For I must die ; and I would die in state.
Young's Busiris
Creation sleeps ; 't is as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause —
An awful pause ! prophetic of her end,
And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd ;
Fate ! drop the curtain ; I can lose no more.
Young's Night Thoughts
From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose,
I wake ; how happy they that wake no more !
Yet that were vain, if dreams infect the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding
thought,
From wave to wave of fancy'd misery,
At random drove, her helm of reason lost.
Tho' now restor'd, 't is only change of pain,
(A bitter change !) severer for severe.
The day too short for my distress ; and night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.
Young's Night Thoughts
With woful measures wan despair —
Low sullen sounds his grief beguil'd ;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air !
'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild.
Collins's Passions
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure,
Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Dr. Johnson's Irenr
But dreadful is their doom whom doubt has drivei
To censure fate, and pious hope forego :
Like yonder blasted boughs by lightning riven,
Perfection, beauty, life, they never know,
But frown on all that pass, a monument of wu.
Beattie's Minstm
136
DESPAIR..
Mine aflcr-life ! what is mine after-life !
My day is closed ! the gloom of night is come !
A hopeless darkness settles o'er my fate.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
Welcome rough war ! with all thy scenes of blood ;
Thy roaring thunders, and thy dashing steel !
Welcome once more ! what have I now to do
But play the brave man o'er again, and die !
Joanna Baillie , s Basil.
Be it what it may, or bliss or torment,
Annihilation, dark, and endless rest,
Or some dread thing, man's wildest range of thought
Hath never yet conceived, that change I '11 dare
Which makes me any tiling but what I am.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
I would have time turn'd backward in his course,
And what is past ne'er to have been : myself
A thing that no existence ever had.
Canst thou do this for me ?
Joanna Baillie's Rayner.
D that I were upon some desert coast !
Where howling tempests and the lashing tide
Would stun me into deep and senseless quiet.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
Come, madness ! come unto me, senseless death !
I cannot suffer this ! here, rocky wall,
Scatter these brains, or dull them !
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
O that I had been form'd
An idiot from the birth ! a senseless changeling,
Who eats his glutton's meals with greed}' haste,
Nor knows the hand who feeds him !
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
He hangs upon me like a dead man's grasp
On the wreck'd swimmer's neck.
Joanna Baillie's Eihwald.
Full many a storm on this grey head has beat ;
And now, on my high station do I stand,
Like the tired watchman in his rocked tower,
Who looketh for the hour of his release.
. I 'm sick of worldly broils, and fain would rest
With tnose who war no more.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
night, when good men rest, and infants sleep !
Thou art to me no season of repose,
But a fear'd time of waking more intense,
Of life more keen, of misery more palpable.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
The fountain of my heart dried up within me, —
With nought that ioved me, and with nought to
love,
1 stood uoon ,ne desert earth alone.
Maturin's Bertram.
Thou sayest I am a wretch —
And thou sayest true — these weeds do witness it —
These wave-worn weeds — these bare and bruised
limbs.
What would'st thou more ? I shrink not from the
question.
I am a wretch, and proud of wretchedness,
'T is the sole earthly thing that cleaves to me.
Maturin's Bertram.
The wretched have no country ; that dear name
Comprises home, kind kindred, fostering friends,
Protecting laws, all that binds man to man —
But none of these are mine ; — I have no country —
And for my race, the last dread trump shall wake
The sheeted relics of mine ancestry,
Ere trump of herald to the armed lists,
In the bright blazon of their stainless coats
Calls their lost child again.
Maturin's Bertram.
And in that deep and utter agony,
Though then, than ever most unfit to die,
I fell upon my knees and pray'd for death.
Maturin's Bertram.
The storm for Bertram ! — and it hath been with me,
Dealt with me branch and bole, bared me to th'
roots,
And where the next wave bears my perish'd trunk
In its dread lapse, I neither know nor reck of.
Maturin's Bertram
Is there no forest,
Whose shades are dark enough to shelter us ;
Or cavern rifted by the perilous lightning,
Where we must grapple with the tenanting wolf
To earn our bloody lair ? — there let us bide,
Nor hear the voice of man nor call of heaven.
Maturin's Bertram.
Behold me, earth ! what is the life he hunts for ?
Come to my cave, thou human hunter, come ;
For thou hast left thy prey no other lair,
But the bleak rock, or howling wilderness ;
Cheer up thy pack of fanged and fleshed hounds,
Flash all the flames of hell upon its darkness,
Then enter if thou darest.
Lo, there the bruised serpent coils to sting thee,
Yea, spend his life upon the mortal throe.
Maturin's Bertram.
To be thus —
Grey hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines,
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,
A blighted trunk upon a cursed root,
Which but supplies a feeling to decay —
And to be thus, — eternally but thus,
Having been otherwise ! now furrow'd o'er
With wrinkles plough'd by moments, not by years ;
DESPAIR.
137
And hours — all tortured into ages — hours
Which I outlive ! ye topling crags of ice !
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down
In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me !
[ hear ye momently above, beneath,
"rash with a frequent conflict ; but ye pass,
And only fall on things that still would live.
Byron's Manfred.
I have no dread,
And feel the curse to have no natural fear,
Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or
wishes,
Or lurking love of something on the earth.
Byron's Manfred.
My mother earth !
And thou fresh breaking day, and you, ye moun-
tains !
Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye !
And thou the bright eye of the universe,
I That openest over all, and unto all
Art a delight — thou shin'st not on my heart!
Byron's Manfred.
Think'st thou existence doth depend on time ?
It doth ; but actions are our epochs : mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable,
Endless and all alike, as sands on the shore,
Innumerable atoms ; and one desert,
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests save carcasses and wrecks,
Rocks and the salt surf weeds of bitterness.
Byron's Manfred.
Look on me in my sleep,
Or watch my watchings — come and sit by me !
My solitude is solitude no more,
But peopled with the furies ; — I have gnash'd
My teeth in darkness till returning morn,
Then cursed myself till sunset; — I have pray'd
For madness as a blessing — 'tis denied me.
Byron's Manfred.
They who have nothing more to fear may well
Indulge a smile at that which once appall'd ;
As children at discover'd bugbears.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
Who thundering comes on blackest steed ?
W T ith slacken'd bit and hoof of speed ;
Beneath the clattering iron's sound,
The cavern'd echoes wake around
In lash for lash, and bound for bound ;
The foam that streaks the courser's side,
Seems gather'd from the ocean-tide ;
Though weary waves are sunk to rest,
There 's none within his rider's breast,
And though to-morrow's tempest lower,
'T is calmer than thy heart, young Giaour !
Byron's Giaour.
But once I saw that face — yet then
It was so mark'd with inward pain
I could not pass it by again ;
It breathes the same dark spirit now,
As death were stamp'd upon his brow.
Byron's Giacur.
But talk no more of penitence -,
Thou see'st I soon shall part from hence
And if thy holy talk were true,
The deed that's done canst thou undo ?
Think me not thankless — but this grief
Looks not to priesthood for relief.
Byron's Giaour.
Waste not thine orison, despair
Is mightier than thy pious prayer:
I would not, if I might, be blest,
I want no paradise but rest.
Byron's Giaour.
Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung
From forest-cave her shrieking young,
And calm the lonely lioness :
But soothe not — mock not my distress.
Byron's Giacur.
Beside the jutting rock the few appear'd,
Like the last remnant of the red-deer's herd ;
Their eyes were feverish, and their aspect worn,
But still the hunter's blood was on their horn.
Byron's Island
Loud sung the wind above ; and doubly loud,
Shook o'er his turret cell the thunder cloud ;
And flash'd the lightning by the latticed bar,
To him more genial than the midnight star :
Close to the glimmering grate he dragg'd his
chain,
And hoped that peril might not prove in vain.
He raised his iron hand to heaven, and pray'd
One pitying flash to mar the form it made :
His steel and impious prayer attract alike —
The storm roll'd onward, and disdain'd to strike ;
Its peal wax'd fainter — ceased — he felt alone,
As if some faithless friend had spurn'd his groan.
Byron's Corsair.
One fatal remembrance, one sorrow which throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes :
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring.
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting .
Moore.
Beware of desperate steps ! — the darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.
Cowpei.
Like one within a charnel cast,
I hear but dirges ringing for the deaa —
Walk all the time with hand in hand of Death '
Mrs. E. Oahes Snath
12*
138
DESPONDENQ Y - DETERMINATION - DETRACTION - DEW.
DESPONDENCY.
The recollection of one upward hour
Hath more in it to tranquillize and cheer
The darkness of despondency, than years
Of gayety and pleasure.
Percival.
My heart is very tired — my strength is low —
My hands are full of blossoms pluck'd before,
Held dead within them till myself shall die.
Miss Barrett.
It may be that I shall forget my grief;
It may be time has good in store for me ;
It may be that my heart will find relief
From sources now unknown. Futurity
May bear within its folds some hidden spring
From which will issue blessed streams ; and yet
Whate'er of joy the coming year may bring,
The past — the past — I never can forget.
Mrs. Hale.
And if despondency weigh down
Thy spirit's fluttering pinions, then
Despair — thy name is written on
The roll of common men.
Halleck's Poems.
No thought within her bosom stirs,
But wakes some feeling dark and dread ;
God keep thee from a doom like hers,
Of living when the hopes are dead.
Phoebe Carey.
DESTINY. — (See Fate.)
DESTRUCTION.— (See Ruins.
DETERMINATION.
Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed ;
For what I will, I will, and there 's an end.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Although
The air ol paradise did fan the house,
And angels ofne'd all : I will begone.
Shales. AlPs Well.
Bear my greeting to the senators,
And tell them that I will not come to-day ;
Lannot. is false ; and that I dare not, falser ;
1 will not come to-day : tell them so, Dccius.
Sliaks. Julius Casar.
I '11 speaK to it, though hell itselt should gape, v
And bid me hold my peace.
Shahs. Hamlet.
I have given suck ; and know
How tender 't is to love the babe that milks me :
I would, while it was smiling in my fa«e,
Have pluck'd my nipple from its boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.
Shales. Macbeth
I said to Sorrow's awful storm,
That beat against my breast,
Rage on — thou may'st destroy this form,
And lay it low at rest ;
But still the spirit that now brooks
Thy tempest raging 1 high,
Undaunted on its fury looks,
With steadfast eye.
Mrs. Stoddard.
DETRACTION.
'T is not the wholesome sharp morality,
Or modest anger of a satiric spirit,
That hurts or wounds the body of a state ;
But the sinister application
Of the malicious, ignorant, and base
Interpreter ; who will distort, and strain
The gen'ral scope and purpose of an author,
To his particular and private spleen.
Jonson's Poetaster.
Who stabs my name, would stab my person too,
Did not the hangman's axe lie in the way.
Crown's Henry VII.
Happy are they that hear their detractions,
And can put them to mending.
Shaks. Much ado.
Detraction 's a bold monster, and fears not
To wound the fame of princes, if it find
But any blemish in their lives to work on.
Massinger.
To you I shall no trophy raise
From other men's detraction or dispraise :
That jewel never had inherent worth,
Which ask'd such foils as these to set it forth.
Bishop King
DEW.
And that same dew, which sometimes on the buds
Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty fiow'rets' eyes,
Like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
DEVOTIOX-DIGXITY-DINNER-DISAPPOINTMEXT-DISCONTENT. 139
The starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instil,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse,
Deep into nature's breast, the spirit of her hues.
Byron.
Within these leaves the holy dew
That falls from heaven, hath won anew
A glory — in declining.
Miss Barrett.
Oh dew, thou droppest soft below
And platest all the ground ;
Yet wnen the noontide comes, I know
Thou never cans't be found.
Maria Lowell.
DEVOTION.
One grain of incense with devotion offer'd,
'S beyond all perfumes or Sabaean spices,
By one that proudly thinks he merits it.
Massinger's Bashful Lover.
The immortal gods
Accept the meanest altars that are raised
By pure devotion ; and sometimes prefer
An ounce of frankincense, honey, or milk,
Before whole hecatombs of Sabaean gems,
Offer'd in ostentation.
Massinger.
The hand is rais'd, the pledge is given,
One monarch to obey, one creed to own,
That monarch, God ; that creed, His word alone.
Sprague.
Like earth, awake, and warm, and bright
With joy the spirit moves and burns ;
So up to thee ! O Fount of Light !
Our light returns.
John Sterling.
Great honours are great burdens : but, on whom
They 're cast with envy, he doth bear two loads ;
His cares must still be double to his joys,
In any dignity ; where, if he err,
He finds no pardon ; and, for doing well,
A most small praise, and that wrung out by force.
Jonson's Catiline
True dignity is never gained by place,
And never lost when honours are withdrawn.
Massi/iger
DINNER. — (See Feasting.)
DIGNITY.
I know myself now, and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities ;
A still and quiet conscience. The king has cur'd
me,
I humbly thank his grace; and from these shoulders,
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity ta'en
A load would sink a navy, too much honour.
O 't is a burden, Cromwell, 't is a burden,
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven !
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Where ambition of place goes before fiin^sa
Of birth, contempt and disgrace follow.
Chapman.
DISAPPOINTMENT. — (See Grief.)
DISCONTENT.
O thoughts of men accurs'd !
Past and to come, seem best ; things present, worst
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Happiness courts thee in her best array ;
But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench,
Thou poutest upon thy fortune and thy love :
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
He reads much ;
He is a good observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men : he loves no
plays,
As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music :
Seldom he smiles ; and smiles in such a sort,
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn' d his spirit
That could be mov'd to smile at any thing.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
She is peevish, sullen, froward,
Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;
Neither regarding that she is my child,
Nor fearing me as if I were her father.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Worthy Montano, you were wont to be civil ;
The gravity and stillness of your youth
The world hath noted, and your name is great
In mouths of wisest censure ; what 's the matter
That you unlace your reputation thus,
And spend your rich opinion for the name
Of a night-brawler ? give me answer to it.
Shaks. Othello.
With his words
All seem'd well pleas'd ; all seem'd but were n<>i
all. Milton's Paradise Lo»t
140 DISCORD -
-DISCRETION.
Did I request thee, maker, from my clay
Such thoughts, by gathering up the rills
To mould me man, did I solicit thee
Of lesser griefs, spread real ills ;
From darkness to promote me, or here place
And with their gloomy shades conceal
In this delicious garden ? as my will
The land-marks Hope would else reveal.
Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right
Mrs. Dinnies
And equal to reduce me to my dust,
Desirous to resign and render back
All I receiv'd unable to perform
DISCORD.
Thy terms so hard, by which I was to hold
The good I sought not.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Sour discontent that quarrels with our fate,
May give fresh smart, but not the old abate ;
The uneasy passion's disingenuous wit,
The ill reveals, but hides the benefit
Sir Richard Blackmore.
Discord, a sleepless hag, who never dies,
With snipe-like nose, and ferret-glowing eyes,
Lean, sallow cheeks, long chin, with beard supplied, .
Poor crackling joints, and wither'd parchment hide,
As if old drums, worn out with martial din.
Had clubb'd their yellow heads to form her skin.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
Against our peace we arm our will :
Amidst our plenty something still
For horses, houses, pictures, planting,
DISCRETION.
To thee, to me, to him is wanting ;
Press me not, 'beseech you, so ;
That cruel something unpossest
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' th'
Corrodes and leavens all the rest,
world,
That something if we could obtain,
So soon as yours, could win me.
Would soon create a future pain.
Shahs
Prior.
His air, his voice, his looks, and honest soul,
Why discontent for ever harbour'd there ?
Speak all so movingly in his behalf,
Incurable consumption of our peace !
I dare not trust myself to hear him talk.
Resolve me why the cottager, and king,
Addison.
How excellent is woman, when she gives
He whom sea-sever'd realms obey, and he
Who steals his whole dominion from the waste,
To the fine pulses of her spirit way ;
Her virtues blossom daily, and pour out
Repelling winter's blast with mud and straw,
Disquieted alike, draw sigh for sigh,
A fragrance upon all who in her path
In fate so distant, in complaint so near.
Young.
Have a blest fellowship.
Willis
It 's hardly in a body's power
0, save to one familiar friend,
To keep, at times, frae being sour,
Thy heart its veil should wear,
To see how things are shar'd ;
The faithless vow be all unheard, —
How best o' chiels are whyles in want,
The flattery wasted there ;
While coofs on countless thousands rant, .
Heeding the homage of the vain
And ten na how to wair 't
As lightly as some star,
Burns.
Whose steady radiance changes not,
Man hath a weary pilgrimage,
Though thousands kneel afar.
As through the world he wends ;
Whittier.
Cn every stage, from youth to age,
Still discontent attends.
Southey.
DISEASE.— (See Health.)
I cannot bear to be with men
Who only see my weaknesses ;
Who know not what I might have been,
DISHONESTY.— (See Thieves.)
But scan my spirit as it is.
Willis.
It is not well to brood
Thus darkly o'er the cares that swell
DISPLEASURE. — (See Anger.)
Life's current to a flood.
A.s brooks, and torrents, rivers, ail
jicrease the gulf in which they fall,
DISPOSITION. — (See Character.)
DOUBT -DREAMS.
141
DOUBT.
His name was Doubt, that had a double face,
Th' one forward looking, th' other backward bent,
Therein resembling Janus auncient,
Which had in charge the ingate of the year :
And evermore his eyes about him went,
As if some proved peril he did fear,
Or did misdoubt some ill, whose cause did not
appear. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
'T is good to doubt the worst,
We may in our belief be too secure.
Webster's and Rowley's Thracum Wonder.
Known mischiefs have their cure, but doubts have
none;
And better is despair than fruitless hope
Mix'd with a killing fear.
May's Cleopatra.
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
Shaks. Mea.for Mea.
You do seem to know
Something of me, or what concerns me : pray you
(Since doubting things go ill, often hurts more
Than to be sure they do ; for certainties
Or are past remedies, or timely knowing,
The remedy then born) discover to me
What both you spur and stop.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure ; but modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise ; the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
I run the gauntlet of a file of doubts,
Each one of which down hurls me to the ground
Bailey's Festvs.
Who never doubted never half believed,
Where doubt there truth is — 't is her shadow.
Bailey.
Life's sunniest hours are not without
The shadow of some lingering doubt —
Amid its brightest joys will steal
Spectres of evil yet to feel —
Its warmest love is blent with fears,
Its confidence a trembling one —
Its smile — the harbinger of tears —
Its hope — the change of April'3 sun !
A weary lot — in mercy given,
To fit the chastened soul for heaven.
Whittier.
What though the world has whisper'd thee, * Be-
ware !'
Thou dost not dream of change. Nay, do not
speak,
For any answer would imply a doubt
In love's deep confidence, which not for worlds
Should have existence.
Robert Monis.
The clear, cold question chills to frozen doubt ;
Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without ;
then, if reason waver at thy side,
Let humbler Memory be thy gentle guide,
Go to thy birth-place, and, if faith was there,
Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer .
O. W. Holme*
Yet do not think I doubt thee,
I know thy truth remains ;
1 would not live without thee,
For all the world contains.
G. P. Mortis.
Beware of doubt — faith is the subtle chain
Which binds us to the infinite : the voice
Of a deep life within, that will remain
Until we crowd it thence.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
DREAMS.
Dreams are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy ;
Which is as thin of substance as the air ,
And more inconstant than the wind.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand ;
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne ;
And all this day, an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
Ah me ! how sweet is love itself possess'd.
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy !
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow,
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream :
And in thy face strange motions have appeal Vi,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some groat sudden haste.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part J
Dreams are toys :
Y J, Jut ihis once, yea, superstitiously,
I wUi t* aquar'd by this.
Shales. Winter's Tale
142
DREAMS.
There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
That in their sleeps will utter their affairs.
Sltaks. Othello.
There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
For I did dream of money-bags to-night
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood ; and he shriek'd out aloud, —
Clarence is come, — false, fleeting, perjur'd Cla-
rence, —
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewkesbury.
Shaks. Richard III.
By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers,
Armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.
Shahs. Richard HI.
Divinity hath oftentimes descended
Upon our slumbers, and the blessed troupes
Have, in the calm and quiet of the soule,
Conversed with us.
Shirley.
Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes;
When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes :
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings :
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad;
Both are the reasonable soul run mad :
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be.
Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse's legends are for truths received,
And the man dreams but what the boy believed.
Dryden.
But dreams full oft are found of real events
The forms and shadows.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields ; or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathless woods ; or down the craggy steep
Huri'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled
pool;
Or scal'd the cliff, or dane'd on hollow winds,
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain ?
Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her
nature
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod; —
For human weal, heaven husbands all events,
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.
Young.
He sleeps, if it be sleep ; this starting trance,
Whose feverish tossings and deep mutter'd groans
Do prove the soul shares not the body's rest —
How the lip works, how the bare teeth do grind.
And beaded drops course down his writhen brow !
Maturing Bertram.
Lightly he dreamt as youth will dream,
Of sport by thicket, or by stream,
Of hawk, of hound, of ring, of glove,
Or lighter yet — of lady's love.
Scott's Marmion.
Our waking dreams are fatal : how I dreamt,
Of things impossible ! (could sleep do more ?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change !
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave !
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life !
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys !
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective !
Till at death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Young.
Dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being ; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity ;
They pass like spirits of the past, — they speak
Like sibyls of the future ; they have power —
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain ;
They make us what we were not — what they
will,
And shake us with the vision that 's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows — Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow ? what are they ?
Creations of the mind ? the mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
Byron's Dream.
Spirit Land ! thou land of dreams !
A world thou art of mysterious gleams,
Of startling voices and sounds of strife,
A world of the dead in the hues of life.
Mrs. Hemans's Por.ms.
1 walk with sweet friends in the sunset glow ;
I listen to music of long ago ;
But one thought, like an omen, breathes faint
through the lay, —
" It is but a dream ; it will melt away."
Mrs. Hemarts Poems
DRESS - DROWNING - DRUMS - DRUNKEN NESS.
143
Just one look before I sleep,
Just one parting glance to keep
On my heart, and on my brain
Every line and feature plain,
In sweet hopes that they may be
Present in these dreams to me,
Which the gentle night hour brings
Ever on her starry wings.
Miss London,
Dreams are rudiments
Of the great state to come. We dream what is
About to happen.
Bailey.
Innocent dreams be thine ! thy heart sends up
Its thoughts of purity, like pearly bells,
Rising in crystal fountains. Would I were
A sound, that I might steal upon thy dreams,
And, like the breathing of my flute, distil
Sweetly upon thy senses.
. Willis.
Bright dreams attend thee, gentle one,
The brightest and the best ;
For sorrows scarce can fall upon
A maid so purely blest.
And when death's shadows round thee swell,
And dim thy starry eyes,
O, mayst thou be, my Rosabelle,
A spirit of the skies.
Robert Morris.
DRESS. — (See Apparel.)
DROWNING.
O Lord ! methought, what pain it was to drown !
What dreadful noise of water in my ears !
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
A thousand men and fishes gnaw'd upon me.
Shaks. Richard HI.
Alone in the dark, alone on the wave,
To buffet the storm alone —
To struggle aghast at thy watery graven
To struggle and feel there is none to save,
God shield thee, helpless one !
The stout limbs yield, for their strength is past,
The trembling hands on the deep are cast,
The white brow gleams a moment more,
Then slowly sinks — the struggle is o'er !
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
DRUMS.
Strike up the drum : and let the tongue of war
Head for our interest.
Shaks. King John.
Your drams, being beaten, will cry out.
And so shall you, being beaten : do but stir
An echo with the clamour of thy drum,
And even at hand a drum is ready brae'd
That shall reverberate all as loud as thine :
Sound but another, and another shall,
As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear,
And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder.
Shaks. King John.
DRUNKENNESS.
And now, in madness,
Being full of supper, and distempering draughts,
Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come
To start my quiet.
Shaks. Othello.
If I can fasten one cup upon him,
With that which he hath drunk to-night already,
He '11 be as full of quarrel and offence
As my young mistress' dog.
Shaks. Othello.
Oh that men should put an enemy in
Their mouths, to steal away their brains ! that we
Should with joy, pleasance, revel and applause,
Transform ourselves into beasts.
Shaks. Othello.
It hath pleas'd the devil, drunkenness, to
Give place to the devil, wrath; one
Unperfectness shows me another, to
Make me frankly despise myself.
I will ask him for my place again ; he
Snail tell me, I am a drunkard : had I
As many mouths as Hydra, such an answer
Would stop them all. To be now a sensible
Man, by and by a fool, and presently
A beast ! every inordinate cup
Is unbless'd, and th' ingredient is a devil.
Oh thou invisible spirit of wine,
If thou hast no name to be known by, let
Us call thee devil !
Shaks. Othello.
They were red-hot with drinking ;
So full of valour, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces ; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet
Shaks. Tempest.
I have drugg'd their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live, or die.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Give me the cups ;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer wil hout,
The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to the
earth,
Now the king drinks to Hamlet.
Shaks. Hamlet
144
DRUNKENNESS.
No jocund health, that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell ;
And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder.
Shahs. Hamlet.
Give me a bowl of wine : —
En this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Give me a bowl of wine :
I have not that alacrity of spirit,
Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.
Shaks. Richard III.
Drunkenness ! that 's a most gentleman-like
Sin, it scorns to be beholden ; for what it
Receives in a man's house, it commonly
Leaves again at his door.
Cupid's Whirligig.
Fly drunkenness, whose vile incontinence
Takes both away the reason and the sense :
Till with Circsean cups thy mind possest
Leaves to be man, and wholly turns a beast
Tnink while thou swallow'st the capacious bowl,
Thou let'st in seas to sack and drown thy soul.
That hell is open, to remembrance call,
And think how subject drunkards are to fall.
Consider how it soon destroys the grace
Of human shape, spoiling the beauteous face :
Puffing the cheeks, blearing the curious eye,
Studding the face with vicious heraldry.
What pearls and rubies does the wine disclose,
Making the purse poor to enrich the nose !
How does it nurse disease, infect the heart,
Drawing some sickness into every part !
Randolph,
It weaks the brain, it spoils the memory,
Hasting on age, and wilful poverty :
It drowns thy better parts, making thy name
To foes a laughter, to thy friends a shame.
'T is virtue's poison and the bane of trust,
The match of wrath, the fuel unto lust
Quite leave this vice, and turn not to 't again,
Upon presumption of a stronger brain ;
For he that holds more wine than others can,
I rather count a hogshead than a man.
Randolph.
Nor need we tell what anxious cares attend
The turbulent mirth of wine ; nor all the kinds
Of maladies, that l&ad to death's grim cave,
Wrought by intemperance : joint-racking gout ;
Intestine stone ; and pining atrophy,
.'Jhill even when the sun with July heats
Fries the scorch'd soi. , and dropsy all afloat,
Yet craving liquids.
Philips' s Cider.
Now,
As with new wine intoxicated both.
They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel
Dii'inity within them breeding wings
Wherewith to scorn the earth.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Man, with raging drink inflam'd,
Is far more savage and untam'd;
Supplies his loss of wit and sense
With barb'rousness and insolence;
Believes himself, the less he 's able,
The more heroic, and formidable;
Lays by his reason in his bowls,
As Turks are said to do their souls,
Until it has so often been
Shut out of its lodgings, and let in,
At length it never can attain
To find the right way back again;
Drinks all his time away, and prunes
The end of's life as vignerons
Cut short the branches of a vine,
To make it bear more plenty o' wine;
And that which nature did intend
T' enlarge his life, perverts its end.
Butler's Hudihrab.
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,
Reels fast from theme to theme ; from horses,
hounds,
To church or mistress, politics or ghost,
In endless mazes, intricate, perplex'd.
Thomson's Seasons.
Confused above,
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table even itself was drunk,
Lie a wet broken scene ; and wide, below,
Is heap'd the social slaughter : where astride,
The lubber power in filthy triumph sits,
Slumb'rous, inclining still from side to side,
And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till morn.
Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunch,
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,
Outlives them all, and from his bury'd flock
Retiring full of rumination sad,
Laments the weakness of these latter times.
Thomson's Seasons.
What dext'rous thousands just within the goal
Of wild debauch direct their nightly course !
Perhaps no sickly qualms bedim their days,
No morning admonitions shock the head.
But ah ! what woes remain ! life rolls apace,
And that incurable disease — old age,
In youthful bodies more severely felt,
More sternly active, shakes their blasted prime.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health
DUELLING-DUTY.
145
When the frantic raptures in your breast
Subside, you languish into mortal man ;
You sleep, and waking find yourself undone.
For, prodigal of life, in one rash night
You lavish'd more than might support three days.
A heavy morning comes ; your cares return
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well
May be endured ; so may the throbbing heart :
But such a dim delirium, such a dream,
Involves you ; such a dastardly despair
Unmans your soul, as madd'ning Pentheus felt,
When, baited round Cithaeron's sides,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes, ascend, —
Add that your means, your health, your parts
decay;
Your friends avoid you ; brutishly transform'd
They hardly know you, or, if one remains
To wish you well, he wishes you in heaven.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Ten thousand casks,
For ever dribbling out their base contents,
Touch'd by the Midas finger of the state,
Bleed gold for ministers to sport away.
Drink and be mad then. 'Tis your country
bids.
Gloriously drunk, obey th' important call,
Her cause, demands the assistance of your throats
Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more.
Cowper's Task.
Then a hand shall pass before thee,
Pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows,
To the tears that thou shalt weep !
Tennyson.
DUELLING.
Your words have took such pains, as if they labour'd
To bring manslaughter into form, set quarrelling
Upon the head of valour ; which, indeed,
Is valour mi sbegot, and came into the world
When sects and factions were but newly born :
He 's truly valiant, that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe ; and make his
wrongs
His outsides ; wear them like his raiment, care-
lessly ;
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Some fiery fop, with new commission vain,
Who sleeps on brambles till he kills his man ;
Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast,
Provokes a broil, and stabs him for a jest.
Dr. Johnson's London
K
Am I to set my life upon a throw
Because a bear is rude and surly ? — No !
A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.
Cowper's Conversation
'T is hard indeed, if nothing will defend
Mankind from quarrels but their fatal end ;
That now and then a hero must decease,
That the surviving world may live in peace.
Perhaps at last close scrutiny may show
The practice dastardly, and mean and low ;
That men engage in it, compell'd by force,
And fear, not courage, is its proper source ;
The fear of tyrant custom, and the fear
Lest fops should censure us, and fools should sneer
At least to trample on our Maker's laws,
And hazard life for any or no cause.
Cowper's Conversation
It is a strange quick jar upon the ear,
That cocking of a pistol, when you know
A moment more will bring the sight to bear
Upon your person, twelve yards off, or so ;
A gentlemanly distance, not too near,
If you have got a former friend for foe;
But after being fired at once or twice,
The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.
Byron
DUTY.
Stern daughter of the voice of God !
O Duty ! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove ;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe,
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice.
Wordsworth
Cold duty's path is not so blithely trod
Which leads the mournful spirit to its God.
William Herbert
Rug^d strength and radiant beauty —
These were one in nature's plan ;
Humble toil and heavenward duty —
These will form the perfect man.
Mrs. Hah
Vain we number every duty,
Number all our prayers and tears,
Still the spirit lacketh beauty,
Still it droops with many fears.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith
To hallow'd duty,
Here with a loyal and heroic heart.
Bind we our lives.
Mrs. Osgood
13
148
EARTH - EARTHQUAKE - EATING - ECSTACY- EDUCATION.
Then the purposes of life
Stood apart from vulgar strife,
Labour in the patli of duty
Gleam'd up like a thing of beauty.
C. P. Cranch.
For Love himself took part against himself
To warn us off, and Duty lov'd of Love,
O this world's curse, — belov'd but hated — came
Like Death between thy dear embrace and mine.
Tennyson.
EARTH.
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
And fast by hanging in a golden chain
This pendent world, in bigness as a star.
Milton' 1 s Paradise Lost.
Earth's days are number'd, nor remote her doom ;
As mortal, tho' less transient, than her sons.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Where is the dust that has not been alive ?
The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors ;
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely nurse doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her inmate man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came
Wordsworth.
. 'T is earth shall lead destruction ; she shall end,
The stars shall wonder ,vhy she comes no more
On her accustoni'd orbit, and the sun *
Miss one of his eleven of light ; the moon,
An orphan orb, shall seek for earth for aye
Through time's untrodden depths, and find her not.
Bailey's Festus.
My kindred earth I see ; —
Once every atom of this ground
Lived, breathed and felt like me.
Montgomery.
The earth is bright,
And I am earthly, so I love it well ;
Though heaven is holier, and full of light,
Yet I a:n frau, ar.'l with frail things would dwell.
Mrs. Judson.
EARTHQUAKE.
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions ; and the teeming earth
Is with a kind of cholic pinch'd and vex'd,
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb ; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down
Steeples, and moss-grown towers.
Shaks. Henry IV Part I.
As though an earthquake smack'd its mumbling
lips
O'er some thick-peopled city.
Bailey's Festus
EATING. — (See Feasting.)
ECSTACY. — (See Joy.
EDUCATION.
How can he rule well in a commonwealth,
Which knoweth not himself in rule to frame ?
How should he rule himself in ghostly health,
Which never learn'd one lesson for the same ?
If such catch harm, their parents are to blame •
For needs must they be blind, and blindly led,
Where no good lesson can be taught or read.
Cavil in the Mirror for Magistrate
For noble youth, there is no thing so meet
As learning is, to know the good from ill :
To know the tongues, and perfectly indite,
And of the laws to have a perfect skill,
Things to reform as right and justice will :
For honour is ordained for no caus
But to see right maintained by the laws.
Cavil in the Mirror for Magistrates
The more politic sort
Of parents will to handicrafts resort :
If they observe their children to produce
Some flashings of a mounting genius,
Then must they with all diligence invade
Some rising calling, or some gainful trade ;
But if, by chance, they have one leaden soul,
Born for to number eggs, he must to school ;
'Specially if some patron will engage
Th' advowson of a neighbouring vicarage ;
Strange hedly-medly ! who would make his swine
Turn greyhounds, or hunt foxes with his kine ?
Hall
Man's like a barren and ungrateful soil,
That seldom pays the labour of manuring.
Sir Robert Howard's Blind Lady
EGOTISM - ELEGANCE - ELOQUENCE.
14"!
Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent, the tree 's inclin'd.
Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire ;
The next a tradesman meek, and much a liar ;
Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave ;
Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave ;
Is he a churchman ? Then he 's fond of pow'r ;
A quaker ? Sly ; A presbyterian ? Sour ;
A smart free-thinker ? All things in an hour.
Pope's Moral Essays.
She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell.
Byron's Sketch from Private Life.
'T is pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue
By female lips and eyes — that is, I mean
When both the teacher and the taught are young,
As was the case at least where I have been ;
They smile so when one 's right, and when one 's
wrong
They smile still more.
Byron.
Culture's hand
Has scatter'd verdure o'er the land ;
And smiles and fragrance rule serene,
Where barren wild usurp'd the scene.
And such is man — a soil which breeds
Or sweetest flowers, or vilest weeds ;
Flowers lovely as the morning's light,
Weeds deadly as an aconite ;
Just as his heart is train'd to bear
The poisonous weed, or flow'ret fair.
A little learning is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring,
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
But drinking largely sobers us again.
Pope's Essay on Criticism.
Learning by study must be won ;
'T was ne'er entail'd from sire to son.
Gay's Fables.
And say to mothers what a holy charge
Is theirs — with what a kingly power their love
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind ;
Warn them to wake at early dawn, and sow
Good seed before the world has sown its tares.
Mrs. Sigourney.
Look through the casement of yon village school,
Where now the pedant with his oaken rule,
Sits like Augustus on the imperial throne,
Between two poets yet to fame unknown.
James T. Fields.
One while the fever is to learn what none will be
wiser for knowing,
Exploded errors in extinct tongues, and occasions
for their use is small :
And the bright morning of life, for years of mis
spent time,
Wasted in following sounds hath track'd but little
sense.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
Be understood in thy teaching, and instruct to the
measure of capacity ;
Precepts and rules are repulsive to a child, but
happy illustration winneth him.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy,
EGOTISM. — (See Selfishness.)
ELEGANCE. — (See Grace.)
ELOQUENCE.
And when she spake,
Sweete words, like dropping honey, she did shed ;
And 'twixt the perles and rubies softly brake
A silver sound, that heavenly musicke seem'd to
make. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Her words were like a stream of honey fleeting,
The which doth softly trickle from the hive,
Able to melt the hearer's heart unweeting,
And eke to, make the dead again alive.
Spenser
Pow'r above pow'rs ! O heavenly eloquence !
That with the strong rein of commanding words,
Dost manage, guide, and master th' eminence
Of men's affections, more than all their swords !
Shall we not offer to thy excellence
The richest treasure that our wit affords ?
Thou that canst do much more with one pen,
Than all the pow'rs of princes can effect ;
And draw, divert, dispose, and fashion men,
Better than force or rigour can direct !
Should we this ornament of glory then,
As th' immaterial fruits of shades neglect ?
Daniel
Men are more eloquent than women made ;
But women are more pow'rful to persuade.
Randolph's Amyntab
What is judicious eloquence to those
Whose speech not up to other's reason grows,
But climbs aloft to their own passion's height ?
And as our seamen make no use of sight
By any thing observ'd in wide strange seas,
But only of the length of voyages ;
Or else, as men in races make no stay
To draw large prospects of their breath away ,
So they, in heedless races of the tongue,
Care not how broad their theme is, Dut how long
Sir W. Pivenatii
148
ELOQUENCE.
Ev'ry word he speaks is a syren's note,
To draw the careless hearer.
Beaumont's Sea Voyage.
In her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect,
Such as moves men ; besides she hath prosperous
art,
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
Oh ! I will hearken like a doting mother,
To hear her children prais'd by flatt'ring tongues.
Sir Robert Howard's Duke of Lerma.
His tongue
Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
When with greatest art he spoke,
You 'd think he talk'd like other folk. ■
Butler's Hudibras.
But when he pleas'd to show 't, his speech,
In loftiness of sound, was rich ;
A Babylonish dialect,
Which learned pedants much affect.
It was a party-coloured dress
Of patch'd and pye-ball'd languages:
'T was English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian heretofore on satin.
Butler's Hudibras.
Oh ! speak that again !
Sweet as the syren's tongue those accents fall,
And charm me to my ruin.
Southern's Royal Brother.
When he spoke, what tender words he us'd !
So softly, that, like flakes of feather'd snow,
They melted as they felt
Dry den's Spanish Friar.
I '11 speak the kindest words
That tongue e'er utter'd, or that art e'er thought.
Dryden's Indian Emperor.
Your words are like the notes of dying swans;
Too sweet to last.
Dryden's All for Love.
Methought I heard a voice,
Sweet as the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains,
When all his little flock's at feed before him.
. Otwuys Orphan.
Who tants of dying in a voice so sweet,
i'hat life 's in love witn it.
Otway's Orphan.
That voice was wont to come in gentle whispers,
rVii'l fill my earJ with the soft breath of love.
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Oh, while you speak, mcthinks a sudden calm,
In spite of all the horror that surrounds me,
Falls upon every frighted faculty,
And puts my soul in tune.
Zee's Brutus.
And whercsoe'er the subject 's best, the sense
Is better'd by the speaker's eloquence.
King.
As I listen'd to thee,
The happy hours pass'd by us unperceived,
So was my soul fix'd to the soft enchantment.
Rome's Tamerlane.
Oh ! I know
Thou hast a tongue to charm the wildest tempers ;
Herds would forget to graze, and savage beasts
Stand still, and lose their fierceness, but to hear
thee,
As if they had reflection : and by reason
Forsook a less enjoyment for a greater.
Rowe's Tamerlane.
Oft the hours
From morn to eve have stolen unmask'd away,
While mute attention hung upon his lips.
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination
Now, with fine phrase, and foppery of tongue,
More graceful -action, and a smoother tone,
That orator of fable, and fair face,
Will steal on your brib'd hearts.
Young's Brothers.
O eloquence ! thou violated fair !
How art thou woo'd, and won to either bed
Of right or wrong ! O when injustice folds thee,
Dost thou not curse thy charms for pleasing him,
And blush at conquest.
Havard's King Charles I.
Thy words had such a melting flow,
And spoke of truth so sweetly well,
They dropp'd like heaven's scrcnest snow,
And all was brightness where they fell !
Moore.
Here rills of oily eloquence in soft
Meanders lubricate the course they take.
Cowper.
The grand debate,
The popular harangue, the tart reply,
The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,
And the loud laugh — I long to know them all.
Cowper.
Oh ! as the bee upon the flower, I hang
Upon the honey of thy eloquent tongue.
Bulwer's Lady of Lyons
Her tears her only eloquence.
Rogers' Jacqueline
EMIGRATION.
149
His words seem'd oracles
That pierc'd their bosoms ; and each man would
turn
And gaze in wonder on his neighbour's face,
That with the like dumb wonder answer'd him.
You could have heard
The beating of your pulses while he spoke.
George Croly.
Such a lip ! — oh, pour'd from thence
Lava floods of eloquence
Would come with fiery energy,
Like those words that cannot die. -
Words the Grecian warrior spoke
When the Persian's chain he broke ;
Or that low and honey tone,
Making woman's heart his own.
L. E. London.
The charm of eloquence — the skill
To wake each secret string,
And from the bosom's chords at will
Life's mournful music bring;
The o'ermast'ring strength of mind, which sways
The haughty and the free,
Whose might earth's mightiest ones obey,
This charm was given to thee.
Mrs. Embury.
There 's a charm in deliv'ry, a magical art,
That thrills like a kiss from the lip to the heart ;
'T is the glance — the expression — the well-chosen
word —
By whose magic the depths of the spirit are
stirr'd.
The lip's soft persuasion — its musical tone :
Oh ! such were the charms of that eloquent one !
Mrs. Welby.
The spell is thine that reaches
The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport ;
And there's one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches,
The secret of their mastery — they are short.
Halleck.
His eloquence is classic in its style,
Not brilhant with explosive coruscations
Of heterogeneous thoughts, at random caught,
And scatter'd like a shower of shooting stars,
That end in darkness : no ; — his noble mind
Is clear, and full, and stately, and serene.
His earnest and undazzled eye he keeps
Fix'd on the sun of Truth, and breathes his
words
As easily as eagles cleave the air ;
And never pauses till the height is won ;
And all who listen follow where he leads.
Mrs. Hale.
EMIGRATION.
Down where yon anch'ring vessel spreads the sail,
That idly waiting flaps with ev'ry gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore and darken all the strand.
Contented toil, and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness, are there ;
And piety with wishes plac'd above,
And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
Goldsmith' s Deseiied Village-
Good heav'n ! what sorrows gloom'd that parting
day,
That call'd them from their native walks away,
When the poor exiles, ev'ry pleasure past,
Hung round the bowr's, and fondly look'd their last,
And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main ;
And shudd'ring still to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village
Behold the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
The rrfodest matron and the blushing maid,
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main :
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thund'ring sound !
E'en now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous
ways;
Where beasts with man divided empire claim.
And the brown Indian marks with murd'rous aim
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells rise;
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,
Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.
Goldsmith's Traveller
Let us depart ! the universal sun
Confines not to one land his blessed beams ;
Nor is man rooted, like a tree, whose seed
The winds on some ungenial soil have cast
There, where it cannot prosper.
Southey's Madoc
I hear the tread of pioneers
Of nations yet to be,
The first low wash of waves where soon
Shall roll a human sea.
Whittier.
The emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is
mark'd by
Camp-fires long consum'd, and bones that bleaci;
in the sunshine.
Longfellow's Evangelinr
13*
150
EMULATION - ENEMY - ENGAGEMENT ENGLAND.
One look, one last look,
To the cots and the towers,
To the rows of our vines
And the beds of our flowers,
To the church where the bones
Of our fathers decay'd,
Where we fondly had deem'd
That our own would be laid !
Our hearths we abandon; —
Our lands we resign; —
But, Father, we kneel
To no altar but thine.
T. Bahington Macaulay.
Over the Rocky Mountains' height,
Like ocean in its tided might,
The living sea rolls onward, on !
And onward on the stream shall pour,
And reach the far Pacific's shore,
And fill the plains of Oregon.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
The axe rang sharply 'mid those forest shades,
Which from creation toward the sky had tower'd
In unshorn beauty. There, with vigorous arm,
Wrought a bold emigrant, and by his side
His little son, with question and response
Beguil'd the time.
Mrs. Sigourney's Poems.
EMULATION. — (See Ambition.)
ENEMY.
Though all things do to harm him what they can,
No greater en'my to himself than man.
Earl of Sterline.
I love Dinant, mine enemy, nay, admire him ;
His valour claims it from me, and with justice :
He that could fight thus, in a cause not honest ;
His sword edg'd with defence of right and honour,
Would pierce as deep as lightning, with that speed
too,
And kill as deadly.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
'T is, methinks, a strange dearth of enemies,
When we seek foes among ourselves.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Island Princes.
'T is ill to trust a reconciled foe ;
He still in readiness, you do not know
How soon he may assault us.
Webster and Rowley's Thracian Wonder.
Scorn no man's love, though of a mean degree :
liove is a present for a mighty king ;
Much less make any one thine enemy.
Herbert.
iif:t not thy foe still pass without controlling,
Like fame and snow-balls he'll get strength by
-oiling. Aleyn's Crescey. \
The fine and noble way to kill 1 foe,
Is not to kill him : you with kindness may
So change him, that he shall cease to be so;
And then he 's slain. Sigismund us'd to say
His pardons put his foes to death ; for when
He mortify'd their hate, he kill'd them then.
Aleyn's Henry VII
There 's not so much danger
In a known foe, as a suspected friend.
Nabb's Hannibal and Scipio
Enemies, reconcil'd,
Are like wild beasts brought up to hand ; they have
More advantage given them to be cruel.
Killegrew's Conspiracy.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith,
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd
Make enemies of nations, which had else
Like kindred drops been melted into one.
Cowper
I never see a wounded enemy,
Or hear of foe slain on the battle-field,
But I bethink me of his pleasant home,
And how his mother and his sisters watch
For one who never more returns. Poor souls !
I 've often wept to think how they must weep.
Mrs. Hale's Or/nond Groscenor.
ENGAGEMENT. — (See Proposal.)
ENGLAND.
The English nation, like the sea it governs,
Is bold and turbulent and easily mov'd ;
And always beats against the shore that bounds it
Crown's 2d part of Henry VI
Bid us hope for victory :
We have a world within ourselves whose breast
No foreigner hath unrevenged prest
These thousand years. Tho' Rhine and Rhone
can serve,
And envy Thames his never captive streams :
Yet maugre all, if we ourselves are true,
We may despise what all the earth can do.
True Trojans.
England is safe, if true within itself.
'Tis better using France, than trusting France:
Let us be back'd with God and with the seas,
Which he hath given for fence impregnable,
And with their helps only defend ourselves ;
In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
England never did (nor never shall)
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Sfiaks. King John.
ENGLAND.
151
O England ! — model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart, —
What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural !
But see thy fault ! France hath in thee found out
A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
With treacherous crowns.
Shaks. Henry V.
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them ; nought shall make us
rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.
Skaks. King John.
I' the world's volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it ;
In a great pool, a swan's nest.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
Our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choak'd up,
Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars.
Shaks. Richard II.
This scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demy Paradise,
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war ;
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall ;
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands.
Shaks. Richard II.
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world.
Shaks. Richard II.
Britain, the queen of isles, our fair possession
Secur'd by nature, laughs at foreign force ;
Her ships her bulwark, and the sea her dike,
Sees plenty in her lap, and braves the world.
Havard's King Charles I.
Whether this portion of the world were rent,
By the rude ocean, from the continent,
Or thus created ; it was sure design'd
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.
Waller to the Lord Protector.
Island of bliss ! amid the subject seas,
That thunder round thy rocky coast, set up,
At once, the wonder, terror, and delight,
Of distant nations : Whose remotest shores
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm ;
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults
Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea wave.
Thomson's Seasons.
A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land,
Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul,
Who stemm'd the torrent of a downward age
To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again
In all thy native pomp of freedom bold.
Bright at his call, the age of men effulg'd,
Of men on whom late time a kindling eye
Shall turn, and tyrants tremble while they re*d.
Thomson's Seasons.
'T is liberty crowns Britannia's Isle,
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak moun-
tains smile. Addison.
native isle ! fair freedom's happiest seat !
At thought of thee, my bounding pulses beat ;
At thought of thee my heart impatient burns ;
And all my country to my soul returns.
When shall I see those fields, whose plenteous grain
No pow'r can ravish from th' industrious swain ?
When kiss, with pious love, the sacred earth
That gave a Burleigh or a Russell birth ?
When — in the shade of laws that long have stood.
Propt by their care or strengthen'd by their blood, —
Of fearless independence wisely vain,
The proudest slave of Bourbon's race disdain.
Lord Littleton.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
1 see the lords of human kind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashion'd, fresh from nature's hand,
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin'd right, above control ;
While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.
Goldsmith's Traveller
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still,
My country ! and while yet a nook is left
Where English names and manners may be found
Shall be constrain' d to love thee. Though th)
clime
Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost.
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies
And fields without a flower, for warmer Franco
With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage and her myrtle bowers.
Cowper's J ask.
Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art,
With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed
By public exigence, 'till annual food
Fails for the craving hunger of the state.
Thee I account still happy, and the chiet
Among the nations, seeing thou art free !
My native nook of earth.
Cooper's Task.
152
ENJOYMENT.
He had an English look; that is, was squnre
In make, of a complexion white and ruddy,
Good teeth, witli curling, rather dark brown hair,
And it might be from thought, or toil, or study,
An open brow a little mark'd with care.
Byron.
" England with all thy faults I love thee still,"
I said at Calais, and have not forgot it ;
I like to speak and lubricate my fill ;
I like the government (but that is not it) ;
I like the freedom of the press and quill ;
I like the "Habeas Corpus" (when we 've got it) :
I like a parliamentary debate,
Particularly when 't is not too late ;
I line the taxes, when they 're not too many ;
I like a sea-coal fire, when not too dear ;
I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any ;
Have no objection to a pot of beer ;
I like the weather, when it is not rainy,
That is, I like two months of every year.
And so God save the regent, church and king !
Which means that I like all and every thing.
Our standing army, and disbanded seamen,
Poor's rate, reform, my own, the nation's debt,
Our little riots just to show we are freemen,
Our trifling bankruptcies in the gazette,
Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women,
All these I can forgive, and those forget,
And greatly venerate our recent glories,
And wish they were not owing to the tories.
Byron's Beppo.
The free, fair homes of England !
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be rear'd
To guard each hallow'd wall !
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God !
Mrs. Hermans.
England ! my country, great and free !
Heart of the world, I leap to thee !
Bailey's Festvs.
Adieu, oh Fatherland ! I see
Your white cliffs on th' horizon's rim,
And though to freer skies I flee,
My heart swells and my eyes are dim !
As knows the dove the task you give her, .
When loosed upon a foreign shore,
As spreads the rain-drop in the river
In which it may have flow'd before,
To England, ove- vale and mountain,
My fancy flew from climes more fair,
My blood, that knew its purest fountain,
Kan warm and fast in England's air.
Willis's Poems.
It is well worth
A year of wandering, were it but to feel
How much our England does outweigh the world.
Miss London.
I love thee — when I see thee stand
The hope of every other land ;
A sea-mark in the tide of time,
Rearing to heaven thy brow sublime.
J. Montgomery.
Thou glorious island of the sea !
Though wide the wasting flood
That parts our distant land from thee,
We claim thy generous blood ;
Nor o'er thy far horizon springs
One hallow'd star of fame,
But kindles, like an angel's wings
Our western skies in flame !
O. W. Holmes.
ENJOYMENT.
With much we surfeit, plenty makes us poor ;
The wretched Indian scorns the golden ore.
Drayton.
'Tis a bliss above the feign'd Elysium
To clasp a dainty waist ; to kiss a lip
Melts into nectar ; to behold an eye
Shoot am'rous fires, that would warm cold statues
Into life and motion ; play with hair
Brighter than that was stallified.
NabVa Covent Garden.
Go to your banquet then, liu't, use delight,
So as to rise still with an ...ppetice.
Love is a tiling most nic, una must be fed
To such a height; but ne^ei surfeited:
What is beyond the mean is ever ill.
Herrick.
So full of life and soul our joys have been,
We 've almost scatter'd life to all things round us,
A thousand times I 've thought the wanton pictures
Have striven to leap out of their golden frames
That held them captive, and come share with us :
A thousand times methought I 've seen their mouths
Striving to break the painted shadows' bonds
That held 'cm bound in everlasting silence,
And burst into a laughter and a rapture.
Crown's Henry VI. Part I.
We all are children in our strife to seize
Each petty pleasure, as it lures the sight ;
And like the tall tree, swaying in the breeze,
Our lofty wishes stoop their tow'ring flight,
Till, when the prize is won, it seems no more
Than gather'd shell from ocean's countless store
And ever those, who would enjoyment gain,
Must find it in the purpose they pursue.
Mrs. Hale's Foema.
ENNUI- ENTHUSIASM -ENVY. 153
Give me long dreams and visions of content,
Alas ! that youth's fond hopes must fade,
Rather than pleasures in a minute spent :
And Tove be but a name,
And since I know before, the shedding rose
While its rainbows, follow'd e'er so fast,
In that same instant doth her sweetness lose;
Are distant still the same.
Upon the virgin stock still let her dwell,
For me to feast my longings with her smell.
Rufus Dawes
Those are but counterfeits of joy at best,
ENTHUSIASM.
Which languish soon as brought unto the test,
No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,
Nor can I hold it worth his pains, who tries
'Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.
To inn that harvest which by reaping dies.
Cowper's Progress of Error
Dr. King, Bishop of Chichester.
And rash enthusiasm in good society
Were nothing but a moral inebriety.
Byron.
In every secret glance he stole
ENNUI.
Alas ! I have nor hope nor health,
The fond enthusiast sent his soul.
Stolt.
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth
Methinks we must have known some former
The sage in meditation found.
state
Shelley.
More glorious than our present, and the heart
Is haunted with dim memories, shadows left
Social life is fill'd
By past magnificence ; and hence we pine
With doubts and vain aspirings ; solitude,
With vain enthusiastic hopes that fill
When the imagination is dethron'd,
The ey T es with tears for their own vanity.
Is turn'd to weariness and ennui.
Miss London.
Miss London.
I gaze upon the thousand stars
I am tired of looking on what is,
That fill the midnight sky ;
f ne might as well see beauty never more,
And wish, so passionately wish,
As look upon it with an empty eye.
A light like theirs on high.
I would this world were over. I am tired.
I have such eagerness of hope
Bailey's Festus.
To benefit my kind ;
They are mockery all — these skies, these skies,
I feel as if immortal power
Their untroubled depth of blue —
Were given to my mind.
Miss Landor.
They are mockery all — those eyes, those eyes,
Which seem so warm and true ;
Each tranquil star in the one that lies,
ENVY.
Each meteor glance that at random flies
And next to him malicious Envy rode
The other's lashes through !
Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw
They are mockery all, these flowers of spring,
Between his cankered teeth a venemous tode,
Which her airs so softly woo —
That all the poison ran about his jaw ;
And the love to which we would madly cling,
But inwardly he chawed his own maw
Ay, it is mockery too !
At neighbour's wealth that made him ever sad
The winds are false which the perfume stir,
For death it was when any good he saw ;
And the looks deceive to which we sue ;
And wept, that cause of weeping none he had ;
And love but leads to the sepulchre,
And when he heard of harme he waxed wondrous
Which flowers spring to strew.
glad. Spenser's Fairy Queer*
Hoffman.
And if she hapt of any good to heare,
It hath been said, " for all who die,
That had to any happily betid,
There is a tear ;
Then would she inly fret, and grieve, and teaio
Some pining, bleeding heart to sigh,
Her flesh for felnesse, which she inward hid ■
O'er every bier ;"
But if she heard of ill that any did,
But in that hour of pain and dread,
Or harme that any had, then would she make
Who will draw near,
Great cheare, like one unto a banquet bid :
Around my humble couch, and shed
And in another's losse great pleasure take,
One farewell tear ?
As she had got thereby, and gayned a great stake
Mrs. S. A. Lewis.
Spenser's Fairy Quem
154
ENV*.
Her hands were foulc and dirty, never washt
In all her life, with long naylcs ovcrraught.
Like puttock's clawes, with th' one of which she
scratcht
Her cursed head, although it itched naught,
The other held a snake with venom fraught
On which she fed and gnawed hungrily,
As if that long she had not eaten aught ;
That round about her jawes one might descry
The bloudie gore and poyson dropping loathsomely.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
He hated all good works and virtuous deeds ;
And him no less, that any like did use :
And who with gracious bread the hungry feeds,
His alms for want of faith he doth accuse :
So every good to bad he doth abuse :
And eke the verse of famous poets' wit
He does backbite, and spiteful poison spues
From leprous mouth, on all that ever writ :
Such one vile envy was, that first in row did sit.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Envy with a pale and meagre face (whose
Body was lean, that one might tell all
Her bones, and whose garment was so tatter'd
That it was easy to number ev'ry
Thread) stood shooting at stars, whose darts fell
down
Again on her own face.
Lilly's Endymion.
His name was, while he liv'd, above all envy,
And being dead, without it.
Jonson's Sejanus.
For the true condition of envy, is,
Dolor alienee felicitatis ; to have
Our eyes continually fix'd upon another
Man's prosperity, that is, his chief happiness,
And to grieve at that.
Jonson's Every Man out of Ms Humour.
Envy is but the smoke of low estate,
Ascending still against the fortunate.
Lord Brooke's Alaham.
Envy not greatness ; for thou mak'st thereby
Thyself the worse ; and so the distance greater.
Be not thine own worm : yet such jealousy
As hurts not others but makes thee better,
la a good spur.
Herbert.
For envy doth invade
Works orcathing to eternity, and cast
Upun the fairest piece the greatest shade.
Aleyn's Henry VII.
Ueneatu his feet pale envy bites her chain,
Ana snaky discord whets her sting in vain.
Sir John Beaumont.
Envy is proud, nor strikes at what is low,
And they shall only feel, who scorn her blow :
She on no base advantage will insist ;
Nor strive with any, but that can resist.
Gomersall.
Great and good persons well may be
From guilt, but not from envy free.
Baron's Mirza.
Of all antagonists, most charity
I find in envious men : For they do
Sooner hurt themselves, than hurt or me or
Him that raised me up. An envious man is
Made of thoughts : To ruminate much doth melt
The brain, and make the heart grow lean. Such
men
As these, that in opposing waste their proper
Strength ; that sacrifice themselves in silly
Hope to butcher us ; save revenge a labour ;
And die to make experiment of wrath.
Sir W. Davenant's Cruel Brother.
Thy wit, thy valour, and thy delicate form,
Were mighty faults, which the world could not
bear.
No wonder the vile envy of the base
Pursu'd thee, when the noble could not bear thee.
Crown's Henry IV. Part I.
Now I feel
Of what coarse metal you are moulded — envy.
How eagerly you follow my disgraces,
As if it fed ye ; and how sleek and wanton
Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin !
Follow your envious courses, men of malice ;
You have Christian warrant for them ; and, no
doubt,
In time will find their fit rewards.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
My heart laments that virtue cannot live
Out of the teeth of emulation.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Thomson's Seasons.
Yet much is talk'd of bliss ; it is the art
Of such as have the world in their possession,
To give it a good name, that fools may envy ;
For envy to small minds is flattery.
Young's Revenge.
Here stood ill-nature like an ancient maid,
Her wrinkled form in black and white aruay'd;
With store of prayers, for mornings, nights, and
noons,
Her hands are fill'd ; her bosom with lampoons.
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
EQUALITY - ERROR - ETIQUETTE.
155
Enw will merit as its shade pursue ;
But like a shadow, proves the substance true.
Pope.
With that malignant envy, which turns pale,
And sickens, even if a friend prevail,
Which merit and success pursues with hate,
Aad damns the worth it cannot imitate.
Churchill's Rosciad.
Yet even her tyranny had such a grace,
The women pardon'd all except her face.
Byron.
Envy dogs success ;
And every victor's crown is lin'd with thorns,
And worn 'mid scoffs.
Miss Landon.
Cold words that hide the envious thoughts.
Willis.
EQUALITY.
Who can in reason then or right assume
Monarchy over such as live by right
His equals, if in pow'r or splendour less,
In freedom equal ?
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Equal nature fashion' d us
All in one mould. The bear serves not the bear,
Nor the wolf the wolf; 'twas odds of strength in
tyrants,
That pluck'd the first link from the golden chain
With which that thing of things bound in the world.
Why then, since we are taught, by their examples,
To love our liberty, if not command,
Should the strong serve the weak, the fair deform'd
ones ?
Or such as know the cause of things, pay tribute
To ignorant fools ? All 's but the outward gloss,
And politic form, that does distinguish us.
Massinger's Bondman.
Consider man, weigh well thy frame,
The king, the beggar are the same ;
Dust form'd us all. Each breathes his day,
Then sinks into his native clay.
Gay's Fables.
He was my equal at his birth,
A naked, helpless, weeping child ;
— And such are born to thrones on earth :
On such hath every mother smiled.
J. Montgomery.
My equal he will be again
Down in that cold oblivious gloom,
Where all the prostrate ranks of men
Crowd, without fellowship, the tomb.
J. Montgomery.
Well, one may trail her silken robe,
And bind her locks with pearls,
And one may wreathe the woodland rose
Among her floating curls ;
And one may tread the dewy grass,
And one the marble floor,
Nor half-hid bosom heave the less,
Nor broider'd corset more.
O. W. Holmes
Children of wealth or want, to each is given
One spot of green, and all the blue of heaven !
O. W. Holmes.
ERROR.
O hateful error, melancholy's child !
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not ? O error, soon conceived,
Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,
But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee.
Shaks. Julius Cessar.
But as a dog that turns the spit
Bestirs himself, and plies his feet
To climb the wheel, but all in vain,
His own weight brings him down again,
And still he 's in the self-same place,
Where at his setting out he was.
Butler's Hudibr-is
When people once are in the wrong,
Each line they add is much too long ;
Who fastest walks, but walks astray
Is only furthest from his way.
Prior's Alma
By tasting of the fruit forbid
Where they sought knowledge they did error
find,
111 they desir'd to know, and ill they did,
And to give passion eyes made reason blind.
Davies' Immortality of the Soul.
Error is worse than ignorance.
Bailey's Festus
— Error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven "
They fade, they fly — but truth survives the flight
Bryant. — The Ages
Verily, there is nothing so true, that the damps o r
error hath not warp'd it.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy
ETIQUETTE.
There 's nothing in the world like etiquette
In kingly chambers or imperial hai.s.
As also at the race and county balls.
Bi/ron
156
EVENING.
There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle,
Hut etiquette forbade them all to giggle.
Byron.
Harshly falls
The doom upon the ear, — " She 's not genteel !"
And pitiless is woman who doth keep
Of " good society" the golden key !
And gentlemen arc bound, as are the stars,
To stoop not after rising.
Willis's Poems.
EVENING.
The swn,
Declin'd, was hasting now with prone career
To tli' ocean isles, and in th' ascending scale
Of ncaven the stars that usher evening rose.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The weary sun hath made a golden set,
And by the bright track of his fiery car,
Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.
Shaks. Richard III.
See the descending sun,
Scatt'ring his beams about him as he sinks,
And gilding heaven above, and seas beneath,
With paint no mortal pencil can express.
Hopkins's Pyrrhus.
The sun hath lost his rage : his downward orb
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth,
And vital lustre ; that with various ray
Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of
heaven,
Incessant roll'd into romantic shapes,
The dream of waking fancy.
Thomson's Seasons.
Now the soft hour
Of walking comes ; for him who lonely -oves
To seek the distant hills, and there converse
With nature ; there to harmonize his heart,
And in pathetic song to breathe around
The harmony to others.
Thomson's Seasons.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to rne.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all thr air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl docs to the moon complain
Uf such as, wandering near her secre-t bower,
Molesi her ancient solitary reign.
Gray's Church-Yard.
In the western sky the downward sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush
Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.
Thomson's Seasons.
The dews of the evening most carefully shun;
Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.
Lord Chesterfield.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Cowper's Task.
This as I guess should be th' appointed time :
For o'er our heads have pass'd on homeward wing
Dark flights of rooks, and daws, and flocking birds
Wheeling aloft with wild dissonant screams ;
Whilst from each hollow glen and river's bed
Rose the white curling mist, and softly stole
Up the dark wooded banks.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
Now from his crystal urn, with chilling hand,
Vesper has sprinkled all the earth with dew,
A misty veil obscured the neighbouring land,
And shut the fading landscape from their view.
Mrs. Tighe.
The sultry summer day is done,
The western hills have hid the sun,
But mountain peak and village spire
Retain reflection of his fire.
Scotfs Rokeby.
It was an evening bright and still
As ever blush' d on wave or bower,
Smiling from heaven, as if nought ill
Could happen in so sweet an hour.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
Now the noon,
Wearied with sultry toil, declines and falls
Into the mellow eve : — the west puts on «
Her gorgeous beauties — palaces and halls,
And towers, all carv'd of the unstable cloud,
Welcome the calmly waning monarch — he
Sinks gently midst that glorious canopy
Down on his couch of lest — even like a proud
King of the eaith — the ocean.
Bowring.
A paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away,
The last still loveiU/tst, 'till — 'tis gone — and all
is grey. Byron's Childe Harold.
EVIL-EXAMPLE.
153
How dear to me the hour when daylight dies,
And sunbeams melt along the silent sea,
For then sweet dreams of other days arise,
And memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee.
Moore.
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard ;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in ev'ry whisper'd word ;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Byron's Parisina.
Ave Maria ! blessed be the hour !
The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft,
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer.
Soft hour ! which makes the wish and melts the
heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day ;
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay ;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns ?
Ah ! surely nothing dies but something mourns !
Byron.
Come to the sunset tree !
The day is past and gone;
The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done;
The twilight star to heaven,
And the summer dew to flowers,
And rest to us is given
Ey the cool, soft evening hours.
Mrs. Remans.
Sweet is the hour of rest,
Pleasant the wind's low sigh,
And the gleaming of the west,
And the turf whereon we lie.
Mrs. Hemans.
The summer day has clos'd — the sun is set:
Well have they done their office, those bright hours,
The latest of whose train goes softly out
In the red west
Bryant's Poems.
Vhen insect wings are glittering in the beam
Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright,
Oh, let me by the crystal valley-stream
Wander ainid the mild and mellow light ;
And while the red-breast pipes his evening lay,
Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day.
Bryant's Poems.
Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues
That live among the clouds, and flush the air,
Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews.
Bryant's Pcems
The west with second pomp is bright,
Though in the east the dusk is thickening,
Twilight's first star breaks forth in white,
Into night's gold each moment quickening.
Street's Poems
The tender Twilight with a crimson cheek
Leans on the breast of Eve. The wayward wind
Hath folded her fleet pinions, and gone down
To slumber by the darken'd woods.
Isaac M'Lelhn, Jr.
EVIL.
Still we love
The evil we do, until we suffer it
Jonson's Catiline.
If he arm, arm ; if he strew mines of treason,
Meet him with countermines ; it is justice still
For goodness sake t' encounter ill with ill.
Beaumont and Fletcher
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out ;
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers ;
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
Besides they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all ; admonishing,
That we should dress us fairly for our end,
Thus we may gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself.
Shaks. Henry V.
Timely advised, the coming evil shun !
Prior.
Evil is limited. One cannot form
A scheme for universal eviL
Bailey's Festus.
Evil then results from imperfection.
Bailey
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the
people. Longfellow's Evangeline.
EXAMPLE.
No age hath been, since nature first began
To work Jove's wonders, but hath left behind
Some deeds of praise for mirrors unto man,
Which more than threatful laws have men mclin d .
To tread the paths of praise excites the mind :
Mirrors tie thoughts to virtue's due respects ;
Examples hasten deeds to good effects.
Mirror for Magistrate-*
14
158
EXCELLENCE - EXECUTION - EXERCISE - EXILE.
A fault doth never with remorse
Our minds so deeply move,
As when another's guiltless life
Our error doth reprove.
Brandon's Antony to Octavia.
For as the light
Not only serves to show, but render us
Mutually profitable ; so our lives,
In acts exemplary, not only win
Ourselves good names, but do to others give
Matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live.
Chapman.
Heaven me such uses send;
Not to pick bad from bad ; but by bad, mend !
Shaks. Othello.
If men of good lives,
Who, by their virtuous actions, stir up others
To noble and religious imitation,
Receive the greater glory after death,
As sin must needs confess ; what may they feel
In height of torments, and in weight of ven-
geance,
Not only they themselves not doing well,
But set a light up to show men to hell ?
Middlelon.
EXCELLENCE. — (See Merit.)
EXECUTION.
You few that lov'd me,
And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,
His noble friends, and fellows, whom to leave
Is only bitter to him, only dying,
Go with me, like good angels, to my end ;
And as the long divorce of steel falls on me,
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven. — Lead on, o' God's
name ! Shaks. Henry VIII.
'T is now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
Thou must be made immortal.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
See they suffer death ;
But in their deaths remember they are men:
Strain not the laws, to make their tortures grievous.
Addison's Cato.
Slave ! do thine office !
dtriKe as I struck the foe ! Strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants . Strike deep as my
curse!
Strike — and but once'
Byron's Doge of Venice.
EXERCISE.
He does allot for every exercise
A sev'ral hour ; for sloth, the nurse of vices,
And rust of action, is a stranger to him.
Massinger's Duke of Florence.
No body 's healthful without exercise :
Just wars are exercises of a state ;
Virtue 's in motion, and contends to rise
With generous ascents above a mate.
Aleyn's Poictiers.
Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
EXILE.
O unexpected stroke, worse than of death !
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods ? where I had hop'd to spend,
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Some natural tears they dropt, but wip'd them
soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide :
They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
But me, not destin'd such delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care :
Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view ;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies ;
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
Yes, yes ! from out the herd, like a mark'd deer,
They drive the poor distraught The storms of
heaven
Beat on him : gaping hinds stare at his woe ;
And no one stops to bid heav'n speed his way.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
And the bark sets sail;
And he is gone from all he loves for ever !
His wife, his boys, and his disconsolate parents !
Gone in the dead of night — unseen of any —
Without a word, a look of tenderness,
To be call'd up, when, in his lonely hours,
He would indulge in weeping.
Rogers's Italy
EXILE.
15
Unhappy he ! who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off", is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after dayj
Sad on the jutting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below ;
Still fondly forming in the farthest verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim-discover'd, dropping from the clouds;
At evening, to the setting sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless.
Thomson's' Seasons.
Oh! when shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth ?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,
Our hamlets, our mountains,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I
adore ?
Oh ! when shall I dance on the daisy-white mead,
In the shade of an elm, to the sound of the reed ?
Montgomery.
Even now, as, wandering upon Erie's shore,
I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,
I sigh for England — oh ! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet.
Moore.
Ah ! you never yet
Were far away from Venice, never saw
Her beautiful towers in the receding distance,
While every furrow of your vessel's track
Seem'd ploughing deep into your heart ; you never
Saw day go down upon your native spires
So calmly with its gold and crimson glory,
And after dreaming a disturbed vision
Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not.
Byron — The Two Foscari.
The night-breeze freshens — she that day had pass'd
In watching all that Hope proclaim'd a mast ;
Sadly she sate — on high — impatience bore
At last her footsteps to the midnight shore :
And here she wander'd, heedless of the~spray
That dash'd her garments oft, and warn'd away ;
She saw not — felt not this, nor dar'd depart ;
Nor deem'd it cold — her chill was at her heart.
Byron's Corsair.
But no ! it came not ; fast and far away
The shadow lessen'd as it clear'd the bay.
She gaz'd, and flung the sea-foam from her eyes,
To watch as for a rainbow in the skies.
On the horizon verg'd the distant deck,
Diminish'd — dwindled to a very speck —
Then vanish'd.
Byron's Island.
Deserted is my own good hall,
Its hearth is desolate ;
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall,
My dog howls at the gate.
Byron's Childe Harold.
I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour 's gone by,
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or
glad mine eye.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Once more upon the waters ! yet once more !
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead !
Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvass fluttering strew the gale,
Still must I on ; for I am as a weed,
Flung from the rock, on ocean's foam, to sail
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's
breath prevail.
Byron's Childe Harold.
" Farewell, my Spain ! a long farewell !" he cried ■
" Perhaps I may revisit thee no more,
But die, as many an exiled heart hath died,
Of its own thirst to see again thy shore."
Byron's Childe Harold
What exile from himself can flee ?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life — the demon thought.
Byron
Home, kindred, friends, and country — these
Are ties with which we never part ;
From clime to clime, o'er land and seas,
We bear them with us in our heart :
But, oh ! 'tis hard to feel resign'd,
When these must all be left behind !
J. Montgomery.
But doth the exile's heart serenely there
In sunshine dwell ? Ah ! when was exile blest ?
When did bright scenes, clear heavens, or summer
air
Chase from his soul the fever of unrest ?
Mrs. Hemans
An exile, ill in heart and frame, —
A wanderer, weary of the way ; —
A stranger, without love's sweet claim
On any heart, go where I may !
Mrs. Osgood
Beloved country ! banish'd from thy shore,
A stranger in this prison-house of clay,
The exil'd spirit weeps and sighs for thee !
Heavenward the bright perfections I adore direcl
Longfellow's Foei*
IN-
EXPERIENCE - EXPECTATION.
And they who before were strangers,
Meeting- in exile, became straightway as friends
to each other.
Longfellow's Evangeline.
EXPERIENCE.
Experience wounded is the school
Where man learns piercing wisdom, out of smart.
Lord Brook's Mustapha.
I know thy loyal heart, and prudent head ;
Upon whose hairs, time's child, experience, hangs
A milk-white badge of wisdom ; and can'st wield
Thy tongue in senate, and thy hands in field.
True Trojans.
Experience is by industry achiev'd,
And perfected by the swift course of time.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
To wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure,
Must be their schoolmasters.
. Shaks. Lear.
Experience join'd with common sense,
To mortals is a providence.
Green's Spleen.
'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours;
And ask them what report they bore to heaven ;
And how they might have borne more welcome
news.
Their answers form what men experience call ;
If wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst foe.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Much had he read,
Much more had seen : he studied from the life,
And in th' original perus'd mankind.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
O teach him, while your lessons last,
To judge the present by the past ;
Remind him of each wish pursued,
How rich it glow'd with promised good ;
Remind him of each wish enjoy'd,
How soon his hopes possession cloy'd !
Scott's Rokeby.
For most men (till by losing render'd sager)
Will back their own opinions with a wager.
Byron's Beppo.
And these vicissitudes tell best in youth ;
For when they happen at a riper age,
People are apt to blame the fates forsooth,
And wonder Providence is not more sage.
\dvcrsity is the first path to truth:
JJe who hath proved war, storm, or woman's rage,
Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,
IJit'n won the experience which is deem'd so
weighty. Byron.
Her hopes ne'er drew
Aught from experience, that chill touchstone whose
Sad proof reduces all things from their hue.
Byron's Island.
Experience teachethmany things, and all men are
his scholars ;
Yet is he a strange tutor, unteaching that which
he hath taught.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
A thousand volumes in a thousand tongues, enshrine
the lessons of Experience ;
Yet a man shall read them all, and go forth none
the wiser ;
If self-love lendeth him a glass, to colour all he
conneth,
Lest in the features of another he find his own com-
plexion.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
EXPECTATION
Now sits expectation in the air,
And hides a sword, from hilt unto the point,
With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,
Promis'd to Harry and his followers.
Shaks. Henry V.
So tedious is thjs day,
As is the night before some festival «
To an impatient child that hath new robes,
And may not wear them.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises : and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.
Shaks. All's Well
How slow
This old moon wanes : she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,
Long withering out a young man's revenue.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Oh ! how impatience gains upon the soul,
When the long promised hour of joy draws near !
How slow the tardy moments seem to roll !
What spectres rise of inconsistent fear !
To the fond doubting heart its hopes appear
Too brightly fair, too sweet to' realize ;
All seem but day-dreams of delight too dear !
Strange hopes and fears in painful contest rise,
While the scarce-trusted bliss seems but to cheat
the eyes. Mrs. Tighe's Psyche
" Yet doth he live !" exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
Byron's Lara.
EXTRAVAGANCE -EXTREMES -EYES.
161
Ray was the love of paradise he drew
And pictured in his fancy ; he did dwell
Upon it till it had a life ; he threw
A tint of heaven athwart it — who can tell
The yearnings of his heart, the charm, the spell,
That bound him to that vision
Percival.
EXTRAVAGANCE.
'T is not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port,
Than my faint means would grant continuance.
Shaks. Merchant, of Venice.
The man who builds and wants wherewith to pay,
Provides a home from which to run away.
Young's Love of Fame.
Behold, Sir Balaam, now a man of spirit,
Ascribes his gettings to his parts and merit ;
What late he call'd a blessing, now was wit,
And God's good providence a lucky hit.
Things change their titles as their manners turn :
His counting-house employ'd the Sunday morn :
Seldom at church, ('t was such a busy life)
But duly sent his family and wife.
Pope's Moral Essays.
For what has Virro painted, built and planted ?
Only to show how many tastes he wanted.
What brought Sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste ?
Some demon whisper'd, Visto has a taste.
Pope's Moral Essays.
We sacrifice to dress, till household joys
And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean ; puts out our fires,
And introduces hunger, frost and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.
Cowper's Task.
Mansions once
Knew their own masters, and laborious hinds,
That had surviv'd the father, serv'd the son.
Now the legitimate and rightful lord
Is but a transient guest, newly arrived,
And soon to be supplanted. He that saw"
His patrimonial timber cast its leaf,
Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price
To some, shrewd sharper ere it buds again.
Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile,
Then advertised and auctioneer'd away.
Cowper's Task.
Dreading that climax of all human ills,
The inflammation of his weekly bills.
Byron.
In my young days they lent me cash that way,
Which I found very troublesome to pay.
Byron.
L
EXTREMES.
Extremes, though contrary, have the like effects j
Extreme heat mortifies like extreme cold ;
Extreme love breeds satiety, as well
As extreme hatred ; and too violent rigour
Tempts chastity as much as too much licence.
Chapman's All Fooh
Those edges soonest turn, that are most keen,
A sober moderation stands sure,
No violent extremes endure.
Aleyrfs Crescey.
They are as sick, that surfeit with too much,
As they that starve with nothing ; therefore it
Is no mean happiness to be seated
In the mean ; superfluity comes sooner
By white hairs, but competency lives longer
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die ; like fire and powder.
Which, as they meet, consume. The sweetert
Is loathsome in its own deliciousness.
And in the taste confounds the appetite ;
Therefore love moderately, long love doth so •
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
'T is in worldly accidents,
As in the world itself, where things most distant
Meet one another : Thus the east and west,
Upon the globe a mathematical point
Only divides : Thus happiness and misery,
And all extremes, are still contiguous.
Denham's Sophy
Let wealth come in by comely thrift,
And not by any sordid shift ;
'T is haste
Makes waste ;
Extremes have still their fault.
Who gripes too hard the dry and slipp'ry sand,
Holds none at all, or little, in his hand.
Herrick
EYES.
Long while I sought to what I might compare
Those powerful eyes, which lighten my dark spin*
Yet found I nought on earth, to which I dare
Resemble the image of their goodly light.
Not to the sun, for they do shine by night ;
Nor to the moon, for they are changed never ;
Nor to the stars, for they have purer sight:
Nor to the fire, for they consume not ever ,
Nor to the lightning, for they still persever
14*
162
EYES.
No- to the diamond, for they are more tender ;
Nor unto crystal, for nought may them sever ;
Nor unto glass, such baseness might offend her.
Then to the Maker's self they likest be ;
Whose light doth lighten all that here we see.
Spenser.
Iu her two eyes two living lamps did flame,
Kindled above, at the heavenly light,
And darting fiery beams out of the same,
So passing pearceant, and*so wondrous bright,
That quite bereaved the rash beholders of their
sight. Spenser.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive ;
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire ;
They are the books, the arts, the academies,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world,
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent.
Shaks. Love's Labour.
Thou tell'st me, there is murder in mine eye :
'T is pretty, sure, and very probable,
That eyes — that are the frail'st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies —
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers !
Shaks. As You Like It.
Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee :
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it ; lean but upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps : but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not.
Shaks. As You Like It.
Faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
Shakspeare.
These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's
black veil,
Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,
To search the secret treasons of the world.
Shake. Henry VI. Part III.
1 hose eyes, whose light seem'd father given
To be ador'd than to adore —
Such eyes as may have look'd from heaven,
hnl ne'er were rais'd to it before !
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
And then ncr look — Oh, where 's the heart so wise,
Could, unbcwilder'd, meet those matchless eyes?
Quick, restless, strange, but exquisite withal,
Like those of angels.
Moore.
Her aye (I 'm very fond of handsome eyes)
Was .arge and dark, suppressing half its fire
Unul she spoke ; then, through its soft disguise,
riash'd an expression more of pride than ire,
And love ihan either.
Byron.
Her glance, how wildly beautiful.
Soul beam'd forth in every spark
That darted from beneath the lid,
Bright as the jewel of Giamschid.
Byron
Byrcn.
Those eyes,
Soft and capacious as a cloudless sky,
Whose azure depths their colour emulates,
Must needs be conversant with upward looks,
Prayer's voiceless service.
Words worth
Eyes with the same blue witchery as those
Of Psyche, which caught Love in his own wiles.
Translated from the Italian.
Love has a fleeter messenger than speech,
To tell love's meaning. His expresses post
Upon the orbs of vision, ere the tongue
Can shape them into words.
G. Coleman, Jr.
His dark, pensive eye,
Speaks the high soul, the thought sublime
That dwells on immortality.
Charlotte Elizabeth
Look on his eyes, and thou wilt find
A sadness in their beam,
Like the pensive shades that willows cast
On the sky-reflected stream.
Eliza Cook.
— Eyes that droop like summer flowers
Told they could change with shine and showers.
Miss Landon.
Her deep blue eyes smil'd constantly — as if they
had by fitness
Won the secret of a happy dream, she did not care
to speak.
Miss Barrett.
Thy brown eyes have looks like birds,
Flying straightway to the light.
Miss Barrett.
Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open
ever do.
Miss Barrett.
Those eyes, those eyes, how full of heaven they are,
When the calm twilight leaves the heaven most
holy !
jjfell me, sweet eyes, from what divinest star
Did ye drink in your liquid melancholy ?
Tell me, beloved eyes!
Bulwer.
Some praise the eyes they love to see,
As rivalling the western star ; t
But eyes I know well worth to me
A thousand firmaments afar.
John Sterling
FACTION- FAIRIES.
163
Those eyes that were so bright, love,
Have now a dimmer shine ;
But what they 've lost in light, love,
Is what they gave to mine.
And still those orbs reflect, love,
The beams of former hours,
That ripen'd all my joys, love,
And tinted all my flowers.
Hood.
I never saw an eye so bright,
And yet so soft, as hers ;
It sometimes swam in liquid light,
And sometimes swam in tears ;
It seem'd a beauty set apart
For Softness and for sighs.
Mrs. Welby.
Those laughing orbs, that borrow
From azure skies the light they wear,
Are like heaven — no sorrow
Can float o'er hues so fair.
Mrs. Osgood.
The soft blue eye,
That looks as it had open'd first in heaven,
And caught its brightness from the seraphs'
gaze,
As flowers are fairest where the sunbeams falL
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.
A sweet wild girl, with eye of earnest ray,
And olive cheek, at each emotion glowing.
Mrs. Sigourney.
His eye was blue and calm, as is the sky
In the serenest noon.
Willis.
I have sat,
And in the blue depths of her stainless eyes
Have gazed !
Willis.
Those eyes, — among thine elder friends
Perhaps they pass for blue ; —
No matter, — if a man can see,
What more have eyes to do ?
O. W. Holmes.
I look upon the fair blue skies,
And naught but empty air I see ;
But when I turn me to thine eyes,
It seemeth unto me
Ten thousand angels spread their wings
Within those little azure rings.
O. W. Holmes.
The bright black eye, the melting blue,
I cannot choose between the two.
But that is dearest, all the while,
Which wears for us the sweetest smile.
O. W. Holmes.
FACTION..
Some of the great ones first came fairly on
T adore this idol, but the people do
Run headlong in a wild devotion :
As in a jack the greater wheels do go
With soft and sober turnings ; but the less
Are hurried with a whirling giddiness.
Aleyn's Henry VII
So false is faction, and so smooth a liar,
As that it never had a side entire.
Daniel
Seldom is faction's ire in haughty minds
Extinguish' d but by death : it oft, like fire
Suppress'd, breaks forth again, and blazes higher.
May's Henry II
Avoid the politic, the factious fool,
The busy, buzzing, talking, harden'd knave ;
The quaint smooth rogue, that sins against his
reason,
Calls saucy loud sedition public zeal :
And mutiny the dictates of his spirit.
Oiicay
FAIRIES.
In silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade :
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream
Be kind and courteous to this gentleman ;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricots and dewberries ;
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries ;
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And, for night tapers, crop their waxen thighs,
1 And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes ;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes ;
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathoms deep ; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes,
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Shaks. Romeo and JuJin
C64
FAITH.
A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues, that syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
Milton's Comus.
I took it for a fairy vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i' th' plighted clouds.
Milton's Comus.
Beautiful spirit ! with thy hair of light,
And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form
The charms of earth's least mortal daughters grow
To an unearthly stature, in an essence
Of purer elements ; while the hues of youth —
Carnation'd like a sleeping infant's cheek,
Rock'd by the bpating of her mother's heart,
Or the rose tints, which summer's twilight leaves
Upon the lofty glacier's virgin snow,
The blush of earth, embracing with her heaven —
Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame
The beauties of the sunbow which bends o'er thee.
Byron's Manfred.
Oberon, Titania,
Did your star-light mirth,
With the song of Avon,
Quit this work-day earth?
Yet while green leaves glisten
And while bright stars burn,
By that magic memory,
Oh, return, return !
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
Did you ever hear
Of the frolic Fairies, dear ?
They're a little blessed race,
Peeping up in Fancy's face,
In the valley, on the hill,
By the fountain and the rill;
Laughing out between the leaves
That the loving summer weaves.
Mrs. Osgood.
Their harps are of the amber shade,
That hides the blush of waking day,
And ev«ry gleaming string is made
Of silvery moonshine's lengthen'd ray.
Drake's Culprit Fay.
As at the glimpse of morning pale,
The lance-fly spreads his silken sail,
And gleams with blendings soft and bright,
rill lost in shade of fading night ; —
Si) rose from earth the lovely Fay, —
&\ vanish'd far in heaven away !
Drake's Culprit Fay.
The tender violets bent in smiles
To elves that sported nigh,
Tossing the drops of fragrant dew
To scent the evening sky;
They kiss'd the rose in love and mirth,
And its petals fairer grew;
A shower of pearly dust they brought,
And o'er the lily threw.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smitfi's Sinless Child.
FAITH.
True faith and reason are the soul's two eyes ;
Faith evermore looks upward, and descries
Objects remote ; but reason can discover .
Things only near, — sees nothing that's above her;
They are not matches, — often disagree,
And sometimes both are clos'd and neither see.
Faith views the sun, and reason but the shade ;
One courts the mistress, th' other wooes the maid,
That sees the fire, this only but the flint ;
The true-bred Christian always looks asquint.
Quarles
If fore'd from faith, for ever miserable :
For what is misery but want of God,
And God is lost if faith be overthrown.
Soliinan and Perscda.
Tradition ! time's suspected register !
Too oft religion at her trial fails ;
Instead of knowledge, teacheth her to err,
And wears out truth's best stories into tales.
Sir W. Davenant.
If faith with reason never doth advise,
Nor yet tradition leads her, she is then
From heav'n inspir'd ; and secretly grows wise
Above the schools, we know not how, nor when.
Sir W. Davenant.
Faith lights us through the dark to deity ;
Whilst, without sight, we witness that she shows
More God than in his works our eyes can see ;
Though none but by those works the Godhead
knows. Sir W. Davenant.
When the soul grants what reason makes her see,
That is true faith, what's more's credulity.
Sir F. Fane.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
Pope.
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death,
To break the shock blind nature cannot shun,
And lands thought smoothly on the further shore.
Young's Night Thoughts.
And melancholy fear subdued by faith.
Wordsworth.
FALL -FALSEHOOD.
165
Nought shall prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.
Wordsworth.
But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
True faith nor biddeth nor abideth form.
The bended knee, the eye uplift, is all
Which man need render ; all which God can bear.
What to the faith are forms ? A passing speck,
A crow upon the sky.
Bailey's Festus.
Faith is the subtle chain
That binds us to the Infinite : the volte
Of a deep life within, that will remain
Until we crowd it thence.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
Faith loves to lean on time's destroying arm,
And age, like distance, lends a double charm.
O. W. Holmes.
Great faith it needs, according to my view,
To trust in that which never could be true.
Park Benjamin.
FALL.
Some falls are means the happier to rise.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
I 've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness :
And from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening ;
And no man see me more.
Shales. Henry Till.
He, that this morn rose proudly as the sun,
And breaking through a mist of clients' breath,
Came on as gaz'd at, and admir'd as he,
When superstitious Moors salute his light !
That had our servile nobles waiting him
As common grooms ; and hanging on his look,
No less than human life on destiny !
That had men's knees as frequent as the gods ;
And sacrifices more than Rome had altars ;
And thi» man fall ! fall ! ay, without a look,
That durst appear his friend, or lend so much
Of vain relief, to his chang'd state, as pity !
Jonson's Sejanus.
Who bravely fall have this one happiness,
Above the conqueror ; they share his fame,
And have more love, and an unenvy'd name.
Crown' s Darius.
When once a shaking monarchy declines,
Each thing grows bold, and to its fall combines.
Crown's Charles VIII. of France.
FALSEHOOD.
What wit so sharp is found in age or vouth,
That can distinguish truth from treachery?
Falsehood puts on the face of simple truth,
And masks i' th' habit of plain honesty,
When she in heart intends most villany.
Mirror for Magistrates.
Money and man a mutual falsehood show,
Men make false money, — money makes men so.
Aleyn's Henry VII.
Every man in this age has not a soul
Of crystal for all men to read their actions
Through : men's hearts and faces are so far
asunder,
That they hold no intelligence.
Beaumont and Fletcher's False One.
How false are men, both in their heads and hearts ;
And there is falsehood in all trades and arts.
Lawyers deceive their clients by false law;
Priests, by false gods, keep all the world in awe.
For their false tongues such flatt'ring knaves arc
rais'd,
For their false wit, scribblers by fools are prais'd.
Crown's Caligula
Who should be trusted when one's own right hand
Is perjur'd to the bosom ? Protheus.
I am sorry, I must never trust tnee more,
But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
The private wound is deepest
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
But, fare thee well, most foul, most fair ! farewell !
Thou pure impiety, and impious purity 1
For thee I '11 lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.
Shaks. Much Ado.
You told a lie ; an odious, damned he ;
Upon my soul a He ; a wicked lie.
Shaks. Othello
So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abus'd.
Shaks. Hamlet
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
And ne'er a true one !
Shak*
Dishonour waits on perfidy. The villain
Should blush to think a falsehood: 'Tis the crime
Of cowards.
C. Johnson's Sultaness
The seal of truth is on thy gallant form,
For none but cowards lie.
Murjihy's Jlonzn.
108
FAME.
Let falsehood be a stranger to thy lips ;
Shame on the policy that first began
To tamper with the heart to hide its thoughts!
And doubly shame on that inglorious tongue
That sold its honesty and told a lie.
Hazard's Regulus.
/ The man of pure and simple heart
Through life disdains a double part,
He never needs the screen of lies
His inward bosom to disguise.
Gai/s Fables.
Oh ! colder than the wind that freezes
Founts that but now in sunshine play'd,
Is that congealing pang which seizes
The trusting bosom when betray' d.
Moore.
Then fare thee well — I'd rather make
My bower upon some icy lake,
When thawing suns begin to shine,
Than trust to love so false as thine.
Moore.
Out on our beings' falsehood ! studied, cold —
Are we not like that actor of old time,
Who wore his mask so long his features took
Its likeness ?
Miss Landon.
I live among the cold, the false,
And I must seem like them ;
And such I am, for I am false
As those I most condemn.
Miss Landon.
The sting of falsehood loses half its pain
If our own soul bear witness — we are true.
Mrs. Hale.
O Agony ! keen agony,
For trusting heart to find
That vows believed, were vows conceived
As light as summer wind.
Motherwell.
I I scorn this hated scene
Of masking and disguise,
Where men on men still gleam,
With falseness in their eyes ;
Where all is counterfeit,
And truth hath never say;
Where hearts themselves do cheat,
Concealing hope's decay.
Motherwell.
We hear, indeed, but shudder while we hear,
The insidious falsehood, and the heartless jeer :
P«t each dark libel that thou lik'st to shape,
Thou maysi from law, but not from scorn escape ;
The pointed finger, cold averted eye,
luf. cited virtue's hiss — thou canst not fly.
Charles Sprague.
What is man's love ! his vows are broke,
Even while his parting kiss is warm.
Hailed
Ah ! doom'd indeed to worse than death,
To teach those sweet lips hourly guile ;
To breathe through life but falsehood's breath,
And smile with falsehood's smile !
Mrs. Osgood
FAME.
Then straight thro' all the world 'gan fame to fly,
A monster swifter none is under sun ;
Increasing as in waters we descry
The circles»small, of nothing that begun ;
Which at the length, unto such breadth do come,
That of a drop which from the skies do fall,
The circles spread and hide the waters all :
So fame in flight increaseth more and more :
For at the first, she is not scarcely known,
But by and by she fleets from shore to shore,
To clouds from the earth her stature straight is
grown :
There whatsoever by her trump is blown,
The sound that both by sea and land outflies,
Rebounds again and verberates the skies.
Mirror for Magistrates.
The voice of fame should be as loud as thunder ;
Her house is all of echo made,
Where never dies the sound ;
And, as her brows the clouds invade,
Her feet do strike the ground.
Sing then good fame, that 's out of virtue born ;
For who doth fame neglect, doth virtue scorn.
Jonson's Masque of Queens.
The life of fame is action understood ;
That action must be virtuous, great, and good.
Virtue itself by fame is oft protected,
And dies despised, where the fame 's neglected.
Jonson's Clorinda.
Talk not to me of fond renown, the rude,
Inconstant blast of the base multitude :
Their breaths, nor souls can satisfaction make,
For half the joys I part with for their sake.
Crown.
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror ;
For now he lives in fame though not in life.
Shaks. Richard III.
The evil that men do, lives after them ;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Men's evil manners live in brass : their virtues
We write in water.
Shaks. Henry Vlll.
FAME.
167
Adtea, and take thy praise with thee to heav'n !
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death.
Shaks. Love's Labour.
After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep mine honour from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
0, your desert speaks loud ; and I should wrong it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves with characters of brass
A forted residence, 'gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
The fame that a man wins himself is best ;
That he may call his own : honours put on him
Make him no more a man than his clothes do,
Which are as soon ta'en off; for in the warmth
The heat comes from the body not the weeds ;
So man's true fame must strike from his own deeds.
Middleton.
Vain empty words
Of honour, glory, and immortal fame,
Can these recall the spirit from its place,
Or re-inspire the breathless clay with life ?
Whattho' your fame with all its thousand trumpets,
Sound o'er the sepulchres, will that awake
The sleeping dead.
SewelVs Sir Walter Raleigh.
I courted fame but as a spur to brave
And honest deeds ; and who despises fame
Will soon renounce the virtues that deserve it.
MalleVs Mustapha.
Some when they die, die all ; their mould'ring clay
Is but an emblem of their membries ;
The space quite closes up thro' which they pass'd :
That I have liv'd, I leave a mark behind,
Shall pluck the shining age from vulgar time,
And give it whole to late posterity.
Young's Busiris.
In stress of weather, most ; some sink outright ;
O'er them, and o'er their names, the billows close ;
To-morrow knows not they were ever born.
Others a short memorial leave behind,
Like a flag floating, when the bark's ingulph'd;
It floats a moment and is seen no more :
One Caesar lives ; a thousand are forgot.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Knows he, that mankind praise against their will,
And mix as much detraction as they can ?
Knows he, that faithless fame her whisper has,
As well as trumpet ? That his vanity
Is so much tickled from not hearing all ?
Young's Night Thoughts
With fame, in just proportion, envy grows ;
The man that makes a character, makes foes.
Young's Epistle to Pope
Fame is a public mistress, none enjoys,
But, more or less, his rival's peace destroys.
Young's Epistle to Pope.
Of boasting more than of a bomb afraid,
A soldier should be modest as a maid :
Fame is a bubble the reserv'd enjoy ;
Who strive to grasp it, as they touch destroy :
'T is the world's debt to deeds of high degree ;
But if you pay yourself, the world is free.
Young's Love of Fami
What so foolish as the chase of fame ?
How vain the prize ! how impotent our aim !
For what are men who grasp at praise sublime,
But bubbles on the rapid stream of time,
That rise and fall, that swell, and are no more,
Born and forgot, ten thousand in an hour.
Young's Love of Famt
A prattling gossip, on whose tongue .
Proof of perpetual motion hung,
Whose lungs in strength all lungs surpass,
Like her own trumpet made of brass ;
Who with a hundred pair of eyes,
The vain attacks of sleep defies;
Who with a hundred pair of wingS
News from the farthest quarters brings ;
Sees, hears, and tells, untold before,
All that she knows, — and ten times more.
Churchill
Absurd ! to think to overreach the grave,
And from the wreck of names to rescue ours :
The best concerted schemes men lay for fame
Die fast away : only themselves die faster.
The far-fam'd sculptor, and the laurel'd bard,
Those bold insurers of eternal fame,
Supply their little feeble aids in vain.
Blair's Grave
Sepulchral columns wrestle, but in vain,
With all-subduing time ; her cankering hand
With calm deliberate malice wasteth them :
Worn on the edge of days, the brass consume*.
The busto moulders, and the deep-cut marble,
Urn 'eady to the steel, gives up its charge.
Ambition, half-convicted of her folly,
Hangs down the head and reddens at the tai6
Buiir' tr raw
168
FAME.
For fame the wretch beneath the gallows lies,
Disowning e?ery crime for which he dies,
Of life profuse, tenacious of a name,
Fearless of death, and yet afraid of shame.
Nature has wove into the human mind
This anxious care of names we leave behind,
T' extend our narrow views beyond the tomb,
And give an earnest of a life to come ;
For if, when dead, we are but dust or clay,
Why think of what posterity will say ?
Her praise or censure cannot us concern,
Nor ever penetrate the silent urn.
Soame Jennyns.
What 's fame ? a fancied life in others' breath,
A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.
Just what you hear, you have ; and what 's
unknown,
The same, my lor^, if Tully's, or your own.
All that we feel of it begins and ends
In the small circle of our foes or friends ;
To all beside as much an empty shade,
As Eugene living, as a Caesar dead.
Pope's Essay on Man.
All fame is foreign, but of true desert ;
Plays round the head, but comes not near the
heart ;
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas ;
And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels,
Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.
Pope's Essay on Man.
And what is fame? the meanest have their day;
The greatest can but blaze, and pass away.
Pope.
Ah me ! full sorely is my heart forlorn
To think how modest worth neglected lies,
While partial fame doth with her blasts adorn
Such deeds alone, as pride and pomp disguise,
Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprise.
Shenstone's Schoolmistress.
Will fortune, fame, my present ills relieve ?
Ajid what is fame, that flutt'ring noisy sound,
But the cold lie of universal vogue ?
Thousands of men fall in the field of honour,
Whose glorious deeds die in inglorious silence,
Whilst vaunting cowards, favour'd by blind fortune,
Reap all the fruit of their successful toils,
And build their fame upon their noble ruins.
H. Smith's Princess of Parma.
"Stern sons of war !" sad Wilfred sigh'd,
" Behold the boast of Roman pride !
What now of all your toils are known ?
rt. grassy trench, a broken stone !"
Scott's Robeky.
He left the name, at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human WisJus.
Men's actions to futurity appear,
But as th' events to which they are conjoin'd
To give them consequence. A fallen state,
In age and weakness fall'n, no hero hath ;
For none remains behind unto whose pride
The cherish'd rnem'ry of his acts pertains.
Joanna Baillie's Constanline Paleologus
Who, that surveys this span of earth we press,
This speck of life in time's great wilderness,
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future, two eternities !
Would sully the bright spot or leave it bare,
When he might build him a proud temple there,
A name, that long shall hallow all its space,
And be each purer soul's high resting-place !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Fame is the thirst of youth, — but I am not
So young as to regard men's frown or smile,
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot ;
I stood and stand alone, — remember'd or forgot.
Byron's Childe Harold.
But there are deeds which should not pass away t
And names that must not wither, though the earth
Forgets her empires with a just decay,
The enslavers and the en*laved, their death and
birth ;
The high, the mountain majesty of worth
Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe,
And from its immortality look forth
In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,
Irnperishably pure beyond all things below.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Thy fanes, thy temples to the surface bow,
Commingling slowly with heroic earth,
Broke by the share of every rustic plough :
So perish monuments of mortal birth,
So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth.
Byron's Childe Harold.
What is the end of fame ? 't is but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper ;
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour ;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their " midnight
taper,"
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.
Byron.
And glory long has made the sages smile;
'Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind —
Depending more upon the historian's style
Than on the name a person leaves behind
Byron.
FANCY.
\m
'Tis as a snow-ball which derives assistance
From every flake, and yet rolls on the same,
Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow ;
But after all 't is nothing but cold snow.
Byron.
Gaze
Upon the shade of those distinguish'd men,
Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise —
The praise of persecution. Gaze again
On the most favour'd; and amidst the blaze
Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-brow'd,
What can ye recognise ? a gilded cloud.
Byron.
What of them is left, to tell
Where they lie, and how they fell ?
Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves ;
But they live in the verse immortality saves.
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
The very generations of the dead
Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb,
Until the memory of an age is fled,
And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom.
Byron,
Yet I love glory ; — glory 's a great thing ;
Think what it is to be in your old age
Maintain'd at the expense of your good king:
A moderate pension shakes full many a sage,
And heroes are but made for bards to sing,
Which is still better ; thus in verse to wage
Your wars eternally, besides enjoying
Half-pay for life, make mankind worth destroying.
Byron.
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar day,
Thy scales, mortality ! are just
To all that pass away.
Byron's Ode to Napoleon.
Yet vanity herself had better taught
A surer path even to the fame he sought,
By pointing out on history's fruitless page
Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage,
While Franklin's quiet mem'ry climbs to Heaven,
Calming the lightning which he thence had riven.
Or drawing from the no less kindled earth
Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth ;
While Washington 's a watchword, such as ne'er
Shall sink while there 's an echo left to air.
Byron.
Thou hast a charmed cup, O Fame
A draught that mantles high,
And seems to lift this earthly frame
Above mortality.
Away ! to me — a woman — bring
Sweet waters from affection's spring !
Mrs. He/nan's Poems.
Fame ! Fame ! thou canst not be the stay
Unto tlic drooping reed,
The cool fresh fountain in the day
Of the soul's feverish need :
Where must the lone one turn or flee ?
Not unto thee, oh ! not to thee !
Mrs. Hemans
Of all the phantoms fleeting in the mist
Of Time, though meagre all and ghostly thin,
Most unsubstantial, unessential shade
Was earthly Fame.
Pollock's Course of Time.
I am a woman : — tell me not of fame,
The eagle's wing may sweep the stormy path,
And fling back arrows where the dove would die.
Miss London's Poem%.
Nor let thy noble spirit grieve,
Its life of glorious fame to leave ; —
A life of honour and of worth
Has no eternity on earth.
Longfellow 's Poems
The world may scorn me, if they choose — I care
But little for their scoffings. I may sink
For moments ; but I rise again, nor shrink
From doing what the faithful heart inspires.
I will not flatter, fawn, nor crouch, nor wink,
At what high-mounted wealth or power desires :
I have a loftier aim, to which my soul aspires.
Percival
We tell thy doom without a sigh,
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's —
One of the few immortal names
That were not born to die.
HallecWs Bozzaris
FANCY.
Tell me, where is fancy bred;
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished ?
It is engendered in the eyes,
With gazing fed : and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies.
Shaks. Merchant of Vance
All impediments in fancy's course
Are motives of more fancy.
Shaks. AIVs Kelt
Ever let the fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home ;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thoughts still spread beyond her
Oh, sweet Fancy ! let her loose,
Every tiling is spoilt by use.
RenV Paema
15
170
FAREWELL -FARMER- FATHER.
So fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can,
Ye reas'ners broad awake, whose busy search
Of argument, employ'd too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away.
C (neper's Yardley Oak.
Pleasant at noon, beside the vocal brook,
To lie one down and watch the floating clouds,
And shape to Fancy's wild imaginings,
Their ever-varying forms.
South ey.
Woe to the youth whom Fancy gains,
Winning from reason's hand the reins.
Scott's Rokeby.
Fancy is a fairy, that can hear,
Ever, the melody of nature's voice,
And see all lovely visions that she will.
Mrs. Osgood.
A dream of thee, aroused by fancy's power,
Shall be the first to wander slowly by ;
And they, who never saw thy lovely face,
Shall pause to conjure up a vision of thy grace.
Mrs. Norton.
FAREWELL.
So fare thee well, — and may th' indulgent gods
* * * grant thee every wish
Thy soul can form ! Once more farewell !
Sophocles.
And farewell goes out sighing.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
Farewell ; thou canst not teach me to forget.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Farewell ! I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Fare thee well ! yet think awhile
On one whose bosom bleeds to doubt thee ;
Who now would rather trust thy smile,
And die with thee, than live without thee.
Mo re.
Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh;
Oh ! more than tears of blood can tell,
When wrung from guilt's expiring eye,
Are in the word, farewell — farewell!
Byron.
Farewell ! there 's but one pang in death,
One only, — leaving thee!
Mrs. Hemans.
Farewell' the early dews that fall
Upon thy grass-grown-bed,
Are like tne thoughts that now recall
Thine image of the dead.
A. blessing hallows thy dark cell—
1 will not sray to weep. — Farewell.
Miss Landon.
I ever trembled in my bliss ;
Now there arc farewells in a kiss.
Ebenezer Elliott.
And now farewell ! farewell ! I dare not lengthen
These sweet sad moments out ; to gaze on thee
Is bliss indeed, yet it but serves to strengthen
The love that now amounts to agony ;
This is our last farewell.
Mrs. Welby.
I heard thy low-whisper'd farewell, love,
And silently saw thee depart ; —
Ay, silent; — for how could words tell, love,
The sorrow that swell'd in my heart?
They could not — Oh ! language is faint,
When passion's devotion would speak;
Light pleasure or pain it may paint,
But with feelings like ours it is weak !
Yet. tearless and mute though I stood, love,
Thy last words are thrilling me yet,
And my heart would have breathed, if it could,
love,
And murmur'd, "Oh! do not forget!"
Mrs. Osgood.
Farewell — thou hast trampled love's faith in the
dust,
Thou hast torn from my bosom its hope and its
trust ;
Yet, if thy life's current with bliss it would swell,
I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell !
Hoffman.
And, like some low and mournful spell,
To whisper but one word — farewell !
Park Benjamin.
FARMER.— (See Labour.) .
FATHER.
To you your father should be as a god ;
One that compos'd your beauties ; yea, and one,
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Leon. — Are you so fond of your young prince as we
Do seem to be of ours?
Dol. If at home, sir,
He 's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter :
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy :
My parasite, niy soldier, statesman, all :
He makes a July's day short as December ;
And, with his varying childness, cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.
Shaks. Winter's Tale
I
FASHION-FATE.
171
But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd,
And mine that I was proud on ; mine so much,
That I myself was to myself not mine,
Valuing of her.
Shaks. Much Ado.
The child is father of the man.
Wordsworth.
If there be a human tear
From passion's dross refin'd and clear,
'T is that by loving father shed
Upon a duteous daughter's head.
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
And we '11 do all that father likes ;
His wishes are .so few,
Would they were more ! that every hour
Some wish of his I knew !
I 'm sure it makes a happy day,
When I can please him any way.
Mary Howitt.
My father's praise I did not miss,
What time he stooped down to kiss
The poet at his knee.
Miss Barrett.
FASHION.
Fashion, a word which knaves and fools may use,
Their knavery and folly to excuse.
Churchill's Rosciad.
The town, as usual, met him in full cry ;
The town, as usual, knew no reason why:
But fashion so directs, and moderns raise
On fashion's mould'ring base their transient praise.
Churchill.
• Fashion, leader of a chatt'ring train,
Whom man for his own hurt permits to reign,
Who shifts and changes all things but his shape,
And would degrade her vot'ry to an ape,
The fruitful parent of abuse and wrong,
Holds a usurp'd dominion o'er his tongue,
There sits and prompts him with his own disgrace,
Prescribes the theme, the tone, and the grimace,
And when accomplish'd in her wayward school,
Calls gentleman whom she has made a fool.
Cowper's Conversation.
In tne great world — which being interpreted
Meaneth the west or worst end of a city,
And about twice two thousand people bred
By no means to be very wise or witty,
But to sit up while others lie in bed,
And look down on the universe with pity, —
Juan, as an inveterate patrician,
Was well received by persons of condition.
Byron.
The company is " mixed" (The phrase I quote is
As much as saying, they 're below your notice.
Byron.
Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion,
Round the wealthy bride ;
But when compar'd with real passion
Poor is all that pride, —
What are their showy treasures ?
What are their noisy pleasures ?
The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art —
The polish'd jewels blaze
May draw the wond'ring gaze,
But never, never can come near the worthy heart
Burns
Oh ! wreathe the ribbon lightly round,
And tie it 'neath your chin ;
And do not let its folds be bound
By needle or by pin !
It is unworthy, lady dear,
Your dignity of mind,
To take such trouble with your gear.
Mrs. Osgood
Fashion's smiles, that rich ones claim,
Are beams of a wintry day ;
How cold and dim those beams would be
Should life's poor wanderer come !
Mrs. Hale
FATE.
What fates impose, that men must needs abide ;
It boots not to resist both wind and tide.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
Success, the mark no mortal wit,
Or surest hand, can always hit ;
For whatsoe'er we perpetrate,
We do but row ; we 're steer'd by fate,
Which in success oft disinherits,
For spurious causes, noblest merits.
Butler's Hudibras.
On what strange grounds we build our hopes anci
fears !
Man's life is all a mist, and in the dark
Our fortunes meet us.
If fate be not, then what can we foresee 7
And how can we avoid it if it be ?
If by free will in our own paths we move,
How are we bounded by decrees above ?
Whether we drive, or whether we are driven,
If ill, 'tis ours; if good, the act of heav'n.
Dryatu
Alas, what stay is there in human state,
Or who can shun inevitable fate ?
The doom was written, the decree was past,
Ere the foundations of the world were cast
pry den.
172
FAVOUR -FEAR.
The gods are just ;
But how can finite measure infinite ?
Whatever is, is in its causes just,
Since all things are by fate, but poor blind man
Sees but a part o' th' chain, the nearest link,
His eyes not carrying to that equal beam
That poises all above.
Dryden.
It was my fate,
That did not fashion me for nobler uses ;
For if those stars, cross to me in my birth,
Had not denied their prosperous influence to it,
I might have ceased to be, and not as now
To curse my being.
Massinger.
Man, tho' limited
By fate, may vainly think his actions free,
While all he does, was, at his hour of birth,
Or by his gods, or potent stars, ordain'd.
Rowe's Royal Convert.
While warmer souls command, nay, make their
fate.
Thy fate made thee, and forc'd thee to be great.
Moore.
But Fate whirls on the bark,
And the rough gale sweeps from the rising tide
The lazy calm of thought.
Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer.
FAVOUR.
O momentary grace of mortal man,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God,
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks,
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast ;
Ready, with every nod, to tumble down
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
Shaks. Richard III.
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have ;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
'T is the curse of service ;
Preferment goes by letter, and affection,
Not by the old gradation, where each second
Srood heir to the first.
Shaks. Othello.
"'he may help you to many fair preferments ;
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high descent.
Shaks. Richard III.
'T is ever thus when favours are denied :
All had been granted but the thing we beg,
And still some great unlikely substitute,
Your life, your souls, your all of earthly good,
Is proffer'd in the room of one small boon.
Joanna Baillie's Basil
No trifle is so small as what obtains,
Save that which loses favour ; 't is a breath
Which hangs upon a smile ! a look, a word,
A frown, the air-built tower of fortune shakes,
And down the unsubstantial fabric falls.
Hannah More 1 8 Daniel
FEAR.
Next him was fear, all arm'd from top to toe,
Yet thought himself not safe enough thereby,
But fear'd each shadow moving to or fro,
And his own arms when glittering he did spy,
Or clashing heard, he fast away did fly ;
As ashes pale of hue, and winged heel'd,
And evermore on danger fixt his eye,
'Gainst whom he always bent a brazen shield,
Which his right hand unarmed fearfully did wield.
Spense^s Fairy Queen.
His hand did quake
And tremble like a leaf of aspen green,
And troubled blood through his pale face was seen,
As it a running messenger had been.
Spenser's Fairy Queen
Still as he fled his eye was backward cast,
As if his fear still followed him behind,
Als flew his steed as he his bands had brast,
And with his winged heels did tread the wind
As he had been a foal of Pegasus his kind.
Spenser's Fairy 'Queen.
You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owe,
When now I think you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine are blanch'd with fear.
Shaks. Macheth
I have almost forgot the taste of fears :
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek ; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir
As life were in't: I have supp'd full of horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
Shaks. Macbeth.
O, these flaws and starts
(Impostors to true fear) would well become
A woman's story, at a winter's fire,
Authoriz'd by her grandam.
Shaks. Macbeth
FEAR.
17a
Whence is that knocking !
How is 't with me, when every noise appals me ?
Shaks. Macbeth.
Accursed be the tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man !
Shaks. Macbeth.
His horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Why 1 what should be the fear ?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee ;
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a tiling immortal.
Shaks. Hamlet.
But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul ; freeze thy young blood ;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their
spheres ;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,
For I am sick and capable of fears ;
Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears ;
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears ;
A woman, naturally born to fears ;
And though thou now confess, thou did'stbut jest,
With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,
But they will quake and tremble all this day.
Shaks. King John.
I have seen them,
Like boding owls, creep into tods of ivy,
And hoot their fears to one another nightly.
Beaumont's Bondman.
Men as resolute appear
With too much, as too little fear;
And, when they're out of hopes of flying,
Will run away from death by dying ;
Or turn again to stand it out,
And those they fled, like lions, rout.
Butler's Hudibras.
I feel my sinews slacken'd with the fright,
And a cold sweat thrills down all o'er my limbs,
As if I were dissolving into water.
Dry den's Tempest.
My blood ran back,
My shaking knees against each other knock'd I
On the cold pavement down I fell entranc'd,
And so unfinish'd left the horrid scene !
Dryden's All for Love.
The clouds dispell'd, the sky resum'd her light,
And nature stood recover'd of her fright.
But fear, the last of ills, remain'd behind,
And horror heavy sat on every mind.
Dryden's Theodore and Honoria
When the sun sets, shadows that show'd at noon
But small, appear most long and terrible :
So when we think fate hovers o'er our heads,
Our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds;
Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death ;
Nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons.
Echoes, the very leaving of a voice,
Grow babbling ghosts, and call us to our graves.
Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus ,
While we, fantastic dreamers, heave and puff,
And sweat with an imagination's weight.
Lee's (Edipus
Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full,
Weak and unmanly, loosens every power.
Thomson's Seasons
The wretch that fears to drown, will break through
flames ;
Or, in his dread of flames, will plunge in waves
When eagles are in view, the screaming doves
"Will cower beneath the feet of man for safety.
Cibber's Ccesar in Egypt
In each low wind methinks a spirit calls,
And more than echoes talk along the walls.
Pope's Eloisa.
Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance,
To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiver-
ing lance.
Gray's Bard
Fear on guilt attends, and deeds of darkness ;
The virtuous breast ne'er knows it.
Havard's Scanderbeg
The weakness we lament, ourselves create.
Instructed from our infant years to court,
With counterfeited fears, the aid of man,
We learn to shudder at the rustling breeze,
Start at the light, and tremble in the dark,
Till affectation, rip'ning to belief
And folly, frighted at our own chimeras,
Habitual cowardice usurps the soul.
Johnson's Ireiu.
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bevvilder'd laid,
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.
Collins' s Passion*
Must I consume my life — this little life-
In guarding against all may make it less /
It is not worth so much ! It were to die
Before my hour, to live in dread of death.
Byron's Sardanapatu*
174
FEASTING.
The dread of evil is the worst of ill ;
A. tyrant yet a rebel, dragging down
The clear-eyed judgment from its spiritual throne,
And leagu'd with all the base and blacker thoughts,
To overwhelm the soul.
Proctor's Mirandola.
'Tis well — my soul shakes off its load of care;
'Tis only the obscure is terrible.
Imagination frames events unknown,
In wild fantastic shapes of hideous ruin ;
And what it fears creates !
Hannah More's Belshazzar.
What are fears but voices airy ?
Whispering harm where harm is not ;
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!
Wordsworth.
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turn'd round walks on,
And turns no more his head ;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.
And what art thou ? I know, but dare not speak !
Shelley.
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness.
Keats.
The workings of the soul ye fear ;
Ye fear the power that goodness hath ;
Ye fear the unseen One ever near,
Walking his ocean path.
Dana's Buccaneer.
Hast thou learn'd to doubt professions, and distrust
The word of promise ? — if not so, the world has
been more just
To thee than me.
Miss Bogart.
The night came on alone,
The little stars sat one by one
Ecich on his golden throne ;
The evening air pass'd by my cheek,
The leaves above were stirr'd,
Uut the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
R. M. Milnes.
FEASTING.
Then all was jollity,
i'easting and mirth, light wantonness and laugh-
ter,
Piping and playing, minstrelsies and masking,
'Till life fled from us like an idle dream ;
A. Htiow of mummery without a meaning.
Rowe's Jane Shore.
Not all on books their criticism waste :
The genius of a dish some justly taste,
And eat their way to fame.
Young's Love of Fame.
Their various cares in one great point combine
The business of their lives, that is — to dine.
Young's Love of Fame.
Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks,
He takes his chirping pint, and cracks, his jokes :
" Live like yourself," was soon my lady's word ;
And lo ! two puddings smok'd upon the board.
Pope's Moral Essays.
Mingles with the friendly bowl
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Pope.
Was ever such a happy swain !
He stuff's and swills, and stuffs again.
"I'm quite asham'd — 'tis mighty rude
" To eat so much — but all 's so good !
"I have a thousand thanks to give —
" My lord alone knows how to live."
Pope.
The banquet waits our presence, festal joy
Laughs in the mantling goblet, and the night,
Illumin'd by the taper's dazzling beam,
Rivals departed day.
Brown's Barbarossa.
Wi' sauce ragouts, an' sic like trashtrie,
That's little short o' downright wastrie.
f Burns's Twa Dogs.
The turnpike road to people's hearts I find
Lies through their mouths, or I mistake mankind.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar^
Behold ! his breakfasts shine with reputation !
His dinners are the wonder of the nation !
With these he treats both commoners and quality,
Who praise, where'er they go, his hospitality.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Dire was the clang of plates, of knife and fork,
That mere'less fell like tomahawks to work.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Ven'son 's a Cresar in the fiercest fray ;
Turtle ! an Alexander in its way ;
And then in quarrels of a slighter nature,
Mutton 's a most successful mediator !
So much superior is the stomach's smart
To all the vaunted horrors of the heart;
E'en love, who often triumphs in his grief,
Hath ceas'd to feed on sighs, to pant on beef!
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
I own that nothing like good cheer succeeds —
A man's a god whose hogshead freely bleeds ;
Champaigne can consecrate the damnedst evil ;
A hungry parasite adores a devil.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar
FEATURES - FEELING - FESTIVITY- FICKLENa&S - FIDELITY.
Heap on more wood ! the wind is chill ;
But let it whistle as it will,
We '11 keep our Christmas merry still.
Scott's Marmion,
Fill the bright goblet, spread the festive board ;
Summon the gay, the noble and the fair !
Through the loud hall in joyous concert pour'd,
Let mirth and music sound the dirge of care !
But ask thou not if happiness be there,
If the loud laugh disguise convulsive throe,
Or if the brow the heart's true living wear ;
Lift not the festal mask ! — enough to know,
No scene of mortal life but teems with mortal woe.
Scott's Lord of the Isles.
But 'twas a public feast, and public day —
Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,
Great plenty, much formality, small cheer,
And every body out of their own sphere.
Byron.
When dinner has opprest one,
I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour
Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four.
Byron.
Of all appeals — although
I grant the power of pathos, and of gold,
Of beauty, flattery, threats, a shilling — no
Method 's more sure at moments to take hold
Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow
More tender, as we every day behold,
Than that all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul — the dinner-bell.
Byron.
Fill full ; why this is as it should be : here
Is my true realm, amidst bright eyes and faces
Happy as fair ! here sorrow cannot reach.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
Time to dine
I always give in poetry, well knowing
That to jump over it in half a line,
Looks (let us be sincere, dear muse !) like showing
Contempt we do not feel for meat and wine.
Dinner ! ye gods ! What is there more respectable !
For eating who, save Byron, ever check'd a belle.
Willis.
— A good rule at parties, (to keep up a
Mercurial air,) is to come in at supper.
Willis.
FEATURES. — (See Eyes.)
FEELING. — (See Sensibility.)
FESTIVITY. — (See Inebriety.)
FICKLENESS.— (See Inconstancy.)
FIDELITY.
He that can endure
To follow with allegiance a faller. lord,
Doth conquer him that did his master conquer,
And earns a place i' the story.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra
I'll yet follow
The wounded chance of Antony, tho' my reason
Sits in the wind against me.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra
Mine honesty and I begin to square.
The loyalty, well held to fools, does make
Our faith mere folly.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
But now 't is odds beyond arithmetic ;
And manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands
Against a falling fabric.
Shaks. Coriolanu*.
Thou shalt not see me blush,
Nor change my countenance for this arrest;
A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.
The purest spring is not so free from mud,
As I am clear from treason to my sovereign.
Shaks. Henry VI. Pari II.
I have this day receiv'd a traitor's judgment,
And by that name must die ; yet, heaven bear
witness,
And if I have a conscience, let it sink me,
Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful !
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Though all the world should crack their duty to
you,
And throw it from their soul ; though perils did
Abound, as thick as thought could make them, and
Appear in forms more horrid ; yet my duty
As doth a rock against a chiding flood,
Should the approach of the wild river break,
And stand unshaken yours.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Have I with all my full affections
Still met the king ? lov'd him next heaven ? obey'.
him?
Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him ?
Almost forgot my prayers to content him ?
And am I thus rewarded ? 't is not well, my lorcn.
Bring me a constant woman to her husband,
One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure
And to that woman, when she has done most,
Yet will I add an honour — a great patience.
Shaks. Henry VI 1 1
And so thrive Richard, as thy foes mav ftU !
And as my duty springs, so perish they
That grudge one thought against your majesty
Shaks. Henry VI. Part J
FIDELITY.
If, in the course
And process of this time, you can report,
And prove it too, against mine honour aught,
My bond to wedlock, or my love and duty, or
Against your sacred person, in God's name,
Turn me away ; and let the foul'st contempt
Shut door upon me, and so give me up
To the sharpest kind of justice.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Nor is there living
(I speak it with a single heart, my lords)
A man that more detests, more stirs against,
Both in his private conscience, and his place,
Defacers of a public peace, than I do ;
Pray heaven the king may never find a heart
With less allegiance in it.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
My vows and prayers
Yet are the king's ; and till my soul forsake me,
Shall cry for blessings on him : may he live
Longer than I have time to tell his years !
Ever belov'd and loving, may his rule be !
And when old time shall lead him to his end,
Goodness and he fill up one monument.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
They for their truth, might better wear their
heads,
Than some, that have accus'd them, wear their
hats. Shaks. Richard III.
Heaven witness
I have been to you a true and humble wife,
At all times to your will conformable :
Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,
Yea subject to your countenance ; glad, or sorry,
As I saw it inclin'd.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Here I kneel : —
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,
Either in discourse, or thought, or actual deed ;
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense
Delighted them in any other form ;
Or that I do not vet, and ever did, .
And ever will — though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement — love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me!
Shaks. Othello.
1 durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
Lay down my soul at stake : if you think other,
Remove your thought ; it doth abuse your bosom.
If any wretch hath put this in your head,
Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse :
For, if she be uol nonest, chaste, and true,
Tnere '& tio man happy : the purest of their wives
Js foid ae slander.
Shaks. Othello.
The credit that thy lady hath of thee
Deserves thy trust ; and thy most perfect goodness
Her assur'd confidence.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
Unkindness may do much ;
And his unkindnees may defeat my life,
But never taint my love.
Shaks, OlJudlo
A loss of her,
That, like a jewel, has hung twenty years
About his neck, yet never lost her lustre ;
Of her, that loves him with that excellence
That angels love good men with ; even of her
That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,
Will bless the king.
Shaks. Henry VIIa
If this austere unsociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood ;
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love ;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge me. '
Shaks. Love's Labour.
Here is my hand for my true constancy ;
And when that hour o'erslips me in the day,
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me, for my love's forgetfulness !
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona*
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles ;
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate ;
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart :
His heart as far from fraud, as heaven and earth.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona
O heaven ! were man
But constant, he were perfect : that one error
Fills him with faults.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands ;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Chain me with roaring bears ;
Or shut mc nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With rocky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls ;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide mc with a dead man in his shroud ;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me
tremble ;
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.
Sttaks. Romeo and Juliet
FIDELITY.
177
False to his bed ! What is it to be false ?
To lie in watch there, and to think on him ?
To weep 'twist clock and clock ? if sleep charge
nature,
To break it with a fearful dream of him,
And cry myself awake? that's false to his bed,
Is it?
Shaks. Cymbeline.
Faithful found
Among the faithless, faithful only he ;
Among innumerable false, unmov'd,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified ;
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Well hast thou fought
The better fight, who single hast maintain'd
Against revolted multitudes the cause
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms ;
And for the testimony of truth hast borne
Universal reproach, far worse to bear
Than violence.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Confirm'd then I resolve,
Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe :
So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
I could endure, without him live no life.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
With thee
Certain my resolution is to die ;
How can I live without thee, how forego
Thy sweet converse and love so dearly join'd,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn ?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart ; no, no, I feel
The link of nature draw me : flesh of my flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Trust repos'd in noble natures,
Obliges them the more.
Dryden's Assignation.
r- Oh ! the tender ties,
Close twisted with the fibres of the heart !
Which broken, break them, and drain off the soul
Of human joy, and make it pain to live.
Young.
Is there, kind heaven ! no constancy in man ?
No steadfast truth, no generous fix'd affection,
That can bear up against a selfish world ?
No, there is none.
Thomym's Tancred and Sigismunda.
M
She is as constant as the stars
That never vary, and more chaste than they.
Proctor's Miranaola.
In the day of woe, she ever rose
Upon the mind with added majesty,
As the dark mountain more sublimely tow'rs
Mantled in clouds and storms.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
Clotilda. — Hath time no power upon thy hopeless
love?
Imogine. — Yea, time hath power, and what a
power I '11 tell thee,
A power to change the pulses of the heart
To one dull throb of ceaseless agony,
To hush the sigh on the resigned lip
And lock it in the heart, — freeze the hot tear,
And bid it on the eye-lid hang for ever —
Such power hath time o'er me.
Maturin's Bertram,
They said her cheek of youth was beautiful
Till withering sorrow blanch'd the bright rose
there ;
But grief did lay his icy finger on it,
And chill'd it to a cold and joyless statue
Methought she caroll'd blithely in her youtn,
As the couch'd nestling trills his vesper lay ;
But song and smile, beauty and melody,
And youth and happiness are gone from her,
Perchance — even as she is — he would not scorn
her,
If he could know her — for, for him she 's chang'd ,
She is much alter'd — but her heart — her heart!
Maturin's Bertram
If thou could'st speak,
Dumb witness of the secret soul of Imogine,
Thou might'st acquit the faith of womankind —
Since thou wast on my midnight pillow laid,
Friend hath forsaken friend, the brotherly tie
Been lightly loos'd — The parted coldly met —
Yea, mothers have with desperate hands wrought
harm
To little lives from their own bosoms lent
But woman still hath lov'd — if that indeed
Woman e'er lov'd like me.
Maturin's Bertram.
Mark me, Clotilda,
And mark me well ; I am no desperate wretch,
Who borrows an excuse from shameful passion
To make its shame more vile —
I am a wretched, but a spotless wife.
Maturin's Bcnraii
Full many a miserable year hath past —
She knows him as one dead, or worse than dead .
And many a change her varied life hath knowa.
But her heart none.
Maturin's Bcrtrarn.
178
FIDELITY
His sovereign's frown came next —
'J'hcn bow'd the banners on his crested walls,
Torn by the enemies' hand from their proud
height ;
Where twice two hundred years they mock'd the
storm.
The stranger's step profan'd his desolate halls,
An exil'd, outcast, houseless, nameless object,
He fled for life, and scarce by flight did save it
No hoary beadsman bid his parting step
God speed — no faithful vassal follow'd him ;
For fear had wither'd every heart but hers,
Who amid shame and ruin lov'd him better.
Maturings Bertram.
Ah ! then as nature's tenderest impulse wrought,
With fond solicitude of love she sought
To soothe his limbs upon their grassy bed,
And make the pillow easy to his head ;
She wiped his reeking temples with her hair,
She shook the leaves to stir the sleeping air,
Moisten'd his lips with kisses ; with her breath,
Vainly essay'd to quell the fire of death,
That ran and revell'd through his swollen veins
With quicker pulses, and severer pains.
Montgomery's World before the Flood.
Thought ye your iron hands of pride
Could break the knot that love had tied ?
No : — let the eagle change his plume,
The leaf its hue, the flow'r its bloom ;
But ties around this heart were spun,
That could not, would not, be undone !
Campbell.
Oh ! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same
Thro' joy, and thro' torments,thro' glory and shame?
Moore.
Oh ! if there be an elysium on earth,
It is this —
When two that are link'd in one heavenly tie,
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.
Moore.
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and melt in my
arms, \
Like fairy-gifts, fading away !
Thou would'st still be ador'd, as this moment thou
art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And, around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still !
It is not, while beauty and youth are thine own,
Arid thy checks unprofan'd by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
Vo wh/ch 'ime will but make thee more dear !
Oh ! the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sun-flower turns to her god when he sets,
The same look which she turn'd when he rose.
Moore.
Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer !
Tho' the herd hath fled from thee, thy home is still
here ;
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,
And the heart and the hand all thy own to the last ?
Moore.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never could'st shake,
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.
Byrcn.
Then let the fool, still prone to range
And sneer on all who cannot change,
Partake his jest with boasting boys,
I envy not his varied joys,
But deem such feeble, heartless man,
Less than yon solitary swan ;
Far, far beneath the shallow maid
He left believing, and betray'd.
Byron's Giaour
That 's false ! a truer, nobler, trustier heart,
More loving, or more loyal, never beat
Within a human breast. I would not change
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,
Oppress'd but not disgrae'd, crush'd, overwhehn'd,
Alive, or dead, for prince or paladin
In story or in fable, with a world
To back his suit. Dishonour'd ! — he dishonour'd
I tell thee, doge, 't is Venice is dishonour'd.
Byron's Two Foscari.
Where is honour,
Innate and precept-strengthen'd, 't is the rock
Of faith connubial: where it is not — where
Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities
Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart,
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know
'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream
Of honesty in such infected blood,
Although 't were wed to him it covets most.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
Vice cannot fix, and virtue cannot change,
The once fall'n woman must for ever fall ;
For vice must have variety, while virtue
Stands like the sun, and all which rolls around
Drinks life, and light, and glory from her aspect
Byron's Doge of Venice
FIGHTING- FIRMNESS - FISHING - FLAG.
I7f)
To soothe thy sickness, watch thy health,
Partake, but never waste, thy wealth,
Or stand with smiles unmurmuring by,
And lighten half thy poverty ;
Do all but close thy dying eye,
For that I could not live to try.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Yet well my toils shall that fond breast repay,
Though fortune frown, or falser friends betray.
How dear the dream in darkest hours of ill,
Should all be changed, to find thee faithful still.
Be but thy soul, like Selim's, firmly shown ;
To thee be Selim's tender as thy own ;
To soothe each sorrow, share in each delight,
Blend every thought, do all — but disunite.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Adah. — Alas! thou sinnest now, my Cain; thy
words
Sound impious in mine ears.
Cain. — Then leave me !
Adah. — Nevtr,
Though thy God left thee !
Byron's Cain.
Pure as the snow the summer sun
Xever at noon hath look'd upon —
Deep, as is the diamond wave,
Hidden in the desert cave —
Changeless, as the greenest leaves
Of the wreath the cypress weaves —
Hopeless, often, when most fond —
Without hope or fear beyond
Its own pale fidelity —
And this woman's love can be.
Miss London.
For me — I have no lingering wish to rove;
For though I worship all things fair and free,
Of outward grace, of soul nobility,
Happier than thou, I find them all in one,
And I would worship at thy shrine alone.
Miss Lynch,
Yes ! — still I love thee : — Time, who sets
His signet on my brow,
And dims my sunken eye, forgets,
The heart he could not bow; —
Where love, that cannot perish, grows
For one, alas ! that little knows
How love may sometimes last;
Like sunshine wasting in the skies
When clouds are overcast.
Rvfus Dawes.
Within her heart was his image,
Cloth'd in the beauty of love and youth, as last
she beheld him,
Only more beautiful made by his death-like silence
and absence.
Longfellow's Evangeline.
My heart too firmly trusted, fondly gave
Itself to all its tenderness a slave ;
I had no wish but thee, and only thee ;
I knew no happiness but only while
Thy love-lit eyes were kindly turn'd on me.
PercivaVs Pocmi
FIGHTING. — (See War.)
FIRMNESS. — (See Determination )
FISHING.— (See Angling.)
FLAG. ,
Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl'd
Th' imperial ensign, which full high advanc'd
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.
Milton's Paradise Lost
A mighty power, my England,
Is in that name of thine,
To strike the fire from every heart
Along the banner' d line ;
And proudly hath it floated
Through the battles of the sea,
When the red-cross flag o'er smoke-wreaths play'd
Like the lightning in its glee !
Mrs. Hemans.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn,
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Campbell
When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurl'd her standard to the air.
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set her stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light ;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She call'd her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.
Drake
Tho' many and bright are the stars that appea-
In the flag by our country unfurl'd ;
And the stripes that are swelling in majesty thwu,
Like rain-bows adorning the world ;
Their light is unsullied, as those in the sky,
By a deed that our fathers have done.
And they 're leagued in as true and as holy a tie
In that motto of — " Many in one."
G. W. Cutte*
180
FLATTERY. FLATTERER.
Bright flag at yonder tapering mast,
Fling out your field of azure blue ;
Let star and stripe be westward cast,
And point as Freedom's eagle flew !
Strain home ! O lithe and quivering spars !
Point home my country's flag of stars !
Willis.
FLATTERY. FLATTERER.
That subtle serpent, servile flattery,
Seldom infects the meaner man, that fears
No change of state, through fortune's treachery ;
She spits her poison at the mightiest peers,
Agd with her charms enchants the prince's ears :
In sweetest wood the worm doth soonest breed,
The caterpillar on best buds doth feed.
Mirror for Magistrates.
If sly dissimulation credit win
With any prince that sits on highest throne,
With honey'd poison of sour sugar'd sin,
It causeth him turn tyrant to his own,
And to his state works swift confusion ;
Above his cedar's top it high doth shoot,
And canker-like devours it to the root.
Mirror for Magistrates.
Of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant ;
And of all tame — a flatterer.
Jonsoris Sejanus.
T is the fate of princes, that no knowledge
Comes pure to them, but, passing through the eyes
And ears of other men, it takes a tincture
From every channel ; and still bears a relish
Of flattery or private ends.
Denham's Sophy.
Self-love never yet could look on truth,
But with blear'd beams ; slick flattery and she
Are twin-born sisters, and so mix their eyes,
And if you sever one, the other dies.
Ben Jonson.
thou world, great nurse of flattery,
Why dost thou tip men's tongues with golden
words,
And poise their deeds with weight of heavy lead,
That fair performance cannot follow promise ?
U that a man might hold the heart's close book
And choke the lavish tongue, when it doth utter
The breath of falsehood, not character'd there.
Anon. Edward III.
\V hy what a deal of candied courtesy,
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me !
1 ook. — when his infant fortune came to age,
And — gentle Harry Percy, and, kind cousin,
The devil take such cozeners! — God forgive me!
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
O, that men's cars should be
To counsel deaf, but not to flattery !
Shakspeart,
Who dares
In purity of manhood stand upright,
And say, this man's a flatterer? if one be,
So are they all ; for every grize of fortune
Is smooth'd by that below : the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool : all is oblique ;
There 's nothing level in our cursed natures,
But direct villainy.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Why these looks of care ?
Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft ;
Hug their diseas'd perfumes, and have forgot
That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods,
By putting on the cunning of a carper.
Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
By that which has undone thee : hinge thy knee,
And let his very breath, whom thou 'It observe,
Blow off" thy cap ; praise his most vicious strain,
And call it excellent.
Sfiaks. Timon of Athens.
He loves to hear,
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers :
But, when I tell him, he hates flatterers,
He says, he does ; being then most flatter'd.
Sfiaks. Julius Caesar.
Be not fond,
To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood,
That will be thaw'd from the true quality
With that which melteth fools; 1 mean, sweet
words,
Low-crook'd curt'sies, and base spaniel fawning.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Nay, do not think I flatter :
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,
To feed, and clothe thee ? why should the poor be
flatter'd 7
No, let the candy'd tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning.
Shaks. Hamlet.
You play the spaniel,
And think with wagging of your tongue to win
me. Shaks. Henry VIII.
You are far too prodigal in praise,
And crown me with the garlands of your merit;
As we meet barks on rivers — the strong gale
Being best friend to us — our swift motion
Makes us believe that t'other nimbler rows;
Swift virtue thinks small goodness fastest goes
Davenport's City Night-Cap.
FLATTERY. FLATTERER.
1S1
Give me flatt'ry;
Flatt'ry, the food of courts ! that I may rock him,
And lull him in down of his desires.
Beaumont's Rolla.
The firmest purpose of a woman's heart
To well-tim'd, artful flattery may yield.
Lino's Elmerick.
Parent of wicked, bane of honest deeds,
Pernicious flattery ! thy malignant seeds,
In an ill hour, and by a fatal hand,
Sadly diffus'd o'er virtue's gleby land,
With rising pride amidst the corn appear,
And choke the hopes and harvest of the year.
Prior's Solomon.
No flattery, boy ! an honest man can 't live by 't :
It is a little sneaking art, which knaves
Use to cajole and soften fools withal.
If thou hast flatt'ry in thy nature, out with 't ;
Or send it to a court, for there 'twill thrive.
Otway's Orphan.
Let me be grateful ; but let far from m*
Be fawning cringe, and false dissembling look,
And servile flattery, that harbours oft
In courts and gilded roofs.
Philips's Cider.
O flatt'ry !
How soon thy smooth insinuating oil
Supples the toughest fool !
Fenton's Mariamne.
Beware of flattery, 't is a weed
Which oft offends the very idol — vice,
Whose shrine it would perfume.
Fenton.
His fiery temper brooks not opposition,
And must be met with soft and supple arts,
With crouching courtesy, and honey'd words,
Such as assuage the fierce, and bend the strong.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey.
Minds,
By nature great, are conscious of their greatness,
And hold it mean to borrow aught from flattery.
Rowe's Royal Convert.
Of folly, vice, disease, men proud we see,
And (stranger still !) of blockhead's flattery,
Whose praise defames ; as if a fool should mean,
By spitting on your face, to make it clean.
Young's Love of Fame.
'T is an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery 's the food of fools,
Yet now and then you men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
Swift's Cadenus and Vanessa.
Sirs, adulation is a fatal thing —
Rank poison for a subject, or a king.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
There are, who to my person pay their court ;
I cough like Horace, and, though lean, am short
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high,
Such Ovid's nose, and, sir ! you have an eye !
Go on, obliging creature, make me see,
All that disgrac'd my betters, met in me;
Say, for my comfort, languishing in bed,
Just so immortal Maro held his head ;
And when I die, be sure you let me know,
Great Homer died three thousand years ago.
Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
For praise too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought ;
And the weak soul within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
Goldsmith's Retaliation.
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,
When they judg'd without skill he was still hard
of hearing ;
When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios and
stuff,
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.
Goldsmith's Retaliation.
Flatt'ry but ill becomes a soldier's mouth ;
Leave we the practice of those meaner arts
To smooth-tongued statesmen, and betraying cour-
tiers. Marsh's Amasis.
Hold, Pharnaces !
No adulation ; 't is the death of virtue !
Who flatters is of all mankind the lowest,
Save he who courts the flatterer.
Hannah More's Daniel
I pass through flattery's gilded sieve
Whatever I would say.
Miss Landon.
Alas ! the praise given to the ear
Ne'er was nor ne'er can be sincere.
I would give worlds, could I believe
One half that is profess'd me ;
Affection ! could I think it Thee,
When Flattery has caress'd me.
Oh ! it is worse than mockery
To list the flatterer's tone,
To lend a ready ear to thoughts
The cheek must blush to own —
To hear the red lip whisper'd of,
And the flowing curl and eye
16
Miss Landon
Miss Lando
182
FLOWERS - FLOOD - FOOL.
Made constant themes of eulogy,
Extravagant and high, —
And the charm of person worshipped,
In a homage offered not
To the perfect charm of virtue,
And the majesty of thought.
Whittier.
FLOWERS.
O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last
At ev'n, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names,
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount ?
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Oh ! what tender thoughts beneath
Those silent flowers are lying,
Hid within the mystic wreath
My love hath kiss'd in tying.
A violet by a mossy stone,
Half-hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
Moore.
Wordsworth.
'T was a lovely thought to mark the hours
As they floated in light away,
By the opening and the folding flowers
That laugh to the summer's day :
Oh ! let us live, so that flower by flower,
Shutting in turn, may leave
A lingerer still for the sunset hour,
A charm for the shaded eve.
Mrs. Hemans.
Bring flowers to crown the cup and lute, —
Bring flowers — the bride is near ;
Bring flowers to soothe the captive's cell,
Bring flowers to strew the bier !
Miss London.
There is to me
A daintiness about these early flowers,
That touches me like poetry. Thev blow out
With such a simple loveliness among
The common herbs of pasture, and they breathe
Their lives so unobstrusivcly, like hearts
tVJiose beatings arc too gentle for the world.
Willis's Poems.
S
Heav'n has to all allotted, soon or late,
Some lucky revolution of their fate :
Whose motions if we watch and guide with skill,
(For human good depends on human will)
Our fortune rolls as from a- smooth descent,
And from the first impression takes its bent ;
But if unseiz'd, she glides away like wind,
And leaves repenting foil}' far behind ;
Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize,
And spreads her locks before her as she flies.
~Dryden.
All human projects are so faintly fram'd,
So feebly plann'd, so liable to change,
So mix'd with error in their very form,
That mutable and mortal are the same.
Hannah More's Daniel.
Alas ! the joys that fortune brings
Are trifling, and decay;
And those who prize the paltry things,
More, trifling still than they.
Goldsmith,
Who thinks that fortune cannot change her mind,
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind.
And who stands safest? tell me, is it he
That spreads and swells in pufFd prosperity ?
Or blest with little, whose preventing care
In peace provides fit arms against a war.
'Pope.
In losing fortune, many a lucky elf
Has found himself, —
As all our moral bitters are design'd
To brace the mind,
And renovate its healthy tone, the wise
Their sorest trials hail as blessings in disguise.
Horace Smith.
To catch dame fortune's golden smile,
Assiduous wait upon her ;
And gather gear by every wile
That 's justified by honour.
Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train attendant ;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.
Burns.
Fortunes are made, if I the facts may state, —
Though poor myself, I know the fortunate :
First, there 's a knowledge of the way from
whence
Good fortune comes — and this is sterling sense :
Then perseverance, never to decline
The chase of riches till the prey is thine ;
And firmness never to be drawn away
By any passion from that noble prey —
By love, ambition, study, travel, fame,
Or the vain hope that fives upon a name.
Cralbe.
O ! ye, who bask in Fortune's sun,
And Hope's bright garlands wear, —
Your blessings from the God of love
Let his poor children share 1
Mrs. Huh
FORTUNE-TELLERS.
A hungry, lean-fae'd villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller ;
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man ; this pernicious slave,
Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer ;
And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,
Cries out, I was possess'd.
Shaks. Comedy of Errm
Pray thee, maiden, hear him not !
Take thou warning by my lot,
Read my scroll, an' 1 mark thou all
I can tell thee of thy thrall.
Miss Linaoiu
1S8
FRANCE - FREEDOM.
Uuoth Hudibras, the stars determine
You are my prisoners, base vermin !
Could they not tell you so, as well
As what I came to know foretel?
By this what cheats you are we find,
That in your own concerns are blind.
Butler's Hudibras.
Lady, throw back thy raven hair,
Lay thy white brow in the moonlight bare,
I will look on the stars and look on thee,
And read the page of thy destiny.
Miss Landon.
FRANCE.
The French are passing courtly, ripe of wit ;
Kind but extreme dissemblers. You shall have
A Frenchman ducking lower than your knee,
At the instant mocking ev'n your very shoe-ties.
Ford.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleab'd with thyself, whom all the world can please.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
Studious to please, and ready to submit ;
The supple Gaul was born a parasite.
Dr. Johnson's London.
The sun rises bright in France,
And fair sets he.
Allan Cunningham.
but let Freedom rejoice,
With her heart in her voice;
But, her hand on her sword,
Doubly shall she be adored ;
France hath twice too well been taught
The "moral lesson" dearly bought —
Her safety sits not on a throne,
With Capet or Napoleon !
But in equal rights and laws,
Hearts and hands in one great cause —
Freedom such as God hath given
Fnto all beneath his Heaven.
Byron.
Farewell to thee, France ! when thy diadem crown'd
me
i made thee the gem and the wonder of earth, —
Bat thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found
thee,
Di'oay'd in thy glory and sunk in thy worth.
Furewell to thee,. France ! but when Liberty rallies
Unce more in thy regions, remember me then —
T'ie violet still grows in the depths of thy valleys,
Though wither'd, thy tears will unfold it again.
Byron.
Why this is France ?
Nature is here like a living romance,
Look at its vines, and streams, and skies,
Its glowing feet and dreamy eyes !
Bailey's FestuM.
I heard, as in a glorious dream,
A clarion thrill the startled air,
And saw an answering people stream
Through every noisy thoroughfare.
These were the old, whose hairs were few,
Or white with memory of the days
Of Egypt, Moscow, Waterloo, —
And now they sang the " Marseillaise !"
The Bourbon's throne was trampled down,
And France no longer knelt ; but now,
Struck with a patriot's hand the crown
From off the Orleans' dotard brow ; —
Releas'd from slavery and tears
She^rose and sang fair Freedom's praise,
Till far along the future years
I heard the swelling " Marseillaise !"
T. BucJuinan Read.
A great voice wakes a foreign land,
And a mighty murmur sweeps the sea,
While nations dumb with wonder stand,
To note what it may be ; —
The word rolls on like a hurricane's breath —
" Down with the tyrant — come life or death —
France, France is free-"
T. Buchanan Read.
FREEDOM.
Liberty ! Freedom ! tyranny is dead !
— Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.
Shaks. Julius Cctsar.
And what
Made thee, all-honour'd, honest Roman Brutus,
With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous Free-
dom,
To drench the Capitol ; but that they would
Have one man but a man?
Sliaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
Oh give, great God, to Freedom's waves to ride
Sublime o'er Conquest, Avarice, and Pride,
To sweep where Pleasure decks her guilty
bowers,
And dark Oppression builds her thick-ribb'd
towers.
And grant that every sceptred child of clay,
Who cries presumptuous, "llerc their tides shall
stay,"
Swept in their anger from th' affrighted shore,
With all his creatures sink — to rise no more !
t Wordsworth — Descriptive Sketches.
FREE-WILL.
IS'j
— Slaves who once conceive the glowing thought
01 freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for ; — spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts,
The surest presage of the good they seek.
Wordsworth.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage ;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an heritage ;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
Lovelace — To Althea, from prison.
What art thou, Freedom ? Oh ! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand, tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery !
Thou art Justice — ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold,
As laws are in England : thou
Shieldest alike high and low.
Thou art Peace — never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be,
As tyrants wasted them when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul i
Thou art Love : the rich have kist
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Given their substance to be free,
And through the world have follow'd thee.
Shelley.
Is 't death Ao fall for Freedom's right ?
He 's dead alone who lacks her light !
Campbell.
Better to dwell in Freedom's hall,
With a cold damp floor and mouldering wall,
Than bow the head and bend the knee
In the proudest palace of slaverie.
Moore.
For Freedom's battle oft begun,
Bequeath'd from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Byron's Giaour.
In the long vista of the years to roll,
Let me not see my country's honour fade ;
Oh ! let me see our land retain its soul !
Her pride in Freedom, and not Freedom's shade.
Keats.
Sun of the moral world ! effulgent source
Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force,
Soul-searching Freedom ! here assume thy stand,
And radiate hence to every distant land.
Joel Barlow.
Stranger, new flowers in our vales are seen,
With a dazzling eye, and a lovely green. —
They scent the breath of the dewy morn :
They feed no worm, and they hide no thorn,
But revel and glow in our balmy air ;
They are flowers which Freedom hath planted
there.
Mrs. Sigoumey.
Oh ! not yet
May'st thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by
Thy sword, nor yet, O Freedom ! close thy lids
In slumber ; for thine enemy never sleeps.
And thou must watch and combat, till the day
Of the new Earth and Heaven.
Bryant's Poems.
Freedom's soil hath only place
For a free and fearless race !
Whiitiefs Poems.
When Freedom, on her natal day,
Within her war-rock'd cradle lay,
An iron race around her stood,
Baptiz'd her infant brow in blood,
And, through the storm that round her swei.t,
Their constant ward and watching kept.
Whittier's Poems
Go ring the bells and fire the guns,
And fling the starry banner out ;
Shout " Freedom" till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle shout.
Whittier's Poems,
Oh, joy to the world ! the hour is come,
When the nations to freedom awake,
When the royalists stand agape and dumb,
And monarchs with terror shake !
Over the walls of majesty
" Upharsin" is writ in words of fire,
And the eyes of the bondsman, wherever they be
Are lit with wild desire.
Soon shall the thrones that blot the world,
Like the Orleans, into the dust be hurl'd,
And the word roll on like a hurricane's breath,
Till the farthest slave hears what it saith —
Arise, arise, be free '.
T. Buchanan Read.
FREE WILL.
Ingrate, he had of me
All he could have: I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th' ethereal powers
And spirits, both them who stood, and them wnu
fail'd ;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who feD
Milton's Paradise Lost
J 90
FRIENDSHIP.
They therefore as to right bclong'd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
A.s if predestination over-rul'd
Their will, dispos'd by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge ; they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I ; if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their faults,
Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
God made thee perfect, not immutable,
And good he made thee, but to persevere
He left it in thy pow'r ; ordain'd thy will
By nature free, not over-rul'd by fate
Inextricable, or strict necessity.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Our voluntary service he requires,
Not our necessitated ; such with him
Finds no acceptance, nor can find ; for how
Can hearts, not free, be try'd whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny, and can no other choose ?
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Each had his conscience, each his reason, will,
And understanding for himself to search,
To choose, reject, believe, consider, act;
And God proclaim'd from heaven, and by an oath
Confirm'd, that each should answer for himself;
And as his own peculiar work should be
Done by his proper self, should live or die.
Pollock's Course of Time.
Free-will is but necessity in play,
The clattering of the golden reins that guide
The thunder- footed coursers of the sun.
Bailey's Festus.
He only hath free-will whose will is fate.
Bailey.
FRIENDSHIP.
A golden treasure is the tried friend ;
But who may gold from counterfeits defend?
Trust not too soon, nor yet too soon mistrust:
With th' one thyself, with th' other thy friend thou
hurt'st,
Who twines betwixt, and steers the golden mean,
ft or rashly loveth, nor mistrusts in vain.
Mirror for Magistrates.
For all things, friendship excepted,
Are subject to fortune : love is but an
Eye-worm which only tickleth the head with
Hopes and wishes : friendship 's the image of
Eternity, in which there is nothing
Moveable - nothmg mischievous; as much
Difference as there is between beauty
And virtue, bodies and shadows, colours
And life, so great odds is there between love
And friendship.
Lilly's Endymion.
When adversities flow,
Then love ebbs : but friendship standeth stiffly
In storms. Time draweth wrinkles in a fair
Face, but addeth fresh colours to a fast
Friend, which neither heat, nor cold, nor mis'ry,
Nor place, nor destiny, can alter or
Diminish. O friendship ! of all things the
Most rare, and therefore most rare, because mos'
Excellent ; whose comforts in misery
Are always sweet, and whose counsels in
Prosperity are ever fortunate.
Vain love ! that only coming near to friendship
In name, would seem to be the same, or better,
In nature.
Lilly's Endymion.
Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love :
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues ;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent : for beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith meltelh into blood.
Shahs. Much Ado.
I have not from your eyes that gentleness,
And show of love, as I was wont to have :
You bear too stubborn, and too strange a hand,
Over your friend that loves you.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
I did sen4
To you for gold to pay my legions,
Which you deny'd me : Was that done like Cas-
sius?
Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so ?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunder-bolts,
Dash him to pieces !
Shahs. Julius Ccesar.
Brutus hath riv'd my heart :
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Give him all kindness : I had rather have
Such men my friends, than enemies.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think'st him wrong'd, and mak'st his
A stranger to thy thoughts.
Shaks. Othello.
FRIENDSHIP.
101
I count myself in nothing else so happy,
As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends ;
And, as my fortune ripens with my Jove,
It shall be still thy true love's recompense.
Shaks. Richard II.
Dost thou hear ?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,
She hath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing ;
A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks.
Shaks. Hamlet.
So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you :
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, to express his love and friending to you,
God wilhng, shall not lack.
Shaks. Hamlet.
'■;
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them by the soul with hooks of steel.
Shaks. Hamlet.
In companions
That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
There needs must be a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best condition'd and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies ; and one in whom
The ancient Roman honour more appears,
Than any that draws breath in Italy.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
That we have been familiar,
Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather
Than pity note how much. — Therefore, be gone.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
By heav'n I cannot flatter : I defy
The tongues of soothers ; but a braver place
In my heart's love, hath no man than yourself;
Nay, task me to my word ; approve me, lord.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
As we do turn our backs
From our companion, thrown into his grave :
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away : leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd ; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,
With his disease ofall-shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,
The sister's vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us — O, and is all forgot?
All school-day's friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key ;
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet a union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem :
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Drears.
And will you rend our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend ?
It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly :
Our sex as well as I may chide you for it ;
Though I alone do feel the injury.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
We still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together ;
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled, and inseparable.
Shaks. As you like it
I will take your friendship up at use,
And fear not that your profit shall be small ;
Your interest shall exceed your principal.
Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy
True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice : nor would I have
Virtue a popular regard pursue :
Let them be good that love me, though but few.
Jonson's Cynthia's Revels.
Turn him, and see his threads : look, if he be
Friend to himself, that would be friend to thee :
For that is first requir'd, a man be his own ; '
But he that 's too much that, is friend to none.
Jonson's Underwood.
Friendship is the cement of two minds,
As of one man the soul and body is ;
Of which one cannot sever but the other
Suffers a needful separation.
Chapman's Revenge
Friendship 's an abstract of love's noble flame,
'T is love refin'd, and purg'd from all its dross
The next to angel's love, if not the same,
As strong in passion is, though not so gross •
It antedates a glad eternity,
And is a heaven in epitome.
. Catherine Philip*
192
FRIENDSHIP.
Lay this into your breast :
Old friends, like old swords, still arc trusted best
Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
O summer friendship,
Whose nattering leaves, that shadow'd us in
Our prosperity, with the least gust drop off
In th' autumn of adversity !
Massinger's Maid of Honour.
That friendship's rais'd on sand,
Which every sudden gust of discontent,
Or flowing of our passions, can change
As if it ne'er had been.
Massinger.
Essential honour must be in a friend,
Not such as every breath fans to and fro ; ,
But born within, is its own judge and end,
And dares not sin, though sure that none should
know.
Where friendship 's spoke, honesty 's understood ;
For none can be a friend that is not good.
Catherine Philips.
A friend is gold, if true, he '11 never leave thee :
Yet both, without a touchstone, may deceive thee.
Randolph.
A season'd friend ! not tainted with design ;
Who made those words grow useless — mine and
thine. Cartwright.
I do here entertain a friendship with thee,
Shall drown the memory of all patterns past ;
We will oblige by turns and that so thick
And fast, that curious studiers of it \
Shall not once dare to cast it up, or say,
By way of guess, whether thou or I
Remain debtors when we come to die.
Suckling's Aglaura.
Friendship's an empty name, made to deceive
Those whose good nature tempts them to believe ;
There's no such thing on earth, the best that we
Can hope for here is faint neutrality.
Tuke's Adventures.
fie ought not to pretend to friendship's name,
Who reckons not himself and friend the same.
Tuke's Adventures.
Friendship above all ties does bind the heart ;
And faith in friendship is the noblest part.
Earl of Orrery's Henry V.
[*i u»t is the strongest bond upon the soul ;
That sacred tie has virtue oft begot ;
It binds where 'tis, and makes it where 'twas not.
Earl of Orrery's Henry V.
Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not on tne number, but t\io choice of friends.
Cowley.
In their nonage, a sympathy
Unusual join'd their loves :
They pair'd like turtles ; still together drank,
Together eat, nor quarrell'd for the choice.
Like turning streams both from one fountain
fell,
And as they ran still mingled smiles and tears.
Lee's Ccesar Borgia.
I had a friend that lov'd me :
I was his soul : he liv'd not but in me :
We were so close within each other's breast,
The rivets were not found that join'd us first.
That does not reach us yet : we were so mix'd,
As meeting streams — both to ourselves wee
lost.
We were one mass, we could not give or take,
But from the same : for he was I ; I, he :
Return my better half, and give me all myself,
For thou art all !
If I have any joy when thou art absent,
I grudge it to myself: methinks I rob
Thee of thy part.
Dryden.
Who knows the joys of friendship ?
The trust, security, and mutual tenderness,
The double joys, where each is glad for both ?
Friendship our only wealth, our last retreat and
strength,
Secure against ill-fortune and the world.
Rowe.
Thou art the man in whom my soul delights,
In whom, next heaven, I trust.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey.
Friendship's the privilege
Of private men ; for wretched greatness knows
No blessing so substantial.
Tate's Loyal General.
Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
The child, whom many fathers share,
Hath seldom known a father's care.
'T is thus in friendships ; who depend
On many, rarely find a friend.
Gay.
Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene ;
Resumes them, to prepare us for the next.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Celestial happiness ! Whene'er she stoops
To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds,
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For absent heaven — the bosom of a friend,
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Each othor's pillow to repose divine.
Young.
FRIENDSHIP.
193
Angels from friendship gather half their joy.
Young.
Such is the use and noble end of friendship,
To bear a part in every storm of fate,
And, by dividing, make the lighter weight.
Higgons's Generous Conqueror.
Friendship is still accompany'd with virtue,
And always lodg'd in great and gen'rous minds.
Trap's Abramule.
The friendships of the world are oft
Confed'racies in vice, or leagues of pleasure.
Addison'' s Cato.
Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn.
Addison's Campaign.
Thanks to my stars, I have not rang'd about
The wilds of life, ere I could find a friend :
Nature first pointed out my brother to me,
And early taught me, by her sacred force,
To love thy person, ere I knew thy merit,
Till what was instinct grew up into friendship.
Ours has severest virtue for its basis,
And such a friendship ends not but with life.
Addison.
You '11 find the friendship of the world a show !
Mere outward show ! 't is like the harlot's tears,
The statesman's promise, or false patriot's zeal,
Full of fair seeming, but delusion all.
Savage's Sir Thomas Overhury.
I have too deeply read mankind
To be amus'd with friendship ; 't is a name
Invented merely to betray credulity :
'Tis intercourse of interest — not of souls.
Havard's Regulus.
Friendship ! nrysterious cement of the soul !
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society !
I owe thee much. Thou hast deserv'd of me
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.
Oft have I prov'd the labours of thy love :
And the warm efforts of the gentle heart,
Anxious to please.
Blair's Grave.
And what is friendship but a name,
A charm, that lulls to sleep ;
A shade that follows wealth or fame,
And leaves the wretch to weep.
Goldsmith's Hermit.
What spectre can the charnel send,
So dreadful as an injur'd friend ?
Scott's RoJceby.
Friendship is no plant of hasty growth ;
Tho' planted in esteem's deep fixed soil,
The gradual culture of kind intercourse
Must bring it to perfection.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
N
I take of worthy men whate'er they give :
Their heart I gladly take, if not, their hand ;
If that too is withheld, a courteous word,
Or the civility of placid looks.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford
He who will not give
Some portion of his ease, his blood, his wealth,
For others' good, is a poor frozen churl.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
Unequal fortune
Made him my debtor for some courtesies,
Which bind the good more firmly.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
What is friendship ? — do not trust her,
Nor the vows which she has made ;
Diamonds dart their brightest lustre
From a palsy-shaken head.
Wordsworth.
Friendship has a power
To soothe affliction in her darkest hour.
H. K. White
Friend after friend departs ; —
Who hath not lost a friend ?
There is no union here of hearts
That hath not here its end.
Montgomery
Thy voice prevails ; dear friend, my gentle friend !
This long-shut heart for thee shall be unseal' d,
And though thy soft eye mournfully will bend
Over the troubled stream, yet once reveal'd
Shall its freed waters flow.
Mrs. Hemans
Not to the grave, not to the grave, my soul,
Follow thy friend belov'd !
But in the lonely hour,
But in the evening walk,
Think that he companies thy solitude !
Southey
With a declining taste for making friends,
One's taste for the fatigue of pleasure 's past.
Willis
Knit to him
The hearts he opens like a clasped book.
Willia
The friend
Who smiles when smoothing down the loneij
couch,
And does kind deeds, which any one can do
Who has a feeling spirit, — such a friend
Heals with a searching balsam.
Percival
Oh ! let my friendship in the wreath,
Though but a bud among the flowers,
Its sweetest fragrance round thee breathe —
'Twill serve to soothe thy weary hours.
Mrs WeU%
17
.94
FUNERAL - FURY- FUTURITY.
There are a thousand nameless ties,
Which only such us feel them know ;
Of kindred thoughts, deep sympathies,
And untold fancy spells, which throw
O'er ardent minds and faithful hearts
A chain whose charmed links so blend,
That the light circlet but imparts
Its force in these fond words, — my friend.
Mrs. Dinnies,
The blossoms of passion,
Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller
of fragrance ;
But they beguile us and lead us astray, and their
odour is deadly.
Longfellow's Evangeline.
Let others boast them as they may,
Of spirits kind and true,
Whose gentle words and loving smiles
Have cheer'd them on life through ;
And though they count of friends a host,
To bless the paths they 've trod,
These are the ones have lov'd me most,
My mother, wife, and God !
Richard Coe, Jr.
FUNERAL.— (See Mourning.)
FURY.
Now he '11 outstare the lightning. To be furious
Is to be frighted out of fear ; and in that mood
The dove will peck the estridge ; and I see still
A diminution in our captain's brain
Restores his heart : when valour preys on reason,
It eats the sword it fights with.
Shales. Antony and Cleopatra.
FUTURITY.
O, that a man might know
The end of this day's business, ere it come !
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
O heaven ! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
O, if this were seen,
ilie happiest youth — viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue —
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
Shaks Henry IV. Part. II.
Eternity,
Beyond is all abyss,
end no eye can reach.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Eternity, that puzzles all the world
To name the inhabitants that people it ;
Eternity, whose undiscover'd country
We fools divide before we come to see it,
Making one part contain all happiness,
The other misery, then unseen fight for it :
All sects pretending to a right of choice,
Yet none go willingly to take a part.
Anon.
Too curious man, why dost thou seek to know
Events, which, good or ill, foreknown, are woe ;
Th' all-seeing power that made thee mortal, gave
Thee every thing a mortal state should have ;
Foreknowledge only is enjoy'd by heaven ;
And, for his peace of mind, to man forbidden:
Wretched were life, if he foreknew his doom ;
Even joys foreseen give pleasing hope no room,
And griefs assur'd are felt before they come.
% Dryden.
Sure there is none but fears a future state ;
And when the most obdurate swear they do not,
Their trembling hearts belie their boasting tongues.
Dryden's Spanish Friar.
Divines but peep on undiscover'd worlds,
And draw the distant landscape as they please ;
But who has e'er return'd from those bright regions,
To tell their manners, and relate their laws ?
Dryden 1 s Don Sebastian.
Eternity, thou pleasing — dreadful thought !
Thro' what variety of untry'd beings,
Thro' what new scenes and changes must we pass?
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and aarkness rest upon it.
Addison's Cato.
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state :
From brutes what men, from men what spirits
know:
Or who could suffer being here below ?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason would he skip and play ?
Plcas'd to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future ! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by heaven :
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Pope's Essay on Man
GAMBLING.
195
Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind ;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way ;
Vet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven ;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold ;
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing', no seraph's fire ;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Pope's Essay on Man.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving vegetate again;
All forms that perish other forms supply,
By turns we catch the vital breath and die ;
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.
Nothing is foreign ; parts relate to whole ;
One all-extending, all-preserving soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least ;
Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast ;
All serv'd, all serving ; nothing stands alone ;
The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Eternity, thou awful gulf of time,
This wide creation on thy surface floats.
Of life — of death — what is — or what shall be,
I nothing know. The world is all a dream,
The consciousness of something that exists,
Yet is not what it seems. Then what am I ?
Death must unfold the mystery !
Howe's Seihona.
What avails it that indulgent heaven
From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,
If we, ingenious to torment ourselves,
Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own ?
Enjoy the present ; nor with needless cares
Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb,
Appal the shortest hour that life bestows.-
Serene, and master of yourself, prepare
For what may come ; and leave the rest to heaven.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Answer me, burning stars of night !
Where is the spirit gone ?
That past the reach of human sight,
As a swift breeze hath flown ?
And the stars answer'd me — "we roll
In light and power on high,
But of the never-dying soul,
Ask that which cannot die."
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
Darkly we move, we press upon the brink
Haply of viewless worlds, and know it not :
Yes, it may be, that nearer than we think
Are those whom death has parted from our lot !
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
Let me, then let me dream
That love goes with us to the shore unknown ;
So o'er the burning tear a heavenly gleam
In mercy shall be thrown.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
Shall I be left forgotten in the dust,
When fate, relenting, lets the flower revive ?
Shall nature's voice, to man alone unjust,
Bid him, though doom'd to perish, hope to live ?
Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive
With disappointment, penury, and pain ?
No : heaven's immortal springs shall yet arrive,
And man's majestic beauty bloom again,
Bright through th' eternal year of love's trium
phant reign. Beattie's Minstrel
We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made,
And fill our Future's atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.
Whittier's Poems
There is no hope — the Future will but turn
The old sands in the failing glass of Time !
R. H. Stoddard.
GAMBLING.
Hush, pretty boy, thy hopes might have been better ■
'T is lost at dice, what ancient honour won ;
Hard when the father plays away the son !
Shaks. Yorkshire Tragedy m
If yet thou love game at so dear a rate,
Learn this, that hath old gamesters dearly cost;
Dost lose ? Rise up ; Dost win? Rise in that state ■
Who strive to sit out losing hands are lost
Herbert.
Some play for gain ; to pass time, others play
For nothing ; both to play the fool, I say :
Nor time or coin I'll lose, or idly spend ;
Who gets by play, proves loser in the end.
Heath's Clarastella
Look round, the wrecks of play behold,
Estates dismember'd, mortgaged, sold; —
Their owners now to jails confin'd,
Show equal poverty of mind.
Gay's Fables
A night of fretful passion may consume
All that thou hast of beauty's gentle bloom ;
And one distemper'd hour of sordid fear
Print on thy brow the wrinkles of a year.
Sheridan on Female Ganustm
196
GENEROSITY - GENIUS - GENTLEMAN.
Oh, tne dear pleasures of the velvet plain,
The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again !
Cowper's Progress of Error.
Small black-legg'd sheep devour with hunger
jceen,
The meagre herbage, fleshless, lank and lean ;
Such, o'er thy level turf, Newmarket ! stray,
And there, with other black-legs, find their prey.
Crabbe.
GENEROSITY.
I will send his ransom.
And, being enfranchis'd, bid him come to me :
'T is not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after.
Shahs. Timon of Athens.
O, my good lord, the world is but a word ;
Were it all yours, to give it in a breath,
How quickly were it gone !
Shahs. Timon.
Whose breast, too narrow for her heart, was still
Her reason's throne, and prison to her will.
Sir W. Davenant.
Thou can'st not reach the light that I shall find ;
A gen'rous soul is sunshine to the mind.
Sir Robert Howard.
They that do
An act that does deserve requital,
Pay first themselves the stock of such content.
Sir Robert Howard.
God blesses still the generous thought,
And still the fitting word He speeds,
And truth, at His requiring taught,
He quickens into deeds.
Whittier , s Poems.
GENIUS.
Time, place, and action, may with pains be
wrought,
But genius must be born, and never can be taught.
Dryden.
Genius I thou gift of Heaven ! thou light divine !
Amid what daggers art thou doom'd to shine !
Oft will the body's weakness check thy force,
Oft damp thy vigour, and impede thy course ;
And trembling nerves compel thee to restrain
'Iliy noble eftons, to contend with pain ;
( »r want (sad guest !) will in thy presence come,
A.nd broathe around her melancholy gloom ;
'1 o life's iow cares will thy proud thought confine,
And make her sufferings — her impatience — thine.
Crabbe.
O born of heaven, thou child of magic song!
What pangs, what cutting hardships wait, on thee,
When thou art doom'd to cramping poverty ;
The pois'nous shafts from defamation's tongue, —
The jeers and tauntings of the blockhead throng,
Who joy to see thy bold exertions fail ;
While hunger, pinching as December's gale,
Brings moody dark despondency along.
And should'st thou strive fame's lofty mount to
scale,
The steps of its ascent are cut in sand ;
And half-way up, — a snake-scourge in her hand,
Lurks pallid envy, ready to assail :
And last, if thou the top, expiring gain,
When fame applauds, thou hearest not the strain.
Robert Millhouse to Genius.
One science only will one genius fit,
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
Pope's Essay on Criticism.
Talents angel-bright,
If wanting worth, are shining instruments,
In false ambition's hand, to finish faults
Illustrious, and give infancy renown.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Genius, the Pythian of the Beautiful,
Leaves its large truths a riddle to the Dull —
From eyes profane a veil the Iris screens,
And fools on fools still ask — what Hamlet means ?
Bulwer's Poems
Obey
Thy genius, for a minister it is
Unto the throne of Fate. Draw to thy soul,
And centralize the rays which are around
Of the Divinity.
Bailey's Festus
His was the gifted eye, which grace still touch'd
As if with second nature ; and his dreams,
His childish dreams, were lit by hues of heaven —
Those which make Genius.
Bliss Landon.
They say that he has genius. I but see
That he gets wisdom as the flower gets hue,
While others hive it like the toiling bee ;
That with him all things beautiful keep new.
Willis's Poems.
GENTLEMAN.
Nor stand so much on your gentility,
Which is an airy, and mere borrow'd thing,
From dead men's dust and bones; and none of
yours,
Except you make, or hold it
Ben Tonson.
GHOST.
197
For your behaviour, let it be free and
Negligent; not clogg'd with ceremony
Or observance ; give no man honour but
Upon equal terms ; for look how much thou
Giv'st any man above that, so much thou
Tak'st from thyself.
Chapman's May Day.
He that bears himself like a gentleman, is
Worth to have been born a gentleman.
Chapman's May Day.
Measure not thy carriage by any man's eye,
Thy speech by no man's ear ; but be resolute
And confident in doing and saying ;
And this is the grace of a right gentleman.
Chapman's May Day.
He is a noble gentleman ; withal
Happy in 's endeavours : the gen'ral voice
Sounds him for courtesy, behaviour, language,
And ev'ry fair demeanour, an example :
Titles of honour add not to his worth ;
Who is himself an honour to his title.
John Ford.
I never crouch'd
To th' offal of an office-promis'd
Reward for long attendance, and then mist.
I read no difference between this huge,
This monstrous big word, lord, and gentleman,
More than the title sounds ; for aught I learn,
The latter is as noble as the first ;
I'm sure more ancient.
John Ford.
I do pity unlearned gentlemen on a rainy day.
Lord Falkland.
Who misses or who wins the prize ?
Go, lose or conquer as you can ;
But if you fail, or if you rise,
Be each, pray God, a gentleman.
Anon.
Whom do we dub as. gentlemen? The knave,
the fool, the brute —
If they but own full tithe of gold and wear a
courtly suit!
The parchment scroll of titled line, the riband at
the knee,
Can still suffice to ratify and grant a high degree !
Eliza Cook's Poems.
But nature, with a matchless hand, sends forth
her nobly born,
And laughs the paltry attributes of wealth and
rank to scorn ;
She moulds with care a spirit rare, half human,
half divine,
And cries, exulting, " Who can make a gentle-
man like mine?"
Eliza Cook's Poems.
There are some spirits nobly just, unwarp'd by
pelf or pride,
Great in the calm, but greater still when dash'd
by adverse tide ; —
They hold the rank no king can give, no station
can disgrace ;
Nature puts forth her gentleman, and monarchs
must give place.
Eliza Cook's Poems
GHOST.
But, soft : behold ! lo, where it comes again !
I '11 cross it, though it blast me. — Stay, illusion !
If thou hast any sound, or use a voice,
Speak to me.
Shahs. Hamlet.
It was about to speak, when the cock crew,
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
Shahs. Hamlet.
Thrice he walk'd,
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon's length ; whilst they, distill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him.
Shahs. Hamlet.
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us !
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from
hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee.
Shahs. Hamlet.
O, answer me :
Let me not burst in ignorance ! but tell,
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements ! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again ?
Shahs. Hamlet
What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous ; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls '
Shahs Hamlti
I am thy father's spirit ;
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night
And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done jn my days of nature.
Are burnt and purg'd away
Shahs. Hamlet
17*
GHOST.
But soft ! methinks I scent the morning air ;
Brief let me be.
Shahs. Hamlet.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards ! What would your gracious
figure ? Shaks. Hamlet.
Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal ;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perfbrm'd
Too terrible for the ear : the times have been,
That when the brains were out, the man would
die,
And there an end : but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools : this is more strange
Than such a murder is.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Thou canst not say I did it : never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide
thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold ;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with !
Shaks. Macbeth.
Why, what care I ? If thou canst nod, speak too, —
If charnel-houses, and our graves, must send
Those that we bury, back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.
SJiaks. Macbeth.
Show his eyes and grieve his heart ;
Come like shadows, so depart.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Glendower. — I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur. — Why, so can I, or so can any man :
But will they come when you do call for them ?
Shaks. Henry IV. Part. I.
Spirits when they please
Can either sex assume, or both ; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense ; and as they please
They limb themselves, and colour, shape or size
Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
for. spirits, freed from mortai .awa, with ease
\«sumc what sexes and what shapes they please.
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
The marshal and myself had cast
To stop him as he outward past ;
But lighter than the whirl-wind's blast,
He vanish' d from our eyes,
Like sunbeam on the billow cast,
That glances but, and dies.
Scotfs Marmion.
O speak, if voice thou hast !
Tell me what sacrifice can soothe your spirits ;
Can still the unquiet sleepers of the grave :
For this most horrid visitation is
Beyond endurance of the noblest mind,
In flesh and blood enrob'd.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald. Part II.
A horrid spectre rises to my sight,
Close by my side, and plain, and palpable,
In all good seeming and close circumstance,
As man meets man.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald. Part II.
What form is that —
Why have they laid him there ?
Plain in the gloomy depth he lies before me :
The cold blue wound whence blood hath ceas'd to
flow,
The stormy clenching of the bared teeth —
The gory socket that the balls have burst from —
I see them all —
It moves — it moves — it rises — it comes on me.
Maturirts Bertram.
He shudder' d, as no doubt the bravest cowers
When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appal.
How odd a single hobgoblin's nonentity
Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity!
Byron,
Speak to me !
For I have call'd on thee in the still night,
Startled the slumbering birds from the hush'd
boughs,
And woke the mountain wolves, and made the
caves
Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name,
Which answer'd me — many things answer'd me —
Spirits and men — but thou wert silent all.
Byron.
What is here
Which look like death in life, and speak like things
Born ere this dying world ? They come like clouds.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
Ghostly mother, keep aloof
One hour longer from my soul —
For I still am thinking of
Earth's warm beating joy and dole.
Bliss Barrett.
4
GIFTS -GLORY.
199
Mother, mother, thou art kind,
Thou art standing in the room, —
In a molten glory shrin'd,
That rays off into the gloom !
But thy smile is bright and bleak,
Like cold waves — I cannot speak :
I sob in it, and grow weak.
Miss Barrett.
And now the mist seems taking shape,
Forming a dim, gigantic ghost, —
Enormous thing ! — There 's no escape ;
'T is close upon the coast !
Dana's Buccaneer.
To-night the charmed number's told ;
" Twice have I come for thee," it said,
" Once more, and none shall thee behold,
Come ! live one to the dead !" —
So hears his soul, and fears the coming night;
Yet sick and weary of the soft calm light.
Dana's Buccaneer.
If the spirit ever gazes,
From its journeyings back ;
If the immortal ever traces
O'er its mortal track ;
Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us
Sometimes on our way,
And in hours of sadness greet us,
As a spirit may ?
Whittier's Poems
GIFTS.
Win her with gifts, if she respect not words ;
Dumb jewels often, in their silent kind,
More quick than words do move a woman's mind.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Wear this for me ; one out of suits with fortune ;
That could give more, but that her hand lacks
means. Shakspeare.
She prizes not such trifles as these are :
The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd
Up in my heart, which I have given already,
But not deliver'd.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Hamlet. — I never gave you aught.
Ophelia. — My honour'd lord, you know right well,
you did;
And with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the things more rich : their perfume lost,
Take these again ; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind.
Shaks. Hamlet.
They are the noblest benefits, and sink
Deepest in man ; of which when he doth think,
The memory delights him more, from whom,
Than what he hath receiv'd.
Jonson's Underwood.
In alms, regard thy means, and others' merit ;
Think heaven a better bargain than to give
Only thy single market-money for it ;
Join hands with God ; to make a poor man live.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
Flowers are all the jewels I can give thee.
Miss London.
I had a seeming friend ; — I gave him gifts, and
he was gone ;
I had an open enemy ; — I gave him gifts, and won
him. Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
Policy counselleth a gift, given wisely and in
season,
And policy afterwards approveth it, for great is
the influence of gifts. Tupper.
Why shouldst thou hold thy tenderness aside
From all thy lavishment of other gifts ?
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith
GLORY.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading, it disperse to nought.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I
Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright ;
But look'd too near, have neither heat nor light.
Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
For this world's glory
Is figur'd in the moon ; they both wax dull,
And suffer their eclipses in the full.
Aleyn's Crescey
Glory, like time, progression does require ;
When it does cease t' advance, it does expire.
Earl of Orrery.
If glory was a bait that angels swallow'd,
How then should souls allied to sense resist it !
Dry den's Aurenzcbe.
Real glory
Springs from the silent conquest of ourselves •
And without that the conqueror is naught
But the first slave.
Thomson's Sophonisba
What is glory? — in the socket
See how dying tapers flare !
Wordsworth.
What is glory ? What is fame 1
The echo of a long-lost name ;
A breath, an idle hour's brief talk ;
The shadow of an arrant naught;
A flower that blossoms for a day, »
Dying next morrow;
A stream that hurries on its way,
Singing of sorrow.
Motherwell's Poem*
200
GLUTTONY - GOD.
The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel, avenger, judge and spy,
The foe, the fool, the jealous and the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,
Behold the host ! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of glory to the grave.
Byron.
Our glories float between the earth and heaven
Like clouds that seem pavilions of the sun,
And are the playthings of the casual wind.
Bulwer's Richelieu.
Before I knew thee, Mary,
Ambition was my angel. I did hear
For ever its witch'd voices in mine ear;
My days were visionary —
My nights were like the slumbers of the mad —
And every dream swept o'er me glory-clad.
Willis's Poems.
Would I were in some lonely desert born,
And 'neath the sordid roof my being drew;
Were nurs'd by poverty the most forlorn,
And ne'er one ray of hope or pleasure knew ;
Then had my soul been never taught to rise,
Then had I never dream'd of power or fame ;
No pictur'd scene of bliss deceiv'd my eyes,
Nor glory lighted in my breast its flame.
Percival.
GLUTTONY.
And by his side rode loathsome gluttony,
Deformed creature, on a filthy swine ;
His belly was up-blown with luxury,
And eke with fatness swollen were his eyne.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Whose life 's the table and the stage,
He doth not spend, but lose his age.
Killegrew's Conspiracy.
Fat paunches have lean pates ; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
Shaks. Love's Labour.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace :
Leave gormandizing.
Sluiks. Henry IV. Part II.
For swinish gluttony
Ne'er looks to heaven amidst his gorgeous feast ;
But with besotted, base ingratitude
Trams, and blasphemes his feeder.
Milton's Comus.
Some, as thou saw'st, by violent stroke shall die,
By fire, flood, famine, by intemp'rance more
In meats and drinks, which on the earth shall
bring
Discuses dire.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The tankards foam ; and the strong table groans
Beneath the smoking sirloin, stretch'd immense
From side to side, in which with desperate knife
They deep incisions make.
Thomson
Prompted by instinct's never-erring power,
Each creature knows its proper aliment;
But man, th' inhabitant of every clime,
With all the commoners of nature feeds.
Directed, bounded, by this power within,
Their cravings are well aim'd : voluptuous man
Is by superior faculties misled ;
Misled from pleasure even in quest of joy :
Sated with nature's boons, what thousands seek,
With dishes tortur'd from their native taste,
And mad variety, to spur beyond
Its wiser will the jaded appetite !
Is this for pleasure ? learn a juster taste !
And know that temperance is true luxury.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health
Beyond the sense
Of light reflection, at the genial board
Indulge not often ; nor protract the feast
To dull satiety ; till soft and slow
A drowsy death creeps on th' expansive soul,
Oppress'd and smother'd the celestial fire.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Some men are born to feast, and not to fight ;
Whose sluggish minds, e'en in fair honour's field,
Still on their dinner turn —
Let such pot-boiling varlets stay at home,
And wield a flesh-hook rather than a sword.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
GOD.
God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
To God more glory, more good will to men
From God, and over wrath shall grace abound.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
When God reveals his march through Nature's
night,
His steps are beauty, and his presence light.
James Montgomery.
Spirit ! whose life-sustaining presence fills
Air, ocean, central depths, by man untried,
Thou for thy worshippers hast sanctified
All place, all time ! The silence of the hills
Breathes veneration: — founts and choral rills
Of Thee are murmuring : — to its inmost glade
The living forest with Thy whisper thrills,
And there is holiness in every shade.
Mrs. Hemans's Poema.
GOLD.
201
God of my fathers ! holy, just, and good !
My God ! my Father ! my unfailing Hope !
Jehovah ! let the incense of thy praise,
Accepted, burn before thy mercy-seat ;
And let thy presence bum both day and night.
Pollock's Course of Time.
Maker ! Preserver ! my Redeemer ! God !
Whom have I in the heavens but Thee alone ?
On earth but Thee, whom should I praise, whom
love?
For thou hast brought me hitherto, upheld
By thy omnipotence ; and from thy grace,
Unbought, unmerited, though not unsought —
The wells of my salvation, hast refresh'd
My spirit, watering it at morn and eve.
Pollock's Course of Time.
Thy great name
In all its awful brevity, hath nought
Unholy breeding it, but doth bless
Rather the tongue that uses it ; for me,
I ask no higher office than to fling
My spirit at thy feet, and cry thy name,
God ! through eternity.
Bailey's Festus.
Dear Lord, our God and Saviour ! for Thy gifts
The world were poor in thanks, though every soul
Were to do nought but breathe them, every blade
Of grass, and every atomie of earth
To utter it like dew. /
Bailey's Festus.
Praise to our Father — God,
High praise in solemn lay,
Alike for what his hand hath given,
And what it takes away.
Mrs. Sigourney.
One hymn mere, O my lyre !
Praise to the God above,
Of joy and life and love
Sweeping its strings of fire.
Whittier's Poems.
The hand of God
Has written legibly that man may know
The glory of the Maker.
Henry Ware, Jr.
All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last
for aye.
Bryant's Poems.
The depth
Of glory in the attributes of God,
Will measure the capacities of mind ;
And as the angels differ, will the ken
Of gifted spirits glorify Him more.
Willis's Poems.
GOLD.
'T is gold
Which makes the true man kili'd, and saves the
thief;
Nay, sometimes, hangs both thief and true man :
what
Can it not do, and undo ?
Shaks. Cymbeline.
thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
Twixt natural son and sire ! thou bright defiler
Of hymen's purest bed ! thou valiant Mars !
Thou ever young, fresh, lov'd, and delicate wooer.
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow,
That lies on Dian's lip ! thou visible god,
That solder'st close impossibilities,
And mak'st them kiss I and speak'st with every
tongue,
To every purpose !
Shaks. Timon of Athene.
Why this
Will buy your priests and servants from your sides ;
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads :
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs'd;
Make the hoar leprosy ador'd ; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With senators on the bench.
Shaks Timon of Athens.
For this the foolish, over-careful fathers
Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brain
with care,
Their bones with industry.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith,
That daily break-vow ; he that wins of all,
Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids.
Shaks. King John,
There is thy gold ; worse poison to men's souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou may'st not
sell:
1 sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
How quickly nature
Falls to revolt, when gold becomes her object !
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I J
O, I cry your mercy :
There is my purse, to cure that blow of thine.
Shaks. Richard II)
Gold is the strength, the sinews of the world '
The health, the soul, the beauty most divine ;
A mask of gold hides all deformities ;
Gold is heaven's physic, life's restorative.
DecXt"
202
GOODNESS.
Can gold calm passion, or make reason shine?
Can we dig peace, or wisdom, from the mine?
Wisdom to gold prefer : for 't is much less
To maku our fortune, than our happiness.
Young.
To purchase heaven has gold the power ?
Can gold remove the mortal hour ?
In life can love be bought with gold ?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold ?
No — all that's worth a wish — a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbrib'd, unbought.
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind,
Let nobler views engage thy mind.
Dr. Johnson.
But scarce observ'd, the knowing and the bold,
Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold ;
Wide wasting pest ! that rages unconfin'd,
And crowds with crimes the records of man-
kind:
For gold, his sword the hireling ruffian draws,
For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws ;
Wealth, heap'd on wealth, nor truth nor safety
buys,
The dangers gather as the treasures rise.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
Judges' and senates have been bought for gold;
Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Pope's Essay on Man.
For gold the merchant ploughs the main,
The farmer ploughs the manor.
Bums.
Thou more than stone of the philosopher !
Thou touchstone of philosophy herself!
Thou bright eye of the mine ! Thou lode-star of
The soul ! Thou true magnetic pole, to which
All hearts point duly north, like trembling needles.
Byron.
The plague of gold strikes far and near, —
And deep and strong it enters ;
Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange,
We cheer the pale gold-diggers, —
Each soul is worth so much on 'change,
And mark'd, like sheep, with figures.
Miss Barrett.
O, knew I the spell of gold,
I would never poison a fresh young heart
With the taint of customs old.
T would bind no wreath to my forehead free,
In whose shadow a thought might die,
Nor drink, from the cup of revelry,
The ruin my gold would buy.
Willis's Poems.
Uurfi is the land and age of gold,
And ours the hallow'd time.
Grenville MeUen.
Gold ! gold ! in all ages the curse of mankind,
Thy fetters are forged for the soul and the mind ■
The limbs may be free as the wings of a bird,
And the mind be the slave of a look and a word.
To gain thee, men barter eternity's crown,
Yield honour, affection, and lasting renown.
Park Benjamin.
Searcher of gold, whose days and nights
All waste away in anxious care,
Estranged from all of life's delights,
Unlearn'd in all that is most fair —
Who sailest not with easy glide,
But delvest in the depths of tide,
And strugglest in the foam ;
O ! come and view this land of graves,
Death's northern sea of frozen waves,
And mark thee out thy home.
J. O. Rockwell,
GOODNESS.
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
Shales. Mea. for Mea.
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men, observingly, distil it out.
Shaks. Henry IV.
It is a kind of good deed to say well,
And yet words are not deeds.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Goodness is beauty in its best estate.
Marlowe.
But sacred wisdom doth apply that good,
Which simple knowledge barely understood.
Quarles.
The soul
Is strong that trusts in goodness and shows clearly
It may be trusted.
Massinger.
The chamber where the good man meets his fate,
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Young.
Some there are
By their good deeds exalted, lofty minds
And meditative authors of delight
And happiness, which to the end of time
Will live and spread and flourish.
Wordsworth.
The good man may be weak, be indolent,
Nor is his claim to riches, but content,
And grant the bad what happiness he would ;
One he must want, which is, — to pass for good.
Pope'e Essay on Man.
Good,
Only, is great, and generous, and fruitful.
Bailey's Festus.
GOSSIP - GOVERNMENT.
203
Howe'er it be, it seems to me
'T is only noble to be good ;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Tennyson.
Angels are round the good man, to catch the in-
cense of his prayers,
And they fly to minister kindness to those for
whom he pleadeth.
Tapper's Proverbial Philosophy.
See the lone wanderer, 'mid the wastes of death,
Rejoicing hails the Alpine blossom's breath, —
As, shuddering at the glacier's awful power,
He seeks the beauty of the meek-ey'd flower,
And there reposes in a stedfast trust
That on the plant no avalanche storm will burst
What kincPesthus his faith, and calms his fears?
The seal of love and hope the blossom bears ;
Though round him heave a dark and frozen flood,
One thought is peace, is safety — 'God is good !'
Nor could the wanderer idly turn away;
His lip might move not, but his heart would pray;
And he would gather, in that musing hour,
Amid those trophies of Jehovah's power,
New strength of soul, a grander scope of thought,
His mind to nobler purpose would be wrought,
And feel and own, in this calm, solemn mood,
That 't is man's highest glory to be good !
Mrs. Hale's Constantia.
Man should dare all things that he knows is right,
And fear to do no act save what is wrong;
But, guided safely by his inward light,
And with a permanent belief, and strong,
In Him who is our Father and our Friend,
He should walk stedfastly unto the end.
Phoebe Carey.
The words which thou hast utter'd
Are of thy soul a part,
And the good seed thou hast scatter'd
Is springing from the heart.
Whittier's Poems.
And while "Lord, Lord !" the pious tyrants cried,
Who in the poor their Master crucified,
His daily prayer, far better understood
In acts than words, was simply doing good.
Whittier's Poems.
GOSSIP.— (See Scandal.)
GOVERNMENT.
So work the honey-bees,
Creatures, that by a rule in nature teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings.
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent royal of their emperor .
Who, busy'd in his tent, surveys
The singing mason building roofs of gold ;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey ;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate :
The sad-ey'd justice with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.
Shales. Henry V.
Each petty hand
Can steer a ship becalm'd ; but he that will
Govern and carry her to her ends, must know
His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails ;
What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers;
Where her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop
them ;
What strands, what shelves, what rocks do threaten
her;
The forces, and the natures of all winds,
Gusts, storms, and tempests : when her keel
ploughs hell,
And deck knocks heaven, then to manage her,
Becomes the name and office of a pilot.
Jonson's Catiline.
O madam,
Your sex is too imperious to rule ;
You are too busy, and too stirring, to
Be put in action ; your curiosity
Would do as much harm in a kingdom, as
A monkey in a glass shop ; move, and remove,
'Till you had broken all.
Cartwrighfs Royal Slave.
A kingdom is a nest of families, and a family a
small kingdom ;
And the government of whole or part different in
nothing but extent
Tapper's Proverbial Philosophy.
The best of human governments is the patriarchal
rule;
The authoriz'd supremacy of one, the prescriptive
subjection of many ;
Therefore the children of the East have thriven
from age to age,
Obeying, even as a god, the royal father of Oath ay ■
Therefore shall Magog among the nations arise
from his northern lair,
And rend, in the fury of his power, J:e insurgent
world beneath him;
204
GRACE - GRATITUDE.
For the thunderbolt of concentrated strength can
be hurled by the will of one,
While the dissipated forces of many are harmless
as summer lightning.
Tapper's Proverbial Philosophy.
A government, on freedom's basis built,
Has, in all ages, been the theme of song,
And the desire of great and godlike men,
For this the Grecian patriots fought; — for this
The noblest Roman died. Shall I go on?
Name Tell, and Hampden, and our Washington ?
The perfect hero whose example shows
How war with righteousness may be allied —
The conqueror with the Christian ; and how man
In blessing others finds his highest fame !
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.
And then we '11 raise, on Liberty's broad base,
A structure of wise government, and show,
In our new world, a glorious spectacle
Of social order. Freemen, equals all,
By reason sway'd, self-govern'd, self-improv'd,
And the electric chain of public good
Twin'd round the private happiness of each ;
And every heart thrill'd by the patriot chord
That sounds the glory of America !
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.
A free Republic — where, beneath the sway
Of mild and equal laws, fram'd by themselves,
One people dwell, and own no lord save God !
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.
GRACE.
Fairer than the ghost of the hills, when it moves
in a sunbeam at noon, over the silence of
Morven. Ossian.
See what a grace is seated on that brow.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Impatient nature had taught motion
To start from time, and, cheerfully, to fly,
Before, and seize upon maturity.
Crashaw.
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Mature she was —
Grace shaped her limbs, and beauty deck'd her
face. Prior.
fsylvia's like autumn ripe, yet mild as May,
iVIoi'c bright than noon, yet fresh as early day.
Gay.
The light of love, the purity of grace,
Vhe mind, the music breathing from her face.
Byron.
A lovelier nymph the pencil never drew ;
For the fond graces form'd her easy mien,
And heaven's soft azure in her eye was seen.
Hayley.
Time's wing but seem'd, in stealing o'er,
To leave her lovelier than before.
Moore.
Oh ! many a soft and quiet grace,
Hath faded from her form and face !
Mrs. Hemans
Why a stranger — when he sees her
In the street even, srnileth stilly,
Just as you would at a lily.
Miss Barrett.
Her grace of motion, and of look, the smooth
And swimming majesty of step and tread,
The symmetry of form and feature, set
The soul afloat, even like delicious airs
Of flute and harp. Milman.
The ruffling bird of Juno —
The wren in the old wall,
Each knew her sweet persuasiveness,
And came at her soft call.
Mrs. Hale's Alice Ray.
'T would take an angel from above
To paint th' immortal soul —
To trace the light, the inborn grace
The spirit sparkling o'er her face.
Mrs. Welly
Thou art not here — and yet methinks
Thy form is floating by,
With the dark tress shading pleasantly
The softly brilliant eye :
A smile is sleeping on thy lip —
And a faint blush melting through
The light of thy transparent check,
Like a rose-leaf bathed in dew.
J. G. WhiuLr.
GRATITUDE.
Does the kind root bleed out his livelihood
As parent distributions to his branches,
Proud that his pride is seen, when he 's unseen ;
And must not gratitude descend again
To comfort his old limbs in fruitless winter
Improvident ?
Massingcr, Middleton and Rowley's Old Law.
The benefits he sow'd in me, met not
Unthankful ground, but yielded him his own
With fair increase ; and I still glory in it.
Massingcr' s Duke of Milan.
A grateful mind-
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharg'd.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
GRAVE.
206
I find a pious gratitude disperse
Within my soul ; and every thought of him
Engenders a warm sigh within me, which,
Like curls of holy incense, overtake
Each other in my bosom, and enlarge
With their embrace his sweet remembrance.
Shirley's Brothers.
I have five hundred crowns,
The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father,
Which I did store, to be my foster nurse,
When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corners throne ;
Take that ; and He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea providently caters for the sparrow
Be comfort to my age.
Shahs. As you like it.
O call not to my mind what you have done !
It sets a debt of that account before me,
Which shows me poor and bankrupt ev'n in hopes !
Congreve's Mourning Bride.
What can I pay thee for this noble usage,
But grateful praise ! so heaven itself is paid
Rowe's Tamerlane.
When gratitude o'erflows the swelling heart,
And breathes in free and uncorrupted praise
For benefits receiv'd : propitious heaven
Takes such acknowledgement as fragrant incense,
And doubles all its blessings.
Lillo's Elmerick.
He that hath nature in him, must be grateful ;
T is the Creator's primary great law
That links the chain of beings to each other.
Madden'' s Themistocles.
To the generous mind
The heaviest debt is that of gratitude,
When 't is not in our power to repay it.
Franklin's Matilda.
Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat
Can move or warp, and gratitude for small
And trivial favours, lasting as the life
And glist'ning even in the dying eye.
Cowper's Task.
I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning ;
Alas ! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning.
Wordsworth.
GRAVE.
Here may thy storme-bett vessell safely ryde
This is the port of rest from troublous toyle,
The worlde's sweet inn from paine and wearisome
turmoyle. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Even such is time, that-takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all wc have,
And pays us but with age and dust ;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander'd all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days !
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust !
Sir W. Raleigh.
Fade, flowers ! fade : nature will have it so;
'T is what we must in our autumn do !
And as your leaves lie quiet on the ground,
The loss alone by those that lov'd them found ,
So in the grave shall we as quiet lie,
Miss'd by some few that lov'd our company ;
But some so like to thorns and nettles live,
That none for them can, when they perish, grieve.
Waller.
I envy not such graves as take up room,
Merely with jet and porphyry ; since a tomb
Adds no desert ; wisdom, thou thing divine,
Convert my humble soul into thy shrine ;
And then this body, though it want a stone,
Shall dignify all places where 't is thrown.
F. Osborn
Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury ! to vulgar minds unknown,
Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallow'd mould below ;
Proud names, who once the reins of empire held,
In arms who triumph'd, or in arts excell'd ;
Chiefs, grae'd with scars, and prodigal of blood ;
Stern patriots who for sacred freedom stood ;
Just men, by whom impartial laws were given ;
And saints who taught, and led the way to heaven.
Tickell on the Death of Addison.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them, from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy house-wife ply her evening care ;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Gray's Churchyard.
Here scatter'd oft, the loveliest of the year,
By hands unseen are showers of violets found •
The redbreast loves to build and warble here. '
And little footsteps lightly print the ground
Gray's Churchyard
18
203
GRAVE.
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ;
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
Gray's Churchyard.
Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Tli' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade : nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd,
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.
Gray's Churchyard.
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still, erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd
muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply ;
And many a holy text around she strews,
To teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgctfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign' d,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ;
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
Gray's Churchyard.
The grave, dread thing !
Men shiver when thou 'rt nam'd : nature appall'd
Shakes off her wonted firmness.
Blair's Grave.
When self-esteem, or others' adulation,
Would cunningly persuade us we are something
Above the common level of our kind ;
The grave gainsays the smooth-corn plexion'd
flatt'ry,
And with blunt truth acquaints us what we are.
Blair's Grave.
Pull grave ' Cnou spoil'st the dance of youthful
blood,
Strik'st out the dimple from the cheek of mirth,
Anu every smirking feature from the face ;
branding our laughter with the name of madness.
Whe"- are the jesters now ? the man of health
Complexionally pleasant ? where the droll,
Whose every look and gesture was a joke
To clapping theatres and shouting crowds,
And made e'en thick-lipp'd musing melancholy
To gather up her face into a smile
Before she was aware ? ah ! sullen now,
And dumb as the green turf that covers them.
Blair's Grave.
Jlere all the mighty troublers of the earth,
Who swam to sov'reign rule through seas of blood ,
The oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains,
Who ravag'd kingdoms, and laid empires waste,
And in a cruel wantonness of power
Thinn'd states of half their people, and gave up
To want the rest ; now, like a storm that 's spent,
Lie hush'd, and meanly sneak behind thy covert.
Vain thought ! to hide them from the general scorn
That haunts and dogs them like an injur'd ghost
Implacable.
Blair's Grave.
Proud royalty ! how alter'd in thy looks !
How blank thy features, and how wan thy hue !
Blair's Grave
Here too the petty tyrant,
Whose scant domains geographer ne'er notie'd,
And, well for neighb'ring grounds, of arm as short,
Who fix'd his iron talons on the poor,
And grip'd them like some lordly beast of prey ;
Deaf to the forceful cries of gnawing hunger,
And piteous plaintive voice of misery,
(As if a slave was not a shred of nature
Of the same common substance with his lord,)
Now tame and humble, like a child that 's whipp'd,
Shakes hand with dust and calls the worm his
kinsman ;
Nor pleads his rank and birthright. Under ground
Precedency 's a jest ; vassal and lord,
Grossly familiar, side by side consume.
Blair's Grave.
Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war ?
The Roman Cassars and the Grecian chiefs,
The boast of story ? Where the hot-brain'd youth,
Who the tiara at his pleasure tore
From kings of all the then discover'd globe,
And cried, forsooth, because his arm was hamper'd,
And had not room enough to do its work ?
Alas ! how slim, dishonourably slim !
And cramm'd into a place we blush to name.
Blair's Grave.
Here the great masters of the healing art,
These mighty mock-defrauders of the tomb,
Spite of their juleps and catholicons,
Resign to fate ! Proud iEsculapius' son,
Where arc thy boasted implements of art,
And all thy well-cramm'd magazines of health ?
Blair's Grave.
GRAVE.
207
Here the tongue warrior lies ! disabled now,
Disarm'd, dishonour'd, like a wretch that 's gagg'd
And cannot tell his ail to passers-by.
Great man of language; whence this mighty
change ?
This dumb despair, and drooping of the head ?
Though strong persuasion hung upon thy lip,
And sly insinuation's softer arts
In ambush lay about thy flowing tongue ;
Alas ! how chop-fall'n now ! thick mists and silence
Rest, like a weary cloud, upon thy breast
Unceasing. Ah ! where is the lifted arm,
The strength of action, and the force of words,
The well-turn'd period, and the well-tun'd verse,
With all the lesser ornaments of phrase ?
Ah ! fled for ever, as they ne'er had been,
Raz'd from the book of fame ; or, more provoking,
Perhaps some hackney hunger-bitten scribbler
Insults thy memory, and blots thy tomb
With long flat narrative, or duller rhymes,
With heavy-halting pace that drawl along ;
Enough to rouse a dead man into rage,
And warm with red resentment the wan cheek.
Blair's Grave.
'Tis here all meet!
The shivering Icelander, and sun-burnt Moor ;
Men of all climes, that never met before ;
And of all creeds, the Jew, the Turk, and Christian.
Here the prince, and favourite yet prouder,
His sov'reign's keeper, and the people's scourge.
Are huddled out of sight. Here lie abash'd
The great negotiators of the earth,
And celebrated masters of the balance,
Deep read in stratagems, and wiles of courts ;
Now vain their treaty skill ! Death scorns to treat.
Blair's Grave.
Here the o'erloaded slave flings down his burden
From his gall'd shoulders ; and when the cruel
tyrant,
With all his guards of tools and power about him,
Is meditating new, unheard-of hardships,
Mocks his short arm, and, quick as thought, escapes
Where tyrants vex not, and the weary rest
Blair's Grave.
Here the warm lover leaving the cool shade,
The tell-tale echo, and the babbling stream,
Time out of mind the favourite seats of love,
Fast by his gentle mistress lays him down,
Unblasted by foul tongue. Here friends and foes
Lie close unmindful of their former feuds.
The lawn-rob'd prelate, and plain presbyter,
Erewhile that stood aloof as shy to meet,
Familiar mingle here, like sister streams
That some rude interposing rock had split.
Blair's Grave.
Here are the prude severe, and gay coquette ;
The sober widow, and the young green virgin.
Cropp'd like a rose before 't is fully blown,
Or half its worth disclos'd. Strange medley here !
Here garrulous old a*e winds up his tale ;
And jovial youth, of lightsome, vacant heart,
Whose every day was made of melody,
Hears not the voice of mirth : the shrill-tongued
shrew,
Meek as the turtle-dove, forgets her chiding.
Here are the wise, the gen'rous, and the brave ;
The just, the good, the worthless, the profane,
The downright clown, and perfectly well-bred ;
The fool, the churl, the scoundrel, and the mean,
The supple statesman, and the patriot stern ;
The wrecks of nations, and the spoils of time,
With all the lumber of six thousand years.
Blair's Gravu
But know that thou must render up the dead,
And with high interest too ! they are not thine
But only in thy keeping for a season,
Till the great promis'd day of restitution ;
When loud diffusive sound of brazen trump
Of strong-lung'd cherub shall alarm thy captives,
And rouse the long, long sleepers into life,
Daylight and liberty.
Blair's Grave
Why should the grave be terrible ?
Why should it be a word of fear,
Jarring upon the mortal ear ?
There repose and silence dwell :
The living hear the funeral knell,
But the dead no funeral knell can hear.
Does the gay flower scorn the grave ? the de »
Forget to kiss its turf? the stream
Refuse to bathe it ? or the beam
Of moonlight shun the narrow bed,
Where the tired pilgrim rests his head ?
No ! the moon is there, and smiling too !
And the sweetest song of the morning bird
Is oft in that ancient yew-tree heard ;
And there may you see the hare-bell blue
Bending his light form gently — proudly,
And listen to the fresh winds, loudly
Playing around your sod, as gay
As if it were a holiday,
And children freed from durance they.
Bo wring
Oh ! let not tears embalm my tomb,
None but the dews by twilight given !
Oh ! let not sighs disturb the gloom,
None but the whispering winds of heaven.
Moor*
— Household gifts that memory saves
But help to count the household graves.
T. K. Tfenet
20S
GREATNESS.
There is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found,
They softly lie and sweetly sleep
Low in the ground.
James Montgomery.
Blest are they
That earth to earth entrust ; for they may know
And tend the dwelling whence the slumberer's clay
Shall rise at last, and bid the young flowers bloom,
That waft a breath of hope around the tomb,
And kneel upon the dewy turf and pray !
Mrs. Hemans.
In vain I seek from out the past
Some cherish'd wreck to save ;
Affection, feeling, hope, are dead —
My heart is its own grave.
Miss Landon.
Earth has hosts, but thou canst show
Many a million for her one ;
Through thy gates, the mortal flow
Has for countless years roll'd on.
Back from the tomb
No step has come :
There fix'd till the last trumpet's sound,
Shall bid thy prisoners be unbound.
G. F. Croly.
Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathom'd, boundless sea,
The silent grave !
Thither all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallow'd up and lost
In one dark wave.
Longfellow's Poems.
I gazed upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round ;
And thought that when I came to lie
' Within the silent ground,
'T were pleasant, that in flowery June,
Where brooks sent up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich green mountain turf should break.
Bryant's Poems.
GREATNESS.
Greatness in sway of state gives wings t' aspire !
Advancement feeds ambition with desire.
Mirror for Magistrates.
place and greatness, millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee ! volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious guests
'. r pon thv doings ! thousand 'scapes of wit
Make tneo the father of their idle dream,
And rack thee in their fancies.
* Shaks. Mca.for Mea.
O place ! O form !
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souk
To thy false seeming.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea
O it is excellent
To have a giant's strength : but it is tyrannous,
To use it like a giant.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
The soul and body rive not more in parting,
Than greatness going off.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure !
Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation ?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending ?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's
knee,
Command the health of it ?
Shaks. Henry V.
hard condition ! and twin born with greatness,
Subjected to the breath of ev'ry fool,
Whose sense no more can feel but his own
wringing !
What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect,
That private men enjoy ! and what have kings
That privates have not too, save ceremony ?
Skaks. Henry V.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus ; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
SJiaks. Julius Ccesar.
This man
Is now become a god ; and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
The name of Cassius honours this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Alas ! why would you heap those cares on me ?
1 am unfit for state and majesty :
I do beseech you, take it not amiss ;
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.
Shaks. Richard III.
Heaven knows I had no such intent;
But that ncccssiiy so bow'd the state,
That I and greatness are compell'd to kiss.
SJmks. Henry IV. Part II.
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
Shaks. Macbeth
GREATNESS.
209
Greatness hath its cankers, worms, and moths ;
Bred out of too much humour in the things
Which after they consume ; transferring quite
The substance of their makers into themselves.
Jonson's Sejanus.
Greatness is like a cloud in th' airy bounds,
Which some base vapours have congeal'd above ;
It brawls with Vulcan, thund'ring forth huge
sounds,
Vet melts and falls there whence it first did move.
Earl of Sterline.
Since, by your greatness, you
Are nearer heaven in place ; be nearer it
In goodness : rich men should transcend the poor,
As clouds the earth ; rais'd by the comfort of
The sun, to water dry and barren grounds.
Tourneur.
It is the curse of greatness
To be its own destruction.
Nabbs's Hannibal and Scipio.
I was born with greatness ;
I 've honours, titles, power, here within :
All vain external greatness I contemn.
Am I the higher for supporting mountains ?
The taller for a flatt'rer's humble bowing ?
Have I more room for being throng'd with followers?
The larger soul for having all my thoughts
Fill'd with the lumber of the state affairs ?
Honours and riches are all splendid vanities,
They are of chiefest use to fools and knaves.
Crown's Ambitious Statesman.
Great wits and valours, like great estates,
Do sometimes sink with their own weights.
Butler's Hudibras.
He above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a tow'r ; his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Forth
In order came the grand infernal peers :
Midst came their mighty paramount, and seem'd
Alone th' antagonist of heav'n, nor less
Than hell's dread emperor with pomp supreme,
And godlike imitated state.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Ah me, they little know
How dearly I abide the boast so vain,
Under what tortures inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of hell
With diadem and sceptre high advanc'd,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery ; such joy ambition finds.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
O
Mark how the palace lifts a lying front,
Concealing often in magnific jail,
Proud want ; a deep unanimated gloom.
Tliomson's Liberty.
As the swoln columns of ascending smoke,
So solid swells thy grandeur, pigmy man !
Young's Bmiris.
High stations tumult, but not bliss create :
None think the great unhappy but the great.
Young's Love of Fame.
Thrice happy they who sleep in humble life,
Beneath the storm ambition blows. 'T is meet
The great should have the fame of happiness,
The consolation of a little envy ;
'T is all their pay for those superior cares,
Those pangs of heart, their vassals ne'er can feel.
Young's Brothers.
What is station high ?
'T is a proud mendicant ; it boasts, and begs ;
It begs an alms of homage from the throng,
And oft the throng denies its charity.
Young's Night ThouglUs.
The power to give creates us all our foes :
Where many seek for favour, few can find it :
Each thinks he merits all that he can ask ;
And disappointed, wonders at repulse ;
Wonders awhile, and then sits down in hate.
Frowde's Philoias
Birth is a shadow. Courage, self-sustain'd,
Out-lords succession's phlegm — and needs no
ancestors.
I am above descent, and prize no blood.
Hill's Merope
Oh ! greatness ! thou art but a flattering dream,
A wat'ry bubble, lighter than the air.
Tracy's Periander
Authority !
Thy worship'd symbols round a villain's trunk
Provoke men's mockery, not their reverence.
Jephson's Braganza.
What is power? — 'Tis not the state
Of proud tyrants, whom men's hate,
To worse than death,
Can level with a breath —
Whose term the meanest hand can antedate —
The peasant with a heart at ease,
Is a greater man than these.
What is grandeur ? Not the sheen
Of silken robes ; no, nor the mien
And haughty eye
Of old nobility —
The foolish that is not, but has been.
The noblest trophies of mankind
Are the conquests of the mind.
Sit A Hum
13*
210
GRIEF.
In parts superior what advantage lies ?
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise?
'T is but to know how little can be known ;
To see all others' faults, and feel our own ;
Condemn'd in business or in arts to drudge,
Without a second, or without a judge :
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land ?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful pre-eminence ! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Bring then these blessings to a strict account,
Make fair deduction ; see to what they 'mount ;
How much of other each is sure to cost ;
How much for other oft is wholly lost ;
How inconsistent greater goods with these ;
How sometimes life is risk'd, and always ease :
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say would'st thou be the man to whom they fall ?
To sigh for ribands, if thou art so silly ?
Mark how they grace lord Umbra, or sir Billy.
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life ?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Power ! 't is the fav'rite attribute of gods,
Who look with smiles on men, who can aspire
To copy them.
Martyn's Timoleon.
Ay — when the red swoln stream comes roaring
down,
Full many a glorious flower, and stately tree,
Floats on the ruthless tide, whose unfelt sway
Moves not the mire that stagnates at the bottom.
Maturin's Bertram.
From my youth upwards
My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men,
Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes ;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine ;
My joy:, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,
Made ine a stranger.
Byron's Manfred.
Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the great,
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state ?
Yes — one — the first — the last — the best —
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom envy dared not hate —
Lcqueath'd the name of Washington,
To make men blush there was but one!
Byron.
He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find
Their loftiest peaks most wrapp'd in clouds and
snow ;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below,
Though far above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head.
Byron's Childe Harold
God gave him reverence of laws,
Yet stirring blood in freedom's cause —
A spirit to the rocks akin,
The eye of the hawk and the fire therein.
Coleridge,
Lives of all great men remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time ;
Footsteps, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Longfellow's Poem*
GRIEF.
What equal torment to the grief of mind,
And pining anguish hid in gentle heart,
That inly feeds itself with thoughts unkind,
And nourisheth her own consuming smart ?
What medicine can any leech's art
Yield such a sore, that doth her grievance hide.
And will to none her maladie impart?
Spenser's Fairy Queen
That cruel word her tender heart so thrill'd,
That sudden cold did run through every vein,
And stony horror all her senses fill'd
With dying fit, that down she fell for pain.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Which when she heard, as in despightful wise
She wilfully her sorrow did augment,
And offer'd hope of comfort did despise :
Her golden locks most cruelly she rent,
And scraitcht her face with ghastly dreriment ;
Ne would she speak, nc see, ne yet be seen,
But hid her visage, and her head down bent,
Either for grievous shame, or for great teene,
As if her heart with sorrow had transfixed been.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
When I awoke, and found her place devoid
And nought but pressed grass where she had lyen,
I sorrow'd all so much as erst I joy'd,
And washed all her place with wat'ry eyen.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
GRIEF.
211
Thus is my summer worn away and wasted,
Thus is my harvest hasten'd all to rathe ;
The ear that budded fair is burnt and blasted,
And all my hoped gain is turn'd to scathe.
Of all the seed that in my youth was sown,
Was none but brakes and brambles to be mown.
Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which show like grief itself, but are not so :
For sorrow's eye glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects.
Shaks. Richard II.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
Shaks. Hamlet.
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.
Shaks. Richard II.
What say you now ? what comfort have we now ?
By heaven, I '11 hate him everlastingly,
That bids me be of comfort any more.
Shaks. Richard II.
Of comfort no man speak :
Let 's talk of graves, of worms, of epitaphs :
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let 's choose executors, and talk of wills ;
And yet not so — for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies in the ground.
Sftaks. Richard II.
My grief lies all within,
And these external manners of laments
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief,
That swells with silence to the tortur'd soul.
Shaks. Richard II.
O that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew !
Or that the everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! O God ! O God !
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world I
Fie on 't ! O fie ! 't is an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed : things rank and gross in
nature
Possess it merely.
Shaks. Hamlet.
It is not, nor it cannot come to good :
But break, my heart ; for I must hold my tongue ;
Shaks. Hamlet.
There is something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood ;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger.
Shaks. Hamlet.
'Tis sweet, and commendable in your nature,
Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father ;
But, you must know your father lost a father ;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term
To do obsequious sorrow : But to persevere
In obstinite condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief.
Shaks. Hamlet.
He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound,
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
And end his being. ^ ^^
Had he the motive and the cue for passion,
That I have, he would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech ;
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Shaks. Hamlet
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The heart ungalled play :
For some must watch, while some must sleep ;
Thus runs the world away. ^^ ^^
One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow. Shaks. Hamlet.
There's matter in these sighs; these profound
heaves
You must translate : 'tis fit we understand them.
Shaks. Hamlet
What is he, whose grief
Bears such an emphasis ? Whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them
stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers. „, , „ ,
Sorrow breaks seasons, and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.
Shaks. Richard III.
Some grief shows much of love ;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel ,
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet, thy love
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doating like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear
thy hair,
And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
Shaks. Romeo and Jvlif%-
Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.
Shaks. Romeo and Julia
212
GRIEF.
O break, my heart ! poor bankrupt, break at once !
To prison, eyes ! ne'er look on liberty !
Vile earth, to earth resign ; end motion here ;
Ant thou, and Romeo, press one heavy bier.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone,
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
Shaks. Othello.
The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the
thief;
He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.
Shaks. Othello.
Nor doth the general care
Take hold on me ; for my particular grief
Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature,
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
And it is still itself.
Shaks. Othello.
insupportable ! O heavy hour !
Methinks, it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon ; and that the affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration.
Shaks. Othello.
Grief fills the room up of my absent child ;
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me ;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form ;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief.
Shaks. King John.
1 am sick of this false world ; and will love naught
But even the mere necessities upon it.
Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave ;
Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat
Thy grave-stone daily.
Shaks. Ti7non.
In sooth I know not why I am so sad ;
It wearies me ; you say, it wearies you :
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 't is made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
1 am the most unhappy woman living,
>Uiipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity,
No friends, no hope ; no kindred weep for me,
A j most no grave allow'd in.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Spirits of peace, where are ye? are ye all gone?
And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye ?
Shaks. Henry VIII.
The thorny point
Of bare distress hath ta'en from nib the show
Of smooth civility.
Shahs. As you like it.
A heavier task could not have been impos'd
Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.
Oh! grief hath chang'd me, since you saw me last;
And careful hours, with time's deformed hand,
Have written strange defeatures in my face.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.
What, man ! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows ;
Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors,
Why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making ;
Using those thoughts, which should indeed have
died ,
With them they think on ? Things without all
remedy
Should be without regard : What's done, is done.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Being that
I flow in grief, the smallest twine might lead me.
Shaks. Macbeth.
\
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And oraggart with my tongue !
Shaks. Macbeth.
Malcolm. — Dispute it like a man.
Macduff. — I shall do so,
But I must also feel it like a man :
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Shaks. Macbeth
Canst thou not administer to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain ;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff 'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs. upon the heart.
Shaks. Macbeth
Come what come may ;
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
Shaks. Macbeth.
No, I '11 not weep : —
I have full cause of weeping : but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I '11 weep : — O fool, I shafl go mad !
Slmks. Lear.
GRI£F.
213
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age ; wretched in both. ,
Shaks. Lear.
She shook
The holy wate- from her heavenly eyes,
And then retired, to deal with grief alone.
Shahs. Lear.
I am a man,
More sinn'd against than sinning.
Shaks. Lear.
But let not therefore my good friends be griev'd,
Nor construe any further my neglect,
Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.
Shaks. Julius Cmsar.
Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,
For Cassius is a-weary of the world :
Hated by one he loves : brav'd by his brother ;
Check'd like a bondman ; all his faults observ'd,
Set in a note-book, learn'd, and conn'd by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
A heavy heart bears not an humble tongue ;
Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks.
Shaks. Love's Labour.
I found her straying in the park,
Seeking to hide herself; as doth the deer,
That hath received some unrccurring wound.
Shaks. Titus Andronicus.
These tidings nip me : and I hang the head
As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with
storms. Shaks. Titus Andronicus.
Like a cloistress, she will veiled walk,
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine.
Shaks. Twelfth Night.
All things, that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral :
Our instruments, to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast ; .
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change ;
' Our bridal flowers serve for a bury'd corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
O give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book !
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
There 's nothing in this world, can make me joy :
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
Shaks. King John.
Once a day I'll visit
The chapel where they lie : and tears, shed there,
Shall be my recreation : so long as nature
Will bear up this existence, so long
I daily vow to use it.
Shaks. Winter's Tale
Yea, this man's brow, like to a title leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume :
So looks the strand, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part II.
And but he 's something stain'd
With grief, that 's beauty's canker, thou might'st
call him
A goodly person.
Shaks. Tempest.
Like the lily,
That once was mistress of the field, that flourish'd,
I '11 hang my head, and perish.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Let us not burthen our remembrances
With a heaviness that 's gone.
Shaks. Tempest.
No deeper wrinkles yet ? hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine,
And made no deeper wounds ? O flatt'ring glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,
Thou dost beguile me !
Shaks. Ricliard II.
I am the centre of all miseries :
What wander from me, leave their proper places.
Crown's Darius.
He that
Foretells his own calamity and makes
Events before they come, twice over doth
Endure the pains of evil destiny.
DavenanVs Distresses.
I am dumb as solemn sorrow ought to be ;
Could my griefs speak, the tale would have no end.
Otway's Caius Marius.
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease,
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm
Of hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Time past, when once I was, and what am now.
Milton's Samson Agonist**
Be not over exquisite
To cast the passion of uncertain evils :
For grant they be so, while they rest unknown.
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid ?
Milton s Comv*
214
GRIEF.
O might I here
In solitude live savage, in some glade
Obscur'd, where highest woods, impenetrable
To star or sun-light, spread their umbrage broad
And brown as evening : cover me, ye pines,
Ye cedars, with innumerable boughs
Hide me, where I may never see them more.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
On the ground
Outstretch'd he lay, on the cold ground, and oft
Curs'd his creation, death as oft accus'd
Of tardy execution.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales, and bowers,
With other echo late I taught your shades
To answer, and resound far other song.
Milton's Paradise Lost
My soul lies hid in shades of grief,
Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes
She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.
Dryden's Rival Ladies.
My heart is wither'd at that piteous sight,
As early blossoms are with eastern blasts.
Dryden's Spanish Friar.
My heart sinks in me,
And every slacken'd fibre drops its hold,
Like nature letting down the springs of life.
Dryden's Spanish Friar.
Oh ! nothing now can please me :
Darkness and solitude, and sighs, and tears,
And all the inseparable train of grief,
Attend my steps for ever.
Dryden's Amphitryon.
Ye cruel powers !
Take me as you have made me miserable :
You cannot make me guilty! 'twas my fate;
And you made that, not I.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
Mine is a grief of fury, not despair !
And if a manly drop or two fall down,
It scalds along my cheeks, like the green wood,
That sputtering in the flames, works outward into
tears. Dryden's Cleomenes.
lie w ithers at his heart, and looks as wan
As the pale spectre of a murder'd man.
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.
Alas ! I have not words to tell my grief;
To vent my sorrow would be some relief;
Light sufferings give us leisure to complain;
We groan, but cannot speak, in greater pain.
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.
Tliere is a kind of mournful eloquence
In thy dumb grief, which shames all clam'rous
sorrov Lee's Theodosius.
By day she seeks some melancholy shade,
To hide her sorrow from the prying world ;
At night she watches all the long, long hours,
And listens to the winds and beating rain,
With sighs as loud, and tears that fall as fast
Rowe's Fair Penitent,
O, take me in, a fellow-mourner with thee ;
I '11 number groan for groan, and tear for tear,
And when the fountains of thy eyes are dry,
Mine shall supply the stream, and weep for both !
Rowe's Fair Penitent.
The storm of grief bears hard upon his youth,
And bends him, like a drooping flower, to earth.
Rowe's Fair Penitent.
Her streaming eyes bent ever on the earth,
Except when in some bitter pang of sorrow,
To heav'n she seem'd in fervent zeal to raise,
And beg that mercy man deny'd her here.
Rowe's Jane Sttore.
She never sees the sun, but thro' her tears ;
And wakes to sigh the live-long nights away.
Rowe's Jane Shore.
Give me your drops, ye soft descending rains,
Give me your streams, ye never-ceasing springs,
That my sad eyes may still supply my duty,
And feed an everlasting flood of sorrow.
Rowe's Jane Shore.
That eating canker, grief, with wasteful spite,
Preys on the rosy bloom of youth and beauty.
Rowe's Ambitious Stepmother.
Some secret venom preys upon his heart;
A stubborn and unconquerable flame
Creeps in his veins, and drinks the streams of life.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey.
The time for tender thoughts and soft endearments
Is fled away and gone ; joy has forsaken us ;
Our hearts have now another part to play.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey
O peaceful solitude !
Here all things smile, and in sweet concert join:
All but my thoughts, that still are out of time,
And break, like jarring strings, the harmony.
Tate's Loyal General
We '11 fly to some far distant lonely village,
Forget our former state, and breed with slaves,
Sweat in the eye of day, and when night- comes
With bodies coarsely fill'd, and vacant souls,
Sleep like labour'd hinds, and never think ;
For if I think again, I shall go mad.
Sewell's Sir W. Raleigh.
Words will have way : or grief, suppress'd in vain,
Would burst its passage with th' out-rushing soul
mil's Alzira.
GRIEF.
Awhile she stood
rransform'd by grief to marble ; and appear'd
Her own pale monument; but when she breath'd
The secret anguish of her wounded soul,
So moving were the plaints, they would have
sooth'd
The stooping falcon to suspend his flight,
And spare his morning prey.
Fenton's Mariamne.
A soul exasperated in ills, falls out
With every thing — its friend — itself.
Addison's Cato.
Alas ! the muses now no more inspire,
Untun'd my lute, and silent is my lyre ;
My languid numbers have forgot to flow,
And fancy sinks beneath a weight of woe.
Pope's Sappho.
Oh ! mortals, short of sight, who think the past
O'erblown misfortune still shall prove the last :
Alas ! misfortunes travel in a train,
And oft in life form one perpetual chain ;
Fear buries fear, and ills on ills attend,
Till life and sorrow meet one common end.
Young 's Force of Religion.
What a damp hangs on me !
These sprightly tuneful airs but skim along
The surface of my soul, not enter there :
She does not dance to this enchanting sound.
How, like a broken instrument beneath
The skilful touch, my joyless heart lies dead !
Nor answers to the master's hand divine !
Young's Brothers.
How vain all outward effort to supply
The soul with joy ! The noontide sun is dark,
And music discord, when the heart is low.
Young's Brothers.
Some weep in perfect justice to the dead,
As conscious all their love is in arrear.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Some weep to share the fame of the deceas'd,
So high in merit, and to them so dear.
They dwell on praises, which they think they share ;
And thus, without a blush, commend themselves.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Who fails to grieve, when just occasion calls,
Or grieves too much, deserves not to be blest;
Inhuman, or effeminate, his heart.
Young's Night Thoughts.
But who can paint the lover as he stood,
Pierc'd by severe amazement, — hating life,
Speechless, and flx'd in all the death of woe !
So, faint resemblance, on the marble tomb,
The well-dissembled mourner stooping stands,
For ever silent, and for ever sad.
Thomson's Seasons.
Sweet source of virtue,
sacred sorrow ! he who knows not thee,
Knows not the best emotions of the heart,
Those tender tears that harmonize the soul,
The sigh that charms, the pang that gives delight
Thomson's Agamemnon.
So many great
Illustrious spirits have convers'd with woe,
Have in her school been taught, as are enough
To consecrate distress, and make ambition
Ev'n wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune.
Thomson's Sophonisba.
There oft is found an avarice in grief;
And the wan eye of sorrow loves to gaze
Upon its secret hoard of treasur'd woes
In pining solitude.
Mason's Elfrida.
Thou look'st a very statue of surprise,
As if a lightning blast had dried thee up,
And had not left thee moisture for a tear.
Martyn's Timoleon.
'T is impotent to grieve for what is past,
And unavailing to exclaim.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
Whole years of joy glide unperceiv'd away,
While sorrow counts the minutes as they pass.
Havard's Scanderbeg
Half of the ills we hoard within our hearts,
Are ills because we hoard them.
Proctor's Mirandola
Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes
And fondly broods with miser-care ;
Time but th' impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear !
Burns
Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh :
life ! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I.
Bui vs
He died that death which best becomes a man,
Who is with keenest sense of conscious ill
And deep remorse assail'd, a wounded spirit.
A death that kills the noble and the brave,
And only them. He had no other wound.
Joanna Baillie's De Moniford
Heaven oft in mercy smites e'en when the blov*
Severest is.
Joanna Baillie's Om
1 '11 do whate'er thou wilt, I will be silent :
But O ! a reined tongue, and bursting heart,
Are hard at once to bear.
Joanna Baillie's Basil
£16
GRIEF.
I felt a sudden tightness grasp my throat
As it would strangle me ; such as I felt,
I knew it well, some twenty years ago,
When my good father shed his blessing on me :
I hate to weep, and so I came away.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
He did naught but sigh,
If I might judge by the high-heaving vesture
Folded so deep on his majestic breast; —
Of sound I heard not.
Maturin's Bertram.
No future hour can rend my heart like this,
Save that which breaks it.
Maturin's Bertram.
A malady
Preys on my heart, that medicine cannot reach,
Invisible and cureless.
Maturin's Bertram.
They said her cheek of youth was beautiful,
Till withering sorrow blanch'd the white rose
there. Maturin.
And all clung round him weeping bitterly ;
Weeping the more because they wept in vain.
Rogers's Italy.
The grief that on my quiet preys,
That rends my heart, that checks my tongue,
1 fear wHl last me all my days,
But feel it will not last me long.
Sir John Moore.
The heavy sigh,
The tear in the half-opening eye,
The pallid cheek and brow, confess'd
That grief was busy in his breast.
Scott's Rokehy.
I alone am left on earth !
To whom nor relative nor blood remains,
No ! not a kindred drop that runs in human veins.
Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming.
As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow,
While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,
So the cheek may be ting'd with a warm sunny
smile,
Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the
while.
One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws
Its black shade alike o'er our joys and our woes,
To which life nothing darker or brighter can
bring, ■
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting !
Moore.
Fot, ah ! my heart, how very soon
The glitt'ring dreams of youth are past !
And long before it reach its noon, .
The sun of life is overcast.
Moore.
The world had just begun to steal
Each hope, that led me lightly on,
I felt not as I us'd to feel,
And life grew dark and love was gone !
No eye to mingle sorrow's tear,
No lip to mingle pleasure's breath,
No tongue to call me kind and dear —
'T was gloomy, and I wish'd for death !
Moore.
u Azim is dead !"
Oh grief, beyond all other griefs, when fate
First leaves the young heart lone and desolate
In the wide world, without thac only tie
For which it lov'd to live or fear'd to die —
Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne'er hath spoken
Since the sad day its master-chord was broken !
Moore's Lalla Rookh
Oh ! ever thus from childhood's hour,
I 've seen my fondest hopes decay ;
I never lov'd a tree or flower,
But 'twas the first to fade away.
I never nurs'd a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die.
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
That minute from my soul the light
Of heaven and love both pass'd away ;
And I forgot my home, my birth,
Profan'd my spirit, sunk my brow,
And revell'd in gross joys of earth,
Till I became — what I am now.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
But never a tear his.cheek descended,
And never smile his brow unbended :
And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought
The intersected lines of thought ;
Those furrows which the burning share
Of sorrow ploughs untimely there ;
Scars of the lacerating mind
Which the soul's war doth leave behind.
Byron's Parasina.
Through many a clime 't is mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst,
And all my solace is to know,
Whatc'cr betides, I 've known the worst.
What is that worst? nay, do not ask,
In pity from the search forbear :
Smile on — nor venture to unmask
Man's heart, and view the hell that 's there.
Byron.
Not oft to smile descendeth he,
And when he doth 't is sad to see
That he but mocks at misery.
Byron's Giaour.
GRIEF.
217
What is the worst of woes that wait on age ?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ?
To view each lov'd one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now.
Byron's Childe Harold.
And she was lost — and yet I breath'd,
But not the breath of human life ;
A serpent round my heart was wreathed,
And stung my every thought to strife.
Byron's Giaour.
Alike all time, abhorred all place,
Shuddering I shrunk from nature's face,
Where every hue that charmed before
The blackness of my bosom bore.
Byron's Giaour.
Alas ! the breast that inly bleeds,
Hath nought to dread from outward blow :
Who falls from all he knows of bliss,
Cares little into what abyss.
Byron's Giaour.
My slumbers — if I slumber — are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which then I can resist not : in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within ; and yet I live, and bear
The aspect and the form of breathing men.
But grief should be the instructor of the wise ;
Sorrow is knowledge : they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The tree of knowledge is not that of life.
Byron's Manfred.
Look on me ! there is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death ;
Some perishing of pleasure — some of study —
Some worn with toil — some of mere weariness —
Some of disease — and some, insanity —
And some of wither'd or of broken hearts ;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are numbered in the lists of fate,
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names.
Byron's Manfred.
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill ;
Though pleasure fires the madd'ning soul :
The heart — the heart is lonely still.
Byron.
Despond not : wherefore wilt thou wander thus,
To add thy silence to the silent night,
And lift thy tearful eye unto the stars ?
They cannot aid thee.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
He asked no question — all were answered now
By the first glance on that still-marble brow.
It was enough — she died — what recked it how 1
The love of youth, the hope of better years,
The only living thing he could not hate,
Was reft at once — and he deserved his fate,
But did not feel it less ; — the good explore,
For peace, those. realms where guilt can never
soar:
The proud — the wayward — who have fixed below
Their joy — and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all — perchance a mite —
But who in patience parts with all delight ?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn ;
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,
In smiles that least befit who wear them most.
Byron's Corsaij .
Sorrow preys upon
Its solitude, and nothing more divests it
From its sad visions of the other world
Than calling it at moments back to this.
The busy have no time for tears.
Byron's Two Foscari.
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
Byron's Dream.
Of many an ill untold, unsung,
That will not — may not find a tongue,
But kept conceal'd without control,
Spread the fell cankers of the soul.
Byron to his Daughter,
She stood a moment as a Pythoness
Stands upon her tripod, agonized, and full
Of inspiration gathered from distress,
When all the heart-strings, like wild horses, pull
The heart asunder.
Byron.
Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow,
His home deserted for the lonely wood,
Tormented with a wound he could not know,
His, like all deep grief, plunged in solitude.
Byron
Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep
As any man's clay mixture undergoes.
Our least of sorrows are such as we weep ;
'T is the vile daily drop on drop that wears
The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares.
Byron
Her infant babe
Had from its mother caught the trick of grie£
And sighed among its playthings.
Wordsworth
i9
219
GUIDE -GUILT.
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not ;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught.
Shelley.
Thy grief unmans me, and I fain would meet
That which approaches, as a brave man yields
With proud submission to a mightier foe.
Mrs. Hemans.
I need not say how, one by one,
Love's flowers have dropp'd from off love's chain,
Enough to say that they are gone,
And that they cannot bloom again.
Miss Landon.
Ah, tell me not that memory
Sheds gladness o'er the past ;
What is recall'd by faded flowers
Save that they did not last !
Miss Landon.
Thine is a grief that wastes the heart,
Like mildew on a tulip's dyes —
When hope, deferr'd but to depart,
Loses its smiles but keeps its sighs.
Miss Landon.
Weep not for him that dieth,
For he hath ceased from tears,
And a voice to his replieth
Which he hath not heard for years.
Mrs. Norton.
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless —
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air,
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach.
Miss Barrett.
I hush my heart, I hide my tears,
Lest he my grief should guess
Who. watch'd thee, darling, day and night,
With patient tenderness ;
'T would grieve his generous soul to see
This anguish wild and vain,
And he would deem it sin in me
To wish thee back again ;
But oh ! when I am all alone,
J cannot calm my grief.
Mrs. Osgood.
GUIDE.
For double shame he doth deserve,
Who being guide, doth soonest swerve.
Brandon's Octavia.
That man
M m./ safely venture to go on his way,
That is so guided, that he cannot stray.
Marmyon's Hollands Leaguer.
I stand like one
Has lost his way, and no man near him to inquire
it of:
Yet there 's a providence above, that knows
The roads which ill men tread, and can direct
Inquiring justice : The passengers that travel
In the wide ocean, where no paths are,
Look up, and leave their conduct to a star.
Sir Robert Howard's Surprisal
GUILT.
Say first what cause
Mov'd our grand-parents, in that happy state,
Favour'd of heav'n, so highly to fall off"
From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the world beside.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe.
That all was lost ,
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
In pangs, and nature gave a second groan,
Sky lower'd.and muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Where, where, for shelter, shall the guilty fly,
When consternation turns the good man pale ?
Young's Night Thoughts
Let no man trust the first false step
Of guilt, it hangs upon a precipice,
Whose steep descent in last perdition ends.
Young's Busiris.
There 's nought so monstrous but the mind of man,
In some conditions, may be brought to approve ;
Theft, sacrilege, treason and parricide,
When flattering opportunity enticed,
And desperation drove, have been committed
By those who once would start to hear them named.
Lino's Fatal Curiosity.
How guilt, once harbour'd in the conscious breast,
Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
'T is guilt alone
Like brain-sick phrenzy, in its feverish mood,
Fills the light air with visionary terrors,
And shapeless forms of fear.
Francis's Eugenia
Such is the fate of guilt, to make slaves tools,
And then to make 'cm masters — by our secrets.
Hazard's Regulus.
HAIR -HAND.
219
He that acts unjustly,
[s the worst rebel to himself, and tho' now
Ambition's trumpet and the drum of pow'r
May drown the sound, yet conscience will, one day,
Speak louder to him.
Havard's King Charles I.
O what a state is guilt ! how wild ! how wretched !
When apprehension can form nought but fears,
And we distrust security herself.
Havard's Regulus.
The guilty mind
Debases the great image that it wears,
And levels us with brutes.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
What a state is guilt,
When ex'ry thing alarms it ! like a centinel,
Who sleeps upon his watch, it wakes in dread,
Ev'n at a breath of wind.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
But many a crime deem'd innocent on earth,
Is register'd in heav'n, and these, no doubt,
Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
Cowper's Task.
To what gulfs
A single deviation from the track
Of human duties, leads even those who claim
The homage of mankind as their born due,
And find it, till they forfeit it themselves.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
He swears, but he is sick at heart ;
He laughs, but he turns deadly pale ;
His restless eye and sudden start —
These tell the dreadful tale
That will be told : it needs no words from thee,
Thou self-sold slave to guilt and misery.
Dana's Buccaneer.
God hath yok'd to guilt
Her pale tormentor — misery.
Bryant.
HAIR.
Hair ! 't is the robe which curious nature weaves
To hang upon the head, and does adorn
Our bodies ; in the first hour we are born,
God does bestow that garment : when we die,
That, like a soft and silken canopy,
Is still spread over us : In spite of death,
Our hair grows in our grave, and that alone
Looks fresh, when all our other beauty 's gone.
Decker's Satiromastix.
Her hair was roll'd in many a curious fret,
Much like a rich and curious coronet ;
Upon whose arches twenty Cupids lay,
And were or ty'd, or loath to fly away.
Brown's Pastorals.
Her hair
In ringlets rather dark than fair,
Does down her ivory bosom roll,
And hiding half t.dorns the whole.
Prior
Her hair down-gushing in an armful flows,
And floods her ivory neck, and glitters as she goes.
Allan Cunningham,
Then there 's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
More tame for his grey hairs.
Keats's Eve of St. Agnes.
A silver line, that from the brow to the crown,
And in the middle, parts the braided hair,
Just serves to show how delicate a soil
The golden harvest grows in.
Wordsworth.
An angel face ! its sunny " wealth of hair,"
In radiant ripples, bathed the graceful throat
And dimpled shoulders.
Mrs. Osgood.
She 's beautiful ! — Her raven curls
Have broken hearts in envious girls ; —
And then they sleep in contrast so,
Like raven feathers upon snow,
And bathe her neck — and shade the bright
Dark eye from which they catch the light,
As if their graceful loops were made
To keep that glorious eye in shade,
And holier make its tranquil spell,
Like waters in a shaded well.
Willis.
See those small youngsters whose expansive ears
Maternal kindness graz'd with frequent shears ;
Each bristling crop a dangling mass becomes,
And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms.
O. W. Holmes
HAND.
Her hand,
In whose comparison, all whites are ink
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman !
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
I take thy hand, this hand,
As soft as dove's down, and as white as it ;
Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow,
That's bolted by the northern blast twice o'er.
Shaks. Winters's Tale.
He who beholds her hand forgets her face.
Mrs. Brooks's Zophie'
I love a hand that meets mine own
With grasp that causes some sensatior
Mrs. Osgood's Poens
220
HANGING-HAPPINESS.
The instrument of instruments, the hand ;
Courtesy's index; chamberlain to nature;
The body's soldier ; and mouth's caterer ;
Psyche's great secretary ; the dumb's eloquence ;
The blind man's candle, and his forehead's buckler ;
The minister of wrath; and friendship's sign.
Lingua.
The Hand, — what wondrous Wisdom plann'd
This instrument so near divine !
How impotent, without the Hand,
Proud Reason's light would shine !
Invention might her power apply,
And Genius see the forms of heaven,—
And firm Resolve his strength might try; —
But vain the Will, the Soul, the Eye,
Unquarriea tfould the marble lie,
The oak and cedar flout the sky
Had not the Hind been given !
Mrs. Hale— The Hand and its Work.
The Frost's ice-breath the seas may block,
An Earthquake's arm the mountains shake,
The lightning's eye dissolve the rock,
The heaving breast of Waters break
A pathway through the solid land ;
No form that Nature's force can take
Such changes in the World would make
As doth the Human Hand.
Mrs. Hale — The Hand and its Work.
All wants that from our nature rise,
Life's common cares the Hand supplies ;
It tends and clothes our myriad race,
And forms for each a resting-place ;
And ceaseless ministry doth keep
From cradle dream to coffin sleep.
Mrs. Hale — The Hand and its Work.
Art's glorious things that give the Mind
Dominion over Time and Space, —
The silken Car, that rides the wind ;
The Steel, that trackless seas can trace ;
The Engine, breathing fire and smoke
That Neptune's potent sway hath broke,
And sails its ships 'gainst wind and tide ;
Tne Telescope, that sweeps the sky,
And brings the pilgrim planet nigh,
Familiar as the Sun's pale Bride ; —
Tne microscopic Lens, which finds
On every leaf a peopled land, —
A.11 these, that aid the mightiest Minds,
Were wrought and fashion'd by the Hand !
Mis. Hale — The Hand and its Work.
I hough Mind Aladdin's lamp might be,
lilt Genie was the Hand.
Mrs. Hale— The Hand and its Work.
HANGING.
Go, go, begone, to save your ship from wreck
Which cannot perish, having thee on board,
Being destined to a drier death on shore.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
While those who turn and wind their oaths
Have swell'd and sunk, like other froths ;
Prevail'd awhile, but 't was not long
Before from world to world they swung,
As they had turn'd from side to side ;
And as the changelings liv'd, they dy'd.
Butler's Hudibras.
When the times begin to alter,
None rise so high as from the halter.
Butler's Hudibras.
For matrimony and hanging here
Both go by destiny so clear,
That you as sure may pick and choose,
As Cross, 1 win ; and Pile, you lose.
Butler's Hudibras.
HAPPINESS.
O, how bitter a thing it is to look
Into happiness through another man's eyes !
Shaks. As you like it.
If it were now to die,
'T were now to be most happy ; for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute,
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.
Shaks. Othello.
What ! we have many goodly days to see :
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed,
Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl;
Advantaging their loan, with interest
Oftentimes double gain of happiness.
Shaks. Richard III.
All the good we have rests in the mind ;
By whose proportions only we redeem
Our thoughts from out confusion, and do find
The measure of ourselves, and of our powers :
And that all happiness remains confin'd
Within the kingdom of this breast of ours.
Daniel to the Countess of Bedford.
What thing so good which not some harm may
bring 7
E'en to be happy is a dangerous thing.
Earl of Slerline's Darius.
Happy are those,
That knowing in their births they are subject to
Uncertain change, are still prepar'd and arm'd
For either fortune : a rare principle,
And with much labour learn'd in wisdom's school
Massinger's Bondman
HAPPINESS.
221
That happiness docs the longest thrive,
Where joys and griefs have turns alternative.
Herrick.
'T is with our souls
As with our eyes, that after a long darkness
Are dazzled at th' approach of sudden light ;
When i' th' midst of fears we are surpris'd
With unexpected happiness ; the first
Degrees of joy are mere astonishment
Denharn's Sophy.
Over all men hangs a doubtful fate :
One gains by what another is bereft ;
The frugal deities have only left
A common bank of happiness below,
Maintain'd, like nature, by an ebb and flow.
Sir Robert Howard's Indian Queen.
Happiness is a stranger to mankind,
And, like to a fore'd motion, it is ever
Strongest at the beginning ; then languishing
With time, grows weary of our company.
Tube's Adventures of Five Hours.
I see there is no man but may make his paradise,
And it is nothing but his love and dotage
Upon the world's foul joys, that keeps him out on't;
For he that lives retir'd in mind and spirit,
Is still in paradise.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Nice Valour.
On earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind in the happy garden plac'd,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy — unrivall'd love.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
They live too long, who happiness outlive :
For life and death are things indifferent;
Each to be chose, as either brings content.
Dryden's Indian Emperor.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies,
And they are fools who roam :
The world has nothing to bestow ;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut — our home.
Cotton's Fireside-
Bliss ! sublunary bliss ! — proud words and vain !
Implicit treason to divine decree !
A bold invasion of the rights of heaven !
I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh' d it ere my fond embrace !
What darts of agony had miss'd my heart!
Young's Night Thoughts.
How sad a sight is human happiness,
To those whose thoughts can pierce beyond an
hour ! Young's Night Thoughts.
Thou happy wretch; by blindness art thou blest.
By dotage dandled to perpetual smiles.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Know, smiler ! at thy peril art thou pleas'd ;
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor severe,
But rises in demand for her delay ;
She makes a scourge of past posterity,
To sting thee more, and double thy distress.
Young's Night Thoughts.
The spider's most attenuated thread
Is coid — is cable — to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss ; it breaks at every breeze.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Nature, in zeal for human amity,
Denies, or damps, an undivided joy.
Joy is an import ; joy is an exchange ,
Joy flies monopolists ; it calls for two ;
Rich fruit ! Heav'n planted ! never pluck' d by one.
Young's Night Thoughts
O how portentous is prosperity !
How comet-like ; it threatens, while it shines !
Young's Night Thoughts.
What makes man wretched ? Happiness deny'd ?
Lorenzo ! no, 't is happiness disdain'd.
She comes too meanly drest to win our smile ,
And calls herself content, a homely name !
Our flame is transport, and content our scorn.
Ambition turns, and shuts the door against her,
And weds a toil, a tempest, in her stead.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Beware what earth calls happiness ; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire ;
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joy to death.
Young's Night Thought
Know thou this truth, (enough for man to know',
" Virtue alone is happiness below."
The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill ;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives ;
The joy uncquall'd, if its end it gain,
And if it lose, attended with no pain :
Without satiety, tho' e'er so blest,
And but more relish'd as the more distress'd :
The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears,
Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears :
Good from each object, from each place acquir a,
For ever cxercis'd, yet never tir'd ;
Never elated, while one man's oppress'd ;
Never dejected, while another's blest ,
And where no wants, no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.
Pope's Essay on Nan
19*
222
HAPPINESS.
Oh, happiness ! our being's end and aim,
Good, pleasure, case, content — whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts th' eternal
sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die,
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise :
Plant of celestial seed ! if dropp'd below,
Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow ?
Pope's Essay on Man.
Ask of the learn'd the way? The learn'd are
blind ;
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind ;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these :
Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain ;
Some, swell'd to gods, confess ev'n virtue vain ;
Or, indolent to each extreme they fall,
To trust in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Know, all the good that individuals find,
Or God and nature meant to mere mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone ;
And peace, oh virtue ! peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain ;
But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,
'T is no where to be found, or every where.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Order is heav'n's first law ; and this confest,
Some are and must be greater than the rest,
Mora rich, more wise, but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.
Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness :
But mutual wants this happiness increase;
All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing ;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king,
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend :
Heaven breathes through every member of the
whole,
One common blessing, as one common soul.
Pope's Essay on Man.
True happiness (if understood)
Consists aicne m doing good.
Somerville.
Oil when blind mortals think themselves secure,
In height of bliss, they touch the brink of ruin.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
Ev'n not all these, in one rich lot combin'd,
Can make the happy man, without the mind,
Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys
The chain of reason with unerring gaze ;
Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes,
His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise ;
Where social love exerts her soft command,
And plays' the passions with a tender hand,
Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife,
And all the moral harmony of life.
Thomson.
Oh, then the longest summer's day
Seem'd too, too much in haste : still the full heart
Had not imparted half: 't was happiness
Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed,
Not to return, how painful the remembrance
Blair's Grave.
Blessed, thrice blessed days ! but ah ! how short !
Bless'd as the pleasing charms of holy men,
But fugitive, like those, and quickly gone.
O slippery state of things ! What sudden turns,
What strange vicissitudes, in the first leaf
Of man's sad history ! to-day most happy ;
And, ere to-morrow's sun has set, most abject !
How scant the space between these vast extremes !
Blair's Grave
Our aim is happiness ; 't is yours, 't is mine,
He said, 't is the pursuit of all that live :
Yet few attain it, if 't was e'er attain'd.
But they the widest wander from the mark,
Who through the flowery path of sauntering joy
Seek this coy goddess ; that from stage to stage
Invites us still, but shifts as we pursue.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Its no' in books, its no' in lear,
To make us truly blest :
If happiness has not her seat
And centre in the breast ;
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest.
Burns' s Epistle to Davie.
Think ye, that sic as you and I,
Wha drudge and drive thro' wet and dry,
Wi' never-ceasing toil ;
Think ye, are we less blest than they,
Wha scarcely tent us in their way,
As hardly worth their while ?
Burns's Epistle to Davie.
Though duller thoughts succeed,
The bliss e'en of a moment, still is bliss.
Thou would'st not of her dew-drops spoil the thorn,
Because her glory will not last till noon ;
Nor still the lightsome gambols of the colt,
Whose neck to-morrow's yoke will gall. Fye on't '.
If this be wise, 'tis cruel.
Joanna Baillie's Beacon.
HARVEST.
223
It is ever thus with Happiness :
It is the gay to-morrow of the mind
That never comes.
Proctor's Mirandola.
This was his brightest hour, too bright
For human weal ; — a glaring light,
Like sun-beam thro' the rent cloud pouring
On the broad lake, when storms are roaring ;
Bright centre of a wild and sombre scene ;
More keenly bright than summer's settled sheen.
Joanna Baillie.
An hour like this is worth a thousand pass'd
In pomp or ease — 'tis present to the last !
Years glide away untold — 'tis still the same ;
As fresh, as fair as on the day it came !
Rogers's Human Life.
True happiness is not the growth of earth,
The soil is fruitless if you seek it there :
'T is an exotic of celestial birth,
And never blooms but in celestial air.
Sweet plant of paradise ! its seeds are sown
In here and there a breast of heavenly mould,
It rises slow, and buds, but ne'er was known
To blossom here — the climate is too cold.
R. B. Sheridan.
Vain schemer ! think not to prolong thy joy !
But cherish while it lasts the heavenly boon !
Expand thy sails ! thy little bark shall fly
With the full tide of pleasure ! though it soon
May feel the influence of the changeful moon,
It yet is thine ! then let not doubts obscure,
With cloudy vapours veil thy brilliant noon,
Nor let suspicion's tainted breath impure,
Poison the favouring gale which speeds thy course
secure ! Mrs. Tights Psyche.
Oh, happy you ! who, blest with present bliss,
See not with fatal prescience future tears,
Nor the dear moment of enjoyment miss
Through gloomy discontent, or sullen fears
Foreboding many a storm for coming years ;
Change is the lot of all. Ourselves with scorn
Perhaps shall view what now so fair appears ;
And wonder whence the fancied charm was born
Which now with vain despair from our fond grasp
is torn. Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
What deem'd they of the future or the past ?
The present, like a tyrant, held them fast.
Byron's Island.
Sweet, as the desert-fountain's wave
To lips just cool'd in time to save.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
All who joy would win
Must share it — happiness was born a twin.
Byron.
There comes
For ever something between us and what
We deem our happiness.
Byron's Sardanapal.us
A month ago I was happy ! no,
Not happy, yet encircled by deep joy,
Which though 't was all around, I could not touch.
But it was ever thus with happiness :
It is the gay to-morrow of the mind
That never comes.
Bryan W. Proctor.
There is a gentle element, and man
May breathe it with a calm unruffled soul,
And drink its living waters, till his heart
Is pure, and this is human happiness.
Willis.
How cheap
Is genuine happiness, and yet how dearly
Do we all pay for its base counterfeit !
We fancy wants, which to supply, we dare
Danger and death, enduring the privation
Of all free nature offers in her bounty,
To attain that, which, in its full fruition,
Brings but satiety. The poorest man
May taste of nature in her element,
Pure, wholesome, never cloying ; while the richest,
From the same stores, does but elaborate
A pungent dish of well-concocted poison.
J. N. Barker
Rapture is not the aim of man ; in flowers
The serpent hides his venom, and the sting
Of the dread insect lurks in fairest bowers.
We were not made to wander on the wing ;
But if we would be happy, we must bring
Our buoyed hearts to a plain and simple school.
Percival.
HARVEST.
The harvest treasures all
Now gather'd in, beyond the rage of storms,
Sure to the swain ; the circling fence shut up ;
And instant winter's utmost rage defy'd.
While loose to festive joy, the country round
Laughs with the loud sincerity of mirth,
Shook to the wind their cares.
Thomson's Seasons
Her every charm abroad, the village toast,
Young, buxom, warm, in native beauty rich,
Darts not unmeaning looks.
Thomson's Season*.
Age too shines out ; and, garrulous, recounts
The feats of youth. Thus they rejoice ; nor think
That with to-morrow's sun, then annual toil
Begins again the never-ceasing round.
Thomson s Season*
224
HATRED
Glowing scene !
Nature's long holiday! luxuriant — rich,
In her proud progeny, she smiling marks
Their graces, now mature, and wonder-fraught !
Hail ! season exquisite ! — and hail, ye sons
Of rural toil ! — ye blooming daughters ! ye
Who, in th»: lap of hardy labour rear'd,
Enjoy the mind unspotted !
Mary Robinson.
Now the air
Is rich in fragrance ! fragrance exquisite !
Of new-mown hay, of wild thyme dewy wash'd,
And gales ambrosia], which with cooling breath
Ruffle the lake's grey surface.
Mary Robinson.
Hail ! harvest-home !
To thee the muse of nature pours the song,
By instinct taught to warble ! Instinct pure,
Sacred, and grateful, to that pow'r ador'd,
Which warms the sensate being, and reveals
The soul self-evident, beyond the dreams
Of visionary sceptics ! Scene sublime !
Where the rich earth presents her golden treasures ;
Where balmy breathings whisper to the heart
Delights unspeakable ! where seas and skies,
And hills and valleys, colours, odours, dews,
Diversify the work of nature's God !
Mary Robinson.
The feast is such as earth, the general mother,
Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles
In the embrace of autumn. To each other,
As some fond parent fondly reconciles
Her warring children, she their wrath beguiles
With their own sustenance ; they, relenting, weep.
Shelley.
Around him ply the reaper band,
With lightsome heart and eager hand,
And mirth and music cheer the toil, —
While sheaves that stud the russet soil,
And sickles gleaming in the sun,
Tell jocund harvest is begun.
Pringrt.
My glowing heart beats high
At the sight of burnish'd gold ;
But 'tis not that which the miser's eye
Delighteth to behold ;
A brighter wealth by far
Than the deep mine's yellow vein,
Is seen around, in the far hills crown'd
With sheaves of burnish'd grain.
Eliza Cook.
Then glory to the steel
That shines in the reaper's hand ;
And tnanks to God, who has bless'd the sod,
And crowns the harvest land !
Eliza Cook.
There 's merry laughter in the field,
And harmless jest and frolic rout •
And the last harvest wain goes by,
With its rustling load so pleasantly,
To the glad and clamorous harvest shout —
There are busy gleaners in the field, —
The old, whose work is never done,
And eager, laughing, childish bands,
Rubbing the ears in their little hands,
And singing 'neath the harvest sun.
Mary Howitt.
The glorious landscape smiles and melts ;
Green wave-like meadows here are spread,
There woodland shades are sweetly shed,
In deepening gold there glows the wheat,
And there the rye-field's vying sheet.
Street's Poems.
HATRED.
tWhy should'st thou hate men ?
They never flatter'd thee : what hast thou given ?
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Hate all, curse all : show charity to none ;
But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone,
Ere thou relieve the beggar : give to dogs
What thou deny'st to men ; let prisons swallow
them,
Debts wither them to nothing : be men like blasted
woods,
And may diseases lick up their false bloods.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Be' abhorr'd
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men !
His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains :
Destruction fang mankind !
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind,
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Nothing I '11 bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou detestable town !
Timon will to the woods ; where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Nor sleep, nor sanctuary,
Being naked, sick ; nor fane, nor capitol,
The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice,
Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom against
My hate to Marcius : where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
Against the hospitable canon, would I
Wash my fierce hand in 's heart.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
HATRED.
225
By all the operations of the orbs,
From whom we do exist, and cease to be ;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever.
Shaks. King Lear.
Were half to half the world by th' ears, and he
I'pon my party, I'd revolt to inaka
Ally my wars with him : he is a lion
That I am proud to hunt.
Shales. Coriolanus.
Had I power, I should
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound
All unity on earth.
Shaks. Macbeth.
But gentle heaven,
Cut short all intermission ; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's kngth set him ; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too I
Shales. Macbeth.
Had not God, for strong purpose, steel'd
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.
Shaks. Richard II.
I do love thee so,
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,
If heaven will take the present at our hands.
Shaks. Richard III.
Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,
That I may live to say — the dog is dead.
Shaks. Ricltard III.
What ! were you snarling all, before I came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me ?
Shaks. Richard III.
Sit, cousin Percy ; sit, good cousin Hotspur ;
For by that name, as oft as Lancaster
Doth speak of you, his cheeks look pale ; and with
A rising sigh, he wisheth you m heaven.
Shaks Henry IV. Part I.
Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,
That from his loins no hcptAii branch may spring,
To cross me from the go-vTen i.?ne I look for !
SItaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother :
And this word — love, which grey-beards call
divine,
Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me ; I am myself alone.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
P
Alas, poor York ! r it that I hate thee deadly,
I should lament thy miserable state.
I pr'ythee, grieve, to make me merry, York ;
Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part III.
Had the passions of thy heart burst out,
I fear we shoul nave seen decypher'd there,
More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,
Than yet can be imagin'd, or suppos'd.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part. 1.
How like a fawning publican he looks !
I hate him, for he is a Christian :
But more, for that, in low simplicity,
He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I '11 have my bond ; speak not against my bond :
I have sworn an oath, that I will have my bond :
Thou call'dst me dog, before thou hadst a cause ;
But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
You '11 ask me, why I rather choose to have
A weight of carrion flesh, than to receive
Three thousand ducats : I '11 not answer that ;
But, say, it is my humour : Is it answer'd ?
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I '11 not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool,
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield
To Christian intercessors.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
And therefore — since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days —
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Shaks. Richard III.
Thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,
A chafed lion by the mortal paw,
A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,
Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost
hold. Shaks. King Johu
It is the wit, the policy of sin,
To hate those men we have abused.
Sir W. DavenanVs Just Italian.
I see thou art implacable, more deaf
To prayers than winds and seas ; yet winds ant)
seas
Are reconcil'd at length, and sea to shore :
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages,
Eternal tempest never to be calm.
Milton's Samson Agonistet
I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
Sio-ht more detestable than him and thee.
Milton's Paradise Lorf
220
HATRED.
To thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring; to my remembrance from what state
1 fell, how glorious once above thy sphere ;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Ejected out of church and state,
And all things but the people's hate
Butler's Hudibras.
I had much rather see
A crested dragon, or a basilisk;
Both are less poison to my eyes and nature.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
No voice of friendly salutation cheer'd him,
None wish'd his arms might thrive, or bade God
speed him :
But through a staring, ghastly-looking crowd,
Unhail'd, unblest, with heavy heart he went.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey.
Whispers are heard, with taunts reviling loud,
And scornful hisses run through all the crowd.
Pope's Temple of Fame.
I '11 keep my way alone, and burn away —
Evil or good I care not, so I spread
Tremendous desolation on my road :
I'll be remember'd as huge meteors are;
From the dismay they scatter.
Proctor's Mirandola.
Disgust conceal'd
Is oft-times proof of wisdom, when the fault*
Is obstinate, and cure beyond our reach.
Cowper's Task.
Oh, that I could but mate him in his might,
Oh, that we were on the dark wave together,
With but one plank between us and destruction,
That I might grasp him in these desperate arms,
And plunge with him amid the weltering billows,
And view him gasp for life.
Maturin's Bertram.
By heaven and all its host he shall not perish !
Bertram. — By hell and all its host he shall not live!
This id no transient flash of fugitive passion —
His death hath been my life for years of misery —
Which else I had not liv'd —
I'pon that thought, and not on food, I fed,
Upon that thought, and not on sleep, I rested —
I came to do the deed that must be done —
JVor thou, nor sheltering angels, could prevent me.
Maturin's Bertram.
The hand of Douglas is his own ;
And never snail in friendship's grasp
T'ie hand a. such as Marmion clasp.
Scott's Marmion.
Warp'd by the world in disappointment's school,
In words too wise, in conduct there a fool ;
Too firm to yield, and far too proud to stoop,
Doom'd by his very virtues for a dupe,
He curs'd those virtues as the cause of ill,
And not the traitors who betray'd him still ;
Nor deem'd that gifts bestow'd on better men,
Had left him joy, and means to give again.
Feared, shunned, belied, ere youth had lost her
force,
He hated men too much to feel remorse,
And thought the voice of wrath a sacred call,
To pay the injuries of some on all.
Byron's Corsair.
If you come for our thanks, take them, and hence!
The dungeon gloom is deep enough without you,
And full of reptiles, not less loathsome, though
Their sting is honester.
Byron's Two Foscari.
From thy false tears I did distil
An essence which hath strength to kill ;
From thy own heart I then did wring
The black blood in its blackest spring ;
From thy own smile I snatch'd the snake,
For there it coil'd as in a brake ;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm ;
In proving every poison known,
I found the strongest was thine own.
Byron's Manfred.
Down to the dust ! and as thou rott'st away,
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
Byron's Sketch from Private Life.
Ah ! fondly youthful hearts can press,
To seize and share the dear caress ;
But love itself could never pant
For all that beauty sighs to grant,
With half the fervour hate bestows
Upon the last embrace of foes.
Byron's Giaour.
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure ;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.'
Byron.
I hate it, as I hate an argument,
A laureate's ode, or servile peer's " content."
Byron.
They did not know how hate can burn
In hearts once changed from soft to stern ;
Nor all the false and fatal zeal
The convert of revenge can feel.
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
There are some things I cannot bear,
Some looks which rouse my angry hate,
Some hearts whose love 1 would not share,
Till earth and heaven were desolate.
Willi*.
HEALTH - HEARING - HEART.
22?
HEALTH.
Vhe common ingredients of health and long life
are
Gieat temp'rance, open air,
Easy labour, little care.
Sir P. Sidney.
The surest road to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.
Most of those evils we poor mortals know
From doctors and imagination flow.
Churchill.
HEARING.
These wickets of the soul are plac'd so high,
Because all sounds do highly move aloft ;
And that they may not pierce too violently,
They are delay'd with turns and twinings oft.
For should the voice directly strike the brain,
It would astonish and confuse it much ;
Therefore these plaits and folds the sound restrain,
That it the organ may more gently touch.
Sir John Davics.
This is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense ;
For ev'n the ears of such as have no skill,
Perceive a discord, and conceive offence ;
And knowing not what 's good, yet find the ill.
Sir John Davies.
These conduit-pipes of knowledge feed the mind,
But th' other three attend the body still ;
For by their services the soul doth find,
What tilings are to the body good or ill.
Sir John Davies.
HEART.
Heaven's Sovereign spares all beings but himself
That hideous sight — a naked, human heart!
Young' 1 s Night Thoughts.
The heart is like the sky a part of heaven,
But changes, night and day, too, like the sky ;
Now o'er it clouds and thunder must be driven,
And darkness and destruction, as on high ;
But when it hath been scorch'd and pierc'd and
riven,
Its storms expire in water-drops ; the eye
Pours forth, at last, the heart's blood turn'd to tears.
Byron.
To me she gave her heart — the all
Which tyranny cannot enthral.
Byron's Giaour.
Father of spirits, hear !
Look on the inmost heart to thee reveal'd,
Look on the fountain of the burning tear.
Mrs. Hemans.
In thy heart there is a holy spot,
As 'mid the waste an isle of fount and palm.
For ever green ! — the world's breath enters not,
The passion-tempest may not break its calm
'Tis thine, all thine.
Mrs. Hemans.
— I have ease, and I have health,
And I have spirits light as air ;
And more than wisdom, more than wealth —
A merry heart that laughs at care.
• H. H. Milman.
The heart hath its mystery, and who may reveal it,
Or who ever read in the depth of their own,
How much we never may speak of, yet feel it,
But even in feeling it, know it unknown ?
Miss London.
The heart builds up its hopes, though not address d
To meet the sunset glories of the west,
But garner'd in some still, sweet-singing nest
Miss Landun.
Oh, no ! my heart can never be
Again in lightest hopes the same ;
The love that lingers there for thee
Hath more of ashes than of flame.
Miss London.
— Seek for a bosom all honest and true,
Where love once awaken'd will never depart ;
Turn, turn to that breast like the dove to its nest,
And you'll find there's no home like the home
in the heart Eliza Cook.
— We, in the dark chamber of the heart,
Sitting alone, see the world tabled to us ;
And the world wonders how recluses know
So much, and most of all, how we know them.
It is they who paint themselves upon our hearts
In their own lights and darknesses, not we.
Bailey's Festus.
Honour to him, who, self-complete and brave,
In scorn can carve his pathway to the grave,
And heeding nought of what men think or say,
Make his own heart his world upon the way
The New Timon.
Mine be the heart that can itself defend —
Hate to the foe, devotion to the friend !
The New Timor*.
The flush of youth soon passes from the face,
The spells of fancy from the mind depart ;
The form may lose its symmetry, its grace,
But time can claim no victory o'er the heart.
Mrs Dinnies
How idly of the human heart we speak,
Giving: it grods of clay !
s * y Willi,
228
HEAVENS.
A young maiden's heart
Is a ncn soil, wherein lie many germs
Ilid by the cunning hand of nature there
To put forth blossoms in their fittest season ;
And though the love of home first breaks the
soil,
With its embracing tendrils clasping it,
Other affections, strong and warm will grow,
While that one fades, as summer's flush of bloom
Succeeds the gentle budding of the spring.
Mrs. Frances K+ Butler.
My heart is like the sleeping lake,
Which takes the hue of cloud and sky,
And only feels its surface break
When birds of passage wander by,
Who dip their wings, and upward soar,
And leave it quiet as before.
Willis's Poems.
My heart is like a lonely bird,
That sadly sings,
Brooding upon its nest unheard,
With folded wings.
Mrs. Welly.
I am not old — though time has set
His signet on my brow,
And some faint furrows there have met,
Which care may deepen now ; —
For in my heart a fountain flows,
And round it pleasant thoughts repose,
And sympathies and feelings high '
Spring like the stars on evening sky
Park Benjamin.
A pure heart
That burns to ashes, yet conceals its pain,
For fear it mar its hopeless source of love,
Is not to be despised, or lightly held.
Baker's Calaynos.
The heart, methinks,
Were of strange mould, which kept no cherish'd
print
Of earlier, happier times, when life was fresh,
And love and innocence made holiday.
Hillhouse.
Who made the heart, 't is He alone
Decidedly can try us,
He knows each chord — its various tone,
Each spring its various bias :
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it ;
What 's done we partly may compute,
But know not what 's resisted.
Burns's Poems.
HEAVENS.
There 's a perpetual spring, perpetual youth,
No joint-benumbing cold, nor scorching heat,
Famine nor age have any being there.
Massinger and Decker's Virgin Martyr
What a poor value do men set of heaven !
Heaven, the perfection of all that can
Be said, or thought, riches, delight, or harmony.
Health, beauty ; and all these not subject to
The waste of time ; bul in their height eternal ;
Lost for a pension, or poor spot of earth,
Favour of greatness, or an hour's faint pleasure !
As men in scorn of a true flame that 's near,
Should run to light their taper at a glow-worm.
Shirley's St. Patrick for Ireland.
Blest heaven, how are thy ways just like thy orbs,
Involv'd within each other ? Yet still we find
Thy judgments are like comets, that do blaze,
Affright, but die withal ; whilst that thy mercies
Are like the stars, who oft-times are obscur'd,
But still remain the same behind the clouds.
Fountain's Rewards of Virtue
There is a heaven :
This shred of life cannot be all the web
Nature hath wrought to govern divine spirits ;
There is a heaven, because there 's misery.
The divine power ever blest and good,
Made not the world for an ill-natur'd jest,
To sport himself in pains of those he made.
Crown's Regulus
Shall we serve heaven
With less respect than we do minister
To our gross selves ?
Shaks. Measure for Measure
Heaven
Is as the book of God before thee set,
Wherein to read his wond'rous works.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night ;
God said, Let Newton be ; and all was light.
Pope.
Devotion ! daugbter of astronomy !
An undevout astronomer is mad.
Young's Night Thoughts.
What involution ! what extent ! what swarms
Of worlds, that laugh at earth ! immensely great .
Immensely distant from each other's spheres J
What, then, the wondrous space through which
they roll?
At once it quite ingulphs all human thought ;
'T is comprehension's absolute defeat.
Young's Night Thoughts
HELL.
22s*
Tliis prospect vast, what is it ? — weigh'd aright,
*T is nature's system of divinity,
And every student of the night inspires.
Tis elder scripture, writ by God's own hand :
Scripture authentic ! uncorrupt by man.
Young's Night Thoughts.
One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine ;
And light us deep into the deity ;
How boundless in magnificence and might !
O what a confluence of ethereal fires,
From urns unnumber'd, down the steep of heaven,
Streams to a point, and centres in my sight !
Nor tarries there ; I feel it at my heart :
My heart, at once, it humbles, and exalts ;
Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.
Young's NigM Thoughts.
Thrice happy world, where gilded toys
No more disturb our thoughts, no more pollute
our joys !
There light or shade succeed no more by turns,
There reigns th' eternal sun with an unclouded ray,
There all is calm as night, yet all immortal day,
And truth for ever shines, and love for ever burns.
Watts.
But the day is spent ;
And stars are kindling in the firmament,
To us how silent — though like ours, perchance,
Busy and full of life and circumstance.
Rogers's Human Life.
Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven ;
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires — 'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,
That fortune, fame, power, life, have nam'd them-
selves a star. Byron's Childe Harold.
Heaven darkly works ; — yet, where the seed hath
been,
There shall the fruitage, glowing, yet be seen.
Mrs. Hemans.
The blue, deep, glorious heavens ! — I lift mine eye,
And bless thee, O my God ! that I have met
And own'd thine image in the majesty
Of their calm temple still ! that never yet
There hath thy face been shrouded from my sight
By noontide blaze, or sweeping storm of night"!
I bless thee, O my God !
Mrs. Hemans.
Heaven asks no surplice round the heart that feels,
And all is holy where devotion kneels.
O. W. Holmes.
Oh, thou beautiful
And unimaginable ether ! and
Ye multiplying masses of increas'd
And still increasing lights ! what are ye ? what
Is this blue wilderness of interminable air.
Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen
The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden 7
Is your course measur'd for ye ? or do ye
Sweep on in your unbounded revelry
Through an aerial universe of endless
Expansion, at which my soul aches to think,
Intoxicated with eternity?
Oh God ! oh Gods ! or whatsoe'er ye are !
How beautiful ye are ! how beautiful
Your works, or accident, or whatsoe'er
They may be ! let me die, as atoms die,
(If that they die) or know ye in your might
And knowledge ! My thoughts are not in this hour
Unworthy what I see, though my dust is ;
Spirit ! let me expire, or see them nearer !
Byron's Cain.
I cannot be content with less than Heaven :
O Heaven, I love thee ever ! sole and whole,
Living, and comprehensive of all life ;
Thee, agy world, thee, universal Heaven,
And heavenly universe !
Bailey's Festus.
Oh ! why do heavenly visions from the mind
Pass, like the rainbow mists that wreathe around,
And tinge with beauty the unsightly rock ?
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
Heaven would be hell if lov'd ones were not there,
And any spot a heaven, if we could save
From every stain of earth, and thither bear
The hearts that are to us our hope and care,
The soil whereon our purest pleasures grow
Around the quiet hearth we often share,
From the quick change of thought, the tender flow
Of fondness wak'd by smiles, the world we love
below. Pernral
HELL.
Divines and dying men may talk of hell,
But in my heart her several torments dwell.
Shales. Yorkshire Tragedy
Yet from these flames
No night, but rather darkness visible
Serv'd only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope comes
That comes to all, but torture without end.
Milton's Paradise Lo»
20
230
HERMIT -HEROES.
There is a place in a black and hollow vault,
Where day is never seen ; there shines no sun,
But flaming horror of consuming fires ;
A lightless sulphur, choak'd with smoky fogs
Of an infected darkness ; in this place
Dwell many thousand thousand sundry sorts
Of never-dying deaths ; there damned souls
Roar without pity ; there are gluttons fed
With toads and adders ; there is burning oil
Pour'd down the drunkard's throat; the usurer
Is forc'd to sup whole draughts of molten gold ;
There is the murderer for ever stabb'd,
Yet can he never die ; there lies the wanton
On racks of burning steel, while in his soul
He feels the torment of his raging lust.
There stand those wretched things,
Who have dream'd out whole years in lawless
sheets,
And secret incests, cursing one another.
John Ford.
Hell at last
Yawning receiv'd them whole, and on them clos'd ;
Hell, their fit habitation, fraught with fire
Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Fast we found, fast shut,
The dismal gates, barricadoed strong ;
But, long ere our approaching, heard within
Noise, other than the sound of dance or song ;
Torment, and loud lament, and furious rage.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Hail, horrors ! hail,
Infernal world ! and thou profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor ; one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Here we may reign secure ; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell :
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Lucifer. — Behold my world! Man's science
counts it not
Upon the brightest sky. He never knows
How near it comes to him ; but swath'd in clouds,
As though in plum'd and palled state, it steals
Hearse-like and thief-like round the universe,
J? or ever rolling and returning not —
Robbing all worlds of many an angel-soul —
With its light hidden in its breast, which burns
With all concentrate and supcrfluent woe.
B*i sure that this is Hell 1
Bailey's Festus.
In utter darkness far
Remote, I beings saw forlorn in woe,
Burning continually, yet unconsum'd.
And there were groans that ended not, and sigha
That always sigh'd, and tears that ever wept
And ever fell, but not in Mercy's sight
And still I heard these wretched beings curse
Almighty God, and curse the Lamb, and curse
The earth, the resurrection morn, and seek,
And ever vainly seek, for utter death.
Pollock's Course of Time.
The place thou saw'st was hell ; the groans thou
heard'st
The wailings of the damn'd, of those who would
Not be redeem'd.
Pollock's Course of Time
HERMIT.— (See Solitude.)
HEROES.
To overcome in battle, and subdue
Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite
Manslaughter, shall be held the highest pitch
Of human glory, and for glory done
Of triumph, to be styl'd great conquerors,
Patrons of mankind, gods, and sons of gods,
Destroyers rightlier call'd and plagues of men.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Conquerors, who leave behind
Nothing but ruin, wheresoe'er they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy,
Then swell with pride, and must be titled gods,
Great benefactors of mankind, deliverers,
Worshipp'd with temple, priest and sacrifice ;
One is the son of Jove, of Mars the other ;
Till conq'ror death discover them scarce men,
Rolling in brutish vices, and deform'd,
Violent or shameful death their due reward.
Milton's Paradise Regaine'J.
For great commanders only own
What 's prosperous by the soldier done.
Butler's Hudibras.
For he was of that noble trade
That demi-gods and heroes made.
Slaughter and knocking on the head,
The trade to which they all were bred ;
And is, like others, glorious when
'T is great and large, but base if mean.
The former rides in triumph for it,
The latter in a two-wheel'd chariot,
For daring to profane a thing
So sacred with vile bungling.
Butler's Hudibras.
HEROES.
231
Things of the noblest kind his genius drew,
And look'd through nature at a single view ;
A loose he gave to his unbounded soul,
And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll ;
Call'd into being scenes unknown before,
And, passing nature's bounds, was something
more. Churchill's Rosciad.
Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game,
Where wasted nations raise a single name ;
And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths
regret,
From age to age in everlasting debt ;
Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey
To rust on medals, or on stones decay.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
At every step
Our foot half sunk in hillocks green and soft,
Rais'd by the mole, the miner of the soil.
He, not unlike the great ones of mankind,
Disfigures earth, and plotting in the dark,
Toils much to earn a monumental pile,
That may record the mischief he has done.
Cowper's Task.
Let laurels, drench'd in pure Parnassian dews,
Reward his memory, dear to every muse,
Who with a courage of Unshaken root,
In honour's field advancing his firm foot,
Plants it upon the line that justice draws,
And will prevail or perish in the cause.
Cowper.
But let eternal infamy pursue
The wretch to nought but his ambition true,
Who for the sake of filling with one blast
The post-horns of all Europe, lays her waste.
Cowper.
Each with a gigantic stride,
Trampling on all the flourishing works of peace
To make his greatness greater, and inscribe
His name in blood.
Rogers's Italy.
And though in peaceful garb arrayed,
And weaponless except his blade,
His stately mien as well implied
A high-born heart and martial pride,
As if a baron's crest he wore,
And sheathed in armour trod the shore.
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly pressed his signet sage,
Yet had not quenched the open truth,
And fiery vehemence of youth ;
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare,
The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire,
Of hasty love, or headlong ire.
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
Proud was his tone, but calm ; his eye
Had that compelling dignity,
His mien that bearing haught and high,
Which common spirits fear.
Scott's Lord of the Isle*.
I want a hero : an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new
one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one.
Byron.
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel,
Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now.
Byron.
'T is thus the spirit of a single mind
Makes that of multitudes take one direction,
As roll the waters to the breathing wind,
Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection,
Or as a little dog will lead the blind,
Or a bell-wether from the flock's connection,
By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual,
Such is the sway of your great men o'er little.
Byron.
I know thee for a man of many thoughts,
And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both,
Fatal and fated in thy sufferings.
Byron's Manfred
All these he wielded to command assent;
But where he wished to win, so well unbent,
That kindness cancelled fear in those who heard
And other's gifts showed mean beside his word,
When echoed to the heart as from his own,
His deep yet tender melody of tone :
But such was foreign to his wonted mood,
He cared not what he softened, but subdued ;
The evil passion of his youth had made
Him value less who loved — than what obeyed.
Byron's Corsair
They crouched to him, for he had skill,
To warp and wield the vulgar will.
Byron's Siege of Corinth
Unlike the heroes of each ancient race,
Demons in act, but gods at least in face,
In Conrad's form seems little to admire,
Though his dark eyebrow shades a glance of fire
Robust but not Herculean — to the sight
No giant frame sets forth his common height;
Yet, in the whole, who paused to look again.
Saw more than makes the crowd of vulgar men ,
They gaze and marvel how — and still confess
That thus it is, but why they cannot guess.
Byron's Corsan
HISTORY. HISTORIAN.
ST cs ! rear thy guardian Hero's form
On thy proud soil, thou Western World !
A watcher through each sign of storm,
O'er Freedom's flag unfurl'd.
There, as before a shrine ye bow,
Bid thy true sons their children lead;
The language of that noble brow
For all things good shall plead.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
Whoever, with an earnest soul,
Strives for some end from this low world afar,
Still upward travels though he miss the goal,
And strays — but towards a star !
Bulwer.
Better than Fame, is still the wish for Fame,
The constant training for a glorious strife ;
The Athlete, nurtur'd for the Olympian game,
Gains strength, at least for Life.
Bulwer.
To the Hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Death's voice sounds like a prophet's word ;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be !
Halleck , s Bozzaris.
I lis was Octavian's prosperous star,
The rush of Cresar's conquering car
At battle's call ;
His, Scipio's virtue ; his, the skill,
And the indomitable will
Of Hannibal.
Longfellow's Translations.
All may be heroes : —
" The man who rules his spirit," saith the Voice
Which cannot err, — " is greater than the man
Who takes a city." Hence it surely follows,
If each might have dominion of himself,
And each would govern wisely, and thus show
Truth, courage, knowledge, power, benevolence,
And all the princely soul in private virtues, —
Then each would be a prince, a Hero — greater —
He will be man in likeness of his Maker !
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvcnor.
HISTORY. HISTORIAN.
But seeing causes are the chiefest things
That should be noted of the story writers ;
That men may learn what end all causes brings,
'I hey be unworthy name of chroniclers,
That .eave them clean out of their registers ;
Or doubtfully report them : for the fruit .
Of reading stories, standeth in the suit.
Mirror for Magistrates.
But story-writers ought for neither glory,
Fear, nor favour, truth of things to spare :
But still it fares, as always it did fare ;
Affections, fear, or doubts that daily brew,
Do cause that stories never can be true.
Mirror for Magistrate*.
There is a history in all men's lives,
Fig'ring the nature of the times deceas'd;
The which observ'd, a man may prophesy
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life ; which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie entrcasured.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Would God our times had had some sacred wight,
Whose words as happy as our swords had been ;
To have prepar'd for us trophies aright
Of undecaying frames t' have rested in ;
Triumphant arks of perdurable might :
holy lines ! that such advantage win
Upon the scythe of time, in spite of years :
How blessed they, who gain what never wears !
DanieVs Civil War.
1 remember in the age of Assaracus
And Ninus, and about the wars of Thebes,
Aid the siege of Troy, there were few things
committed
To my charge, but those that were well worthy
The preserving ; but now ev'ry trifle
Must be wrapped up in the volume of eternity :
A rich pudding wife, or a cobbler cannot die,
But I must immortalize his name with
An epitaph : a dog cannot tread on
A nobleman's shoe, but it must be sprinkled
Into the chronicles ; so that I never
Could remember my treasury more full, and
Never emptier of honourable
Aid true heroical actions. j .
This is a great fault in a chronologer
To turn parasite ; an absolute historian
Should be in fear of none ; neither should he
Write any thing more than truth for friendship,
Or else for hate ; but keep himself equal
And constant in all his discourses. T .
Lingua.
Chronologers, many of them, are so fantastic.
As when they bring a captain to the combat
Lifting up his revengeful arm to dispart
The head of his enemy, they'll hold up
His arms so long, till they have bestow'd three
Or four pages in describing the gold
Hilts of his threat'ning falchion ; so that.
In my fancy the reader may well wondei
His adversary stabs him not, before
He strikes - Lingua.
HOME.
233
The style is full, and princely,
Stately and absolute beyond whate'er
These eyes have seen ; and Rome, whose majesty
Is there describ'd, in after times shall owe
For her memorial to your learned pen,
More than to all those fading monuments
Built with the riches of the spoiled world.
When rust shall eat her brass, when time's strong
hand
Shall bruise to dust her marble palaces,
Triumphant arches, pillars, obelisks ;
When Julius' temple, Claudius' aqueducts,
Agrippa's baths, and Pompey's theatre ;
Nay, Rome itself shall not be found at all,
Historians' books shall live ; — those strong records,
Those deathless monuments alone shall show
What, and how great, the Roman empire was.
May's Agrippina.
The noblest spur unto the sons of fame,
Is thirst of honour, and to have their name
Enroll'd in faithful history : Thus worth
Was by a wise ambition first brought forth.
Truth is the historian's crown, and art
Squares it to stricter comeliness.
John Hall on Charles Aleyn.
Historians, only things of weight,
Results of persons, or affairs of state,
Briefly, with truth and clearness should relate :
Laconic shortness memory feeds.
Heath.
Some write a narrative of wars and feats
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
A history ; describe the man of whom
His own coevals took but little note,
And paint his person, character, and views,
As they had known him from his mother's womb.
Cowper's Task.
Sit at the feet of history — through night
Of years the steps of virtue she shall trace
And show the earlier ages, where her sight
Can pierce the eternal shadows o'er her face ; —
When from the genial cradle of our race,
Went forth the tribes of men.
Bryant — The Ages.
The classic days, those mothers of romance,
That roused a nation for a woman's glance,
The age of mystery with its hoarded power,
That girt the tyrant in his storied tower,
Have past and faded like a dream of youth,
And riper eras ask for history's truth.
O. W. Holmes.
HOME.
The first sure symptoms of a mind in health.
Is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, •
Supporting and supported, polish'd friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
Thomson's Seasons.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels ;
The modest eye, whose beams on his alone
Ecstatic shine : the little strong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond paternal soul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance or song, he sternly scorns;
For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the social, still, and smiling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in guilt,
And guilty cities, never know ; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with Man !
Thomson's Seasons.
My country, sir, is not a single spot
Of such a mould, or fix'd to such a clime ;
No, 'tis the social circle of my friends,
The lov'd community in which I 'm link'd,
And in whose welfare all my wishes centre.
Miller's Mahomet
Let me live amongst high thoughts, and smiles
As beautiful as love ; with grasping hands,
And a heart that flutters with diviner life
Whene'er my step is heard.
Proctor's Mirandola
Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheer'd the lab'ring
swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's ling'ring blooms delay'd :
Dear lovely bow'rs of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when ev'ry sport could please ;
How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endear'd each scene !
Goldsmith's Deserted Village
In all my wand'rings round this world of care,
In all my griefs — and God has given my share —
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bow'rs to lay me down ;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting, by repose :
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd sluii.
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt and all I saw ;
And, as a hare, whom hound and horns pursue
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return — and die at home at last.
Goldsmith's Traveliet
20*
234
HOME.
Thus every good his native wilds impart
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And even those hills, that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms ;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountain more.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
In ev'ry government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure !
Still to ourselves in ev'ry place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find :
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
Goldsmiths Traveller.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ;
Th' expectant wee things, todlin stacher through
To meet their dad, wi' flichtering noise and glee;
His wee-bit ingle blinkin bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.
Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night.
His warm but simple home where he enjoys
With her who shares his pleasure and his heart,
Sweet converse.
Cowper's Task.
Give me my home, to quiet dear,
Where hours untold and peaceful move ;
So fate ordain I sometimes there
May hear the voice of him I love.
Mrs. Opie.
The angry word suppress'd, the taunting thoughts ;
Subduing and subdu'd, the petty strife,
Which clouds the colour of domestic life,
The sober comfort, all the peace which springs
From the large aggregate of little things;
On these small cares of — daughter — wife — or
friend,
The almost sacred joys of home depend.
Hannah More.
The land was beautiful —
Ka.ir rose the spires, and gay the buildings were,
And rich the plains, like dreams of blessed isles;
Rut when I heard my country's music breathe,
I sigh'd to be among her wilds again!
Maturiri's Fredolfo.
On thy calm joys with what delight I dream,
Thou dear green valley of my native stream !
Fancy o'er thee still waves th' enchanting wand,
And every nook of time in fairy land.
Bloomjield's Broken Crutch.
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land !
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand ?
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.
There blend the ties that strengthen
Our hearts in hours of grief.
The silver links that lengthen
Joy's visits when most brief!
Then, dost thou sigh for pleasure ?
O ! do not widely roam !
But seek that hidden treasure -.
At home, dear home !
Bernard Barton,
I flew to the pleasant fields travers'd so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was
young,
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers
sung.
Then pledg'd we the wine-cup, and fondly I swor<\
From my home and my weeping friends never to
part;
My little one kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart.
Campbell.
Leans o'er its humble gate and thinks the while —
Oh ! that for me some home like this would smile,
Some hamlet shade, to yield my sickly form,
Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm.
Ca?npbeWs Pleasures of Hope.
They gain by twilight's hour their lonely isle,
To them the very rocks appear to smile ;
The haven hums with many a cheering sound,
The beacons blaze their wonted stations round,
The boats are darting o'er the curly bay,
And sportive dplphins bend them through the
spray ;
Even the hoarse sea-bird's shrill discordant shriek,
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak!
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice
gleams,
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the
beams.
Oh ! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like hope's gay glance from ocean's troubled foam.
Byron's Corsair.
HOME.
235
,r Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark,
Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come.
^_ Byron.
He enter'd in his house — his home no more,
For w ithout hearts the re is no home ; — and felt
The solitude of passing his own door
Without a welcome
vw
■**y*?x™£
And say, without our hopes, without our fears,
Without the home that plighted love endears,
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh ! what were man ? — a world without a sun.
Byron.
We may roam thro' this world, like a child at a
feast,
Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the
rest;
And when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,
We may order our wings and be off to the west ;
But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile,
Are the dearest gifts that heaven supplies,
We never need leave our own green isle,
For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes.
Moore.
Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer rov'd,
And bright were its flowery banks to his eye ;
But far, very far were the friends that he lov'd,
And he gaz'd on its flowery banks with a sigh !
O nature ! though blessed and bright are thy rays,
O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,
Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays
In a smile from the heart that is dearly our own !
Moore.
Scenes of my birth, and careless childhood hours !
Ye smiling hills, and spacious fertile vales !
Where oft I wander'd plucking vernal flowers,
And revell'd in the odour-breathing gales ;
Should fickle fate, with talismanic wand,
Bear me afar where either India glows,
Or fix my dwelling on the polar land,
Where nature wears her ever-during snows ;
Still shall your charms my fondest themes adorn;
When placid evening paints the western sky,
And when Hyperion wakes the blushing morn,
To rear his gorgeous sapphire throne on high.
For to the guiltless heart, where'er we roam,
No scenes delight us like our much-lov'd home.
Robert Hillhouse.
O, it was pitiful!
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.
Thomas Hood.
When thy heart, in its pride, would stray
From the pure first loves of its youth away —
When the sullying breath of the world would come
O'er the flowers it brought from its childhood's
home,
Think of the tree at thy father's door,
And the kindly spell shall have power once more.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
I love that dear old home ! my mother liv'd there
Her first sweet marriage years, and last sad
widow'd ones.
The sunlight there seems to me brighter far
Than wheresoever else. I know the forms
Of every tree and mountain, hill and dell ;
Its waters gurgle like a tongue I know; —
It is my home.
Mrs. Frances K. Butler.
We leave
Our home in youth — no matter to what end —
Study — or strife — or pleasure, or what not;
And coming back in few short years, we find
All as we left it outside ; the old elms,
The house, the grass, gates, and latchet's self-samo
click :
But lift that latchet, — all is chang'd as doom.
Bailey's Feslua.
Between broad fields of wheat and corn
Is the lowly home where I was born ;
The peach-tree leans against the wall,
And the woodbine wanders over all.
There is the barn, — and as of yore,
I can smell the hay from the open door,
And see the busy swallows throng,
And hear the peewee's mournful song.
Oh, ye who daily cross the sill,
Step lightly, for I love it still ;
And when you crowd the old barn eaves,
Then think what countless harvest sheaves
Have passed within that scented door
To gladden eyes that are no more.
T. Buchanan Read
Bright is the beautiful land of our birth,
The home of the homeless all over the earth !
Street's Poems.
Home is the sphere of harmony and peace,
The spot where angels find a resting-place,
When, bearing blessings, they descend to earth
Mrs. Hale'i Poem*
Nor need we power or splendour, —
Wide hall or lordly dome ;
The good, the true, the tender- —
These form the wealth of home.
Mis. Hale's Poem*
236
HONESTY- HONOUR.
My son — thou wilt dream the world is fair,
And thy spirit will sigh to roam,
And thou must go ; — but never, when there,
Forget the light of home.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
HONESTY.
Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
You perpetual sober gods ! I do proclaim
One honest man — mistake me not — but one;
No more, I pray — and he is a steward.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Methinks thou art more honest now than wise ;
For, by oppressing and betraying me,
Thou might'st have sooner got another service :
For many so arrive at second masters,
Upon their first lord's neck.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
O wretched fool,
That liv'st to make thine honesty a. vice ; —
O monstrous world ! Take note, take note, O world !
To be direct and honest is not safe.
Shaks. Othello.
Ay, sir ; to be honest as this world goes,
Is to be one pick'd out of ten thousand.
Shaks. Hamlet.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats !
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.
Shaks. Julius CcBsar.
Lands mortgag'd may return, and more esteem'd ;
But honesty once pawn'd, is ne'er redeem'd.
Middleton's Trick to catch the old One.
An honest soul is like a ship at sea,
That sleeps at anchor when the ocean 's calm ;
But when she rages, and the wind blows high,
He cuts his way with skill and majesty.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Marts Fortune.
An honest man is still an unmov'd rock,
Wash'd whiter, but not shaken with the shock:
Whose heart conceives no sinister device ;
Fearless he plays with flames, and treads on ice.
Davenports City Night-Cap.
Take heed what you say, sir !
An hundred honest men ! why if there were
So many i' th' city, 't were enough to forfeit
Their charter.
Shirley's Gamester.
rleav n, that made me honest, made me more
Thar ever king did, when he made a lord.
Rowe's Jane Shore.
The man who pauses on his honesty
Wants little of the villain.
Martyn's Timoleon.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod :
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Honesty,
A name scarce echo to a sound — honesty !
Attend the stately chambers of the great —
It dwells not there, nor in the trading world :
Speaks it in councils ? No : the sophist knows
To laugh it thence.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
All is vanity which is not honesty — thus is it
graven on the tomb ; —
I speak of honest purpose, character, speech and
action. Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
Honesty, even by itself, though making many
adversaries
Whom prudence might have set aside, or charity
have soften'd,
Evermore will prosper at the last, and gain a man
great honour.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
HONOUR.
Mine honour is my life ; both grow in one ;
Take honour from me, and my life is done.
Shaks. Richard IT.
The mere word 's a slave,
Debaueh'd on every tomb ; on every grave,
A lying trophy ; and as oft is dumb,
Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed.
Shaks. All's Well that Ends Well
That is honour'd scorn,
Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire : honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive,
Than our fore-goers.
Shaks. All's Well
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignify'd by the doer's deed :
When great additions swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour.
Shaks. All's Well.
Honour but of danger wins a scar,
As oft it loses all.
SJiaks. All 's Well
Tor life, I prize it,
As I weigh grief, which I would spare : for honour,
'T is a derivative from me to mine,
And only that I stand for.
Shaks. Winter's Tah.
HONOUR.
237
Life every man holds dear ; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious dear than life.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
Rightly to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument ;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour 's at the stake.
Shales. Hamlet.
By heaven, methinks, it we^ an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon ;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks :
So he, that doth redeem her thence might wear,
Without co-rival, all her dignities.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
By Jove, I am not covetous of gold,
Nor care I, who doth feed upon my cost ;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear ;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires :
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
Shaks. Henry V.
What is that you would impart to me ?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye, and death i' th' other,
And I will look on both indifferently :
For, let the gods so speed me, ss 1 love
The name of honour more than I fear death.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
The king has cur'd me,
I humbly thank his grace : and from these shoulders,
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken
A. load would sink a navy — too much honour :
O, 't is a burden, Cromwell, 't is a burden,
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven !
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity.
O, that estates, degrees, and offices,
Were not deriv'd corruptly ! and that dear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer !
How many then should cover, that stand bare ?
How many be commanded that command ?
How much low peasantry would then be glean'd
From the true seed of honour ? and how much
honour
Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,
To be new varnish'd ?
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all — all honourable men.
Shaks. Julius Cesar
Thou idol, honour, which we fools adore !
How many plagues do rest in thee to grieve us ?
Which, when we have, we find there is much more
Than that, which only is a name, can give us :
Of real comforts thou dost leave us poor,
And of those joys thou often dost deprive us,
That with ourselves doth set us at debate,
And makes us beggars in our greatest state.
Drayton's Baron's Wars.
You still insist upon that idol, honour ;
Can it renew your youth ? can it add wealth ?
That, take off wrinkles ? can it draw men's eyes
To gaze upon you in your age ? can honour,
That truly is a saint to none but soldiers,
And look'd into, bears no reward but danger,
Leave you the most respected person living 7
Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentlnt
Honour is
Virtue's allowed ascent: honour that clasps
All perfect justice in her arms ; that craves
No more respect than what she gives ; that does
Nothing but what she '11 suffer.
Massinger's Very Woman
1. Speak the height of honour.
2. No man to offend,
Ne'er to reveal the secrets of a friend ;
Rather to suffer than to do a wrong ;
To make the heart no stranger to the tongue,
Provok'd, not to betray an enemy,
Nor eat his meat, I choke with flattery ;
Blushless to tell wherefore I wear my scars,
Or for my conscience, or my country's wars ;
To aim at just tilings ; if we have wildly run
Into offences — wish them all undone.
'T is poor in grief, for a wrong done to die,
Honour to dare to live, and satisfy.
Massinger's Very Worn in
The noblest spur unto the sons of fame,
Is thirst of honour.
John Hall
Honour, thou spongy idol of man's mind,
Thou soak'st content away, thou hast confin'd
Ambitious man, and not his destiny,
Within the bounds of form and ceremony.
Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia
Vain honour ! thou art but disguise,
A cheating voice, a juggling art ;
No judge of virtue, whose pure eyes
Court her own image in the heart;
More pleased with her true figure there,
Than her false echo in the ear.
Car err
238
HONOUR.
His honour's link'd
Unto his life ; he that will seek the one
Must venture for the other or lose both.
Tatham , 8 Distracted State.
He taught them honour, virtue's bashfulness ;
A fort so yieldless, that it scorns to treat ;
Like pow'r, it grows to nothing, growing to less :
Honour, the moral conscience of the great !
Sir W. Davenanl's Gondibert.
Poor frighted men at sea,
To save their lives, cast all their goods away.
In storms of fortune, where there is a strife
Which shall be sav'd, man's honour or his life ;
Who would preserve this tatter'd bark from fate,
But sink the vessel to preserve the freight ?
Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin.
In other worlds devotion may have bliss,
J 'm sure 'tis honour that must save in this.
Crown's Justinian.
Love's common unto all the mass of creatures,
As life and breath ; honour to man alone :
Honour being then above life, dishonour must
Be worse than death ; for fate can strike but one ;
Reproach doth reach whole families.
Cartwright's Siege.
Honour is like that glassy bubble,
That finds philosophers such trouble,
Whose least part crac-k'd, the whole does fly,
And wits are crack'd to find out why.
Butler's Hudibras.
Quoth Ralpho, honour's but a word
To swear by only in a lord :
In other men 't is but a huff,
To vapour with, instead of proof.
Butler's Hudibras.
If he that in the field is slain,
Be in the bed of honour lain,
He that is beaten, may be said
To lie in honour's truckle bed.
Butler's Hudibras.
Quoth he, that man is sure to lose
That fouls his hands with dirty foes :
For where no honour's to be gain'd,
Tis thrown away in being maintain'd.
Butler's Hudibras.
My loss of honour's great enough,
Thou need'st not brand it with a scoff.
Butler's Hudibras.
Honour in vain would draw the sword,
If reason doth not give the word ;
And though the vict'ry we may win,
Yet conscience witnesses 'tis sin;
These monitors should guide your life,
When passions fierce engender strife.
Anon.
Wood witn honour being engag'd,
Is so implacably enrag'd,
Though iron hew and mangle sore,
Wood wounds and bruises honour more.
Butler's Hudibras.
He that is valiant and dare3 fight,
Though drubb'd, can lose no honour by 't,
Honour's a lease for lives to come,
And cannot be extended from
The legal tenant; 'tis a chattel
Not to be forfeited in battle.
Butler's Hudibra*
Honour hurt is wont to rage
With pain no med'eine can assuage.
Quoth he, that honour 's very squeamish
That takes a basting for a blemish ;
For what's more honourable than scars,
Or skin to tatters rent in wars ?
Some have been beaten till they know
What wood a cudgel 's of, by th' blow,
Some kick'd, until they can feel whether
A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather.
Butler's Hudibras.
Honour 's a sacred tie — the law of kings,
The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,
That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets
her,
And imitates her actions where she is not :
It is not to be sported with.
Addison's Caio.
Honour 's a fine imaginary notion,
That draws in raw and inexperiene'd men
To real mischief, while they hunt a shadow.
Addison's Cato.
Better to die ten thousand deaths
Than wound my honour.
Addisons Cato.
Woman's honour
Is nice as ermine — will not bear a soil.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
Honour and shame from no condition rise ;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in men has some small diff 'rence made ;
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade ;
The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.
" What differ more," you cry, " than crown and
cowl ?"
I '11 tell you, friend — a wise man and a fool ;
You '11 find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk :
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow,
The rest is all but leather and prunella-
Pope.
HOPEL
239
Honour, my lord, is much too proud to catch
At every tender twig of nice distinctions.
These for th' unfeeling vulgar may do well :
But those, whose souls are by the nicer rule,
Of virtuous delicacy nobly sway'd,
Stand at another bar than that of laws.
- — Tliomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.
How vain are all hereditary honours,
Those poor possessions from another's deeds,
Unless our own just virtues form our title,
And give a sanction to our fond assumptions.
Shirley's Parricide.
The honours of a name 't is just to guard ;
They are a trust but lent us, which we take,
And should, in reverence to the donor's fame,
With care transmit them down to other hands.
Shirley's Parricide.
What is honour ? a silly vain opinion,
That hangs but on the rabble's idle breath ;
For them we court it, yet by them 't is scorn'd.
Martyn , s Timoleon.
I 've scann'd the actions of his daily life
With all th' industrious malice of a foe ;
And nothing meets mine eye but deeds of honour.
Hannah More's Daniel.
A life of honour and of worth
Has no eternity on earth, —
'T is but a name —
And yet its glory far exceeds
That base and sensual life which leads
To want and shame.
Longfellow.
Where the meekness of self-knowledge veileth
the front of self-respect,
There look thou for the man whose name none
can know but they will honour.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
HOPE.
With him went hope in rank, a handsome maid,
Of cheerful look, and lovely to behold ; -
In silken samite she was light array'd,
And her fair locks were woven up in gold.
She always smil'd, and in her hand did hold
An holy water-sprinkle, dipt in dew,
With which she sprinkled favours manifold,
On whom she list, and did great liking shew,
Great liking unto many, but true love to few.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings,
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
Shaks. Richard III.
The miserable hath no other medicine
But only hope.
Shaks. Mea.for Mea.
Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that.
And manage it against despairing thoughts.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The'ample proposition, that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below,
Fails in the promis'd largeness.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
There is a credence in my heart,
An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears ;
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
A cause on foot
Lives so on hope, as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds ; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair,
That frosts will bite them.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II
Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it
No longer for my flatterer.
Shaks. Tempest
I will despair, and be at enmity
With cozening hope ; he is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity.
Shaks. Richard II
Our hopes, I see, resemble much the sun,
That rising and declining casts large shadows ;
But when his beams are dress'd in mid-day
Yields none at all : when they are farthest from
Success, their gilt reflection does display
The largest shows of events fair and prosp'rous.
Chapman's Revenge for Honour
What can we not endure,
When pains are lessen'd by the hope of cure ?
Nabb's Microcosmm
When once the main spring, hope, is fall'n into
Disorder, no wonder if the lesser wheels —
Desire and joy — stand still.
Suckling's Aglaum
Hope
Is such a bait, it covers any hook.
Jonson's Volpone.
And now her hope a weak physician seems,
For hope, the common comforter, prevails,
Like med'eines, slowly in extremes.
Sii W. Davenant's Gondibm
210
HOPE.
Where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate th' event, my nature is
That I incline to hope rather than fear.
Milton.
What are our hopes?
Like garlands, on affliction's forehead worn,
Kiss'd in the morning, and at evening torn.
Davenport's King John and Matilda.
Hope ! of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure !
Thou captive's freedom, and thou sick man's health !
Thou lover's victory, and thou beggar's wealth !
Cowley.
Hope ! fortune's cheating lottery !
Where for one prize an hundred blanks there be ;
Fond archer, hope ! who tak'st thy aim so far,
That still or short or wide thine arrows are !
Cowley.
Brother of fear, more gaily clad !
The merrier fool o' th' two, yet quite as mad :
Sire of repentance ! child of fond desire !
That blow'st the chymics' and the lovers' fire :
Leading them still insensibly on
By the strange witchcraft of " anon !"
By thee the one does changiag nature, through
Her endless labyrinths, pursue ;
And th' other chases woman, while she goes
More ways and turns than hunted nature knows.
Cowley.
Thus, through what path soe'er of life we rove,
Rage companies our hate, and grief our love.
Vex'd with the present moment's heavy gloom,
Why seek we brightness from the years to come ?
Disturb'd and broken like a sick man's sleep,
Our troubled thoughts to distant prospects leap,
Desirous still what flies us to o'ertake,
For hope is but the dream of those that wake.
Prior's Solomon.
Hope with a goodly prospect feeds the eye,
Shows from a rising ground possession nigh;
Shortens the distance, or o'erlooks it quite :
So easy 't is to travel with the sight.
Dryden.
A beam \jf comfort, like the moon through clouds,
Gilds the black horror, and directs my way.
Dryden's Love Triumphant.
Multiplying wishes is a curse,
That keeps the mind perpetually awake.
Dryden's Secret Love.
HoDe is the fawning traitor of the mind,
Which, while it cozens with a colour'd friendship,
Itoo? us of our last virtue — resolution.
Lee's Constantine,
Hope, the glad ray, glanc'd from eternal good,
That life enlivens, and exalts its powers,
With views of fortune.
Thomson's Liberty.
Hope, of all passions, most befriends us here ;
Passions of prouder name befriend us less.
Joy has her tears ; and transport has her death :
Hope, like a cordial, innocent tho' strong,
Man's heart at once inspirits, and serenes ;
Nor makes him pay his wisdom for his joys ;
'T is all our present state can safely bear,
Health to the frame, and vigour to the mind !
A joy attemper'd ! a chastis'd delight !
Like the fair summer ev'ning, mild and sweet!
'T is man's full cup ; his paradise below !
Young's Night Thoughts.
Hope, eager hope, th' assassin of our joy,
All present blessings treading under foot,
Is scarce a milder tyrant than despair.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar ;
Wait the great teacher, death ; and God adore ;
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast :
Man never is, but always to be, blest :
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Pope's Essay on Man
'T is the cruel artifice of fate,
Thus to refine and vary on our woes,
To raise us from despair, and give us hopes,
Only to plunge us in the gulph again,
And make us doubly wretched.
Trap's Abramule.
O hope ! sweet flatterer ! thy delusive touch
Sheds on afflicted minds the balm of comfort —
Relieves the load of poverty — sustains
The captive, bending with the weight of bonds, —
And smooths the pillow of disease ahd pain !
Glover's Boadicen.
But thou, O hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure ?
Still it whisper'd promis'd pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail !
Still would her touch the strain prolong,
And from the rocks — the woods — the vale,
She call'd on echo still through all her song
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And hope enchanted smil'd, and wav'd her golden
hair Collins's Passions.
With wnat a leaden and retarding weight
Does expectation load the wing of time !
Mason's Aljnda
HOPE.
241
To-day, in snow array'd, stern winter rules
The enravag'd plain — anon the teeming earth
Unlocks her stores, and spring adorns the year :
And shall not we, while fate, like winter, frowns,
Expect revolving bliss ?
Smollett's Regicide.
Know then whatever cheerful and serene
Supports the mind, supports the body too.
Hence, the most vital movement mortals feel
Is hope : the balm and life-blood of the soul ;
It pleases and it lasts. Indulgent heaven
Sent down the kind delusion, through the paths
Of rugged life to lead us patient on ;
And make our happiest state no tedious thing.
Our greatest good, and what we can least spare,
Is hope : the last of all our evils, fear.
Armstrong 's Art of Preserving Health.
The wretch condemn' d with life to part,
Still, still on hope relies ;
And ev'ry pang that rends the heart,
Bids expectation rise.
Hope, like the glimm'ring taper's light,
Adorns and cheers the way ;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
Goldsmith.
Hope ! let the wretch, once conscious of the joy,
Whom now despairing agonies destroy,
Speak, for he can, and none so well as he,
What treasures centre, what delights in thee.
Had he the gems, the spices, and the land,
That boasts the treasure, all at his command;
The fragrant grove, th' inestimable mine,
Were light, when weigh'd against one smile of
thine. Cowper's Hope.
When the heart is light
With hope, all pleases, nothing comes amiss.
Rogers's Italy.
Hope oft, my son, unbraces the girt mind,
And to the conflict turns it loosely forth,
Weak and divided.
Joanna Bailie's Rayner.
Auspicious hope^ in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe :
Won by their sweets, in nature's languid hour,
The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower ;
There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring !
What viewless forms th' iEolian organ play,
And sweep the furrow'd lines of anxious thought
away ! Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Congenial hope ! thy passion-kindling power,
How bright, how strong, in youth's untroubled
hour ! Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Q
Propitious power ! when rankling cares annoy
The sacred home of hymencan joy ;
When doom'd to poverty's sequester'd deli,
The wedded pair of love and virtue dwell,
Unpitied by the world, unknown to fame,
Their woes, their wishes, and their hearts the
same :
Oh, then, prophetic hope ! thy smile bestow,
And chase the pangs that worth should never
know. Campbells Pleasures of Hope.
Eternal hope ! when yonder spheres sublime
Peal'd their first notes to sound the march of time.
Thy joyous youth began — but not to fade, —
When all the sister planets have decay'd ;
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And heav'n's last thunder shakes the world below ;
Thou, undismay'd, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at nature's funeral pile !
Campbells Pleasures of Hope.
Unfading hope ! when life's last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return !
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour !
Oh ! then thy kingdom comes ! immortal power !
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye !
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day —
Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin !
And all the phoenix spirit burns within !
Campbells Pleasures of Hope
Her precious pearl, in sorrow's cup,
Unmelted at the bottom lay,
To shine again, when, all drunk up,
The bitterness should pass away.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
And then, that hope, that fairy hope,
Oh ! she awak'd such happy dreams,
And gave my soul such tempting scope,
For all its dearest, fondest schemes !
Moor*.
White as a white sail on a dusky sea,
When half the horizon 's clouded and half free,
Fluttering between the dun wave and the sky,
Is hope's last gleam in man's extremity
Byron's Islana.
Hope 's at best
A star that leads the weary on,
Still pointing to the unpossess'd,
And palling that it beams upon.
Anun
Fountain of song, it prayer begins and ends
Hope is the wing by which the soul ascends
Some may allege I wander from the path
And give to hope the proper rights of faith,
21
JU2
HORSEMANSHIP.
Like love and friendship, these, a comely pair,
What 's done by one, the other has a share :
When heat is felt, we judge that fire is near,
Hope's twilight comes — faith's day will soon
appear.
Thus when the Christian's contest doth begin,
Hope fights with doubts, till faith's reserves come in.
Hope comes desiring and expects relief;
Faith follows, and peace springs from firm belief.
Hope balances occurrences of time ;
Faith will not stop till it has reach'd the prime.
Just like co-partners in joint stock of trade,
What one contracts is by the other paid.
Make use of hope thy labouring soul to cheer,
Faith shall be giv'n, if thou wilt persevere.
We see all things alike with either eye,
So faith and hope the self-same object spy.
But what is hope ? or where or how begun ?
It comes from God, as light comes from the sun.
Thomas Hogg.
Hopes, what are they ? — Beads of morning,
Strung on slender blades of grass ;
Or a spider's web adorning
In a strait and treacherous pass.
Wordsworth.
Hope rules a land for ever green ;
All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen
Are confident and gay ;
Clouds at her bidding disappear ;
Points she to aught ? — the bliss draws near,
And fancy smooths the way.
Wordsworth.
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
Coleridge.
Hope on — hope ever ! — by the sudden springing
Of green leaves which the winter hid so long ;
And by the burst of free, triumphant singing,
After cold silent months the woods among ;
And by the rending of the frozen chains,
Which bound the glorious river of the plains,
Hope on — hope ever.
Mrs. Hemans.
Though at times my spirit fails me,
And the bitter tear-drops fall,
Though my lot is hard and lonely,
Yet I hope — I hope through all.
Mrs- Narten.
How disappointment tra«k»
The steps of hope !
Miss Landon*
Come then, oh care ! oh grief! oh woe !
Oh troubles ! mighty in your kind,
J have a balm ye ne'er can know,
A hopeful mind.
F. Vane.
Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to-
Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of the
Saviour. Longfellow.
God wills, man hopes ; in common souls
Hope is but vague and undefm'd,
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls
A blessing to his kind.
James R. Lowell.
— Hopes, that beckon with delusive gleams,
Till the eye dances in the void of dreams.
O. W. Holmes.
That brow was fair to see, love,
That looks so shaded now;
But for me it bore the care, love,
That spoilt a bonny brow.
And though no longer there, love,
The gloss it had of yore ;
Still merriory looks and dotes, love,
Where hope admired before.
Hood.
There are hopes
Promising well, and love-touch'd dreams for some,
And passions, many a wild one, and fair schemes
For gold and pleasure
Oh, if there were not better hopes than these —
Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame —
If truth, and fervour, and devotedness,
Finding no worthy altar, must return
And die with their own fulness — if beyond
The grave there is no heaven, in whose wide air
The spirit may find room, and in the love
Of whose bright habitants this lavish heart
May spend itself— what thrice-mocli'd fools are we!
WPiis.
HORSEMANSHIP.
I saw young Harry with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd.
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat.
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasjis,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship-
Shales. Henry IV. Part t
As seamen ride with all their force,
And tug as if they row'd the horse,
And when the hackney sails most swift,
Believe they lag, or run adrift.
Butler's Hudibras.
Tl»e beast was sturdy, large, and tall,
With mouth of meal, and eyes of wall,
I would sav eyi, for h' had but one.
As most agree ; the' seme say none.
Butler's Hudibras
HOSPITAL- HOSPITALITY.
243
After many strains and heaves,
He got up to the saddle-eaves,
From whence he vaulted into th' seat,
With so much vigour, strength, and heat,
That he had almost tumbled over
With his own weight, but did recover,
By laying hold of tail and mane,
Which oft he us'd instead of rein.
Butler's Hudibras.
The courser paw'd the ground with restless feet,
And snorting foam'd and champ'd the golden bit.
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.
Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t' excel,
Newmarket's glory rose, as Britain's fell.
Pope.
With flowing tail and flying mane,
With nostrils never streak'd by pain,
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,
And feet that iron never shod,
And flanks unscarr'd by spur or rod,
A thousand horse — the wild — the free —
Like waves that follow o'er the sea,
Came thundering on. .
Byron's Maze.ppa.
My beautiful ! my beautiful !
That standest meekly by
With thy proudly arch'd and glossy neck,
And dark and fiery eye ; —
The stranger hath thy bridle-rein —
Thy master hath his gold —
Fleet-limb'd and beautiful, farewell !
Thou 'rt sold, my steed — thou 'rt sold !
Mrs. Noiion.
When troubled in spirit, when weary of life,
When I faint 'neath its burdens, and shrink from
its strife —
When its fruits, turn'd to ashes, are mocking my
taste,
And its fairest scene seems but a desolate waste;
Then come ye not near me, my sad soul to cheer
With friendship's soft accents or sympathy's tear
No counsel I ask, and no pity I need,
But bring me, oh, bring me my gallant young
steed ! Sara J. Clarke.
Oh ! not all the pleasure that poets may praise, —
Not the wildering waltz in the ball-room's blaze,
Nor the chivalrous joust, nor the daring race,
Nor the swift regatta, nor merry chase,
Nor the sail high heaving waters o'er,
Nor the rural dance on the moonlight shore,—
Can the wild and fearless joy exceed
Of a fearless leap on a fiery steed.
Sara J. Clarke
Ay ! gather your reins, and crack your thong,
And bid your steed go faster ;
He does not know, as he scrambles along,
That he has a fool for his master.
O. W. Holmet
HOSPITAL.
Immediately a place
Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisome, dark —
A lazar-house it seem'd, wherein were laid
Numbers of all diseas'd, all maladies
Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,
Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, piercing atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,
Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums
Milton's Paradise Lost.
HOSPITALITY
Therein he them full fair did entertain,
Not with such forged shows as fitter been
For courting fools, that courtesies would faine,
But with entire affection and appearance plain.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
My master is of churlish disposition,
And little recks to find the way to heaven
By doing deeds of hospitality.
Shaks. As you lila it.
My royal lord,
You do not give the cheer : the feast is sold,
That is not often vouch'd, while 't is a making,
'T is given with welcome : to feed, were best at
home;
From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony ;
• Meeting were bare without it.
Sliaks. Macbeth,
Now good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both.
Shaks. Macbeth.
I charge thee, inv '••>. them all : let in the tide
Of knaves once moie ; my cook and I '11 provide.
Shaks. Timon of Athens
The broken soldie , kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields wei e
won,
Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd u>
glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe.
Goldsmith's Deserted Vitlast
244
HUMILITY.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
lie chid their wand'rings, but reliev'd their pain.
Goldsmith'' 8 Deserted Village.
Blest be the spot, where cheerful guests retire,
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire.
Blest that abode, where want and pain despair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair :
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks, that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed
and feasted ;
For with this simple people, who lived like brothers
together,
All things were held in common, and what one had
was another's :
Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seem'd more
abundant. Longfellow's Evangeline.
View them near
At home, where all their worth and pride is plac'd ;
And there their hospitable fires burn clear.
Halleck.
HUMILITY.
Yet so much is rny poverty of spirit,
So mighty, and so many my defects,
That I would rather hide me from my greatness —
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea —
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
Shaks. Richard III.
I will not do 't :
Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,
And, by my body's action, teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.
Shahs. Coriolanus.
You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
For nought but provender, and when he 's old,
cashier'd ;
Whip me such honest knaves.
Shaks. Othello.
Signor Antonio, many a time, and oft
In the Rialto, you have rated mc
A.oout my moneys, and my usances :
SUll have I borne it with a patient snrug :
>oj sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Often to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full-wing'd eagle.
Sltaks. Cymbeline.
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low ; — an excellent thing in woman.
Shaks. King Lear.
Be wise,
Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise.
Massinger's Duke of Milan,
The noble find their
Lives and deaths still troublesome ;
But humility doth sleep, whilst the storm
Grows hoarse with scolding.
Sir W. Davenant's Cruel Brother.
First praise
Her mighty spirit ; then, when she weeps,
Gather up her tears for scatter'd pearl.
This disguis'd humility is
Both the swift and safest way to pride.
Sir W. Davenant's Albovine,
There are some that use
Humility to serve their pride, and seem
Humble upon their way, to be the prouder
At their wish'd journey's end.
Denham's Sophy
He that will once give the
Wall, shall be quickly thrust into the kennel.
Chapman's May-Day.
Humility is eldest-born of virtue,
And claims the birth-right at the throne of heav'n.
Murphy's ZobeiJe.
Humility, that low, sweet root,
From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
The meek mountain daisy, with delicate crest,
And the violet whose eye told the heaven of her
breast Mrs. Sigourney.
Lowliness is the base of every virtue :
And he who goes the lowest, builds the safest
My God keeps all his pity for the proud.
Bailey's Festus.
Humility mainly becometh the converse of man
with his Maker,
But oftentimes it seemeth out of place of man
with man ;
Render unto all men their due, but remember
thou also ari ?. man,
And cheat not thyself of the reverence which is
owing to thy reasonable being.
Tapper's Proverbial Philosophy.
HUNTING.
245
HUNTING.
Come, shall we go and kill us venison ?
And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
Have their round haunches gor'd.
Shahs. As you like it.
The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting ; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose,
In piteous chase.
Shahs. As you like it.
But, up to the mountains ;
This is not hunter's language : he that strikes
The venison first, shall be the lord o' the feast ;
To him the other two shall minister ;
And we will fear no poison, which attends
In place of greater state.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
Wilt thou hunt ?
Thy hounds will make the welkin answer them,
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
Shaks. Taming the Shrew.
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Never did I hear
Such gallant chiding ; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem all one mutual cry : I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Shaks. Midsummer NighVs Dream.
f Iunting is the noblest exercise,
Makes men laborious, active, wise,
Brings health, and doth the spirits delight,
It helps the hearing, and the sight :
It teacheth arts that never slip
The memory, good horsemanship,
Search, sharpness, courage and defence,
And chaseth all ill habits thence.
Jonson's Masques.
Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare !
Scar'd from the corn, and now to some lorn seat
Retir'd : the rushy fen ; the ragged furze,
Stretch'd o'er the stony heath; the stubble chapt;
The thistly lawn ; the thick entangled broom ;
Of the same friendly hue, the wither'd fern ;
The fallow ground laid open to the sun,
Concoctive ; and the nodding sandy bank,
Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook ;
Vain is her best precaution. .-
Thomson's Seasons.
He stands at bay ;
And puts his last weak refuge in despair.
The big r«ind tears run down his dappled face ;
He groans .n anguish ; while the growling pack,
Blood-happy, hang at his fair-jutting chest,
And mark his beauteous chequcr'd sides with gore.
Thomson's Seasons.
The forest music is to hear the hounds
Rend the thin air, and with a lusty cry
Awake the drowsy echo, and confound
Their perfect language in a mingled sound.
Day's Isle of Gulls.
The healthy huntsman, with a cheerful horn,
Summons the dogs and greets the dappled morn.
The jocund thunder wakes th' enliven'd hounds,
They rouse from sleep, and answer sounds for
sounds ;
Wild through the furzy field their route they take,
Their bleeding bosoms force the thorny brake ;
The flying game their smoking nostrils trace,
No bounding hedge obstructs their eager pace ;
The distant mountains echo from afar,
And hanging woods resound the flying war :
The tuneful noise the sprightly courser hears,
Paws the green turf, and pricks his trembling ears ;
The slacken'd rein now gives him all his speed,
Back flies the rapid ground beneath the steed ;
Hills, dales, and forests, far behind remai i,
While the warm scent draws on the deep-mouth'd
train. Gay's Rural Sport.
My hoarse-sounding horn
Invites thee to the chase, the sport of kings ;
Image of war without its guilt.
Somerville's Chase.
The morning sun, that gilds with trembling rays
Windsor's high towers, beholds the courtly train
Mount for the chase, nor views in ail his course
A scene so gay.
Somerville's Cliase.
Fields, woods, and streams,
Each tow'ring hill, each humble vale below,
Shall hear my cheering voice ; my hounds shaJl
wake
The lazy morn and glad th' horizon round.
Somerville's Chase.
Hark ! the loud peal begins, the clam'rous joy,
The gallant chiding loads the trembling air.
Somerville's Chast
Once more, ye jovial train, your courage try,
And each clean courser's speed. We scour along;
In pleasing hurry and confusion toss'd •
Oblivion to be w ish'd
Somerville's Chine
21*
246
HUNTING.
In vain malignant streams and winter fogs
Load the dull air, and hover round our coasts;
The huntsman, ever gay, robust, and bold,
Defies the noxious vapour, and confides
In this delightful exercise to raise
His drooping head and cheer his heart with joy.
Somerville's Chase.
Ye vig'rous swains! while youth ferments your
blood,
And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood,
Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset,
Wind the shrill horn, or spread the waving net
When milder autumn summer's heat succeeds,
And in the new-shorn field the partridge feeds,
Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds,
Panting with hope he tries the furrow'd grounds ;
But when the tainted gales the game betray,
Couch'd close he lies, and meditates the prey ;
Secure they trust th' unfaithful field beset,
'Till hov'ring o'er 'em sweeps the swelling net.
Pope's Windsor Forest.
The cheerful morn
Beams o'er the hills ; go, mount th' exulting steed.
Already see the deep-mouth'd bugles catch
The tainted mazes ; and, on eager sport
Intent, with emulous impatience try
Each doubtful trace. Or, if a nobler prey
Delights }'ou more, go chase the desperate deer;
And through its deepest solitudes awake
The vocal forest with the jovial horn.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Liv'd in his saddle, Iov'd the chase, the course,
And always, e'er he mounted, kiss'd his horse,
Compels Retirement.
Again impetuous to the field he flies,
Leaps ev'ry fence but one — there falls and dies ;
Like a slain deer, the tumbril brings him home,
Unmiss'd but by his dogs and by his groom.
Cowper's Progress of Error.
Contusion hazarding of neck or spine,
Which rural gentlemen call sport divine.
Cowper's Needless Alarm.
Now the-efore issued forth the spotted pack,
With tails high mounted, ears hung low, and
throats
With a whole gamut fill'd of heav'nly notes,
For which, alas ! my destiny severe,
Though ears she gave me two, gave me no ear.
Cowper's Needless Alann.
Bui, ah . those dreadful yells what soul can hear,
That owns a carcase, and not quake for fear ?
Demons produce them doubtless, brazen-claw'd
Ana fang'd with brass the demons are abroad.
Cowper's Needless Alarm.
When huntsmen wind the merry horn,
And from its covert starts the fearful prey ;
Who, warm'd with youth's blood in his swelling
veins,
Would, like a lifeless clod outstretched lie,
Shut up from all the fair creation offers ?
Joanna Bonne's Ethwald.
My hawk is tired of perch and. hood,
My idle greyhound loathes his food,
My horse is weary of his stall,
And I am sick of captive thrall.
I wish I were as I have been,
Hunting the hart in forests green,
With bended bow, and bloodhound free,
For that 's the life is meet for me !
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
As chief who hears his warder call,
" To arms ! the foemen storm the wall,"
The antler'd monarch of the waste
Sprung from his heathery couch in haste.
But, ere his fleet career he took,
The dew-drops from his flanks he shook ;
Like crested leader proud and high,
Toss'd his beam'd frontlet to the sky ;
A moment gaz'd adown the dale,
A moment snuff 'd the tainted gale,
A moment listen'd to the cry,
That thicken'd as the chase drew nigh ;
Then, as the headmost foes appear'd,
With one brave bound the copse he clear'd,
And stretching forward free and far,
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var.
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
An hundred dogs bay'd deep and strong,
Clatter'd an hundred steeds along,
Their peal the merry hours rung out,
An hundred voices join'd the shout ;
With hark and whoop, and wild halloo,
No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew :
Far from the tumult fled the roe,
Close in her covert cower'd the doe,
The falcon from her cairn on high,
Cast on the rout a wandering eye,
Till far beyond her piercing ken,
The hurricane had swept the glen ;
Faint and more faint, its failing din
Return'd from cavern, cliff, and linn,
And silence settled, wide and still,
On the lone wood and mighty hill.
Scott's Lady of the Lake
He broke, 't is true, some statutes of the laws
Of hunting — for the sagest youth is frail ;
Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then,
And once o'er several country gentlemen.
Byron.
HUSBANDS.
247
He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,
Who after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes,
And what not, though he rode beyond all price,
Ask'd next day, " If men ever hunted twice ?"
Byron.
His gaunt hound yell'd, his rifle flash d,
The grim bear hush'd its savage growl ;
In blood and foam the panther gnash'd
Its fangs with dying howl ;
The fleet deer ceas'd its flying bound,
Its snarling wolf-foe bit the ground,
And with its moaning cry,
The beaver sank beneath the wound,
Its pond built Venice by,
Street's Poems.
A band of hunters were we. All day long
Our feet had trail'd the woods. The panther fierce,
The snorting bear, the cowering wolf, the deer
Swift as our balls, had fallen, as crack'd the shots
Of our slim, deadly rifles.
Street's Poems.
Know then,
As women owe a duty — so do men.
Men must be like the branch and bark to trees,
Which doth defend them from tempestuous rage ; —
Clothe them in winter, tender them in age,
Or as ewes love unto their eanlings fives ;
Such should be husbands' custom to their wives.
If it appears to them they've stray'd amiss,
They only must rebuke them with a kiss ;
Or cluck them as hens' chickens, with kind cali,
Cover them under their wing, and pardon all.
Wilkins's Miseries of Enforced Marriage.
To all married men be this caution,
Which they should duly tender as their life,
Neither to doat too much, nor doubt a wife.
Massinger's Picture.
A narrow-minded husband is a thief
To his own fame, and his preferment too ;
He shuts his parts and fortunes from the world ;
While from the popular vote and knowledge,
Men rise to employment in the state.
Shirley' 1 s Lady of Pleasuri
HUSBANDS.
Look here upon this picture, and on this:
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers :
See, what a grace was seated on this brow ;
Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself;
An eye, like Mars, to threaten or command ;
A station, like the herald Mercury,
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ;
A combination, and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man !
This was your husband. — Look you now what
follows ;
There is your husband — like a mildew'd ear
Blasting his wholesome brother.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Marry ! no, faith ; husbands are like lots in
The lottery, you may draw forty blanks
Before you find one that has any prize
In him ; a husband generally is a
Careless domineering thing, that grows like
Coral ; which as long as it is under water
Is soft and tender ; but as soon
As it has got its branch above the waves
Is presently hard, stiff, not to be bow'd.
Marston.
What are husbands ? read the new world's won-
ders, |
ouch husbands as this monstrous world produces,
And you will scarce find such deformities.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Rule a Wife.
HYPOCRISY. (See also Deceit.)
Thereto when needed, she could weep and pray
And when she listed she could fawn and flatter
Now smiling smoothly, like to summer's day,
Now glooming sadly, so to cloak her matter ;
Yet were her words but wind, and all her tears
but water. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
No man's condition is so base as his ;
None more accurs'd than he : for man esteems
Him hateful, 'cause he seems not what he is :
God hates him, 'cause he is not what he seems ;
What grief is absent, or what mischief can
Be added to the hate of God and man ?
Quarles.
There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
Shaks. Merchant of Ven,ce.
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear upon their chins
The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars,
Who, inward seafch'd, have livers white as milk 7
Shaks. Merchant of Venice
If I do not put on a sober habit,
Talk with respect, and swear but now and Jicn,
Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely
Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyo«
Thus with my nat, and sigh, and say Amen."
Use all the observance of civility,
Like one well studied in a sad ostent
To please his grandam, never trust me more
Sliaks. Merchant of Vmiet
243
HYPOCRISY.
The devil can cite scripture for his purpose,
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek :
A goodly apple, rotten at the heart :
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath !
Sliaks. Merchant of Venice.
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal !
Shaks. Much ado alout Nothing.
This outward sainted deputy —
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth enmew
As falcon doth the fowl — is yet a devil.
Shaks. Men. for Mea.
When devils will their blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly show.
Shaks. Othello.
When my outward action doth demonstrate
The native art and figure of my heart
L: compliment extern, 't is not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For doves to peck at — I am not what I am.
Shaks. Othello.
Though I do hate him as I do hell pains,
Yet for necessity of present life,
I must show out a flag and sign of love,
Which is indeed but sign. ^^ 0tMh
If that the earth could turn with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Shaks. Othello.
So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,
That — his apparent open guilt omitted —
He liv'd from all attainder of suspect.
Shaks. Richard HI.
But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture,
Tell them — that God bids us do good for evil :
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ :
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Shaks. Richard III.
Buckingham, beware of yonder dog ;
Look, when he fawns he bites ; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death :
Have not to do with him, beware of him ;
Sin, death, and hell, have set their mark on him ;
And all their ministers attend on him.
Shaks. Richard III.
Be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit :
And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
And stand between two churchmen, good my lord ;
For on that ground I '11 make a holy descant :
And be not easily won to our requests;
Pnv the maid's part, still arswer nay, and take it.
Slinks Richard III.
Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian ;
Speak, and look back, and pry on every side,
Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
Intending deep suspicion : ghastly looks
Are at my service, like enforced smiles
And both are ready in their offices,
At any time, to grace my stratagems
Shaks. Richard Hi
Gloster's show
Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile
With sorrow snares relenting passengers ;
Or as the snake, roll'd in a flowering bank,
With shining cheeker'd slough, doth sting a child
That for the beauty, thinks it excellent
Shaks. Henry VI. Part II
Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile :
And cry content, to that which grieves my heart
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
I know thou art religious,
And hast a thing within thee, called conscience ;
With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies,
Which I have seen thee careful to observe.
Shaks. Titus Andronicus
Show men deceitful ?
Why, so didst thou: or seem they grave and
learned ?
Why, so didst thou : come they of noble family"
Why, so didst thou : seem they religious ?
Why, so didst thou : or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion, or of mirth, or anger ;
Constant in spirit, nor swerving with the blood ;
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment;
Not working with the eye, without the ear,
And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither ?
Such, and so finely bolted, didst thou seem.
Shaks. Henry V.
How smooth and even do they bear themselves !
As if allegiance in their bosom sat,
Crowned with faith, and constant loyalty.
Shaks. Henry V.
To beguile the time,
Look like the time ; bear welcome in your eyes,
Your hand, your tongue : look like the innocen\
flower,
But be the serpent under it.
Sliaks. Macbeth
Assume a virtue, if you have it not,
That monster, custom, who all sense doth ape
Of devils' habits, is angel yet in this ;
That to the use of action? fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on,
Shaks. Hamlet
HYPOCRISY.
240
We are oft to blame in this —
'T is too much prov'd — that with devotion's visage
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
ShaJcs. Hamlet.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show :
False face must hide what the false heart doth
know. ShaJcs. Macbeth.
You are meek, and humble mouth'd ;
You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,
With meekness and humility : but your heart
Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.
ShaJcs. Henry VIII.
Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted ;
Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint.
ShaJcs. Comedy of Errors.
We are at the stake,
And bay'd about with many enemies ;
And some that smile, have in their hearts, I fear,
Millions of mischief.
ShaJcs. Julius Ccesar.
You vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
When I am sure, you hate me in your hearts.
ShaJcs. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
For villany is not without such rheum ;
And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
Like rivers of remorse and innocency.
ShaJcs. King John.
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone,
By his permissive will, through heav'n and earth,
And oft though wisdom wakes, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill,
Where no ill seems.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
They
Can pray upon occasion, talk of heaven,
Turn up their goggling eye-balls, rail at vice,
Dissemble, lie, and preach, like any priest.
Otway's Orphan.
Seeming devotion doth but gild the knave,
That 's neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave ;
But when religion doth with virtue join,
It makes a hero like an angel shine.
Waller.
Why did'st thou choose that cursed sin,
Hypocrisy — to set up in ?
Because it is the thriving'sl calling,
The only saint's bell that rings all in,
In which all churches are concern'd,
And is the easiest to be learn'd.
Butler's Hudibras.
Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated, as to cheat ;
As lookers-on feel most delight,
That least perceive the juggler's sleight ;
And still the less they understand,
The more th' admire his sleight of hand.
Butler's Hudibras.
Kings and priests are in a manner bound,
For reverence sake, to be close hypocrites.
Yet to be secret, makes not sin the less ;
'Tis only hidden from the vulgar view;
Maintains indeed the reverence due to princes,
But not absolves the conscience from the crime.
Dryden's Amphytrion.
Next stood hypocrisy, with holy leer,
Soft smiling and demurely looking cown,
But hid the dagger underneath the gown ;
Th' assassinating wife, the household fiend,
And — far the blackest there — the traitor fiend.
Dryden's Palamon and Arciie
Bartering his venal wit for sums of gold,
He cast himself into the saint-like mould ;
Groan'd, sigh'd, and pray'd, while godliness was
gain,
The loudest bag-pipe of the squeaking train.
Dry den
They gave, and she transferr'd the curs'd advice,
That monarchs should their inward soul disguise,
Dissemble and command, be false and wise ;
By ignominious arts, for servile ends,
Should compliment their foes, and shun their
friends. Prior's Solomon.
The theme divine at cards she '11 not forget,
But takes in texts of scripture at picquet ;
In those licentious meetings acts the prude,
And thanks her Maker that her cards are good.
Young's Love of Fame.
Foul hypocrisy's so much the mode,
There is no knowing hearts from words and looks
Ev'n ruffians cant, and undermining knaves
Display a mimic openness of soul.
W. SJiirley's Parricide.
Catius is ever moral, ever grave,
Thinks who endures a knave, is next a knave,
Save just at dinner — then prefers, no doubt,
A rogue with venison to a saint without.
Pope's Moral Essays.
To wear long faces, just as if our Maker,
The God of goodness, was an undertaker,
Well pleas'd to wrap the soul's unlucky mien
In sorrow's dismal crape or bombasin.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindai.
How little do they see what is, who frame
Their hasty judgment upon that which seems'.
Sourhet,
250
IDLENESS.
Think'st thou there are no serpents in the world
But those who slide along the grassy sod,
And sting the luckless foot that presses them ?
There are who in the path of social life
Do bask their spotted skins in fortune's sun,
And sting the soul. — Ay, till its healthful frame
Is chang'd to secret, fest'ring, sore disease,
So deadly is the wound.
Joanna Baillie , s Be Montford.
Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or
best;
Dissimulation always sets apart
A corner for herself; and therefore Fiction
Is that which passes with least contradiction.
Byron.
" Life 's a poor play'r, then " play out the play,
Ye villains !" and above all keep a sharp eye
Much less on what you do than what you say :
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem, but always what you see.
Byron.
The hypocrite had left his mask, and stood
In naked ugliness. He was a man
Who stole the livery of the court of heaven
To serve the devil in.
Pollock's Course of Time.
In sermon style he bought,
And sold, and lied ; and salutations made
In scripture terms. He pray'd by quantity,
And with his repetitions long and loud,
All knees were weary.
Pollock's Course of Time.
On charitable lists, — those trumps which told
The public ear, who had in secret done •■
The poor a benefit, and half the alms
They told of, took themselves to keep them sounding,
He blazed his name.
Pollock's Course of Time.
Their friendship is a lurking snare,
Their honour but an idle breath,
Their smile, the smile that traitors wear,
Their love is hate, their life is death.
W. G. Sim7ns.
IDLENESS.
From worldly cares himself he did esloin,
And greatly shunned manly exercise ;
From every work he challenged essoin,
For contemplation sake : yet otherwise,
His life he led in lawless riotise
By which he grew to grievous malady
fc'ji in his lustless limbs through evil guise,
A shaking fever reign'd continually ;
Such one was Idleness.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
The first that all the rest did guide,
Was sluggish idleness, the nurse of sin;
Upon a slothful ass he chose to ride,
Array'd in habit black, and amis thin,
Like to an holy monk, the service to begin.
Spenser's Fairy Quec»
Who doth to sloth his younger days engage,
For fond delight, he clips the wings of fame ;
For sloth, the canker worm of honour's badge,
Fame's feather'd wings doth fret; burying the
name
Of virtue's worth in dust of dunghill shame,
Whom action out of dust to light doth bring,
And makes her mount to heav'n with golden wing.
Mirror for Magistrates.
What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time i
Be but to sleep and feed ? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To rust in us unus'd.
Shaks Hamlet
See the issue of your sloth ;
Of sloth comes pleasure, of pleasure comes riot,
Of riot comes disease, of disease comes spending
Of spending comes want, of want comes theft,
And of theft comes hanging.
Chapman, Jonson and Marston's Easward Hoe
The grey-ey'd morning braves me to my face,
And calls me sluggard.
Middleton's Family Love
Is there aught in sleep can charm the wise ?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life ;
Fatal extinction of the enlighten'd soul!
Or else to fevering vanity alive,
Wilder'd, and tossing through distemper'd dreams ?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves ; when every muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk ?
Thomson's Seasons
An empty form
Is the weak virtue, that amid the shade
Lamenting lies, with future schemes amus'd ;
While wickedness and folly, kindred powers,
Confound the world.
Thomson
A lazy lolling sort,
Unseen at church, at senate, or at court,
Of ever listless loit'rers, that attend
No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend.
Pope
IDLENESS.
25 ^
Their only labour was to kill the time,
And labour dire it is, and weary woe.
They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme ;
Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go,
Or saunter forth, with tottering step and slow.
This soon too rude an exercise they find ;
Straight on the couch their limbs again they throw,
Where hours and hours they sighing lie reclin'd,
> And court the vapoury god soft-breathing in the
wind. Thomson's Castle of Indolence.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard, learn to live,
And by her wary ways reform thine own.
Smart.
Life's cares are comforts ; such by heav'n design'd ;
He ihat has none, must make them, or be wretched.
Cares are employments ; and without employ
The soul is on the rack ; the rack of rest,
To souls most adverse ; action all their joy.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Leisure is pain ; takes off our chariot wheels ;
How heavily we drag the load of life !
Blest leisure is our curse ; like that of Cain,
[t makes us wander ; wander earth around
To fly that tyrant thought. As Atlas groan'd
The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.
Young's Night Thoughts.
From other care absoly'd, the busy mind
Finds in yourself a theme to pore upon :
It finds you miserable, or makes you so.
For while yourself you anxiously explore,
Timorous self-love, with sick'ning fancy's aid,
Presents the danger that you dread the most,
And ever galls you in your tender part.
Hence some for love, and some for jealousy,
For grim religion some, and some for pride,
Have lost their reason : some for fear of want,
Want all their lives ; and others every day
For. fear of dying suffer worse than death.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
The sedentary stretch their lazy length
When custom bids, but no refreshment find,
Fo>* none they need : the languid eye, the cheek
Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk,
And wither'd muscle, and the vapid soul,
Reproach their owner with that love of rest
To which he forfeits e'en the rest he loves.
Cowper's Task.
Come hither, ye that press your beds of down
And sleep not : see him sweating o'er his bread
Before he eats it : — 'T is the primal curse,
But soften'd into mercy ; made the pledge
Of cheerful davs, and nights without a groan.
Cowper's Task.
Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most,
Farthest retires — an idol at whose shrine
Who oft'nest sacrifice are favour'd least.
Cowper's Task
How various his enjoyments, w^hom the world
Calls idle ; and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too !
Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen.
Delightful industry enjoy'd at home,
And nature in her cultivated trim
Dress'd to his taste, inviting him abroad —
Can he wanjt occupation, who has the.»a ?
Will he be idle, who has much t' enjoy ?
Cowper's TasS.
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
Cowper's Retirement.
No more the irksome restlessness of rest,
Disturb'd him like the eagle in her nest,
Whose whetted beak and far pervading eye,
Darts for a victim over all the sky.
Byron's Island
The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void —
The leafless desent of the mind —
The waste of feelings unemploy'd —
Who would be doom'd to gaze upon
A sky without a cloud or sun ?
Less hideous far the tempest's roar,
Than ne'er to brave the billows more - -
Thrown, when the war of winds is o'er,
A lonely wreck on fortune's shore,
'Mid sullen calm, and silent bay,
Unseen to drop by dull decay;
Better to sink beneath the shock,
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.
Byron's Giaou .
When you have found a day to be idle, be idle lor
a day.
When you have met with three cups to drink,
drink your three cups.
Chinese Poet-
Idleness is sweet and sacred.
Walter Savage London.
I would not waste my spring of youth
In idle dalliance : I would plant rich seeds,
To blossom in my manhood, and bear fruit
When I am old.
Hillhousf
By nature's laws, immutable and just,
Enjoyment stops where indolence begins ;
And purposeless, to-morrow, borrowing sloth.
Itself heaps on its shoulders loads of woe,
Too heavy to be borne.
Pollock's Course :f Tin*
2i>2
IGNORANCE.
Sloth lay till mid-day, turning on his couch,
I.ike ponderous door upon its weary hinge.
Pollock's Course of Time.
Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook ;
Each cloud that ffoatcth in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Here have I sat since morn, reading sometimes,
And sometimes listening to the faster fall
Of the large drops, or rising with the stir
Of an unbidden thought, have walk'd awhile,
With the slow step of indolence, my room,
And then sat down composedly again
To my quaint book of olden poetry.
It is a kind of idleness, I know ;
And I am said to be an idle man —
And it is very true.
Willis's Poems.
There is no type of indolence like this : —
A ship in harbour, not a signal flying,
Tne waves unstirr'd, about her huge sides lying,
No breeze her drooping pennant-flag to kiss,
Or move the smallest rope that hangs aloft.
Park Benjamin.
Long has it been my fate to hear
The slave of mammon, with a sneer,
My indolence reprove ;
Ah, little knows he of the care,
The toil, the hardship that I bear,
While lolling in my elbow-chair,
And seeming scarce to move.
Washington Allston.
MetmnKs how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd
Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high
Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie,
Nor of the busier scenes we left behind
Aught envying.
Charles Lamb.
IGNORANCE.
Witn creeping, crooked pace forth came
An old, old man, with beard as white as snow,
That on a staff his feeble steps did frame,
And guide his weary gait both to and fro ;
For his eyesight him failed long ago :
And on his arm a bunch of keys of ev'ry inner
door,
Hut he could not them use, but kept them still in
store.
But very uncouth sight was to behold
How he did fashion his uruoward pace:
¥.>i as he forward mov d his footing old,
S*> backwarl still was turn'd his wrinkled face :
I'nlike to men, who ever as they trace,
Both feet and face one way are wont to lead.
This was the ancient keeper of that place,
And foster-father of the giant dead ;
His name Jgnara, did his nature right aread.
Spenser's Fairy Queen
'T is naught but shows that ignorance esteems :
The thing possess'd, is not the thing it seems.
Daniels Civil War.
Ignorance, that sometimes makes the hypocrite,
Wants never mischief; though it oft want fear :
For whilst we think faith made to answer wit,
Observe the justice that doth follow it.
Lord Brooke's Alaham,
Oh, to confess we know not what we should,
Is half excuse ; we know not what we would.
Dr. Donne.
Heaven pities ignorance ;
She 's still the first that has her pardon sign'd ;
All sins else see their faults, she 's only blind.
Middleton's No Help like a Woman's.
Let ignorance with envy chat,
In spite of both, thou fame shalt win ;
Whose map of learning seems like that
Which Joseph gave to Benjamin.
Herrick — to Ben Jonson
The truest characters of ignorance
Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance ;
As blind men use to bear their noses higher
Than those that have their eyes and sight entire
Butler
Ignorance, when it hath purchas'd honour,
It cannot wield it
Webster's Dutchess of Mulfy.
But 't is some justice to ascribe to chance
The wrongs you must expect from ignorance :
None can the moulds of their creation choose,
We therefore should men's ignorance excuse.
When born too low, to reach at things sublime ;
'Tis rather their misfortune than their crime.
Sir W. Davenant on the Earl of Orrery.
I, alas, was ignorant of thee,
As men have ever been of things most excellent ;
Making such judgment of thy beauty, as
Astronomers on stars ;
Who, when their butter use they could not know,
Believ'd that they were only made for show.
Sir W. Davenant's Fair Favourite.
Where ignorance is bliss,
'T is folly to be wise.
Gray
By ignorance is pride increas'd ;
They most assume who know Jie .east.
Gay's Fables,
ILLNESS - IMAGINATION.
253
With just enough of learning to misquote.
Byron's English Bards, 8$c.
Who laughs to scorn the wisdom of the schools,
And thinks the first of poets first of fools.
Charles Sprague.
ILLNESS.
He had a fever when we were in Spain,
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake : 't is true, this god did shake :
His coward lips did from their colour fly ;
And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its lustre.
SMks. Julius Casar.
May be he is not well,
Infirmity doth still neglect all office,
Whereto our health is bound ; we 're not ourselves,
When nature, being oppress'd, commands the
mind
To suffer with the body.
Shahs. King Lear.
Thou art like night, O sickness ! deeply stilling
Within my heart the world's disturbing sound,
And the dim quiet of my chamber filling
With low, sweet voices by life's tumult drown'd ;
Thou art like awful night! — thou gatherest
round
The things that are unseen, though close they lie, —
And with a truth, clear, startling and profound,
Givest their dread presence to our mental eye.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
I lay ill ;
And the dark hot flood, throbbing through and
through me ;
They bled me, and I swoon'd ; and as I died,
Or seem'd to die, a soft sweet sadness fell
With a voluptuous weakness on my soul,
That made me feel all happy.
Bailey's Festus.
I feel
Of this dull sickness at my heart afraid !
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade ;
And something seems to steal
Over my bosom like a frozen hand.
Willis's Poems.
IMAGINATION.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if he would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy ;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear.
Sluzks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast ?
Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat ?
Oh no, the apprehension of .the good,
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Shaks. Richard II.
My brain, methinks, is like an hour-glass,
Wherein m' imaginations run like sands,
Filling up time ; but then are turn'd and turn'd :
So that I know not what to stay upon,
And less to put in art.
Jonson's Every Man in his Humour
Subtle opinion,
Working in man's decayed faculties,
Cuts out and shapes illusive fantasies ;
And our weak apprehensions, like wax,
Receive the form, and presently convey
Unto our dull imagination :
And hereupon we ground a thousand lies,
As — that we see devils rattling in their chains ;
Ghosts of dead men, variety of spirits ;
When our own guilty conscience is the hell,
And our black thoughts, the caverns where they
dwell. Day's Law Tricks.
Imagination works ; how she can frame
Things which are not; methinks she stands
before me,
And by the quick idea of my mind,
Were my skill pregnant, I could draw her picture
Webster
Fancy can save or kill ; it hath clos'd up
Wounds when the balsam could not, and without
The aid of salves : — to think hath been a cure.
For witchcraft then, that 's all done by the force
Of mere imagination.
Cartwright's Ordinary
Do what he will, he cannot realize
Half he conceives — the glorious vision flies ;
Go where he may, he cannot hope to find
The truth, the beauty pictur'd in his mind.
Rogers's Human Lift.
My eyes make pictures when they 're shut : —
I see a fountain large and fair,
A willow and a ruin'd hut,
And thee and me and Mary there.
O Mary ! make thy gentle lap our pillow ;
Bend o'er us like a bower my beautiful green
willow.
j r »eri&$
22
2M
IMMORTALITY.
Woe to the youth whom fancy gains,
Winning from reason's hand the reins,
Pity and woe ! for such a mind
Is soft, contemplative, and kind.
Scott's RoJceby.
Of its own beauty is the mind diseas'd,
And fevers into false creation : — where,
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ?
In him alone. Can nature show so fair ?
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men ?
The unreach'd paradise of our despair,
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen,
And overpowers the page where it would bloom
again ?
Who loves, raves — 't is youth's phrenzy — but the
cure
Is bitterer still ; as charm by charm unwinds
Which rob'd our idols, and we see too sure,
Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's
Ideal shape of such ; yet still it binds
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,
Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds ;
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,
Seems ever near the prize, — wealthiest when most
undone. Byron's Childe Harold.
Why have ye linger'd on your way so long,
Bright visions who were wont to hear my call,
And with the harmony of dance and song,
Keep round my dreaming couch a festival ?
Percival.
I have fed
Perhaps too much upon the lotos fruits
Imagination yields, — fruits that unfit
The palate for the more substantial food
Of our own land — reality. Miss London.
Alas ! we make
A ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,
But sleep ourselves at the foot.
Miss Landon.
'Mid earthly scenes forgotten or unknown,
Lives in ideal worlds, and wanders there alone.
Carlos Wilcox.
He is a God who wills it, — with a power
To work his purpose out in earth and air,
Though neither speak him fair! —
So may he pluck from earth its precious flower,
And in the ether choose a spirit rare,
To serve him deftly in some other sphere.
W. G. Simms.
Upon the poet's soul they flash for ever,
In evening shades these glimpses strange and
sweet
'1 Dcy fill his heart betimes, — they leave him never,
Aod Ldant his steps with sounds of falling feet
W. G. Si?nms.
IMMORTALITY.
It must be so ; Plato, thou reasonest well :
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality ?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought ? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ?
'T is the divinity that stirs within us ;
'T is heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Addison's Cato.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point :
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.
Addison's Cato.
Look nature through : 't is revolution all ;
All change ; no death. Day follows night, and night
The dying day ; stars rise, and set, and rise ;
Earth takes th' example. See the summer gay,
With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers,
Droops into pallid autumn : winter grey,
Horrid with frost, and turbulent with storm,
Blows autumn and his golden fruits away,
Then melts into the spring : soft spring, with breath
Favonian, from warm chambers of the south,
Recalls the first. All, to re-flourish, fades ;
As in a wheel, all sinks, to reascend,
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Can it be ?
Matter immortal ? and shall spirit die ?
Above the nobler, shall less nobler rise ?
Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,
No resurrection know ? Shall man alone,
Imperial man ! be sown in barren ground,
Less privileg'd than grain, on which he feeds ?
Young's Night Thoughts.
Still seems it strange, that thou should'st live for
ever?
Is it less strange, that thou should'st live at all ?
This is a miracle ; and that no more.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Possession, wny more tasteless than pursuit?
Why is a wish far dearer than a crown ?
That wish accomplish'd, why the grave of bliss ?
Because in the great future buried deep,
Beyond our plans of empire and renown,
Lies all that man with ardour should pursue ;
And He who made him, bent him to the right.
Young's Night Thoughts.
IMPATIENCE - IMPRISONMENT.
255
Immortality o'ersweeps
All pains, all tears, all time, all fears — and peals
Like the eternal thunders of the deep
Into my ears this truth — Thou liv'st for ever.
Anon.
Cold in the dust this perish'd heart may lie,
But that -which warm'd it once shall never die.
Campbell.
The splendours of the firmament of time
May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not:
Like stars to their appointed heights they climb,
And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
And love and life contend in it for what
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there,
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy
air. Shelley.
Attempt how monstrous and how surely vain,
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God,
With aught but moral excellence, truth and love,
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul !
Pollock's Course of Time.
Our proper good we rarely seek or make ;
Mindless of our immortal powers, and their
Immortal end, as is the pearl its worth,
The rose its scent, the wave its purity.
Bailey's Festus.
And with our frames do perish all our loves ?
Do those who took their root and put forth buds,
And their soft leaves unfolded in the warmth
Of mutual hearts, grow up and live in beauty,
Then fade and fall like fair unconscious flowers ?
Dana's Poems.
O, listen man !
A voice within us speaks that startling word,
" Man, thou shalt never die !" Celestial voices
Hymn it unto our souls : according harps,
By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality.
Dana's Poems.
It is wonderful,
That man should hold himself so haughtily,
And talk of an immortal name, and feed
His proud ambition with such daring hopes
As creatures of a more eternal nature
Alone should form.
Percival.
Press onward through each varying hour ;
Let no weak fears thy course delay ;
Immortal being ! feel thy power,
Pursue thy bright and endless way.
Andrews Norton.
There are distinctions that will live in heaven,
When time is a forgotten circumstance !
The elevated brow of kings will lose
The impress of regalia, and the slave
Will wear his immortality as free
Beside the crystal waters ; but the depth
Of gfory in the attributes of God,
Will measure the capacities of mind ;
And as the angels differ, will the ken
Of gifted spirits glorify Him more.
Willis's Poems.
Love, which proclaims the human, bids thee know
A truth more lofty in thy lowliest hour
Than shallow glory taught to human power —
"What's human is immortal I"
Bulwer's Poem&.
IMPATIENCE.
What ! canst thou not forbear me half an hour ?
Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself,
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear,
That thou art crown'd, not that I am dead.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Prince. — I never thought to hear you speak again
King. — Thy wish was father, Harry, to thai
thought :
I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for my empty chair,
That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours
Before thy hour be ripe ? O foolish youth '.
Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm
thee. Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Oh ! how impatience gains upon the soul,
When the long promised hour of joy draws near !
How slow the tardy moments seem to roll !
Mrs. Tighe.
IMPRISONMENT.
Methinks, nobody should be sad but I :
Yet, I remember when I was in France,
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
Only for wantonness. By my Christendom,
So I were out of prison, and kept sheep,
I should be merry as the day is long.
Shaks. Kins John
Seldom when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.
Shaks. Mea.for Men
What, rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
Th' immediate heir of England ! was this easy 1
May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten ?
Shaks. Henrv IV. Part 1 J
256
IMPUDENCE.
So we '11 live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies ; and hear poor rogues
Talk of court-news, and we '11 talk with them too ;
Who loses, and who wins ; who 's in, who 's out ;
And take upon us the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies : and we '11 wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sets of great ones,
That ebb and flow by th' moon.
Shaks. Lear.
Captivity,
That comes with honour, is true liberty.
Massinger and Field's Fatal Dowry.
Your narrow souls,
If you have any, cannot comprehend
How insupportable the torments are,
Which a free and noble soul made captive, suffers.
Massinger's Maid of Honour.
Why should we murmur to be circumscrib'd,
As if it were a new thing to wear fetters ?
When the whole world was meant but to confine us ;
Wherein, who walks from one clime to another,
Hath but a greater freedom of the prison :
Our soul was the first captive, born to inherit
But her own chains ; nor can it be discharg'd,
Till nature tire with its own weight, and then
We are but more undone, to be at liberty.
Shirley's Court Secret.
Let them fear bondage who are slaves to fear ;
The sweetest freedom is an honest heart
John Ford's Lady's Trial.
Death is the pledge of rest, and with one bail,
Two prisons quits; the body and the jail.
Bishop King.
Nature, in spite of fortune, gave no minds,
That cannot like our bodies be enthrall'd.
Sir Ralph Freeman's Imperiale.
Dost thou use me as fond children do
Their birds, show me my freedom in a string,
And when thou 'st play'd with me a while, then
pull
Me back again, to languish in my cage ?
Sir W. Davenant's Unfortunate Lovers.
Her sweetness is imprison'd now,
Like weeping roses in a still, and is,
Like them, ordain'd to last by dissolution.
Sir W. Davenant's Love and Honour.
Captivity
Is the inheritance of all things finite ;
Nor can we boast our liberty, though we
\.re not restrained by strong-holds ; when as
The neighb'ring air confines us, and each man
U thraldom's perfect emblem : for in all,
Tne soul is Captive, and thb body's thrall.
Marriage Broker.
A single jail in Alfred's golden reign,
Could half the nation's criminals contain ;
Fair justice then, without constraint ador'd,
Held high the steady scale, but sheath'd the sword ;
No spies were paid, no special juries known ;
Blest age ! but ah ! how different from our own !
Dr. Johnson's London,
I only heard the reckless waters roar,
Those waves that would not bear me from the
shore ;
I only mark'd the glorious sun and sky,
Too bright — too blue — for my captivity ;
And felt that all which freedom's bosom cheers
Must break my chain before it dried my tears.
Byron's Corsair.
Within its cage the imprison'd matin bird
Swells the full chorus with a generous song ;
He bathes no pinion in the dewy light,
No consort's bliss, no father's joy he shares ;
Yet still the rising radiance glads his sight,
His fellows' freedom soothes the captive's cares.
Coleridge's Sonnet to Lafayette.
What has the grey-hair'd prisoner done ?
Has murder stain'd his hands with gore ?
Not so ; his crime 's a fouler one ;
God made the old man poor !
Whittier's Poems.
Look on him ! — through his dungeon grate,
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As if it loath'd the sight.
Whittier's Poems.
Down with the Law that binds him thus !
Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse
Of God and human kind !
Open the prison's living tomb,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code,
To the free sun and air of God ;
No longer dare as crime to brand
The chastening of the Almighty's hand.
Whittier's Poems.
IMPUDENCE.
He that has but impudence,
To all things has a fair pretence ;
And put among his wants but shame,
To all the world may lay his claim.
Butler's Hudiiras
Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense.
Roscommon
INCONSTANCY - INDEPENDENCE.
257
To glory some advance a lying- claim,
Thieves of renown, and pilferers of fame :
Their front supplies what their ambition lacks ;
They know a thousand lords, behind their backs.
Young's Love of Fame.
With that dull, rooted, callous impudence,
Which, dead to shame, and ev'ry nicer sense,
Ne'er blush'd, unless, in spreading vice's snares,
He blunder'd on some virtue unawares.
Churchill's Rosciad.
Hibernia, fam'd, 'bove ev'ry other grace,
For matchless intrepidity of face.
From her his features caught the gen'rous flame,
And bade defiance to all sense of shame.
ChurchiWs Rosciad.
INCONSTANCY.
Trust not the treason of those smiling looks,
Until ye have their guileful trains well tried ;
For they are like but unto golden hooks,
That from the foolish fish their baits do hide :
So she with flattering smiles weak hearts doth
guide
Unto her love, and tempt to their decay ;
Whom, being caught, she kills with cruel pride,
And feeds at pleasure on the wretched prey.
Spenser.
O heaven ! Were man
But constant, he were perfect : that one error
Fills him with faults ; makes him run through all
sins:
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
Shales. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Ev'n as one heat another heat expels,
Or as one nail by strength drives out another ;
So the remembrance of my former love,
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
There is no music in a voice,
That is but one and still the same ;
Inconstancy is but a name,
To fright poor lovers from a better choice.
Joseph Rutter's Shepherd's Holiday.
Inconstancy 's the plague that first or last
Paints the whole sex, the catching court disease.
Man therefore was a lord-like creature made ;
Rough as the winds and as inconstant too :
A lofty aspect given him for command ;
Easily soften'd when he would betray :
Like conquering tyrants, you our breasts invade,
Where you are picas' d to ravage for a while :
But soon you find new conquest out, and leave
The ravag'd province ruinate and bare.
Otway.
R
Oh men ! Oh manners ! what a medley 's this,
When each man's mind more than face diff'rent
is!
For by forms only we distinguish'd be
One from another : but alas ! to see
We vary from ourselves each day in mind,
Nor know we in ourselves, ourselves to find.
Heath.
How long must women wish in vain
A constant love to find ?
No art can fickle man retain,
Or fix a roving mind.
Yet fondly we ourselves deceive,
And empty hopes pursue ;
Though false to others, we believe
They will to us prove true.
Thomas Shadwell.
Three things a wise man will not trust,
The wind, the sunshine of an April day,
And woman's plighted faith. I have beheld
The weathercock upon the steeple point
Steady from morn till eve, and I have seen
The bees go forth upon an April morn,
Secure the sunshine will not end in showers :
But when was woman true ?
Southey's Madoc,
The dream on the pillow,
That flits with the day,
The leaf of the willow
A breath wears away ;
The dust on the blossom,
The spray on the sea ;
Ay, — ask thine own bosom -
Are emblems of thee.
Miss Landon,
Inconstant ! are the waters so,
That fall in showers on hill and plain,
Then, tir'd of what they find below,
Ride on the sunbeams back again ?
Pray, are there changes in the sky,
The winds, or in our summer weather ?
In sudden change, believe me, I
Will beat both clouds and winds together :
Nothing in air or earth may be
Fit type of my inconstancy.
Anon.
INDEPENDENCE.
Hail! independence, hail ! heaven's next best gii I,
To that of life and an immortal soul !
The life of life, that to the banquet high
And sober meal gives tasfe ; to the bow'd roof
Fair-dream'd repose, and to the cottage charms.
Thomson's Liberty
22*
259
INDUSTRY.
Give me, I cry'd, (enough for me)
My bread and independency !
Pope.
Thy spirit, independence, let me share !
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom hare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Deep in the frozen regions of the north,
A goddess violated brought thee forth,
Immortal liberty, whose look sublime
Hath bleach'd the tyrant's cheek in every varying
clime.
Smollett's Ode to Independence.
Hail, independence — by true reason taught,
How few have known, and priz'd thee as they
ought !
Some give thee up for riot ; some, like boys,
Resign thee, in their childish moods, for toys ;
Ambition some, some avarice misleads,
And, in both cases, independence bleeds.
Churchill.
I praise you much, ye meek and patient pair,
For ye are worthy ; choosing rather far
A dry but independent crust, hard earn'd
And eaten with a sigh, than to endure
The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs
Of knaves in office.
Cowper's Task.
I 've been disgrae'd, too — felt a monarch's frown,
Aid consequently quitted town : —
But have my fields refus'd their smiles so sweet ?
Say, have my birds grown sulky with the king ?
My thrushes, linnets, larks, refus'd to sing ?
My winding brooks to prattle at my feet ?
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
If I 'm design'd yon lordling's slave —
By nature's law design'd,
Why was an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind ?
Burns's Poems.
Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchain'd strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race ?
Bryant's Poems.
•T is a rough land of earth, and stone, and tree,
Where breathes no castled lord or cabin'd slave,
Where thoughts, and tongues, and hands are bold
and free,
And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave ;
And where none kneel, save when to heaven they
pray,
Nor even then, unless in their own way.
Halleck's Poems.
Would ehake hands with a king upon his throne,
Anc think it kindness to his majesty ;
A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none,
Such are they nurtur'd, such they live and die.
Halleck's Poems.
INDUSTRY.
Shortly his fortune shall be lifted higher ;
True industry doth kindle honour's fire.
Shaks. Cromwell.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heav'n. The sacred sky
Gives us free scope ; only doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
Shaks. All's Well that ends Well
Virtue, though chain'd to earth, will still five free ;
And hell itself must yield to industry.
Jonson's Masques.
Like clocks, one wheel another on must drive ;
Affairs by diligent labour only thrive.
Chapman's Revenge for Honour.
The chiefest action for a man of spirit,
Is never to be out of action ; we should think
The soul was never put into the body,
Which has so many rare and curious pieces
Of mathematical motion, to stand still.
Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds.
Webster's Devil's Law Case.
If little labour, little are our gains :
Man's fortunes are according to his pains.
Herrick.
To be rich, be diligent ; move on
Like heav'n's great movers that enrich the earth ;
Whose moment's sloth would show the world un-
done ;
And make the spring straight bury all her birth.
Rich are the diligent who can command
Time — nature's stock.
Sir W. Davenant's Gondiberi.
Industrious wisdom often does prevent
What lazy folly thinks inevitable.
Abdicated Prince.
Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most,
Farthest retires — an idol, at whose shrine
Who oftenest sacrifice are favoured least.
The keenest pangs the wretched find,
Are rapture to the dreary void —
The leafless desert of the mind —
The waste of feelings unemployed.
Industry —
To meditate, to plan, resolve, perform,
Which in itself is good — as surely brings
Reward of good, no matter what be done.
Pollock's Course of Time,
INEBRIETY.
259
Let not the poor
Be fbrc'd to grind the bones out of their arms
For bread, but have some space to think and feel
Like moral and immortal creatures.
Bailey's Festus.
Protected Industry, careering far,
Detects the cause and cures the rage of war,
And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves,
Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves.
Joel Barlow.
She was knowing in all needlework,
And shone in dairy and in kitchen too,
As in the parlor.
James N. Barker.
Behold !
The ruddy damsel singeth at her wheel,
While by her side the rustic lover sits.
Perchance his shrewd eye secretly doth count
The mass of skeins, which, hanging on the wall,
Increaseth day by day. Perchance his thoughts,
(For men have deeper minds than women — sure 1)
Is calculating what a thrifty wife
The maid will make.
Mrs. Sigourney.
There was no need,
In those good times, of trim callisthenics, —
And there was less of gadding, and far more
Of home-born, heartfelt comfort, rooted strong
In industry, and bearing such rare fruit
As wealth may never purchase.
Mrs. Sigourney's Poems.
Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Work for some good, be it ever so slowly ;
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly ;
Labour — all labour is noble and holy.
Mrs. Osgood.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destin'd end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Longfellow.
INEBRIETY. — (See also Drunkenness.)
I drank ; I lik'd it not ; 't was rage, 't was noise,
An airy scene of transitory joys.
In vain I trusted that the flowing bowl
Would banish sorrow, and enlarge the souL
To the late revel, and protracted feast
Wild dreams succeeded, and disorder'd rest.
Prior's Solomon.
Unhappy man ! whom sorrow thus and rage
To different ills alternately engage ;
Who drinks, alas ! but to forget ; nor sees
That melancholy sloth, severe disease,
Memory confus'd, and interrupted thought,
Death's harbinger, he latent in the draught ;
And, in the flowers that wreathe the sparkling
bowl,
Fell adders hiss, and poisonous serpents roll.
Prior's Soloman.
Give him strong drink until he wink,
That 's sinking in despair ;
An' liquor guid to fire his bluid,
That 's prest wi' grief an' care.
There let him bouse an' deep carouse,
Wi' bumpers flowing o'er,
Till he forgets his loves or debts,
An' minds his griefs no more.
Burns'sScotch Drink.
Hath wine an oblivious power ?
Can it pluck out the sting from the brain ?
The draught might beguile for an hour,
But still leave behind it the pain.
Byron's Farewell to England.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk ;
The best of life is but intoxication :
Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk
The hopes of all men, and of every nation.
Byron
'T is pity wine should be so deleterious,
For tea and coffee leave us much more serious.
Byron.
Fear ye the festal hour !
Ay, tremble when the cup of joy o'erflows !
Tame down the swelling heart ! — the bridal rose,
And the rich myrtle's flower,
Have veil'd the sword ! Red wines have sparkled
fast
From venom'd goblets, and soft breezes past
With fatal perfume through the revel's bower.
Mrs. Hemam
We buy ashes fbr bread;
We buy diluted wine;
Give me of the true, —
Whose ample leaves and tendrils curl'd
Among the silver hills of heaven,
Draw everlasting dew ;
Wine of wine,
Blood of the world,
Form of forms, and mould of statures.
That I intoxicated,
And by the draught assimilated,
May float at pleasure through all natures
The bird-language rightly spell,
And that which roses say so well.
Ralph Waldo Em&sor,
260
INFAMY - INFIDELITY.
— When the laugh is lightest,
When wildest goes the jest,
When gleams the goblet brightest,
And proudest heaves thy breast,
And thou art madly pledging
Each gay and jovial guest —
A ghost shall glide amid the flowers — .
The shade of Love's departed hours.
Mrs. Osgood.
Thou sparkling bowl ! thou sparkling bowl !
Though lips of bards thy brim may press,
And eyes of beauty o'er thee roll,
And song and dance thy power confess,
I will not touch thee ; for there clings
A scorpion to thy side, that stings.
John Pierpont.
INFAMY.
What grief can be, but time doth make it less ?
But infamy, time never can suppress.
Drayton.
When the glories of our lives, men's loves,
Clear consciences, our fames, and loyalties,
That did us worthy comfort, are eclips'd ;
Grief and disgrace invade us : and for all
Our night of life besides, our mis'ry craves
Lark earth would ope, and hide us in our graves.
Chapman's Byron's Conspiracy. Part I.
Shame ever sticks close to the ribs of honour ;
Great men are never sound men after it.
It leaves some ache or other in their names still,
Which their posterity feels at ev'ry weather.
Middleton's Mayor of Quinborough.
INFIDELITY.
Had it pleas'd heaven
To try me with affliction ; had he rain'd
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head ;
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips ;
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes ;
I should have found in some part of my soul
A drop of patience : but (alas !) to make me
A fixed figure, for the type of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at, —
0! O!
Shaks. Othello.
Look to her, Moor ; have a quick eye to see ;
She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.
Shaks. Othello.
O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet,
That the sense aches at thee ; would thou hadst
ne'er been born. Shaks. Othello.
Yet could I bear that too ; well, very well :
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart ;
Where either I must love, or bear no life ;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up ; to be discarded thence !
Or keep it as a cistern, for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion
there !
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubim ;
Ay, there, look grim as hell !
Shaks. Othello.
She 's gone ; I am abus'd ; and my relief
Must be to loathe her.
Shaks. Othello.
O, she is fallen
Into a pit of ink ! that the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again ;
And salt too little, which may season give
To her foul tainted flesh !
Shaks. Much ado about Nothing.
Such an act,
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty :
Calls virtue, hypocrite : takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there : makes marriage vows
As false as dicer's oaths ; O such a deed,
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul ; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words !
Shaks. Hamlet.
Within a month ;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She marry'd ; O most wicked speed.
Shaks. Hamlet
Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on : and yet within a month —
Let me not think on't; — Frailty, thy name is
woman ! Shaks. Hamlet.
O, Hamlet, what a falling off was there !
From me whose love was of that dignity,
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage ; and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor,
To those of mine !
Shaks. Hamlet
O shame ! where is thy blush ? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, '
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire : proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge ;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.
Shaks. Hamlet
INFIDELITY.
2bl
This was your husband — Look you now, what
follows :
Here is your husband ; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes ?
' Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor ? ha ! have you eyes ?
You cannot call it love : for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it 's humble,
And waits upon the judgment : and what judgment
Would step from this to this. sha ^ ^^
What devil was 't,
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind ?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hand or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope. ^^ Hamht
Had she not fallen thus, oh ! ten thousand worlds
Could ne'er have balanc'd her ; for heaven is in
her,
And joys which I must never dream of more.
Lee's CcBsar Borgia.
I can forgive
A foe, but not a mistress, and a friend :
Treason is there in its most horrid shape,
Where trust is greatest ! and the soul resign' d,
Is stabb'd by her own guards.
Dry den's All for Love.
Fatally fair they are, and in their smiles
The graces, little loves, and young desires inhabit ;
But all that gaze upon 'em are undone ;
For they are false. r, , ^, . ^ .. .
J Roices Fair Penitent.
Who robs me of my wealth,
May one day have ability, or will
To yield the full repayment — but the villain
That doth invade a husband's right in bed,
Is murd'rer of his peace, and makes a breach
In his life's after-quiet, that the grief
Of penitence itself cannot repair. '
Hawkins's Cymbeline.
In want, and war, and peril,
Things that would thrill the hearer's blood to
tell of,
My heart grew human when I thought of thee —
Imogine would have shuddered for my danger —
Imogine would have bound my leechless wounds —
Imogine would have sought my nameless corse —
And known it well — and she was wedded —
wedded —
Was there no name in hell's dark catalogue
To brand thee with, but mine immortal foe's ?
And did I 'scape from war, and want, and famine,
To perish by the falsehood of a woman.
Maturin's Bertram.
Thou tremblest lest I curse thee, tremble not
Though thou hast made me, woman, very wretched,
Thou, thou hast made me — but I will not cures
thee —
Hear the last prayer of Bertram's broken heart,
That heart which thou hast broken, not his foes ! —
Of thy rank wishes the full scope be on thee —
May pomp and pride shout in thine adder'd path,
Till thou shalt feel and sicken at their hollowness —
May he thou'st wed, be kind and generous to thee
Till thy wrung heart, stabb'd by his noble fondness,
Writhe in detesting consciousness of falsehood —
May thy babe's smile speak daggers to tha
mother
Who cannot love the father of her child,
And in the bright blaze of the festal hall,
When vassals kneel, and kindred smile around
thee,
May ruin'd Bertram's pledge hiss in thine ear —
Joy to the proud dame of St. Aldobrand —
While his cold corse doth bleach beneath her
towers. Maturin's Bertram.
A despot's vengeance, a false country's curses,
The spurn of menials whom this man hath fed —
In my heart's steeled pride I shook them off,
As the bay'd lion from his hurtless hide
Shakes his pursuers' darts — across their path —
One dart alone took aim — thy hand did barb it.
Maturin's Bertram.
O wretched is the dame, to whom the sound
" Your lord will soon return" no pleasure brings.
Maturin's Bertram.
Another daughter dries a father's tears ;
Another sister claims a brother's love ;
An injured husband hath no other wife,
Save her who wrought him shame.
Maturin's Bertram.
Thou must live amid a hissing world,
A thing that mothers warn their daughters from,
A thing the menials that do tend thee scorn,
Whom, when the good do name, they tell their
beads,
And when the wicked think of they do triumph :
Canst thou encounter this ?
Maturin's Bertram,
Yet do not my folly reprove :
She was- fair — and my passion begun ;
She smil'd — and I could not but love ;
She is faithless — and I am undone.
Shenstone's Disappointment
Can I again that form caress,
Or on that lip in rapture twine ?
No, no ! the lip that all may press
Shall never more be press'd by mine
5f
264
INJURY- INN.
I served thee fifteen hard campaigns,
And pitch'd thy standards in these foreign fields ;
By me thy greatness grew ; thy years grew with it ;
But thy ingratitude out-grew them both.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
The wretch whom gratitude once fails to bind,
To truth or honour let him lay no claim ;
But stand confess'd the brute disguis'd in man.
Frowde's Philotas.
If there be a crime
Of deeper dye than all the guilty train
Of human vices, 't is ingratitude.
Brooke's Earl of Warwick.
Will ye not take the blessings given,
The priceless boon of ruddy health,
The sleep unbroken, peace uiiriven,
The cup of joy, the mine of wealth —
Will ye not take them all, and yet
Walk from the cradle to the grave,
Enjoying, boasting, and forget
To thank the gracious God who gave ?
Eliza Cook's Poems.
INJURIES.
If light wrongs touch me not,
No more shall great ; if not a few, not many :
There 's nought so sacred with us, but may find
A sacrilegious person ; yet the thing is
No less divine, 'cause the profane can reach it.
Jonson's New Inn.
Not fortune's self,
When she encounters virtue, but comes off
Both lame and less. Why should a wise man then
Confess himself the weaker by the feeling
Of a fool's wrong ? There may an injury
Be meant me ; I may choose, if I will take it:
But we are now come to that delicacy
And tenden.°ss of sense, we think an insolence
Worse than injury ; base words worse than deeds :
We are not so much troubled with the wrong,
As with the opinion of the wrong : like children,
We are made afraid with vizards. Such poor
sounds
As is the lie, or common words of spite,
Wise laws thought never worthy of revenge ;
And 't is the narrowness of human nature,
Our poverty and beggary of spirit,
To take exception at these things. He laugh'd
at me :
He broke a jest ! a third took place of me !
How most ridiculous quarrels are all these ?
Notes of a queasy, and sick stomach, labouring
With want of a true injury ! the main part
( )f the wrong, is our vice of taking it !
Jonson's New Inn.
They that do pull down churches, and deface
The holiest altars, cannot hurt the Godhead.
A calm wise man may show as much true valour,
Amidst these popular provocations,
As can an able captain show security,
By his brave conduct through an enemy's country.
A wise man never goes the people's way ;
But as the planets still move contrary
To the world's motion ; so doth he to opinion :
He will examine if those accidents
Which common fame calls injuries, happen to him
Deservedly or no ? Come they deservedly ?
They are no wrongs then ; but punishments :
If undeservedly, and he not guilty ?
The doer of them first should blush — not he.
Jonson's New Inn.
The purpose of an injury; — 'tis to vex
And trouble me : now nothing can do that
To him that's truly valiant. He that is affected
With the least injury, is less than it.
Jonson's New Inn.
For evils which are 'gainst another done,
Repentance makes no satisfaction
To him that feels the smart.
Wilkins's Miseries of Enforced Marriage. \
I have learn'd to endure, I have hugg'd my des-
pair,
I scourge back the madness that else would
invade ;
On my brain falls the drop after drop, yet I beaT
Lest thou should'st discover the wreck thou
hast made. Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
INN.
Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.
Shenstone.
The white-wash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, and chest of drawers by day ;
The pictures plac'd for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ,
The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay ;
With broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Rang'd o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Where village statesmen talk'd with looks pro-
found,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village
INNOCENCE.
265
Souls of poets dead and gone,
What elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ?
Keats.
INNOCENCE.
What I did I did in honour,
Led by the impartial conduct of my soul ;
And never shall you see that I will beg,
If truth and upright innoccncy fail me.
Shaks. King Henry IV.
It touches us not : let the gall'd jade
Wince, our withers are unwrung.
Shales. Hamlet.
My lords, I care not, (so much I am happy
Above a number,) if my actions
Were tried by every tongue, every eye saw them,
Envy and base opinion set against them,
To know my life so even.
Shahs. Henry VIII.
I humbly thank your highness :
And am right glad to catch this good occasion
Most thoroughly to be winnow'd where my chaff
And corn shall fly asunder : for I know,
There's none stands under more calumnious
tongues,
Than I myself, poor man.
Shahs. Henry VIII.
I have mark'd
A thousand blushing apparitions start
Into her face ; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes ;
And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire,
To burn the errors that these princes hold
Against her maiden truth.
Shaks. Much ado about Nothing.
We were as twin'd lambs, that did frisk i' the sun,
And bleat the one at the other : what we chang'd
Was innocence for innocence ; we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, no, nor dream'd
That any did.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Innocence shall make
False accusation blush, and tyranny
Tremble at patience.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
A just man cannot fear ;
Not, though the malice of traducing tongues,
The open vastness of a tyrant's ear,
The senseless rigour of the wrested laws,
Or the red eyes of strain'd authority,
Should in a point meet all, to take his life ;
His innocency is armour 'gainst all these.
Jonson's Poetaster.
innocence, the sacred amulet
'Gainst all the poisons of infirmity,
Of all misfortunes, injury and death !
That makes a man in tune still in himself;
Free from the hell to be his own accuser,
Ever in quiot, endless joys enjoying ;
No strife, nor no sedition in his powers ;
No motion in his will against his reason ;
No thought 'gainst thought —
But all parts in him friendly and secure.
Fruitful of all best tilings in all worst i
He can with ev'ry wish be in their plenty ;
When the infectious guilt of one foul crime
Destroys the free content of all our time.
Chapman's Byron's Conspiracy. Part I
1 hope no other hope ; who bears a spotless breast,
Doth want no comfort else, howe'er distrest.
Dauborne's Poor Man's Comfort.
How the innocent,
As in a gentle slumber, pass away !
But to cut off the knotty thread of life
In guilty men, must force stern Atropos
To use her sharp knife often.
Massinger.
All your attempts
Shall fall on me, like brittle shafts on armour,
That break themselves ; or like waves against a
rock,
That leave no sign of their ridiculous fury
But foam and splinters : my innocence like these
Shall stand triumphant, and your malice serve
But for a trumpet to proclaim my conquest ;
Nor shall you, though you do the worst fate can,
Howe'er condemn, affright an honest man.
Massinger and Field's Fatal Dowry.
Innocence unmov'd
At a false accusation, doth the more
Confirm itself; and guilt is best discover'd
By its own fears.
Nabb's Bride
Misfortune may benight the wicked ; she
Who knows no guilt, can sink beneath no fear.
Habbingion's Queen of Arragon.
'T is modesty in sin to practise ev'ry
Disguise to hide it from the world :
But creatures free from guilt affect the sun,
And hate the dark, because it hides their inno
cence.
Sir W. Davenant's Cruel Brothet
Since still my duty did my actions steer,
I '11 not disguise my innocence by fear ;
Lest I the saving of my life repent :
I '11 rather bear, than merit punishment.
Earl of Orrery's Mustapn*
23
266
INSTINCT.
I '11 rather to a punishment submit,
Than to the guilt of what may merit it.
Earl of Orrery's Tryphon.
Heaven may awhile correct the virtuous,
Yet it will wipe their eyes again, and make
Their faces whiter with their tears. Innocence
ConceaPd is the stol'n pleasure of the gods,
Which never ends in shame, as that of men
Doth oftentimes do ; but like the sun breaks forth,
When it hath gratified another world ;
And to our unexpecting eyes appears
More glorious through its late obscurity.
John Fountain's Rewards of Virtue.
So pray'd they innocent, and to their thoughts
Firm peace recover'd soon and wonted calm.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add faith,
Add virtue, patience, temperance, add love,
By name to come call'd charity, the soul
Of all the rest ; then wilt thou not be loath
To leave this paradise, but shalt possess
A paradise within thee, happier far.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
There is no courage but in innocence ;
No constancy, but in an honest cause.
Southern's Fate of Capua.
I am arm'd with innocence,
Less penetrable than the steel-ribb'd coats
That harness round thy warriors.
Madden's Themistocles.
Against the head which innocence secures,
Insidious malice aims her darts in vain ;
Turn'd backwards by the pow'rful breath of heav'n.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
Her manners by the world refined,
Left all the taint of modish vice behind,
And made each charm of polish'd courts agree
With candid truth's simplicity,
And uncorrupted innocence.
Lyttleton.
The bloom of opening flowers' unsullied beauty,
Softness, and sweetest innocence she wears,
And looks like nature in the world's first spring.
Rowe.
I 've sometimes griev'd,
That one so form'd in mind and charms to grace
The brightest scenes of life, should have her seat
In the shadow of a cloud ; and yet 't is weakness.
The angels watch the good and innocent,
^id where they gaze it must be glorious.
Mrs. Hale's Orrnond Grosvenor.
Hope mav sustain, and innocence impart
Her swee,; specific to the fearless heart.
Sprague's Poems.
Innocent maid, and snow-white flower,
Well are ye pair'd in your opening hour ;
Thus should the pure and lovely meet,
Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet.
Throw it aside in thy weary hour ;
Throw to the ground the fair white flower ;
Yet as thy smiling years depart,
Keep that white and innocent heart.
Bryant.
INSTINCT.
Let the Voices
Plough Rome and harrow Italy ; I '11 never
Be such a gostling to obey instinct : but stand,
As if a man were author of himself,
And knew no other kin.
Shaks. Conolanus.
Tell me why the ant,
'Midst summer's plenty, thinks of winter's want,
By constant journeys careful to prepare
Her stores ; and bring home the corny ear ;
By what instruction does she bite the grain,
Lest hid in earth, and taking root again,
It might elude the foresight of her care ?
Distinct in either insects' deed appear
The marks of thought, contrivance, hope, and fear.
Prior's Soloman.
Evil like us they shun, and covet good ;
Abhor the poison, and receive the food.
Like us they love or hate ; like us they know
To joy the friend, or grapple with the foe.
With seeming thought their action they intend ;
And use the means proportion'd to the end ;
Then vainly the philosopher avers
That reason guides our deeds, and instinct theirs.
How can we justly different causes frame,
When the effects entirely are the same ?
Instinct and reason how can we divide ?
'T is the fool's ignorance, and the pedant's pride.
Prior's Soloman.
Say, where full instinct is the unerring guide,
What hope or council can they need beside ?
Reason, however able, cool at best,
Cares not for service, or but serves when prest :
Stays till we call, and then not often near ;
But honest instinct comes a volunteer ;
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit ;
While still too wide or short is human wit.
Pope.
The meaner creatures never feel control,
By glowing instinct guided to the goal ;
Each sense is fed, each faculty employ'd, —
And all their record is — a life enjoy'd.
Mrs. Hale's Constantia
INSTRUCTION-LNTELLECT-INVENTION-IRRESOLUTION-ITALY. 267
Reason raise o'er instinct as you can,
In this 't is God directs, in that 't is man.
Pope,
The meaner tribe the coming storm foresees,
In the still calm the bird divines the breeze ;
The ox that grazes, shuns the poison weed ;
The unseen tiger frights afar the steed ;
To man alone no kind foreboding shows
The latent horror or the ambush'd foes ;
O'er each blind moment hangs the funeral pall, —
Heaven shines, earth smiles — and night descends
on alL The New Timon,
INSTRUCTION.
He is a good divine, that follows his
Own instructions ; I can easier
Teach twenty what were good to be done, than
To be one of the twenty to follow
My own teaching : The brain may devise laws
For the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er
A cold decree.
Shahs. Merchant of Venice.
Your voice, our music when you speak, we give
To those who teach the mysteries above,
That their persuasion we may soon believe ;
For doctrines thrive, when we our teachers love.
Sir W. Davenant,
Laborious still, he taught the early mind,
And urg'd to manners meek and thoughts refin'd j
Truth he impress'd, and every virtue prais'd ;
While infant eyes in wondering circles gaz'd ;
The worth of time would day by day unfold,
And tell them every hour was made of gold.
Timothy Dwight
It is well to take bold on occasions, and render in-
direct instruction ;
It is better to teach upon a system, and reap the
wisdom of books.
Tuppefs Proverbial Philosophy.
The seeds of first instructions are dropp'd into the
deepest furrows.
Tapper's Proverbial Philosophy.
All the inventions that the world contains,
Were not by reason first found out, nor brains ;
But pass for theirs who had the luck to light
Upon them by mistake or oversight.
Butler.
Invention is activity of mind, as fire is air in
motion ;
A sharpening of the spiritual sight, to discern
hidden aptitudes.
Tripper's Proverbial Philosophy
The eye cannot make light, nor the mind spirit ;
Therefore it is wise in man to name all novelty
invention.
Tuppefs Proverbial Philosophy.
INTELLECT. — (See Reason.)
INVENTION.
Th' invention all admir'd, and each, how he
To be th' inventor miss'd ; so easy it seem'd,
Once found, which yet unfound most would have
thought
Impossible.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
IRRESOLUTION.
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might wan,
By fearing to attempt.
Shahs. Mea.for Mca,
That we would do,
We should do when we would; for this would
changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing. Shahs. Hamlet
Now whether it be
Beastial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event —
A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part
wisdom,
And, ever, three parts coward — I do not know
Why yet I live to say — this thing 's to do.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect.
Shahs. Hamlet
I am a heavy stone,
Roll'd up a hill by a weak child : I move
A little up, and tumble back again.
W. Rider's Twins.
ITALY.
How has kind heaven adorn'd the happy land,
And scatter' d blessings with a wasteful hand !
But what avail her inexhausted stores,
Her bloomy mountains, and her sunny shores,
With all the gifts that heaven and earth impart,
The smiles of nature, and the charms of art,
While proud oppression in her valleys reigns,
And tyranny usurps her happy plains 1
Addison s Italy.
JAIL -JEALOUSY.
Far to the right, where Apennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends ;
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride ;
While oil some temple's mould'ring tops
With venerable grandeur mark the scene.
Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely blest.
Whatever fruits in different climes were found;
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground ;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,
Whose bright succession decks the varied year ;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die ;
These here disporting own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil ;
•With sea-born gales their gelid wings expand
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
The promis'd land
Lies at my feet in all its loveliness !
To him who starts up from a troubled dream,
And lo, the sun is shining, and the lark
Singing aloud for joy, to him is not
Such sudden ravishment as now I feel
At the first glimpses of fair Italy.
Rogers's Italy.
Italia ! O Italia ! thou who hast
The fatal gilt of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.
Byron's CMlde Harold.
Fair Italy !
Thou art the garden of the world, the home
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree,
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ?
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
More rich than other climes' fertility ;
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which cannot be
defaced. Byron's CMlde Harold.
Oh, Rome ! my country ! city of the soul !
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires ! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones an. temples, ye !
Whose agonies are evils of a day —
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.
Byron's CMlde Harold.
Italy ! — Lie grave
And resurrection of the slave.
Bailey's Festus.
Soft skies of Italy ! how richly drest
Smile the wild scenes in your purpureal glow ;
What glorious hues reflected from the west
Float o'er the mountains of eternal snow !
Mrs. Hemans.
The spirit of my land !
It visits me once more ! — though I must die
Far from the myrtles which thy breeze has fann'd,
My own bright Italy •
Oh ! that loves quenchless power
Might waft my voice to fill thy summer sky,
And through thy groves its dying music shower,
Italy 1 Italy!
Mrs. Hemans.
The skies of radiant Italy !
Oh ! they are deeply blue ;
And nothing save their kindred waves,
Can match their sapphire hue.
Lady Flora Hastings.
The songs of tuneful Italy !
They wake within the heart,
Those visions of the olden time
Which will not thence depart.
Lady Flora Hastings.
The tombs of holy Italy !
The earth where heroes trod ;
Where sainted martyrs glorified
In death th' Incarnate God !
Where all is bright, and pure, and calm,
On earth, in air and sea :
Oh Italy ! amongst thy tombs,
Hast thou no place for me ?
Lady Flcrra Hastings.
We came to Italy. I felt
A yearning for its sunny sky ;
My very spirit seem'd to melt
As swept its first warm breezes by.
From lip and cheek a chilling mist,
From life and soul a frozen rime,
By every breath seem'd softly kiss'd —
God's blessing on its radiant clime !
Willis's Poems.
A calm and lovely paradise
Is Italy, for minds at ease ;
The sadness of its sunny skies
Weighs not upon the lives of these.
Willis's Poems.
JAIL. — (See Prison.)
JEALOUSY.
The venom clamours of a jealous woman
Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.
JEALOUSY.
26a
foul jealousy ! that tamest love divine
To joyless dread, and mak'st the loving heart
With hateful thoughts to languish and to pine,
And feed itself with self-consuming smart :
Of all the passions in the mind thou vilest art.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Yet is there one more cursed than they all,
That canker-worm, that monster, jealousy,
Which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall,
Turning all love's delight to misery,
Through fear of losing his felicity.
Ah, Gods ! that ever ye that monster placed
In gentle love, that all his joys defaced !
Spenser's Hymn in Honour of Love.
He hath a person, and a smooth dispose,
To be suspected ; fram'd to make women false.
Shaks. Othello.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy ;
It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on ; that cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger ;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er,
Who dotes, yet doubts ; suspects, yet strongly loves !
Shaks. Othello.
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
From jealousy !
Shaks. OtheVo.
'Tis not to make me jealous,
To say — my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well ;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous :
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear, or doubt of her revolt ;
For she had eyes, and chose me : no, Iago ;
I '11 see, before I doubt ; when I doubt, prove ;
And, on the proof, there is no more but this —
Away at once with love, or jealousy.
Shaks. Othello.
Look to your wife ; observe her well with Cassio ;
Wear your eye — thus, not jealous nor secure :
I would not have your free and noble nature,
Out of self-bounty, be abus'd ; look to 't.
Shaks. Othello.
Think'st thou I'd make a life of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions ? No : to be once in doubt,
Is — once to be resolved.
Shaks. Othello.
What sense had I of her stolen hours of lust ?
I saw it not, thought it not, it harm'd not me :
I slept the next night well, was free and merry ;
I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips :
He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen,
Let him not know it, and he 's not robb'd at all.
Shaks. Othello.
Trifles, light as air,
Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
Shaks. Othello
Look where he comes ! not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow'dst yesterday.
Shaks. Othello.
O now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind ! farewell content !
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue ! O, farewell !
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner ; and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war !
And O, you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell ! Othello's occupation's gone !
Shaks. Othello.
If thou dost slander her, and torture me,
Never pray more : abandon all remorse ;
On horror's head, horrors accumulate :
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amaz'd,
For nothing canst thou to damnation add,
Greater than that.
Shaks. Othello
I think my wife be honest, and think she is not :
I think thou art just, and think thou art not :
I '11 have some proof: her name, that was as fresh
As Dian's visage, is now begrim'd and black
As mine own face. — If there be cords, or knives,
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,
I '11 not endure it. — Would I were satisfied !
Shaks. Othello,
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven :
'T is gone. —
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell !
Yield up, O love, thy crown, and hearted throne,
To tyrannous hate ! swell bosom, with thy fraught,
For 't is of aspick's tongiaa? .
Shaks. Othello.
I pray you, in your letters,.
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am ; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice : then must yon
speak
Of one that lov'd not wisely, but too well ;
Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme ; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a nearl away
Richer than all his tribe
Shaks. Othello
2a*
27C
JEALOUSY.
AvaurS. . oe gone ! thou hast set me on the rack ;
I swear 't is better to be much abus'd,
Than but to know 't a little.
Shahs. Othello.
But to be paddling palms, and pinching fingers,
As now they are ; and making practis'd smiles,
As in a looking-glass ; — and then to sigh, as 't were
The mort o' the deer. O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows !
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Is whispering nothing ?
Is leaning cheek to cheek ? — is meeting noses ?
Kissing with inside lip ? — stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh ? — (a note infallible
Of breaking honesty :) horsing foot to foot ? —
Skulking in corners ? — wishing clocks more
swift? —
Hours, minutes ? — noon, midnight ? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web, but theirs, — theirs
only,
That would unseen be wicked ? — is this nothing ?
Why, then the world, and all that's in it, is nothing.
Shales. Winter's Tale.
O jealousy ! daughter of envy and of love,
Most wayward issue of a gentle sire ;
Foster'd with fears, thy father's joy's t' improve :
Mirth-marring monster, born a subtle liar ;
Hateful unto thyself, flying thine own desire ;
Feeding upon suspect, that doth renew thee ;
Happy were lovers, if they never knew thee. .
DanieVs Rosamond.
Pale hag, infernal fury, pleasure's smart ;
Envious observer, prying in ev'ry part :
Suspicious, fearful, gazing still about thee,
O would to God that love could be without thee.
DanieVs Rosamond
I '11 strive,
With the assurance of my worth, and merits,
To kill this monster, jealousy.
Massinger's Bondman.
Of all
Our passions, I wonder nature made
The worst, foul jealousy, her favourite ; —
And if it be so, why took she care
That ev'ry thing should give the monster nourish-
ment,
And left \a nothing to destroy it with.
Suckling's Brennoralt,
rhou wond'rous yellow fiend !
Temper an antidote with antimony,
And 't is infectious : Mix jealousy with marriage,
It i>M*ons virtue.
Davenport's City Night-Cap
O jealousy,
Love's eclipse ! thou art in thy disease,
A wild mad patient ; wond'rous hard to please.
Davenport's City Night-Cap,
All jealousy
Must still be strangled in its birth; or time
Will soon conspire to make it strong enough
To overcome the truth.
Sir W. Davenant's Cruel Brother.
When this disease of jealousy can find
A way to seize upon a crazy mind ;
Most things, instead of help, or giving ease,
The humour feed, and turn to the disease.
Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin.
Shall jealousy a pow'r o'er judgment gain,
Though it does only in the fancy reign ?
With knowledge thou art inconsistent still :
The mind's foul monster, whom fair truth does
kill.
Thy tyranny subverts ev'n nature's laws ;
For oft thou hast effects, without a cause :
And, which thy strength, or weakness does detect,
Thou often hast a cause without effect ;
In all thou dost, thou ever dost amiss ;
Seest what is not, or seest not that which is.
Earl of Orrery's Henry V.
What a bridge
Of glass I walk upon, over a river
Of certain ruin, mine own weighty fears
Cracking what would support me ! and those helps,
Which confidence lends to others, are from me
Ravish'd by doubts, and wilful jealousy.
Massinger.
Doubt is the effect of fear or jealousy,
Two passions which to reason give the lie ;
For fear torments, and never doth assist ;
And jealousy is love lost in a mist :
Both hoodwink truth, and go to blind-man's-buff,
Cry here, then there, seem to direct enough,
But all the while shift place ; making the mind,
As it goes out of breath, despair to find ;
And if at last something it stumbles on,
Perhaps it calls it false, and then 't is gone.
If true, what 's gain'd ? only just time to see
A breathless play, a game at liberty ;
That has no other end than this, that men
Run to be tir'd, just to sit down again.
Fatal Jealousy — Author Anon,
Then shall I be no more ;
And Adam wedded to another Eve,
Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct ;
A death to think.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
JEALOUSY.
271
In those hearts,
Love unlibidinous reign'd, nor jealousy
Was understood, the injur'd lover's hell.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Suspicious, and fantastical surmise,
And jealousy suffus'd, with jaundice in her eyes,
Discolouring all she view'd, in tawny dress'd,
Down-look, and with a cuckoo in her fist.
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.
Oh jealousy ! thou bane of pleasing friendship,
Thou worst invader of our tender bosoms ;
How does thy rancour poison all our softness,
And turn our gentle natures into bitterness !
Rowe's Jane Shore.
Passions, if great, though turn'd to their reverse,
Keep their degree, and are great passions still.
And she who, when she thinks her lover false,
Retains her temper, never lost her heart.
Young's Brothers.
Oh ! the pain of pains,
Is when the fair one, whom our soul is fond of,
Gives transport, and receives it from another.
Young's Busiris.
O jealousy, each other passion 's calm
To thee, thou conflagration of the soul !
Thou king of torments ! thou grand counterpoise
For all the transports beauty can inspire.
Young's Revenge.
It is jealousy's peculiar nature
To swell small things to great ; nay, out of naught
To conjure much ; and then to lose its reason
Amid the hideous phantoms it has fbrm'd.
Young's Revenge.
Jealousy, saidst thou ? I disdain it : — no —
Distrust is poor, and a misplac'd suspicion
Invites, and justifies the falsehood fear'd.
Hill's Zara.
Ten thousand furies lash my soul with whips,
At ev'ry look sharp stings transfix my heart,
And my chill blood thrills cold through ev'ry vein !
Darcy's Love and Ambition.
O jealousy ! thou merciless destroyer,
More cruel than the grave ! what ravages
Does thy wild war make in the noblest bosoms !
Mallet's Euridice.
Hence, jealousy ; thou fatal lying fiend,
Thou false seducer of our hearts, be gone !
C. Johnson's Sultaness.
To doubt 's an injury ; to suspect a friend
Is breach of friendship : jealousy 's a seed
Sown but in vicious minds ; prone to distrust,
Because apt to deceive.
Lansdown's Heroic Love.
But through the heart
Should jealousy its venom once diffuse,
'T is then delightful misery no more,
But agony unmix'd, incessant gall,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects, then,
Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy,
Farewell ! ye gleamings of departed peace,
Shine out your last ! the yellow-tinging plague
Internal vision taints, and in a night
Of livid gloom imagination wraps.
Thomson's Seosont.
Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms
For which he melts in fondness, eat him up
With fervent anguish, and consuming rage.
Thomson's Seasons
I 've seen and heard
Enough, beyond suspicion's pale distrusts,
To damn me with the knowledge of my fate.
Beckingham's Henry IV. of France,
O jealousy ! thou most unnatural offspring
Of a too tender parent ! that in excess
Of fondness feeds thee, like the pelican,
But with her purest blood ; and in return
Thou tear'st the bosom whence thy nurture flows,
Frowde's Philotas
Thy numbers, jealousy, to naught were fix'd,
Sad proof of thy distressful state :
Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd,
And now it courted love, now raving call'd on hate
Collins's Passions
Among the sons of men how few are known
Who dare be just to merit not their own !
Superior virtue and superior sense,
To knaves and fools will always give offence.
Nay, men of real worth can scarcely bear,
So nice is jealousy, a rival there.
ChurchiU
In gentle love the sweetest joys we find —
Yet even those joys, dire jealousy molests,
And blackens each fair image in our breasts.
Lyttleton.
All other passions have their hour of thinking,
And hear the voice of reason. This alone
Breaks at the first suspicion into phrenzy,
And sweeps the soul in tempests.
Francis'? Constannne
See, his audacious face he turns to hers ;
Glitt'ring with confidence some nauseous jest;
And she endures it too — oh! this looks vilely.
Joanna Baillie's De Monifain
272
JEST -JOY.
When gods had fram'd the sweets of woman's
face,
And lockt men's looks within her golden hair,
That Phoebus blush'd to see her matchless grace,
And heavenly gods on earth did make repair,
To 'quip fair Venus' overweening pride,
Love's happy thoughts to jealousy were tied.
Then grew a wrinkle on fair Venus' brow,
The amber sweet of love is turn'd to gall ;
Gloomy was heaven ; bright Phoebus did avow
He would be coy, and would not love at all ;
Swearing no greater mischief could be wrought,
Than love united to a jealous thought.
O jealousy,
Thou ugliest fiend of hell ! thy healthful venom
Preys on my vitals, turns the deadly hue
Of my fresh cheek to haggard sallowness,
And drinks my spirits up !
Hannah Morels David and Goliah.
That anxious torture may I never feel,
Which, doubtful, watches o'er a wandering heart.
who that bitter torment can reveal,
Or tell the pining anguish of that smart !
In those affections may I ne'er have part,
Which easily transferr'd can learn to rove :
No, dearest Cupid ! when I feel thy dart,
For thy sweet Psyche's sake may no false love,
The tenderness I prize lightly from me rove !
Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,
.tor jealousy dislikes the world to know it
Byron.
Her maids were old, and if she took a new one,
You might be sure she was a perfect fright :
She did this during even her husband's life —
1 recommend as much to every wife.
Byron.
Alas ! for he who loves too oft may be
Like one who hath a precious treasure seal'd,
Whereto another hath obtain'd the key :
And he, poor soul ! who there his all conceal'd,
Lives blindly on, nor knows that mite by mite
It dwindlcth from his grasp ; or if a thought
That something hath been lost his mind affright,
He puts it by as evil fancy wrought.
Yet will there sometimes come a ghostly dread,
From which the soul recoils ; but he will sleep —
Ay, sleep — and when he wakes, all, all is fled.
Mrs. E. Oakcs Smith.
Ah no ! my love knows no vain jealousy ;
The rose that blooms and lives but in the sun,
Asks not what other flowers he shines upon,
If lie but shine on her.
Miss Anne C. Lynch.
Jealousy, that doats but dooms, and murders, yet
adores ! Sprague's SJiakspeare Ode.
To tell the truth, — (you '11 not betray ?)
I hate to see a jealous woman;
As if e'en Beauty's faintest ray
Should fall upon a heart that 's human,
Without awaking grateful love
To Beauty's Author thron'd above !
Mrs. Osgood.
JEST.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
Shales. Love's Labour Lost
Laugh not too much ; the witty man laughs least :
For wit is news only to ignorance :
Less at thine own things laugh ; lest in the jest
Thy person share, and the conceit advance.
Make not thy sport abuses : for the fly
That feeds on dung, is coloured thereby.
Pick from thy mirth, like stones out of the ground,
Profaneness, filthiness, abusiveness :
These are the scum with which coarse wits
abound :
The fine may spare this well, yet not go less.
All things are big with jest : nothing that 's plain,
But may be witty, if thou hast the vein.
Herbert
Rare compound of oddity, frolic and fun,
To relish a joke, and rejoice in a pun !
Goldsmith,
He cannot try to speak with gravity,
But one perceives he wags an idle tongue ;
He cannot try to look demure, but spite
Of all he does, he shows a laughter's cheek ;
He cannot e'en essay to walk sedate,
But in his very gait one sees a jest,
That 's ready to break out in spite of all
His seeming.
Knowles'' William Tell.
JOY.
Joy never feasts so high,
As when the first course is of misery.
Suckling's Aglaura.
O there was a time
I could have heard such sounds with raging joys ;
But now it comes too late :
Give blind men beauty ; music to the deaf;
Give prosp'rous winds to ships that have no sails ;
Their joys will be like mine.
Fane'' s Sacrifice.
JOY.
273
Joys are not joys, that always stay ;
And constant pleasures don't delight, but cloy.
Alex. Brome.
Indeed true gladness doth not always speak :
Joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.
Jonson on the Coronation.
Swell, swell my joys ; and faint not to declare
Yourselves as ample, as your causes are.
Jonson 's Sejanus.
True joy is only hope put out of fear ;
And honour hideth error ev'ry where.
Lord Brooke's Alaham.
My joys, like men in crowds, press out so fast ;
They stop by their own numbers, and their haste.
Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin.
Wonder and joy so fast together flow,
Their haste to pass, has made their passage slow ;
Like struggling waters in a vessel pent,
Whose crowding drops choke up the narrow vent.
Sir Robert Howard's Indian Queen.
Wise heaven doth see it as fit
In all our joys to give us some alloys,
As in our sorrows comforts : when our sails
Are fill'd with happiest winds, then we most need
Some heaviness to ballast us.
Fountain's Rewards of Virtue.
There is no state, in which the bounteous Gods
Have not plac'd joy, if men would seek it out.
Crown's Darius.
O fleeting joys
Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes !
Milton's Paradise Lost.
There 's not a slave, a shackled slave of mine,
But should have smil'd that hour thro' all his care,
And shook his chains in transport and rude har-
mony. Congreve's Mourning Bride.
I cannot speak, tears so obstruct my words
And choke me with unutterable joy.
Otway's Caius Marius.
Were my whole life to come one heap of troubles,
The pleasure of this moment would suffice,
And sweeten all my griefs with its remembrance.
Lee's Mithridates.
A springing joy,
A pleasure, which no language can express,
An ecstasy, that mothers only feel,
Plays round my heart, and brightens up my sorrow,
Like gleams of sunshine in a low'ring sky.
A. Philips's Disirest Mother.
Well, there is yet one day of fife before me,
And, whatsoe'er betide, I will enjoy it,
Joanna BaiUie's Basil.
S
From the sad years of life
We sometimes do short hours, yea, minutes strike,
Keen, blissful, bright, never to be forgotten :
Which, thro' the dreary gloom of time o'erpast,
Shine like fair sunny spots on a wild waste.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
Joys are for the gods ;
Man's common course of nature is distress :
His joys are prodigies ; and, like them too,
Portend approaching ill. The wise man starts
And trembles at the perils of a bliss.
Young's Brothers.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.
Shelley.
Joy ? — a moon by fits reflected
In a swamp or watery bog.
Wordsworth.
It is a joy
To think the best we can of human kind.
Wordsworth.
The paths of bliss are joyous, and the breast
Of thoughtless youth is easy to be blest.
William Herbert
There falls to manhood's lot
A joy which youth has not : —
A dream more beautiful than truth,
Returning Spring, renewing youth.
James Montgomery.
Let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,
Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot
destroy ;
Which come in the nighttime of sorrow and care,
And bring back the features that joy used to wear.
Moore.
I have known many that did act a joy
In which they had no part.
Miss London,
Thy joys
Are plac'd in trifles, fashions, follies, toys,
Crabbe.
There is strength,
And a fierce instinct, even in common souls,
To bear up manhood with a stormy joy,
When red swords meet in lightning.
Mrs. Hemans's Siege of Valencia.
But what are past or future joys ?
The present is our own I
And he is wise who best employs
The passing hour alone.
Heber's Translations of Pindar .
Joy kneels, at morning's rosy prime,
In worship to the rising sun.
James G. Brooks
Joy loves to cull the summer flower,
And wreathe it round his happy brow.
James G. Brook*
274
JUDGE -JUDGMENT.
Joy for the present moment ! Joy to-day !
Why look we to the morrow ?
Mingle me bitters to drive cares away ;
Nothing on earth can be for ever gay,
And free from sorrow.
Epes Sargent.
Her world was ever joyous —
She thought of grief and pain
As giants in the olden time
That ne'er would come again.
Mrs. Hale's Alice Ray.
I was born for rejoicing ; a " summer child" truly :
And kindred I claim with each wild joyous thing ;
The light frolic breeze — or the streamlet unruly —
Or a cloud at its play — or a bird on the wing.
Mrs. Ellet's Poems.
JUDGE.
And then the justice ;
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part.
Shales. As you like it.
I do believe,
Induc'd by potent circumstances, that
You are mine enemy ; and make my challenge,
You shall not be my judge : for it is you
Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe ;
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand and virtue go ;
More or less to others paying,
Than by self-offences weighing.
Shaks. Measure for Measure.
A judge — a man so learned,
So full of equity, so noble, so notable ;
In the process of his life, so innocent ;
In the manage of his office so incorrupt ;
In the passages of ^state so wise ; in
Affection of his country so religious ;
In all his services to the king so
Fjrtunate and exploring, as envy
Itself cannot accuse, or malice vitiate.
Chapman and Shirley's Admiral of France.
Hold that judge
Unworthy of his place, that lets his censure
y»oat in the waves of an imagin'd favour :
This shipwrecks in the haven ; and but wounds
Their conscience, that smooth the soon ebb'd hu-
mours
i )f tncir incensed king.
Chapman and Shirley's Admiral of France.
Fly, judges, fly ; corruption 's in your court ;
The judge of truth hath made your judgment short :
Look so to judge, that at the latter day
Ye be not judg'd with those that wend astray;
Who passeth judgment for his private gain,
He well may judge, he is adjudg'd to pain.
T. Lodge and R. Green's Looking-Glass.
It well becomes that judge to nod at crimes,
That does commit greater himself, and lives.
Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedy.
What can innocence hope for,
When such as sit her judges are corrupted t
Massinger's Maid of Honour.
With an equal scale
He weighs th' offences betwixt man and man ;
He is not sooth'd with adulation,
Nor mov'd with tears, to wrest the course of justice
Into an unjust current, t' oppress the innocent;
Nor does he make the laws
Punish the man, but in the man the cause.
Swetnam — the Woman Hater.
'T is a maxim in our politics,
A judge destroys a mighty practiser :
When they grow rich and lazy, they are ripe
For honour.
Shirley's Honoria and Mammon.
Nor envies, when a gipsy you commit,
And shake the clumsy bench with country wit ;
When you the dullest of dull things have said,
And then ask pardon for the jest you made.
Young's Love of Fame.
When judges a campaigning go,
And on their benches look so big,
What gives them consequence, I trow,
Is nothing but a bushel wig.
Br. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
A wise judge by the craft of the law was never
seduced from its purpose. Souihey.
JUDGMENT.
I see, men's judgments are •
A parcel of their fortunes ; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
I charge you oy the law,
Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,
Proceed to judgment.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Men's judgments sway on that side fortune leans.
Chapman's Widow's Tears.
JUSTICE.
275
If judgment could in solemn dullness lie,
Which weaker rulers wear for gravity,
Then those must needs transcendent judgments
have,
That would instruct wise nature to be grave.
Sir W. Davenant.
His be the praise, who, looking down in scorn
On the false judgment of the partial herd,
Consults his own clear heart, and nobly dares
To be, not to be thought, an honest man.
Cumberland's Philemon.
Let none direct thee what to do or say,
Till thee thy judgment of the matter sway;
Let not the pleasing many thee delight,
First judge, if those whom thou dost please, judge
right Denham.
Judgment is but a curious pair of scales,
That turns with th' hundredth part of true or false,
And still the more 't is us'd is wont 't abate
The subtleness and niceness of its weight,
Until 't is false, and will not rise nor fall
Jake those that are less artificial ;
And therefore students, in their ways of judging
Are fain to swallow many a senseless gudgeon,
And by their understanding lose
Its active faculty with too much use ;
For reason, when too curiously 't is spun,
Is but the next of all remov'd from none.
Butler.
Man 's rich with little, were his judgment true ;
Nature is frugal, and her wants are few ;
Those few wants, answer'd, bring sincere delights;
But fools create themselves new appetites :
Fancy, and pride, seek things at vast expense,
Which relish not to reason, nor to sense.
When surfeit, or unthankfulness, destroys,
In nature's narrow sphere, our solid joys,
In fancy's airy land of noise and show»
Where nought but dreams, no real pleasures grow;
Like cats in air-pumps, to subsist we strive
On joys too thin to keep the soul alive.
Young.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches, — none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Pope's Essay of Criticism.
The outworn rite, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown,
The good held captive in the use
Of wrong alone —
These wait their doom, from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day ;
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.
WMttier's Poems.
How nuch we give to other hearts our tone,
And judge of others' feelings by our own.
Miss London.
Name her not, the guilty one,
Virtue turns aside for shame
At the mention of her name ;
Very evilly hath she done —
Pity is on her misspent :
She was born of guilty kin,
Her life 's course has guilty been ;
Never unto school she went,
And whate'er she learn'd was sin :
Let her die !
Mary HowitL
JUSTICE.
Nought is on earth more sacred or divine,
That gods and men do equally adore
Than this same virtue, that doth right define ;
For th' heavens themselves, whence mortal men
implore
Right in their wrongs, are rul'd by righteous lore
Of highest Jove, who doth true justice deal
To his inferior gods ; and evermore
Therewith contains his heavenly commonweal :
The skill whereof to princes' hearts he doth reveal.
Spenser's Fairy Queen,
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice:
And oft 't is seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law : but It is not so above :
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In its true nature ; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.
Shaks. Hamie*.
Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks :
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it
Shaks. King Lear.
To vouch this, is no proof;
Without more certain and more overt test,
Than these thin habits, and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming, do prefer against him.
Shaks.' Othello
If you deny me, fie upon your law,
There is no force in the decrees of Venice :
I stand for judgment : answer, shall I have it I
Shaks. Merchant of Venict
What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted
Thrice is he arm'd who hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though ^k'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
Shaks. Henry VI
276
JUSTICE.
As thou urgest justice, be assur'd,
Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir'st
Shahs. Merchant of Venice.
'T is not ever
The justice and the truth o' tli' question carries
The due o' th' verdict with it : at what ease
Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt
To swear against you ! such things have been done.
Shakspeare.
I beseech you,
Wrest once the law to your authority :
To do a great right, do a little wrong.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Impartial are our eyes and ears ;
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
Shaks. Richard II.
Yet show some pity.
Angclo. — I show it most of all, when I show
justice ;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall ;
And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another.
Shaks. Mea.for Mea.
If I shall be condemn'd
Upon surmises ; all proofs sleeping else,
But what your jealousies -await ; I tell you,
'T is rigour and not law.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,
But that I did proceed upon just grounds
To this extremity !
Shaks. Othello.
Sir, I desire you, do me right and justice ;
And to bestow your pity on me : for
1 am a most poor woman, and a stranger,
Born not of your dominions ; having here
No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance
Of equal friendship and proceeding.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
The gods
(crow angry with your patience : 'Tis their care,
And must be yours, that guilty men escape not :
As crimes do grow, justice should rouse itself.
Jonson's Catiline.
J'tsl men are only free, the rest are slaves.
Chapman's Casar and Pompey.
•ustice, like lightning, ever should appear
To fin men's ruin, but to all men's fear.
Swetman — the Woman Hater.
If but one virtue did adorn a king,
It would be justice ; many great defeats
Are veil'd thereby — whereas each virtuous thing
In one who is not just, the world suspects.
Earl of Steiiine's Darius
Justice, when equal scales she holds, is blind
Nor cruelty, nor mercy, change her mind :
When some escape for that which others die,
Mercy to those, to these is cruelty :
A fine and slender net the spider weaves
Which little and slight animals receives ;
And if she catch a summer bee or fly,
They with a piteous groan and murmur die ;
But if a wasp or hornet she entrap,
They tear her cords, like Sampson, and escape :
So like a fly, the poor offender dies ;
But like the wasp the rich escapes, and flies.
Denham.
Justice must be from violence exempt;
But fraud 's her only object of contempt:
Fraud in the fox, force in the lion dwells ;
But justice both from human hearts expels ;
But he 's the greatest monster, without doubt,
Who is a wolf within, a sheep without.
Dsnham.
Who painted justice blind, did not declare
What magistrates should be, but what they are :
Not so much 'cause they rich and poor should
weigh
In their just scales alike ; but because they,
Now blind with bribes are grown so weak of sight,
They '11 sooner feel. a cause, than see it right.
Heath's Clarastella.
Justice, while she winks at crimes,
Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
Butler's Hudibras.
Justice gives sentence many times,
On one man for another's crimes.
Butler's Hudibras.
All are not just because they do no wrong ;
But he who will not wrong me when he may,
He is the truly just.
Cumberland.
He who is only just is cruel: — who
Upon the earth woidd live, were all judg'd justly ?
Byron's Marino Faliero.
A happy lot be thine, and larger light
Await thee there ; for thou hast bound thy will,
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
And lovest all, and doest good for ill.
Bryant's Poems.
Man is unjust, but God is just ; and finally justice
Triumphs.
Longfellow's Evangeline.
KINDNESS
277
Ay, justice, who evades her ?
Her scales reach every heart ;
The action and the motive,
She weigheth each apart ;
And none who swerve from right or truth
Can 'scape her penalty ! —
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
Good my liege, for justice
All place a temple, and all season, summer !
Do you deny me justice ?
Bulwer's Richelieu.
Remember, One, a judge of righteous men,
Swore to spare Sodom if she held but ten !
O. W. Holmes.
KINDNESS.
Kindness in woman, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love.
Shaks. Taming the Shrew.
What would you have ? your gentleness shall force
More than your force move us to gentleness.
Shaks. As you like it.
What thou wilt,
Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile,
Than hew to 't with thy sword.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Commend me to them ;
And tell them that, to ease me of their griefs,
Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain
In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness
do them. Shaks. Timon of Athens.
You may ride us
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere
With spur we heat an acre.
Shahs. Winter's Tale.
Those that do teach young babes,
Do it with gentle means, and easy tasks :
He might have chid me so ; for, in good faith,
I am a child to chiding.
Shaks. Othello.
Blunt not his love~;
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace,
By seeming cold, or careless of his will,
For he is gracious if he be observ'd.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
His temper, therefore, must be well observ'd :
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
When you perceive his blood inclin'd to mirth ;
But being moody, give him line and scope,
Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
Confound themselves with working.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkerchief about your brows,
(The best I had, a princess wrought it me,)
And I did never ask it you again :
And with my hand at midnight held your head ;
And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,
Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time ;
Saying, what lack you ? and, where lies your grief?
Shaks. King John.
So cheer'd he his fair spouse, and she was cheer'd,
But silently a gentle tear let fall
From either eye, and wip'd them with her hair ;
Two other precious drops that ready stood,
Each in their crystal sluice, he, ere they fell,
Kiss'd as the gracious signs of sweet remorse
And pious awe, that fear'd to have offended.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Kindness by secret sympathy is tied ;
For noble souls in nature are allied.
Dryden.
Kindness has resistless charms,
All things else but weakly move ;
Fiercest anger it disarms,
And clips the wings of flying love.
Rochester,
I would bring balm, and pour it in your wound,
Cure your distemper'd mind, and heal your for-
tunes. Dryden 's All for Love.
Thy words have darted hope into my soul,
And comfort dawns upon me.
Southern's Disappointment.
A willing heart adds feather to the heel,
And makes the clown a winged Mercury.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
Generous as brave,
Affection, kindness, the sweet offices
Of love and duty, were to him as needful
As his daily bread.
Rogers's Italy.
I may be kind,
And meet with kindness, yet be lonely still.
Miss Landotu
Both men and women belie their nature
When they are not kind.
Bailey's F»slub.
Think me not unkind and rude
That I walk alone in grove and irlen ;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.
Ralph Waldo E?nersoti.
Speak gently ! Love doth whisper low
The vows that true hearts bind ;
And gently friendship's accents flow ;
Affection's voice is kind.
D. Bates's Poems
24
278
KINGS.
- If a soul thou wouldst redeem,
And lead a lost one back to God ; —
Wouldst thou a guardian-angel seem
To one who long in guilt hath trod, —
Go kindly to him — take his hand
With gentlest words within tliine own,
And by his side a brother stand,
Till all the demons thou dethrone.
Mrs. C. M. Sawyer.
KINGS.
The love of kings is like the blowing of
Winds, which whistle sometimes gently among
The leaves, and straightway turn the trees up by
The roots ; or fire, which warmeth afar off,
And burneth near hand ; or the sea, which makes
Men hoist their sails in a flattering calm,
And to cut their masts in a rough storm.
Lilly's Alexander.
Kings are earth's gods : in vice their law 's their
will;
And if Jove stray, who dares say, Jove doth ill.
Shaks. Pericles.
It is the curse of kings, to be attended
By slaves that take their humours for a warrant,
To break into the bloody house of life;
And, on the winking of authority,
To understand a law, to know the meaning
Of dang'rous majesty; when perchance it frowns
More upon humour, than advis'd respect.
Shaks. King John.
Shall the figure of God's majesty,
His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crown'd and planted many years,
Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath ?
Shaks. Richard II.
The cease of majesty
Dies not alone ; but, like a gulph, doth draw
What 's near it, with it : is a massy wheel,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd ; which, when it falls.
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
Shaks. Hamlet.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of the whole state,
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd
I HamkL
The presence of a king engenders love
Amongst his subjects, and his royal friends.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
There 's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can-but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Kings, by their example, more do sway,
Than by their pow'r ; and men do more obey,
When they are led, than when they are com pell' d.
Jonson on King James.
Princes that would their people should do well,
Must at themselves begin, as at the head ;
For men, by their example, pattern out
Their imitations, and regard of laws :
A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.
Jonson's Cynthia's Revels.
We see, although the king be head,
The state will be the heart : this sovereignty
Is but in place, not power ; and govern'd
By the equal sceptre of necessity.
Daniel's Civil War.
And while they live, we see their glorious actions
Oft wrested to the worst ; and all their life
Is but a stage of endless toil and strife,
Of torments, uproars, mutinies, and factions ;
They rise with fear, and lie with danger down :
Huge are the cares, that wait upon the crown.
Earl of Sterline's Darius.
He 's a king,
A true, right king, that dares do aught, save
wrong :
Fears nothing mortal, but to be unjust ;
Who is not blown up with the flatt'ring puffs
Of spungy sycophants ; who stands unmov'd,
Despite the justling of opinion.
Marston's Antonio and Mellida. Part 1
Wretched state of kings ! that standing high ;
Their faults are marks, shot at by every eye.
Decker's Match me in London
Alas ! what are we kings ?
Why do you gods place us above the rest,
To be serv'd, flatter'd, and ador'd ; till we
Believe we hold within our hands your thunder .
But when we come to try the power we have,
There 's not a leaf shakes at our threat'nings ?
Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster
That king stands surest, who by 's virtue rises
More than by birth or blood. That prince is rare
Who strives in youth, to save his age from care.
Middleton's Phoenix
Kings do often grant
That happiness to others, which themselves dc
want. Dauborne's Poor Man's Comfort.
When kings leave
Their justice, and throw shame upon deservers
Patience, so wounded, turns a fury
Shirley's Young Admiral
Oh happy kings,
Whose thrones are raised in their subjects' hearts .
John Ford's Perkin Warberk
280
KINGS.
O the state of princes !
How far are wc from that security,
We dreamt of, in th' expectance of our crown ?
Were foreign dangers nothing, yet we nourish
Our ruin in our bosom.
Anon. Sicihj and Naples.
O 't is our folly, folly, my dear friend,
Because we see th' activit} 7 of states,
To flatter them with false eternity !
W r hy longer than the dweller lasts the house ?
Why should the world be always, and not man ?
Sure kingdoms are as mortal as their kings,
And stay but longer for their period.
GomersaWs LodovicJc Sforza.
Revenge torments, and
Executions are not expressions of a king;
But a destruction : he rivals not
Th' immortal pow'rs in temples, statues,
Adoration, but transcendent virtues,
Divine performances : these are th' additions
By which he climbs to heaven, and appears
A god on earth.
Killegrew's Conspiracy.
The faults kings do,
Shine like the fiery beacon on a hill,
For all to see, and seeing, tremble at.
Hemmings's Fatal Contract.
From the monarch's virtue, subjects take
Th' ingredient which does public virtue make :
At his bright beam they all their tapers light,
And by his dial set their motion right.
Sir W. Davenant to the King.
What poor things are kings !
What poorer things are nations to obey
Him, whom a petty passion does command ?
Fate, why was man made so ridiculous ?
Oh I am mortal. Men but flatter me.
Oh fate ! why were not kings made more than
men?
Or why will people have us to be more ?
Alas ! we govern others, but ourselves
We cannot rule ; as our eyes that do see
All other things, but cannot see themselves.
Fountain's Rewards of Virtue.
Kings, by grasping more than they could hold,
First made their subjects by oppression bold ;
And popular sway, by forcing kings to give
More than was fit for subjects to receive,
Ran to the same extremes ; and one excess
Made both, by striving to be greater, less.
Denham.
No law betwixt two sov'reigns can decide,
But that of arms, where fortune is the judge,
Soldiers the lawyers, and the bar the field.
Dryden's Love Triumphant.
Kings' titles commonly begin by force,
Which time wears off, and mellows into right;
And power, which in one age is tyranny,
Is ripen'd in the next to true succession.
Dryden's Spanish Friar.
There like a statue thou hast stood besieg'd
By sycophants and fools, the growth of courts ■
Where thy gull'd eyes, in all the gaudy round
Met nothing but a lie in every face ;
And the gross flatt'ry of a gaping crowd,
Envious who first shall catch and first applaud
The stuff, or royal nonsense.
Dryden's Don Sebastian
What is a king ? — a man condemn'd to bear
The public burthen of the nation's care ;
Now crown'd some angry faction to appease ;
Now falls a victim to the people's ease ;
From the first blooming of his ill-taught youth,
Nourish'd in flattery, and estrang'd from truth,
At home surrounded by a servile crowd,
Prompt to abuse, and in detraction loud ;
Abroad begirt with men, and swords, and spears,
His very state acknowledging his fears ;
Marching amidst a thousand guards, he shows
His secret terror of a thousand foes :
In war, however prudent, great, or brave,
To blind events and fickle chance a slave ;
Seeking to settle what for ever flies,
Sure of the toil, uncertain of the prize.
Prior's Soloman.
The vulgar call us gods, and fondly think,
That kings are cast in more than mortal moulds :
Alas ! they little know that when the mind
Is cloy'd with pomp, our taste is pall'd to joy ;
But grows more sensible to grief and pain.
The stupid peasant with as quick a sense
Enjoys the fragrance of the rose as I ;
And his rough hard hand is proof against the thorn,
Which, rankling in my tender skin, would seem
A viper's tooth.
Fenton's Mariamne.
Seek not to govern by the lust of power ;
Make not thy will thy law ; believe thy people
Thy children all ; so shalt thou kindly mix
Their interests with thy own, and fix the basis
Of future happiness in godlike justice.
C. Johnson's Medea.
The man whom heaven appoints
To govern others, should himself first learn
To bend his passions to the sway of reason.
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.
; A sovereign's great example forms a people :
The public breast is noble or is vile,
As he inspires it.
j Mallett and Thomson's Alfred
KINGS.
281
Are crowns and empire,
The government and safety of mankind,
Trifles of such light moment, to be left
Like some rich toy, a ring, or fancied gem,
The pledge of parting friends ? can kings do this,
And give away a people for a legacy ?
Rome's Lady Jane Grey.
Unbounded power and height of greatness give
To kings that lustre which we think divine ;
The wise who know them, know they are but men,
Nay sometimes weak ones too.
Rome's Ambitious Stepmother.
Let him maintain his pow'r, but not increase it.
The string — prerogative — when strain'd too high
Cracks like the tortur'd chord of harmony,
And spoils the concert between king and subject.
Hazard's King Charles I.
The king, who delegates
His pow'r to others' hands, but ill deserves
The crown he wears.
Brooke , s Earl of Warwick.
The king that yields to popular commotions,
Is more the slave, than sovereign of his people.
Philips's Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.
A prince, the moment he is crown'd,
Inherits every virtue round,
As emblems of the sovereign power
Like other baubles in the Tower ;
Is generous, valiant, just, and wise,
And so continues till he dies ;
His humble senate this professes,
In all their speeches, votes, addresses.
But once you fix him in a tomb,
His virtues fade, his vices bloom ;
And each perfection wrong imputed,
Is fully at his death confuted.
Swift.
Then, poet, if you mean to thrive,
Employ your muse on kings alive :
With prudence gathering up a cluster
Of all the virtues you can muster,
Which, form'd into a garland sweet,
Lay humbly at your monarch's feet ;
Who, as the odours reach his throne,
Will smile, and think them all his own !
For law and gospel both determine
All virtues lodge in royal ermine.
Swift.
We too are friends to loyalty. We love
The king who loves the law, respects his bounds,
And reigns content within them. Him we serve
Freely and with delight, who leaves us free.
But recollecting still that he is man,
We trust him not too far.
Cowper's Task.
Some seek diversion in the tented field,
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.
But war 's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings should not play at.
Cowpefs Task.
King though he be,
And king in England too, he may be weak
And vain enough to be ambitious still,
May exercise amiss his proper pow'rs,
Or covet more than freemen choose to grant :
Beyond that mark is treason.
Cowper's Task.
He is ours,
T' administer, to guard, t' adorn the state,
But not to warp or change it. We are his,
To serve him nobly in the common cause,
True to the death, but not to be his slaves.
Cowper's Task,
We view the outward glories of a crown ;
But dazzled with the lustre, cannot see
The thorns that line it, and whose painful prick-
lings
Embitter all the pompous sweets of empire.
Happier the wretch, who, at his daily toils,
Sweats for his homely dinner, than a king
In all the dangerous pomp of royalty !
He knows no fears of state to damp his joys ;
No treason shakes the humble bed he lies on !
Nor dreads the poison in his peaceful bowls !
HilVs Fair Innocent
A prince is but a man, and man may err ;
But when, forgetting his ennobled rank,
He makes due reparation for his faults,
From heaven he pardon hopes, from man de-
mands it. Murphy's Zobeide.
O royalty ! what joys hast thou to boast,
To recompense thy cares ? Ambition seems
The passion of a god. Yet from my throne
Have I with envy seen the naked slave
Rejoicing in the music of his chains,
And singing toil away ; and then at eve,
Returning peaceful to his couch of rest :
Whilst I sat anxious and perplex'd with cares ;
Projecting, plotting, fearful of events :
Or, like a wounded snake, lay down and writhe,
The sleepless night, upon a bed of state.
Dowels Setlmna
Oh ! unhappy state of kings !
'T is well the robe of majesty is gay,
Or who would put it on ?
Hannah Mare's Daniel
Thus on a stall, amidst a country fair,
Old women show of gingerbread their ware !
King David and queen Bathsheba behold,
Strut from their dough majestic, grae'd with gold,
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar
24*
282
KISS.
At princes let but satire lift his gun,
The more their feathers fly, the more the fun.
E'en the whole world, blockheads and men of
letters,
Enjoy a cannonade upon their betters.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
Home hath he none who once becomes a king !
Behind the pillar'd masses of his halls
The dagger'd traitor lurks ; his vaulted roofs
Do nightly echo to the whisper'd vows
Of those who curse him.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
A crown ! what is it ?
Is it to bear the miseries of a people !
To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents,
And sink beneath a load of splendid care !
To have your best success ascribed to fortune,
And fortune's failures all ascribed to you !
It is to sit upon a joyless height,
To ev'ry blast of changing fate expos'd !
Too high for hope ! too great for happiness !
Hannah Mare's Daniel.
It being now settled that emp'rors and kings,
Like kites made of foolscap are high flying things,
To whose tails a few millions of subjects, or so,
Have been tied in a string to be whisk'd to and fro,
Just wherever it suits the said foolscap to go.
Moore's Crib's Memorial to Congress.
This was a truth to us extremely trite,
Not so to her, who ne'er had heard such things ;
She deem'd her least command must yield delight,
Earth being only made for queens and kings.
Byron.
Meanwhile the education they went through
Was princely, as the proofs have always shown :
So that the heir apparent still was found
No less deserving to be hang'd than crown'd.
Byron.
Shut up — no, not the king, but the pavilion,
Or else ' twill cost us all another million.
Byron.
Let kings remember they are set on thrones
As representatives, not substitutes
Of nations, to implead with God and man.
Bailey' 8 Festus.
Oh, covet not the throne and crown,
Sigh not for rule and state :
The wise would fling the sceptre down,
And shun the palace gate.
Yo lowly born, oh, covet not
Unrest the sceptre brings ;
I"he Qonest name and peaceful lot
Outweigh the pomp of kings.
Eliza Cook.
Ill do you know the spectral forms that wait
Upon a king ; care with his furrow'd brow,
Unsleeping watchfulness, lone secresy,
Attend his throne by day, his couch by night.
Lord John Russell's Don Carlos.
The people cry, " there is the prince shall reign
■When Philip is no more :" old nurses bless
His beardless face, and silly children toss
Their tiny caps into the air ; while I
Am met by frigid reverence, passive awe,
That fears, yet dares not own itself for fear ;
As though the public hangman stalk'd behind me :
And thus it is to reign — to gain men's hate.
Thus for the future monarch, fancy weaves
A spotless robe, entwines his sceptre round
With flowery garlands, places on his head
A crown of laurels, while the weary present,
Like a stale riddle, or a last year's fashion,
Carries no grace with it. Base vulgar world !
'T is thus that men for ever live in hope,
And he that has done nothing is held forth
As capable of all things.
Lord John Russell's Don Carlot.
KISS.
O, a kiss
Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge !
Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss
I carried from thee, dear ; and my true lip
Hath virgin' d it e'er since.
Shaks. Coriolanug.
Teach not thy lip such scorn ; for it was made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt
Shaks. Richard III.
If I profane with my unworthy hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this ;
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand,
To smooth the rough touch with a tender kiss.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Then kiss'd me hard,
As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots,
That grew upon my lips.
Shaks. Othello.
Kiss the tear from her Up, you '11 find the rose
The sweeter for the dew.
Webster.
O kiss ! which dost those ruddy gems impart,
Or gems, or fruits, of new-found paradise :
Breathing all bliss and sweet'ning to the heart;
Teaching dumb lips a nobler exercise.
O kiss 1 which souls, e'en souls, together ties
By links of love, and only nature's art:
How fain would I paint thee to all men's eyes,
Or of thy gifts, at least, shade out some part.
Sir Philip Sidney.
KNAVES - KNIGHTHOOD.
283
Kiss you at first, my lord ! 't is no fair fashion ;
Our lips are like rose-buds, blown with men's
breaths,
They lose both sap and savour.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Mad Lover.
May I taste
The nectar of her lip ? I do not give it
The praise it merits : Antiquity is too poor
To help me with a simile t' express her :
Let me drink often from this living spring,
To nourish new invention.
Massinger's Emperor of the East.
Never man before
More blest ; nor like this kiss hath been another,
Nor ever beauties like, met at. such closes,
But in the kisses of two damask roses.
Brown's Pastorals.
Thus while she sleeps, gods do descend, and kiss ;
They lend all others breath, but borrow this.
Cartwright's Siege.
Her kisses faster, though unknown before,
Than blossoms fall on parting spring, she strew'd ;
Than blossoms sweeter, and in number more.
Sir W. Davenanfs Gondibert.
These poor half kisses kill me quite :
Was ever man thus served ?
Amidst an ocean of delight,
For pleasure to be starved.
Drayton.
Sweet were his kisses on my balmy lips,
As are the breezes breath'd amidst the groves
Of ripening spices on the height of day.
Behn's Abdelazar.
Oh ! could I give the world ;
One kiss of thine, but thus to touch thy lips,
I were a gainer by the vast exchange.
The fragrant infancy of opening flowers
Flow'd to my senses in that melting kiss.
Southern's Disappointment.
The kiss you take is paid by that you give ;
The joy is mutual, and I 'm still in debt.
Lord Lansdown's Heroic Love.
I felt the while a pleasing kind of smart, "
The kiss went tingling to my very heart.
When it was gone, the sense of it did stay,
The sweetness cling'd upon my lips all day,
Like drops of honey loth to fall away.
Dryden.
She brought her cheek up close, and lean'd on his ;
At which he whisper'd kisses back on hers.
Dry den's All for Love.
Oh ! let me live for ever on those lips I ,
The nectar of the gods to these is tasteless.
Dryden's Amphitryon.
He scarce afforded one kind parting word,
But went away so cold, the kiss he gave me
Seem'd the fore'd compliment of sated love.
Otway's Orphan
Oh ! Isidora, where —
Where are you loitering now when Guido's here ?
By the bright God of love, I '11 punish you,
Idler, and press your rich red lips until
The colour flies.
Proctor' 1 s Mirandola.
Soft child of love — thou balmy bliss,
Inform me, O delicious kiss !
Why thou so suddenly art gone,
Lost in the moment thou art won ?
Dr. Wolcot.
A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love.
Byron.
My heart can kiss no heart but thine,
And if these lips but rarely pine
In the pale abstinence of sorrow,
It is that nightly I divine,
As I this world-sick soul recline,
I shall be with thee ere the morrow.
Bailey's Festus
And with a velvet lip print on his brow,
Such language as the tongue hath never spoken.
Mrs. Sigourney's Poems
KNAVES.
As thistles wear the softest down;
To hide their prickles till they 're grown,
And then declare themselves, and tear
Whatever ventures to come near ;
So a smooth knave does greater feats
Than one that idly rails and threats,
And all the mischief that he meant
Does, like the rattle-snake, prevent.
Butlei,
When men of infamy to grandeur soar,
They light a torch to show their shame the more
Those governments, which curb not evils, cause
And a rich knave 's a libel on our laws.
Young.
KNIGHTHOOD.
Nought is more honourable to a knight,
Nor better doth beseem brave chivalry,
Than to defend the feeble in their right,
And wrong redress in such as wend awry.
Spenser's Fairy Qveeu
Was I for this entitled — sir,
And girt with trusty sword and spur ?
Butler's Hudibrat
284
KNOWLEDGE.
A tru£ knight ;
Not yet mature, yet matchless ; firm of word,
Speaking in deeds, and dcedless in his tongue ;
Not soon provok'd, nor, being provok'd, soon calm'd :
His heart and hand both open, and both free ;
For what he has, he gives ; what thinks, he shows ;
Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty,
Nor dignifies an impure thought in breath:
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous ;
For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes
To tender objects, but he, in heat of action,
Is more vindictive than jealous love.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
A lae'd hat, worsted stockings, and — noble old
soul!
A fine ribbon and cross in his breast button-hole ;
Just such as our prince, who nor reason nor fun
dreads,
Inflicts, without e'en a court-martial, on hundreds.
Moore's Fudge Family.
Vly good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel :
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies' hands.
Tennyson's Sir Galahad.
A king can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that, —
But an honest man's aboon his might.
Burns's Poems.
These are not the romantic times
So beautiful in Spenser's rhymes,
So dazzling to the dreaming boy ,
Ours are the days of fact, not fable,
Of knights, but not of the round table,
Of Bailie Jarvie, not Rob Roy.
HallccJi's Poems.
KNOWLEDGE.
Through knowledge we behold the world's creation,
How in his cradle first he fostered was ;
And judge of nature's cunning operation,
How things she formed of a formless mass :
By knowledge we do learn ourselves to know ;
And what to ma-, and what to God we owe.
Base minded they that want intelligence,
For God himself for wisdom most is prais'd,
And men to God thereby are nighest rais'd.
Spenser' 's Tears of the Muses.
A climbing height it is, without a head,
t)epth without bottom, way without an end ;
A circle with no line environed,
Not comprehended, all it comprehends,
Worth infinite, yet satisfies no mind
Till it that infinite of the godhead find.
Lord Brooke.
The mind of man is this world's true dimension ;
And knowledge is the measure of the mind :
And as the mind, in her vast comprehension,
Contains more worlds than all the world can find ;
So knowledge doth itself far more extend,
Than all the minds of man can comprehend.
Lord Brooke,
Learning is an addition beyond
Nobility or birth : honour of blood,
Without the ornament of knowledge, is
A glorious ignorance.
James Shirley
Another's knowledge
Applied to my instruction, cannot equal
My own soul's knowledge.
Chapman and Shirley's Admiral of France.
The Almighty wisdom, having given
Each man within himself an apter light
To guide his acts, than any light without him ,
Creating nothing, not in all things equal :
It seems a fault in any that depend
On others'' knowledge, and exile their own.
Chapman and Shirley's Admiral of France.
Those only may be truly said to know,
Whose knowledge pays their country what they
owe. Lady Alimony.
Knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her temp'rance over appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain ;
Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to folly.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Not to know at large of things remote
From use, obscure and subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom ; what is more, is fume,
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence,
And renders us in things that most concern
Unpractis'd, unprepared, still to seek.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
Butler's Hudibra$
LABOUR.
285
Remember that the curs'd desire to know,
Offspring of Adam ! was thy source of woe,
Why wilt thou then renew the vain pursuit,
And rashly catch at the forbidden fruit ;
With empty labour and eluded strife
Seeking, by knowledge, to attain to life;
For ever from that fatal tree debarr'd,
Which flaming swords and angry cherubs guard ?
Prior's Soloman.
Voracious learning, often over-fed,
Digests not into sense her motley meal,
This bookcase, with dark booty almost burst,
This forager on others' wisdom, leaves
Her native farm, her reason, quite untill'd.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords
Light, but not heat ; it leaves you undevout,
Frozen at heart, while speculation shines.
Young's Night ThougUs.
The clouds may drop down titles and estates ;
Wealth may seek us, but wisdom must be sought;
Sought before all, but (how unlike all else
We seek on earth !) 'tis never sought in vain.
Young's Night Thoughts.
One science only will one genius fit,
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
Pope's Essay on Criticism.
Man loves knowledge, and the beams of truth
More welcome touch his understanding's eye,
Than all the blandishments of sound his ear,
Than all of taste his tongue.
Akenside.
Yet ah ! why should they know their fate ?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies,
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more ; where ignorance is bliss,
'T is folly to be wise.
Gray's Eton College.
Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Cowper's Task.
Deep subtle wits,
In truth are master spirits in the world.
The brave man's courage, and the student's lore,
Are but as tools his secret ends to work,
Who hath the skill to use them.
Joanna Bailie's Basil.
Knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.
Byron's Manfred.
The wish to know — that endless thirst,
"Which ev'n by quenching is awak'd,
And which becomes or blest or curst,
As is the fount whereat 't is slak'd —
Still urg'd me 'onward, with desire
Insatiate, to explore, inquire.
Moore's Loves of the Angeh
wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us !
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An foolish notion :
Burns
1 know is all the mourner saith —
Knowledge by suffering entereth, —
As life is perfected by death. ^ ^^
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,
And I finger more and more,
And the individual withers,
And the world is more and more.
Tennyson's Poems.
All this boasted knowledge of the world
To me seems but to mean acquaintance with
Low things, or evil, or indifferent
Bailey's Festus
Much more is said of knowledge than it 's worth
Bailey's Festus
Oh ! there is nought on earth worth being known,
But God and our own souls.
Bailey's Festus.
Knowledge hath a 'wildering tongue,
And she will stoop and lead you to the stars,
And witch you with her mysteries — till gold
Is a forgotten dross, and power and fame
Toys of an hour, and woman's careless love
Light as the breath that breaks it.
Willis's Poems.
He who binds
His soul to knowledge, steals the key of Beaven —
But 't is a bitter mockery that the fruit
May hang within his reach, and when, with thirs*
Wrought to a maddening phrenzy, he would taste— •
It burns his lips to ashes.
Willis's Poems
O fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,
Know how sublime a thing it is
7o suffer and be strong.
Longfellow's Poem*
LABOUR.
This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me as odious ; but
The mistress, which I serve, quickens what 's deac
And makes my labours pleasures.
Shales. Tempest
286
LABOUR.
Cheer' d with the view, man went to till the ground
From whence he rose ; sentene'd indeed to toil,
As to a punishment, yet (e'en in wrath
So merciful is heaven) this toil became
The solace of his woes, the sweet employ
Of many a livelong hour, and surest guard
Against disease and death.
Porteus's Death.
Oft did the harvest to the sickle yield,
Their harrow oft the stubborn glebe hath broke ;
How jocund did they drive their teams afield,
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke !
Gray's Elegy.
From labour health, from health contentment
springs. Beanie's Minstrel.
What happiness the rural maid attends,
In cheerful labour while each day she spends !
She gratefully receives what Heaven has sent,
And, rich in poverty, enjoys content.
She never feels the spleen's imagin'd pains,
Nor melancholy stagnates in her veins ;
She never loses life in thoughtless ease,
Nor on the velvet couch invites disease ;
Her homespun dress in simple neatness lies,
And for no glaring equipage she sighs :
]\o midnight masquerade her beauty wears,
And health, not paint, the fading bloom repairs.
Gay.
Here sun-brown'd Labour swings his Cyclop arms,
Long are the furrows he must trace between
The ocean's azure and the prairie's green ;
Full many a blank his destin'd realm displays,
Yet see the promise of his riper days ;
Far through yon depths the panting engine moves,
His chariot 's ringing in their steel-shod grooves ;
And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave
O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave.
O. W. Holmes.
How blest the farmer's simple life !
How pure the joy it yields !
Far from the world's tempestuous strife,
Free 'mid the scented fields !
C. W. Everest.
" Go till the ground" — said God to man, —
" Subdue the earth, it shall be thine ;"
How grand, how glorious was the plan !
How wise the Law divine .
And none of Adam's race can draw
A title, save beneath this Law,
To hold the world in trust ;
harto is the Lord's, and He hath sworn
That ere old Time has reach'd his bourne,
[( idiall reward the Just !
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
What living man will bring a gift
Of his own heart, and help to lift
The tune ? — " The race is to the swift !"
Miss Barrett's Poems.
What are we sent on earth for ? Say, to toil !
Nor seek to leave the tending of thy vines
For all the heat o' the sun, till it declines,
And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil
Miss Barrett's Poems.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
Longfellow's Poems
High curl'd the smoke from the humble roof with
dawning's earliest bird,
And the tinkle of the anvil, first of the village
sounds was heard ;
The bellows-pufF, the hammer-beat, the whistle
and the song,
Told, steadfastly and merrily, toil roll'd the hours
along. . , Street's Poems
— Give me the fair one, in country or city,
Whose home and its duties are dear to her heart,
Who cheerfully warbles some rustical ditty,
While plying the needle with exquisite art.
Samuel Woodworth
" Labour is worship" — the robin is singing :
" Labour is worship" — the wild bee is ringing.
Listen ! that eloquent whisper upspringing,
Speaks to thy soul out of nature's great heart.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Labour is life ! — 'T is the still water faileth ;
Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ;
Keep the watch wound, or the dark rust assaileth
Mrs. Osgood's Poems
Labour is rest — from the sorrows that greet us
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us,
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
Rest from world-syrens that lure us to ill.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Labour is health — Lo ! the husbandman reaping,
How through his veins goes the life-current leap
ing!
How his strong arm in its stalwart pride sweeping,
True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Here, brothers, secure from all turmoil and danger
We reap what we sow, for the soil is our own ;
We spread hospitality's board for the stranger,
And care not a fig for the king on his throne ;
We never know want, for we live by our labour,
And in it contentment and happiness find.
George P. Morns.
LAW.
237
LAW.
It often falls, in course of common life,
That right long time is overborne of wrong,
Through avarice or power, or guile or strife,
That weakens her, and makes her party strong :
But justice, though her doom she do prolong,
Yet at the last she will her own cause right.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
We have strict statutes, and most biting laws,
(The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds)
Which for these fourteen years we have let sleep ;
Even like an overgrown lion in a cave,
That goes not out to prey.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
Our decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead ;
And liberty plucks justice by the nose.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
There is no power in Venice
Can alter a decree established :
'Twill be recorded for a precedent;
And many an error, by the same example,
Will rush into the state : it cannot be.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
It pleases time and fortune to he heavy
Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood,
Hath stept into the law, which is past depth
To those that without heed do plunge into it.
Shales. Timon of Athens.
Multitude of laws are signs either of
Much tyranny in the prince, or much
Rebellious disobedience in the subject.
Marston's Fawn.
This wretch, that Wd, before his food, his strife,
This punishment falls even with his life ;
His pleasure was vexation, all his bliss
The torment of another :
Their hurt his health, their starved hope his store ;
Who so loves law, dies either mad or poor.
Middleton's Phcenix.
If we offend the law,
The law may punish us ; which only strives
To take away excess, not the necessity
Or use of what 's indifferent : and is made
Or good or bad by 'ts use.
Nabb's Covent Garden.
The good needs fear no law ;
It is his safety, and the bad man's awe.
Massinger, Middleton, and Rowley's Old Law
We are of the condition of some great
Men in office ; that desire execution
Of the laws, not so much to correct offences
And reform the commonwealth, as to thrive
By their punishment, and grow rich and fat
With a clear conscience.
Shirley's St. Patrick for Ireland.
Strict laws are like steel bodice, good for growing
limbs ;
But when the joints are knit, they are not helps,
But burdens.
Fane's Love in the Dark
He that with injury is griev'd,
And goes to law to be reliev'd,
Is sillier than a sottish chouse,
Who, when a thief has robb'd his house,
Applies himself to cunning men,
To help him to Ins goods again.
Butler's Hudibras
Law does not put the least restraint
Upon our freedom, but maintain 't ;
Or if it does, 't is for our good,
To give us freer latitude ;
For wholesome laws preserve us free,
By stinting of our liberty.
Butler's Hudibiis.
Others believe no voice t' an organ
So sweet as lawyer's in his bar gown,
Until with subtle cob-web cheats
They're catch'd in knotted law like nets;
In which, when once they are imbrangled,
The more they stir, the more they 're tangled.
Butler's Hudibras
Besides, encounters at the bar
Are braver now than those in war,
In which the law does execution
With less disorder and confusion.
Butler's Hu.dibr.J8.
Do not your juries give their verdict
As if they felt the cause, not heard it ?
And as they please, make matter of fact
Run all on one side, as they 're pack'd.
Butler's Hudibran
Each state must have its policies ;
Kingdoms have edicts, cities have their charter*.
Ev'n the wild outlaw, in his forest walk,
Keeps yet some touch of civil discipline.
For not since Adam wore his verdant apron,
Hath man with man in social union dweit,
But laws were made to draw that union closei
Old Plan
LEARNING.
Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw,
Entangle justice in her net of law,
And right, too rigid, harden into wrong ;
Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.
Pope.
Once (says an author, where I need not say)
Two travelers found an oyster in their way :
Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew strong,
While, scale in hand, dame Justice pass'd along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame justice weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife remov'd so rarely well,
There take, (says Justice) take you each a shell,
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you :
'T was a fat oyster — live in peace — adieu.
Pope.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
Pope's Rape of the Loch.
Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share,
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir ;
Or in pure equity (the case not clear)
The chancery takes your rents for twenty year.
Pope.
There was on both sides much to say :
He'd hear the cause another day.
And so he did ; and then a third
He heard it — there, he kept his word ;
But with rejoinders or replies,
Long bills, and answers stufFd with lies,
Demur, imparlance, and essclgn,
The parties ne'er could issue join :
For sixteen years the cause was spun,
And then stood where it first begun.
Swift's Cadenus and Vanessa.
The laws have cast me off from every claim,
Of house and kindred, and within my veins
Turn'd noble blood to baseness and reproach .
I '11 cast them off; why should they be to me
A bar, and no protection.
Joanna Baillie's Orra.
He is a perfect knowledge-box, —
An oracle to great and sma' !
And fifty law-pleas he has lost,
He is sae weel acquaint wi' law.
Nicoll.
Iict the m»is of your own land,
Wood or ill. between ye stand,
Hand to nand, and foot to foot,
A/biters of the dispute.
Shelley's Liberty
No choioe was left his feelings or his pride,
Save death or doctor's commons — so he died.
Byron.
A man of Law, a man of peace,
To frame a contract or a lease.
Crabbe.
Laws hitherto are fram'd to punish crime.
All legislators have been slow to deal
With vice in its first elements ; and here
Lie the pernicious root and seeds of sin ;
That children are permitted to grow up,
From infancy to youth, without instruction,
Is a grave wrong, and ne'er to be redeem'd
By penal statutes and the prisoner's cell.
Anon.
Are not our laws alike for high and low ?
Or shall we bind the poor man in his fetters,
And let the rich go revel in his crimes ?
Charles West Thomson.
'T is best to make the Law our friend,
And patiently await, —
Keep your side good, and you are sure
To conquer soon or late.
Mrs. Hale's Harry Guy.
LEARNING.
Hear him reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish,
You would desire the king were made a prelate.
Shales. Henry V.
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music :
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter.
Shahs. Henry V.
This fellow 's of exceeding honesty,
And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,
Of human things.
Shahs. Othello.
His learning savours not the school-like gloss,
That most consists in echoing words and fWms ;
And soonest wins a man an empty name :
Nor only long or far-fetch'd circumstance,
Wrapp'd in the curious generalties of arts :
But a direct and analytic sum
Of all the worth and first effects of arts.
Jonson's Poetaster.
Learning is
A bunch of grapes sprung up among the thorns ;
Where, but by caution, none the harm can miss :
Nor art's true riches read to understand,
But shall, to please his taste, offend his hand.
Lord Broohe on Human Learning
LEARNING.
289
Learning was first made pilot to the world,
And in the chain of contemplation,
Many degrees above the burning clouds
He 'd in his hands the nic-leaf'd marble book,
Drawn full of silver fines and golden stars.
Day's Law Tricks.
For mystic learning wondrous able
In magic talisman and cabal,
Whose primitive tradition reaches
As far as Adam's first green breeches.
Butler's Hudibras.
In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater ;
For he by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale ;
Resolve, by sines and tangents, straight,
If bread or butter wanted weight ;
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike, by algebra.
Butler's Hudibras.
We grant, although he had much wit,
H' was very shy of using it,
As being loath to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about :
Unless on holiday or so,
As men their best apparel do.
Besides 'tis known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs do squeak ;
That Latin was no more difficile,
Than to a black-bird 'tis to whistle.
Butler's Hudibras.
Learning, that cobweb of the brain
Profane, erroneous and vain ;
A trade of knowledge as replete,
As others are with fraud and cheat;
An art t' incumber gifts and wit,
And render both for nothing fit
Butler's Hudibras.
Nothing goes for sense or light,
That will not with old rules jump right ;
As if rules were not in the schools
Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules.
Butler's Hudibras.
Some for renown on scraps of learning date,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
To patch-work learn'd quotations are ally'd,
But strive to make our poverty our pride.
Young's Love of Fame.
Yet proud of parts, with prudence some dispense,
And play the fool because they 're men of sense.
Young's Epistle to Pope.
How empty learning, and how vain is art,
But as it mends the life, and guides the heart.
Young's Last Day.
T
But you are learn'd ; in volumes deep you sit ;
In wisdom shallow : pompous ignorance !
Young's Night Thoughts.
You scorn what lies before you in the page
Of nature and experience, moral truth ;
And dive in science for distinguish'd names,
Sinking in virtue as you rise in fame.
Young's Night Thoughts.
A little learning is a dang'rous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Pope's Essay on Criticism.
By learning unrefin'd
That oft enlightens to corrupt the mind.
Falconer's Shipwreck
Whose modest wisdom, therefore, never aims
To find the longitnde, or burn the Thames.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause awhile from letters to be wise ;
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail ;
See nations slowly wise and meanly just,
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
Au reste, (as we say,) the young lad 's well enough.
Only talks much of Athens, Rome, virtue, and stuff
Moore's Fudge Family
Where yonder humble spire salutes the eye,
Its vane slow-turning in the liquid sky,
Where, in light gambols, healthy striplings sport,
Ambitious Learning builds her outer court.
Timothy Dwight
Her book of light here learning spread ;
Here the warm breast of youth
Was won to temperance and truth.
Sprague's Centennial Ode.
A mind rejoicing in the light
Which melted through its graceful bower,
Leaf after leaf serenely bright
And stainless in its holy white,
Unfolding like a morning flower.
Whittier's Poems
No good of worth sublime will Heaven permit
To light on man, as from the passing ail ;
The lamp of genius, though by nature lit,
If not protected, prun'd, and fed with care,
Soon dies, or runs to waste with fitful glare .
And learning is a plant that spreads and towera
Slow as Columhia's aloe.
Carlos WUcojx
25
290
LETTERS.
As the uncultur'd prairie bears a harvest
Heavy and rank, yet worthless to the world, —
So mind and heart, uncultur'd, run to waste ;
The noblest natures serving but to show
A denser growth of passions' deadly fruit.
Mrs. Hale.
LETTERS.
«
Let us see —
Leave, gentle wax ; and manners, blame us not :
To know our enemies' minds, we rip their hearts ;
Their papers are more lawiul.
Shahs. Lear.
Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
That ever blotted paper !
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Read o'er this :
And after, this : and then to breakfast, with
What appetite you have.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Why, how now, gentlemen !
What see you in those papers that you lose
So much complexion ? look ye, how they change.
Their cheeks are paper. — Why what read you
there,
That hath so cowarded and chas'd your blood,
Out of appearance.
Shaks. Henry V.
Letters admit not of a half renown,
They give you nothing, or they give a crown.
No work e'er gain'd true fame, or ever can,
But what did honour to the name of man.
Young.
Full oft have letters caused the writers
To curse the day they were inditers.
Butler's Hudibras.
Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid ;
They live, they speak, they breathe what love in-
spires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires,
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart,
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.
Pope's Eloisa.
A letter, too, she gave (he never read it)
Of good advice — and two or three of credit.
Byron.
I love the mystery of a female missal,
Which, like a creed, ne'er says all it intends,
But full of cunning as Ulysses' whistle,
When he allured poor Dolon : — you had better
Ta *o care what you reply to such a letter.
Byron.
You ask my friend, and well you may,
You ask me how I spend my day ;
I '11 tell you, in unstudied rhyme,
How wisely I befool my time ;
These idle lines — they might be worse —
Are simple prose, in simple verse.
James Montgomery
I have seen him when he hath had
A letter from his lady dear, he bless'd
The paper that her hand had travell'd over,
And her eye look'd on, and would think he saw
Gleams of the light she lavish'd from her eyes,
Wandering amid the words of love there trae'd
Like glow-worms among beds of flowers.
Bailey's Festua
Do you like letter-reading ? If you do,
I have some twenty dozen very pretty ones :
Gay, sober, rapturous, solemn, very true,
And very lying stupid ones, and witty ones ;
On gilt-edged paper, blue perhaps, or pink,
And frequently in fancy-coloured ink.
Epes Sargent
Through her tears she gazed upon them,
Records of that brief bright dream !
And she clasped them closer — closer —
For a message they would seem,
Coming from the lips now silent,
Coming from a hand now cold,
And she felt the same emotion
They had thrill'd her with of old.
Mrs. J. C. Neal
She had waited for their coming,
She had kiss'd them o'er and o'er —
And they were so fondly treasured
For the words of love they bore,
Words that whisper'd in the silence,
She had listen'd till his tone
Seem'd to linger in the echo
" Darling, thou art all mine own !"
Mrs. J. C. JVeol
Slowly folding, how she linger'd
O'er the words his hands had traced,
Though the plashing drops had fallen,
And the faint lines half effaced.
Mrs. J. C. NedL
As grains of gold that in the sands
Of Lydian waters shine,
The welcome sign of mountain lands
That veil the silent mine —
Thus may the River of my Thought,
That glideth now to thee,
Reveal the wealth, as yet unwrought,
Which Love has heap'd in me !
Bulwer's Poems.
LIBERTY.
291
LIBERTY.
Lucio. — Whence comes this restraint ?
Claudia. — From too much liberty, my Lucio,
liberty :
As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint : our natures do pursue
(Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,)
A thirsty evil ; and when we drink we die.
Shaks. Mea.for Mea.
happy men born under good stars,
Where what is honest you may freely think,
< Speak what you think , and write what you do speak ;
Not bound to servile soothings.
Marston's Fawn.
A show of liberty,
When we have lost the substance, is best kept,
By seeming not to understand those faults,
Which we want power to mend.
May's Cleopatra.
! If we retain the glory of our ancestors,
Whose ashes will rise up against our dulness,
Shake off our tameness, and give way to courage ;
We need not doubt, inspir'd with a just rage,
To break the necks of those that would yoke ours.
Tatharn's Distracted State.
1 love my freedom : yet strong prisons can
Vex but the bad, and not the virtuous man.
Waikyns.
Rather seek
Our own good from ourselves, and from our own
Live to ourselves, though in this vast recess,
Free, and none accountable, preferring
Hard liberty before the easy yoke
Of servile pomp.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Oh ! give me liberty !
For were ev'n paradise my prison,
Still I should long to leap the crystal walls.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
The love of liberty with life is given,
And life itself th' inferior gift of heaven.
Dryden's Palamon and Ar cite.
Oh, liberty, thou goddess, heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight !
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train;
Eas'd of her load, subjection grows more light,
And poverty looks cheerful in thy sight ;
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.
Addison's Italy.
A day, an hour of virtuous liberty,
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
Addison's Cato.
What is life ?
'T is not to stalk about, and draw fresh air
From time to time, or gaze upon the sun :
'T is to be free. When liberty is gone,
Life grows insipid, and has lost its relish
Addison's Cato.
When liberty is lost,
Let abject cowards live ; but in the brave
It were a treachery to themselves, enough
To merit chains.
Thomson's Sophonisba.
The greatest glory of a free-born people,
Is to transmit that freedom to their children.
Havard's Regulus.
Converse familiar with th' illustrious dead :
With great examples of old Greece or Rome ;
Enlarge thy free-born heart, and bless kind heaven
That Britain yet enjoys dear liberty,
That balm of life, that sweetest blessing, cheap
Tho' purchased with our blood.
Somerville' 's Chase
O liberty,
Parent of happiness, celestial-born ;
When the first man became a living soul,
His sacred genius thou.
Dyer's Ruins of Rome.
Mankind are all by nature free and equal,
'T is their consent alone gives just dominion.
Duncombe's Junius Brutus.
O liberty ! heav'n's choice prerogative !
True bond of law ! thou social soul of property !
Thou breath of reason ! life of life itself!
For thee the valiant bleed. O sacred liberty !
Wing'd from the summer's snare, from flattering
ruin,
Like the bold stork you seek the wint'ry shore,
Leave courts, and pomps, and palaces to slaves,
Cleave to the cold, and rest upon the storm.
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa
Freedom is
The brilliant gift of heav'n, 'tis reason's self,
The kin of deity.
Brooke's Gustavus Vast*
What are fifty, what a thousand slaves,
Match'd to the sinew of a single arm
That strikes for liberty ?
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa
Oh could I worship aught beneath the skies,
That earth hath seen or fancy can devise,
Thine altar, sacred liberty, should stand,
Built by no mercenary vulgar hand,
With fragrant turf, and flowers as wild and fair
As ever dress'd a bank or scented summer air
Cowper's Chanty-
292
LIBERTY.
Liberty, like day,
Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from heav'n
Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
Cowper's Task.
Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free,
They touch our country and their shackles fall.
That 's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. ^^ ^
Whose freedom is by suff 'ranee, and at will
Of a superior, he is never free.
Who lives, and is not weary of a life
Exposed to manacles, deserves them well.
Cowper's Task.
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for ; — spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts,-
The surest presage of the good they seek.
Cowper's Task.
'T is liberty alone that gives the flow'r
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,
And we are weeds without it. ^ , „■, ,
vowpers lask.
The widow'd Indian, when her lord expires,
Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires !
So falls the heart at thraldom's bitter sigh !
So virtue dies, the spouse of liberty !
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Eternal nature ! when thy giant hand
Had heav'd the floods, and fix'd the trembling
land,
When life sprung startling at thy plastic call,
Endless her forms, and man the lord of all !
Say, was that lordly form inspir'd by thee,
To wear eternal chains and bow his knee ?
Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil,
Yoked with the brutes, and fetter'd to the soil ;
Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold ?
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Yes ! thy proud lords, unpitied land ! shall see
That man hath yet a soul — and dare be free !
A little while, along thy saddening plains,
The starless night of desolation reigns ;
Truth shall restore the light by nature given,
And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of heaven !
Prone to the dust oppression shall be hurl'd —
Her name, her nature, wither'd from the world.
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
There is a world where souls arc free,
Where tyrants taint not nature's bliss,
If death that world's bright opening be,
■') who would hve a slave in this !
Moore.
Leave pomps to those who need 'em —
Adorn but man with freedom,
And proud he braves
The gaudiest slaves,
That crawl, where monarchs lead 'em.
Moore.
Oh ! if there be, on this earthly sphere,
A boon, an offering heaven holds dear,
'T is the last libation liberty draws
From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her
cause ! Moore's Lalla Rookh.
When will the world shake off such yokes ? oh,
when
Will that redeeming day shine out on men,
That shall behold them rise, erect and free
As heav'n and nature meant mankind should be !
Moore's Fudge Family.
By the hope within us springing,
Herald of to-morrow's strife ;
By that sun, whose light is bringing
Chains or freedom, death or life —
Oh ! remember, life can be
No charm for him who lives not free !
Moore.
Easier were it
To hurl the rooted mountain from its base,
Than force the yoke of slavery upon men
Determin'd to be free.
Southey's Joan of Arc.
Eternal spirit of the chainless mind !
Brightest in dungeons, liberty ! thou art !
For there thy habitation is the heart —
The heart which love of thee alone can bind ;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd —
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
Byron's Prisoner of Ckillon.
'T is vain — my tongue cannot impart
My almost drunkenness of heart,
When first this liberated eye
Surveyed earth, ocean, sun and sky,
As if my spirit pierced them through,
And all their inmost wonders knew !
One word alone can point to thee
That more than feeling — I was free !
E'en for thy presence ceased to pine :
The world — nay — heaven itself was mine !
Byron' 8 Bride of Abydo*.
So let them ease their hearts with prate
Of equal rights, which man ne'er knew ;
I have a love for freedom too.
Byron.
For me, my lot is what I sought ; to be,
In life or death, the fearless and the free.
Byron's Island,
LIFE.
293
The wish — which ages have not yet subdued
In man — to have no master save his mood.
Byron's Island.
Yet, freedom ; yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying,
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind ;
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms ; and the rind,
Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth ;
But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the north ;
So shall a bitter spring less bitter fruit bring forth.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Motion was in. their days, rest in their slumbers,
And cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil ;
Nor yet too many, nor too few their numbers ;
Corruption could not make their hearts her soil ;
The lust which stings, the splendour which en-
cumbers,
With the free foresters divide no spoil ;
Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes
Of this unsighing people of the woods.
Byron.
For freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Byron's Giaour.
The time is past when swords subdued, —
Man may die — the soul 's renew'd :
Even in this low world of care,
Freedom ne'er shall want an heir ;
Millions breathe but to inherit
Her unconquerable spirit —
When once more her hosts assemble,
Let the tyrants only tremble ;
Smile they at this idle threat ?
Crimson tears will follow yet
Byron's Waterloo.
— The mountains — they proclaim
The everlasting creed of Liberty !
That creed is written on the untrampled snow,
Thunder'd by torrents which no power can hold,
Save that of God when He sends forth his cold,
And breath'd by winds that through the free hea-
ven blow. Bryant's Poems.
I dream of all things free !
Of a gallant, gallant bark,
That sweeps through storm and sea,
Like an arrow to its mark !
Of a stag that o'er the hills
Goes bounding on its way ;
Of a thousand flashing rills —
Of all things glad and free !
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
Free of the world, a self-dependent soul, •
The liberty of nature let me know,
Caught from her mountains, groves, and crystal
streams,
Her starry host, and sunset's purple glow,
That woo the spirit with celestial dreams.
Henry T. Tuckerman.
There is a spirit working in the world,
Like to a silent, subterranean fire ;
Yet ever and anon some monarch hurl'd
Aghast and pale, attests its fearful ire :
The dungeon'd nations now once more respire
The keen and stirring air of Liberty !
George Hill
— Fervent energy must spread,
Till despotism's towers be overthrown,
And in their stead
Liberty stands alone !
Henry Ware, Jr
Hasten the day, just Heaven !
Accomplish thy design;
And let the blessings thou hast freely given,
Freely on all men shine ;
Till equal rights be equally enjoy'd,
And human power for human good employ'd ;
Till law, and not the sovereign, rule sustain,
And peace and virtue undisputed reign.
Henry Ware, Jr.
LIFE.
O why do wretched men so much desire
To draw their days unto the utmost date,
And do not rather wish them soon expire,
Knowing the misery of their estate,
And thousand perils which them still await,
Tossing them like a boat amid the main,
That ev'ry hour they knock at death's gate ?
And he that happy seems and least in pain,
Yet is as nigh his end as he that most doth plague.
Spenser's Fairy Queer..
Such is the weakness of all mortal hope !
So fickle is the state of earthly tilings ;
That ere they come unto their aimed scope,
They fall too short of our frail reckonings,
And bring us bale and bitter sorrowings,
Instead of comfort which we should embrace
Spenser's Fairy i}uetn t
For all man's life me seems a tragedy
Full of sad sights and sore catastrophes ,
First coming to the world with weeping eye,
Where all his days, like dolorous trophies,
Are heap'd with spoils of fortune and of fear,
And he at last laid forth on baleful bier.
Spenser's Tears «/ the Muses
25*
294
LIFE.
The term of life is limited,
Nor ma)' a man prolong, or shorten it:
The soldier may not move from watchful sted,
Nor leave his stand until his captain bed.
Who life did limit by Almighty doom
(Quoth he) knows best the terms established ;
And lie that points the centonel his room,
Doth license him depart at sound of morning
droome. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
After long storms and tempests overblown,
The sun at length his joyous face doth clear :
So when as fortune all her spite hath shown,
Some blissful hours at last must needs appear,
Else should afflicted wights ofttimes despeire.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
But O short pleasure, bought with lasting pain !
Why will hereafter any flesh delight
In earthly bliss, and join in pleasure vain !
Spenser's Ruins of Time.
O vain world's glory, and unsteadfast state
Of all that lives on face of sinfnl earth !
Which from their first until the utmost date
Taste no one hour of happiness or mirth,
But like as at the ingrate of their birth,
They crying creep out of their mother's womb,
So wailing back go to their woeful tomb.
Spenser's Ruins of Time.
And ye, fond men ! on fortune's wheel that ride,
Or in aught under heaven repose assurance,
Be it riches, beauty, or honour's pride,
Be sure that they shall have no long endurance,
But ere ye be aware will flit away.
Spenser's Daphnaida.
Well may appear by proof of their' mischance,
The changeful turning of men's slippery state ;
That none whom fortune freely doth advance
Himself therefore to heaven should elevate;
Fo r lofty type of honour, through the glance
Of envy's dart, is down in dust prostrate ;
And all that vaunts in worldly vanity,
Shall fall through fortune's mutability.
Spenser.
Out, out, brief candle !
Life 's but a walking shadow ; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more : it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Shaks. Macbeth.
The web of our life is of a mingled
Yarn, good ana ill together: Our virtues
Would be proud, if our faults whipt them not; and
Our crimes would despair, if they were not
Uhersh'd bv our virtues
Shaks. All's Well.
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve !
And like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind : we are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Shaks. Tempest.
Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness !
This is the state of man ; To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him :
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ;
And — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening — nips his root,
And then he falls as I do.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
O gentlemen, the time of life is short :
To spend that shortness basely, 'twere too long,
Tho' life did ride upon a dial's point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
Be absolute for death ; or death, or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with
life;
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would reck : a breath thou art.
Servile to all the skyie influences,
That doth this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict : Merely thou art death's fool,
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun ;
And yet run'st towards him still.
Shaks.' Mea. for Mea
Happy thou art not ;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get ;
And what thou hast forget'st. Thou art not certain ;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloadeth thee.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea
Thou hast not youth nor age ;
But as it were an after-dinner sleep,
Dreaming on both ; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsy'd eld : and when thou'rt old and rich,
Thou 'st neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in
this,
That bears the name of life ? Yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths ; yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
LIFE.
2P5
Man's life 's a tragedy ; his mother's womb,
From which he enters, is the tiring-room ;
This spacious earth the theatre ; the stage
That country which he lives in : passions, rage,
Folly and vice are actors ; the first cry
The prologue to the ensuing tragedy.
The former act consisteth in dumb shows ;
The second he to more perfection grows ;
I' th' third he is a man, and doth begin
To nurture vice, and act the deeds of sin :
I' th' fourth declines : i' th' fifth diseases clog
And troubles him ; then death 's the epilogue.
Sir W. Raleigh.
The wisdom of this world is idiotism ;
Strength a weak reed ; health sickness' enemy,
(And it at length will have the victory) ;
Beauty is but a painting ; and long fife
Is a long journey in December gone,
Tedious and full of tribulation.
Decker.
Circles are prais'd, not that abound
In largeness, but th' exactly round :
So life we praise that does excel
Not in much time, but acting welL
Waller
Delay is bad, doubt worse, depending worst :
Each best day of our life escapes us first.
Then since we mjre than many, these truths know;
Though life be short, let us not make it so.
Jonson's Epigrams.
Her days are peace, and so she ends her breath ;
True life that knows not what's to die, till death,
Daniel's Rosamond,
Men should strive to live well, not to live long,
And I would spend this momentary breath,
To live by fame, for ever after death.
Earl of Sterline's Julius Casar
Our life is nothing, but a winter's day ;
Some only break their fast, and so away :
Others stay dinner, and depart full-fed ;
The deepest age but sups and goes to bed :
He 's most in debt, that fingers out the day ;
Who dies betimes, has less and less to pay.
Quarles.
You'll tell me, man ne'er dies, but changeth life ;
And haply for a better. He 's happiest
That goes the right way soonest. Nature sent us
All naked hither, and all the goods we had
We only took on credit with the world :
And that the best of men are but mere borrowers ;
Though some take longer day.
Richard Brome's Damoiselle.
Life, ill preserv'd, is worse than basely lost.
Sir W. Davenanl's Siege of Rhodes.
trivial property of life ! some do
Attend the mighty war, and make divinity
Their yoke ; till for the sport of kings they but
Augment the number of the dead.
Sir W. Davenant's Just Italian
Life is
Like the span
Forc'd from a gouty hand ; which, as it gains
Extent, and active length, the more it pains.
The enticing smile ; the modest seeming eye,
Beneath whose beauteous beams, belying heaven,
Lurk searchless cunning, cruelty, and death,
And still, false warbling in his cheated ear,
Her syren voice, enchanting, draws him on
To guileful shores, and meads of fatal joy.
Thomson's Seasons.
Devoting all
To love, each was to each a dearer self;
Supremely happy in the awaken'd power
Of giving joy. Alone, amid the shades,
Still in harmonious intercourse they liv'd
The rural day, and talk'd with flowing heart,
Or sigh'd, and look'd unutterable things.
Thomson's Seasons.
She felt his flame ; but deep within her breast,
In bashful coyness, or in maiden pride,
The soft return conceal'd ; save when it stole
In sidelong glances from her downcast eye,
Or from her swelling soul in stifled sighs.
Thomson's Seasons,
Won by the charm
Of goodness irresistible, and all
In sweet disorder lost, she blush'd consent.
Thomson's Seasons
Love is not in our power,
Nay, what seems stranger, is not in,pur choice:
We only love where fate ordains we should,
And, blindly fond, oft slight superior merit
Frowde's Fall of Saguntum,
LOVE.
317
Love, sole lord and monarch of itself,
Allows no ties, no dictates but its own.
To that mysterious arbitrary power,
Reason points out and duty pleads in vain.
Motley's Imperial Captives.
What is this subtle searclnng flame of love,
That penetrates the tender breast unmask'd,
And blasts the heart of adamant within ;
As the quick light'ning oft calcines the blade
Of temper'd steel, and leaves the sheath unhurt.
Darcy's Love and Ambition.
Love, lik6 a wren upon the eagle's wing,
Shall perch superior on ambition's plume,
And mock the lordly passion in its flight.
Darcy's Love and Ainbition.
Is passion to be learn'd then ? would'st thou make
A science of affection, guide the heart,
And teach it where to fix ?
Brooke's Earl of Warwick.
Love is a passion whose effects are various,
It ever brings some change upon the soul,
Some virtue, or some vice, till then unknown,
Degrades the hero, and makes cowards valiant.
Brooke's Gusiavus Vasa.
Almighty love ! what wonders are not thine !
Soon as thy influence breathes upon the soul,
By thee, the haughty bend the suppliant knee,
By thee, the hand of avarice is opened
Into profusion ; by thy power the heart
Of cruelty is melted into softness ;
The rude grow tender, and the fearful bold.
Patterson's Arminius.
Keen are the pangs
Of hapless love, and passion unapprov'd :
But where consenting wishes meet, and vows,
Reciprocally breath'd, confirm the tie ;
Joy rolls on joy, an inexhausting stream !
And virtue crowns the sacred scene.
Smollett's Regicide.
As love can exquisitely bless,
Love only feels the marvellous of pain ;
Opens new veins of torture in the soul,
And wakes the nerve where agonies are born.
Smollett's Regicide.
Adieu, for him,
The dull engagements of the bustling world !
Adieu the sick impertinence of praise !
And hope, and action ! for with her alone,
By streams and shades, to steal these sighing hours,
Is all he asks, and all that fate can give.
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
Now love is dwindled to intrigue,
And marriage grown a money-league.
Swift's Cadenus and Vanessa.
Love why do we one passion call,
When 't is a compound of them all ?
Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet,
In all their equipages meet ;
Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear,
Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.
Swift's Cadenus and Vanessa.
There are in love, the extremes oftouch'd desire;
The noblest brightness ! or the coarsest fire !
In vulgar bosoms vulgar wishes move ;
Nature guides choice, and as men think, they
love.
In the loose passion men profane the name,
Mistake the purpose, and pollute the flame :
In nobler bosoms friendship's form it takes,
And sex alone the lovely difference makes.
Aaron Hill.
O, happy state, when souls each other draw,
When love is liberty, and nature law :
All then is full, possessing and possess'd,
No craving void left aching in the breast ;
Ev'n thought meets thought, ere from the lips it
part,
And each warm wish springs mutual from the
heart. Pope's Eloisa
Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
That well-known name awakens all my woes.
Oh, name for ever sad ! for ever dear !
Still breath'd in sighs, still usher'd with a tear !
Pope's Eloisa.
What scenes appear where'er I turn my view !
The dear ideas, where'er I fly, pursue,
Rise in the grave, before the altar rise,
Stain all my soul, and wanton in my eyes.
I waste the matin lamp in sighs for thee,
Thy image steals between my God and me ;
Thy voice I seem in every hymn to hear,
With every bead I drop too soft a tear.
When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll,
And swelling organs lift the rising soul,
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight,
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight :
In seas of flame my plunging soul is drown'd,
While altars blaze, and angels tremble round.
Pope's Eloisa.
O death, all eloquent ! you only prove
What dust we doat on, when 'tis man we love.
Pope's Eloisa
Th' impatient wish that never feels repose ;
Desire that with perpetual current flows ;
The fluctuating pangs of hope and fear;
Joy distant still, and sorrow ever near !
Falconer's Shipwreck
313
LOVE.
Ah ! love every hope can inspire ;
It banishes wisdom the while ;
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems for ever adorn'd with a smile.
Shenstone's Disappointment.
Where lives the man (if such a man there be}
In idle wilderness or desert drear,
To beauty's sacred power an enemy ?
Let foul fiends harrow him ; I '11 drop no tear.
I deem that carl by beauty's power unmov'd
Hated of heaven, of none but hell approv'd ;
O may he never love, O never be belov'd !
IV. Thompson.
Let us now, in whisper'd joy,
Evening's silent hours employ :
Silence best, and conscious shades,
Please the hearts that love invades ;
Otner pleasures give them pain,
Lovers all but love disdain. m ^^
Tir'd with vain joys and false alarms,
With mental and corporeal strife,
Snatch me, my Stella, to thy arms,
And screen me from the ills of life.
Dr. Johnson.
T is love, combin'd with guilt alone, that melts
The soften'd soul to cowardice and sloth ;
But virtuous passion prompts the great resolve,
And fans the slumbering spark of heavenly fire.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
Know'st thou not yet, when love invades the soul,
That all her faculties receive his chains ;
That reason gives her sceptre to his hand,
Or only struggles to be more enslav'd ?
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
Why, when the balm of sleep descends on man,
Do gay delusions, wand'ring o'er the brain, -
Soothe the delighted soul with empty bliss ?
To want give affluence, and to slavery freedom ?
Such are love's joys, the lenitives of life,
A fancy'd treasure, and a waking dream.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
And love is still an emptier sound,
The haughty fair one's jest :
On earth unseen, or only found
To warm the turtle's nest. r , , , ..,, TT
Goldsmiths Hermit.
None without hope e'er lov'd the brightest fair ;
Cut love can hope where reason would despair.
Lord Lyttletnn.
Love warms our fancy with cnliv'ning fires,
Refines our genius, and our verse inspires ;
From him Theocritus, on Enna's plains,
Learnt the wild sweetness of his Doric strains;
Virgil, by him was taught the moving art,
That >harm'd each ear, and soften'd every heart.
Lord Lytlldon.
O happy love ! where love like this is found !
heartfelt raptures ! bliss beyond compare !
1 've paced much this weary mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare —
If heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'T is when a youthful loving, modest pair,
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the
evening gale.
Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night
It warms me, it charms rne,
To mention but her name :
It heats me, it beats me,
And sets me a' on flame.
Burns's Epistle to Dame,
Had we never loved so kindly,
Had we never loved so blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
Burns.
Fain would I speak the thoughts I bear to thee,
But they do choke and flutter in my throat,
And make me like a child.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven.
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die ;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.
ScotVs Lay of the Last Minstrel.
In peace, love tunes the shepherd's reed ;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed ;
In halls, in gay attire is seen ;
In hamlets, dances on the green ;
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above ;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
ScotVs Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Oh, why should man's success remove
The very charms that make his love '
ScoWs Marmion
Oh, blame her not ! when zephyrs wake,
The aspen's trembling leaves must shake ;
When beams the sun through April's shower
It needs must bloom, the violet flower ;
And love, howe'er the maiden strive,
Must with reviving hope revive.
ScotVs Lord of the Isles,
LOVE.
31S
It was but with that dawning morn,
That Roderick Dhu had proudly sworn,
To drown his love in war's wild roar,
Nor think of Ellen Douglas more;
But he who stems a stream with sand,
And fetters flame with flaxen band,
Has yet a harder task to prove —
By firm resolve to conquer love !
Scoffs Lady of the Lake
O love, requited love, how fine thy thrills,
That shake the trembling frame w T ith ecstasy ,
Ev'n every vein celestial pleasure fills ;
And inexpressive bliss is in each sigh.
Sir S. E. Brydges.
O love ! in such a wilderness as this,
Where transport and security entwine,
Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss,
And here thou art a god indeed divine ;
Here shall no forms abridge, no hours confine,
The views, the walks, that boundless joy inspire !
Roll on, ye days of raptur'd influence, shine !
Nor blind with ecstacy's celestial fire,
Shall love behold the spark of earth-born love ex-
pire. Campbell.
In joyous youth, what soul hath never known,
Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to his own?
Who hath not praised while beauty's pensive eye
Ask'd from his heart the homage of a sigh ?
Who hath not own'd, with rapture stricken frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name.
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Then youth, thou fond believer !
The wily syren shun :
Who trusts the dear deceiver
Will surely be undone !
When beauty triumphs, ah beware !
Her smile is hope ! her frown despair !
Montgomery's Wanderer of Switzerland.
Did woman's charm thy youth beguile,
And did the fair one faithless prove ?
Hath she betray'd thee with her smile,
And sold thy love ?
Live ! 't was a false bewildering fire :
Too often love's insidious dart
Thrills the fond soul with wild desire,
But kills the heart.
Thou yet shalt know, how sweet, how dear,
To gaze on listening beauty's eye !
To ask, — and pause in hope and fear
Till she reply.
A nobler flame shall warm thy breast,
A brighter maiden faithful prove ;
Thy youth, thine age, shall yet be blest
111 woman's love.
Montgomery's Wanderer of Switzerland.
Lightly thou say'st that woman's love is false,
The thought is falser far —
For some of them are true as martyrs' legends,
As full of suffering faith, of burning love,
Of high devotion — worthier of heaven than earth,
O, I do know a tale !
Maturin's Bertram,
Why dost thou wander by this mournful light,
Feeding sick fancy with the thought that poisons
Maturin's Bertram.
Nay, if she love me not, I care not for her :
Shall I look pale because the maiden blooms ?
Or sigh because she smiles on others ?
Not I, by heaven ! I hold my peace too dear,
To let it, like the plume upon her cap,
Shake at each nod that her caprice shall dictate.
Old Play. Antiquary
Love's holy flame for ever burnetii ;
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth ,
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest.
It here is tried, and purified,
Then hath in heaven its perfect rest :
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of love is there
Southey
Dost thou deem
It such an easy task from the fond breast
To root affection out.
S-juthey
Economy in love is peace to nature,
Much like economy in worldly matter :
We should be prudent, never live too fast
Profusion will not, cannot always last.
Dr. Wolcofs Peter Pindar,
Ye finer souls,
Form'd to soft luxury, and prompt to thrill
With all the tumults, all the joys and pains,
That beauty gives ; with caution and reserve
Indulge the sweet destroyer of repose,
Nor court too much the queen of charming cares '
For while the cherish'd poison in your breast
Ferments and maddens ; sick with jealousy,
Absence, distrust, or even with anxious joy,
The wholesome appetites and powers of life
Dissolve in languor. The coy stomach loathes
The genial board ; your cheerful days are gone ;
The generous bloom that flush'd your checks i»
fled.
To sighs devoted, and to tender pains.
Pensive you sit, or solitary stray,
And waste your youth in nursing.
Armstrong's Art of Prest tmg Health
320
LOVE.
Sweet heaven, from such intoxicating charms,
Defend all worthy breasts ! not that I deem
Love always dangerous, always to be shunn'd.
Love well repaid, and not too weakly sunk
In wanton and unmanly tenderness,
Adds bloom to health; o'er ev'ry virtue sheds
A gay, humane, a sweet, and generous grace,
And brighicns all the ornaments of man.
But fruitless, hopeless, disappointed, rack'd
With jealousy, fatigu'd with hope and fear,
Too serious, or too languishingly fond,
Unnerves the body, and unmans the soul.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
The world ! ah, Fanny ! love must shun
The path where many rove ; -
One bosom to recline upon,
One heart to be his only one,
Are quite enough for love.
Moore.
Why the world are all thinking about it,
And as for myself I can swear,
If I fancied that heaven were without it,
I 'd scarce feel a wish to be there.
Moore.
O the days are gone, when beauty bright
My heart-chain wove ;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love !
JNew hope may bloom,
And days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam,
But there 's nothing half so sweet in life,
As love's young dream !
Moore.
uove will never bear enslaving ;
Summer garments suit him best ;
Bliss itself is not worth having,
If we 're by compulsion blest.
Moore.
The time I 've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light, that lies
In women's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.
Though wisdom oft has sought me,
I scorn'd the love she brought me,
My only books
Were woman's looks,
^nd folly 's all they 'vc taught me.
Moore.
Oh ! had we never, never met,
Or could this heart e'en now forget
How JinkM, how bless'd we might have been,
Had fate not frown'd so dark between !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Oh ! best of delights, as it everywhere is,
To be near the lov'd one, — what a rapture is his,
Who in moonlight and music thus sweetly may
glide
O'er the lake of Cashmere, with that one by his
side!
If woman can make the worst wilderness dear,
Think, think what a heav'n she must make of
Cashmere. Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Alas — how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love ;
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied ;
That stood the storm, when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When heaven was all tranquillity.
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Fly to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee ;
But oh ! the choice what heart can doubt
Of tents with love, or thrones without ?
Moore's Lalla Rookh,
She loves — but knows not whom she loves,
Nor what his race, nor whence he came; —
Like one who meets, in Indian groves,
Some beauteous bird without a name,
Brought by the last ambrosial breeze,
From isles in th' undiscover'd seas,
To show his plumage for a day
To wondering eyes, and wing away !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
'T was his own voice — she could not err —
Throughout the breathing world's extent
There was but one such voice for her,
So kind, so soft, so eloquent !
Oh ! sooner shall the rose of May
Mistake her own sweet nightingale,
And to some meaner minstrel's lay
Open her bosom's glowing veil,
Than love shall ever doubt a tone,
A breath of the beloved one.
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Oh ! I would ask no happier bed,
Than^the chill wave my love lies under :
Sweeter to rest together dead,
Far sweeter than to live asunder.
There 's not a look, a word of thine,
My soul hath e'er forgot ;
Thou ne'er hast bid a ringlet shine,
Nor giv'n thy locks one graceful twine,
Which I remember not
Moore.
Moore.
LOVE.
321
To see thee every day that came,
And find thee every day the same,
In pleasure's smile or sorrow's tear,
The same benign consoling dear !
To meet thee early, leave thee late,
Has been so long- my bliss, my fate,
That now I feel thy love's sweet ray,
Which came, like sunshine, every day,
And all my pain, my sorrow chas'd,
Shines on a lone and loveless waste.
Moore.
'Twas but for a moment — and yet in that time
She crowded th' impressions of many an hour :
Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime,
Which wak'd ev'ry feeling at once into flower !
Moore.
Nay, tempt me not to love again,
There was a time when love was sweet ;
Dear Nea ! had I known thee then,
Our souls had not been slow to meet !
But, oh ! this weary heart hath run
So many a time the rounds of pain,
Not e'en for thee, thou lovely one !
Would I endure such pangs again.
Moore.
Oh ! thou shalt be all else to me,
That heart can feel or tongue can feign ;
I '11 praise, admire, and worship thee,
But must no'i, dare not, love again.
Moore.
In pleasure's dream or sorrow's hour,
In crowded hall or lonely bower,
The business of my soul shall be,
For ever to remember thee !
Moore.
O magic of love ! unembellish'd by you,
Has the garden a blush or the herbage a hue ?
Or blooms there a prospect in nature or art,
Like the vista that shines through the eye to the
heart ? Moore.
That happy minglement of hearts,
Where, chang'd as chemic compounds are,
Each with its own existence parts,
To find a new one, happier far !
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
Oh what, while I could hear and see
Such words and looks, was heaven to me ?
Though gross the air on earth I drew,
'T was blessed, while she breath'd it too ;
Though dark the flowers, though dim the sky,
Love lent tftem light, while she was nigh.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
Love was to his impassion'd soul
Not, as with others, a mere part
Of his existence, but the whole —
The very life-breath of his heart.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
V
Man, while he loves, is never quite deprav'd,
And woman's Triumph, is a lover sav'd.
Hon. G. Lamb.
Oh ! who the exquisite delight can tell,
The joy which mutual confidence imparts,
Or who can paint the charm unspeakable
Which links in tender bands two faithful hearts ?
In vain assail'd by fortune's envious darts,
Their mitigated woes are sweetly shar'd,
And doubled joy reluctantly departs :
Let but the sympathising heart be spar'd,
What sorrow seems not light, what peril is not
dar'd 1 Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
Oh ! never may suspicion's gloomy sky
Chill the sweet glow of fondly trusting love !
Nor ever may he feel the scowling eye
Of dark distrust his confidence reprove !
In pleasing error may I rather rove,
With blind reliance on the hand so dear,
Than let cold prudence from my eyes remove
Those sweet delusions, where no doubt, nor fear,
Nor foul disloyalty, nor cruel change appear.
Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
Oh, who art thou who darest of love complain ?
He is a gentle spirit and injures none !
His foes are ours ; from them the bitter pain,
The keen, deep anguish, the heart-rending groan,
Which in his milder reign are never known.
His tears are softer than the April showers,
White-handed innocence supports his throne ;
His sighs are sweet as breath of earliest flowers,
Affection guides his steps, and peace protects his
bowers. Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
When pleasure sparkles in the cup of youth,
And the gay hours on downy wing advance ;
Oh ! then, 't is sweet to hear the lip of truth
Breathe the soft vows of love, sweet to entrance
The raptur'd soul by intermingling glance
Of mutual bliss; sweet amid roseate bowers,
Led by the hand of love, to weave the dance,
Or unmolested crop life's fairy flowers,
Or bask in joy's bright sun through calm un-
clouded hours. Mrs. Tighe's Psyche
When vex'd by cares and harass'd by distress,
The storms of fortune chill thy soul with dread,
Let love, consoling love ! still sweetly bless,
And his assuasive balm benignly shed :
This downy plumage o'er thy pillow spread,
Shall lull thy weeping sorrows to repose :
To love the tender heart hath ever fled,
As on its mother's breast the infant throws
Its sobbing face, and there in sleep forgets its woe*,
Mrs. Tighe's Psych'
822
LOVE.
Oh ! most ador'd ! Oil ! most regretted love !
Oh ! joys that never must again be mine,
And thou, lost hope, farewell ! — Vainly I rove,
Foi never shall I reach that land divine,
Nor ever shall thy beams celestial shine
Again upon my sad unheeded way !
Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
Oh you, for whom I write ! whose hearts can melt
At the soft thrilling voice whose power you prove,
You know what charm, unutterably felt,
Attends the unexpected voice of Love !
Above the lyre, the lute's soft notes above,
With sweet enchantment to the soul it steals,
And bears it to Elysium's happy grove ;
You best can tell the raptures Psyche feels
When love's ambrosial lip the vows of Hymen
seals. Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
Oh ! have you never known the silent charm
That undisturb'd retirement yields the soul,
Where no intruder might your peace alarm,
And tenderness have wept without control,
While melting fondness o'er the bosom stole ?
Did fancy never, in some lonely grove,
Abridge the hours which must in absence roll!
Those pensive pleasures did you never prove,
Oh, you have never lov'd ! You know not what is
love ! Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
Man may despoil his brother man of all
That 's great or glittering — kingdoms fall — hosts
yield —
Friends fail — slaves fly — and all betray, and,
more
Than all, the most indebted — but a heart
That loves without self-love ! 'T is here ! now
prove it. Byron's Sardanapalus.
Peace ! I have sought it where it should be found,
In love — with love too — which perhaps deserv'd
it;
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart —
A weakness of the spirit — listless days,
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep,
Have come upon me.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
Alas ' what else is love but sorrow ? Even
Fie who made the earth and love, had soon to grieve
Above its first and best inhabitants.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
My Adah ! let me call thee mine,
Albeit thou art not : 't is a word I cannot
Part witu, although I must from thee.
Byron's Heaven and Earth,
Let none think to fly the danger,
For soou or late love is his own avenger.
Byron.
He who hath lov'd not, here would learn that love,
And make his heart a spirit; he who knows
That tender mystery, will love the more,
For this is love's recess, where vain men's woes
And the world's waste hath driven him far from
those,
For 't is his nature to advance or die ;
He stands not still, but or decays or grows
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie
With the immortal lights, in its eternity !
Byron's Childe Harold.
Oh love ! no habitant of earth thou art —
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart ;
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see,
The naked eye, thy form as it shall be ;
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
Even with its own desiring phantasy,
And to a thought such shape and image given,
As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd — wea-
ried — wrung — and riven.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Oh ! I envy those
Whose hearts on hearts as faithful can repose,
Who never feel the void, the wandering thought
That sighs o'er visions — such as mine hath
wrought. Byron's Giaour.
Yes, love indeed is light from heaven,
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shar'd, by Alia given,
To lift from earth our low desire.
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But heaven itself descends in love ;
A feeling from the god-head caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought ;
A ray of him who fbrm'd the whole :
A glory circling round the soul !
Byron's Giaour.
Love will find its way
Through paths where wolves would fear to prey,
And if it dares enough 't were hard
If passion met not some reward.
Byron's Giaour.
The cold in clime are cold in blood,
Their love can scarce deserve the name :
But mine was like the lava flood
That boils in ^Etna's breast of flame.
Byron's Giaour.
To love the softest hearts are prone,
But such can ne'er be all his own ;
Too timid in his woes to share,
Too meek to meet, or brave despair :
And sterner hearts alone can feel
The wound that time can never heal.
Byron's Giaour.
LOVE.
323
Thus passions fire and woman's art,
Can turn and tame the sternest heart ;
From these its form and tone are ta'en,
And what they make it, must remain,
But break — before it bend again.
Byron's Giaour.
Ours too the glance none saw beside ;
The smile none else might understand ;
The whisper'd thought of hearts allied,
The pressure of the thrilling hand.
Byron.
Then there were sighs the deeper for suppression,
And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,
And burning blushes, though for no transgression,
Trembling, when met, and restlessness when left.
Byron.
I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride
Had quench'd at length my boyish flame ;
Nor knew, till seated by thy side,
My heart in all, save hope, the same.
Byron.
Man's love is of man's life a thing, a part,
'T is woman's whole existence ; man may range
The court, the camp, church, vessel, and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange ;
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart ;
And few there are whom these cannot estrange ;
Men have all these resources, we but one —
To love again, and be again undone.
Byron.
Alas ! the love of women ! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful tiling ;
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown,
And if 't is lost, life has no more to bring
To them but mockeries of the past alone.
Byron.
Upon his hand she laid her own —
Light was the touch, but it thrill' d to the bone,
And shot a chillness to his heart,
Which fix'd him beyond the power to start.
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
Yes — it was love — if thoughts of tenderness,
Tried in temptation, strengthen' d by distress,
Unmov'd by absence, firm in every clime,
And yet — oh more than all ! untired by time ,
Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile,
Could render sullen were she near to smile,
Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent
On her one murmur of his discontent ;
Which still would meet with joy, with calmness
part,
Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart ;
Which nought removed, nor menaced to remove —
If Ihero be love in mortals — this was love !
Byron's Corsair.
And he was mourn'd by one whose quiet grief}
Less loud, outlasts a people's for their chief!
Vain was all question ask'd her of the past,
And vain e'en menace — silent to the last ;
She told nor whence nor why she left behind
Her all for one who seem'd but little kind.
Why did she love him? curious fool! be still —
Is human love the growth of human will?
To her he might be gentleness ; the stern
Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern,
And when they love, your smilers guess not how
Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.
Byron's Lara
All the stars of heaven,
The deep blue moon of night, lit by an orb
Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world —
j The hues of twilight — the sun's gorgeous coming —
j His setting indescribable, which fills
' My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold
j Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him
Along the western paradise of clouds —
The forest shade — the green bough — the bird's
voice,
The vesper bird's — which seems to sing of love,
And mingles with the song of cherubim,
As the day closes over Eden's walls —
All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart,
Like Adah's face : I turn from earth to heaven
To gaze on it.
Byron's Cain.
The all-absorbing flame
Which, kindled by another, grows, the same,
Wrapt in one blaze ; the pure, yet funeral pile,
W T here gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile.
Byron.
With thee, all toils are sweet; each clime hath
charms ;
Earth — sea alike — our world within our arms.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Holy and fervent love ! had earth but rest
For thee and thine, this world were all too fair !
How could we thence be wean'd to die without
? Mrs. Hemans'e Poem*
They sin who tell us love can die :
W r ith love all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity ;
In heaven ambition cannot dwell,
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell ;
Earthly these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their birth ,
But Love is indestructible ;
Its holy liame for ever burneth,
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth
Soitthr*
324
LOVE.
Mightier far
Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,
Is love, though oft to agony distrest,
And though his favourite seat be feeble woman's
breast. , Wordsworth.
There is a comfort in the strength of love;
'T will make a thing endurable, which else
Would overset the brain, or break the heart.
Wordsworth.
I love thee, and I feel
That on the fountain of my heart a seal
Is set to keep its waters pure and bright
For thee.
Shelley.
In many ways does the full heart reveal
The presence of the love it would conceal.
Coleridge.
Love is a superstition that doth fear
The idol which itself has made
Sir Thomas Overbury.
(rod gives us love. Something to love
He lends us ; but when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.
Tennyson.
Let no one say that there is need
Of time for love to grow ;
Ah no ! the love that kills indeed
Despatches at a blow.
Lord Holland.
Love is a pearl of purest hue,
But stormy waves are round it,
And dearly may a woman rue
The hour that first she found it.
Miss Landon.
It is a fearful thing
To love as I love thee ; to feel the world —
The bright, the beautiful, joy-giving world —
A blank without thee. Never more to me
Can hope, joy, fear, wear different seeming. Now,
.1 have no hope that does not dream for thee ;
I have no joy that is not shar'd by thee ;
I have no fear that does not dread for thee ;
All that I once took pleasure in — my lute,
Js only sweet when it repeats thy name ;
My flowers, I only gather them for thee ;
The book drops listless down, I cannot read,
Unless it is to thee ; my lonely hours
.tire spent in shaping forth our future lives,
After my own romantic fantasies.
'Ie is the sxar round which my thoughts revolve
Like satellites.
Miss Landon's Poems.
Love is of heavenly birth,
But turns to death on touching earth.
Miss Landon.
Love ! thou art not a king alone,
Both slave and king thou art !
Who seeks to sway, must stoop to own
Thy kingdom of the heart.
The New Timon.
To say he lov'd,
Was to affirm what oft his eye avouch'd,
What many an action testified, and yet,
What wanted confirmation of his tongue.
J. Sheridan Knowles.
Love not — love not — the thing you love may
change,
The rosy lips may cease to smile on you ;
The kindly beaming eye grow cold and strange,
The heart still warmly beat, and not for you.
Mrs. Norton.
Oh ! love, love well, but only once ! for never shall
the dream
Of youthful hope return again on life's dark rolling
stream. Mrs. Norton
Into my heart a silent look
Flash'd from thy careless eyes,
And what before was shadow, took
The light of summer skies.
The first-born love was in that look ;
The Venus rose from out the deep
Of those inspiring eyes.
Bulwer's Poems.
There's a love which, born
In early days, lives on through silent years,
Nor ever shines but in the hour of sorrow,
When it shows brightest — like the trembling light
Of a pale sunbeam breaking o'er the face
Of the wild waters in their hour of warfare.
Frances Kemhle Butler — Francis 1
The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love ;
The taint of earth, the odour of the skies,
Is in it.
Bailey's Festus
Oh ! love is like the rose,
And a month it may not see,
Ere it withers where it grows.
Bailey's FestuS
But lov'd he never after ? Came there none
To roll the stone from his sepulchral heart,
And sit in it an angel ?
Bailey's Festus
Love is a sorry slave,
And a sad mastor.
Simms's Poems
LOVE.
32f
The sick soul,
Tliat burns with love's delusions, ever dreams,
Dreading its losses. It for ever makes
A gloomy shadow gather in the skies,
And clouds the day; and, looking far beyond
The glory in its gaze, it sadly sees
Countless privations, and far-coming storms,
Shrinking from what it conjures.
Simms's Poems.
Then crush, e 'en in the hour of birth
The infant buds of love,
And tread the growing fire to earth
Ere 'tis dark in clouds above.
Cherish no more a cypre.ss tree
To shade thy future years,
Nor nurse a heart-flame that must be
Quench'd only with thy tears.
Halleck's Poems.
Love has perish'd : — hist, hist, how they tell,
Beating pulse of mine, his funeral knell !
Love is dead ! ay, dead and gone !
Why should I be living on ?
Mrs. E. O. Smith's Poems.
Give me to love my fellow, and in love,
If with none other grace to chaunt my strain,
Sweet key-note of soft cadences above,
Sole star of solace in life's night of pain ;
Chief gem of Eden, fractur'd in the fall
That ruin'd two fond hearts and tarnish'd all !
Ralph Hoyt.
Our love came as the early dew
Comes unto drooping flowers ;
Dropping its first sweet freshness on
Our life's dull, lonely hours :
As each pale blossom lifts its head,
Reviv'd with blessings nightly shed,
By summer breeze and dew, —
Oh ! thus our spirits rose beneath
Love's gentle dews and living breath,
To drink of life anew !
Mrs. R. S. Nichols.
She had mark'd
The silent youth, and with a beauty's eye
Knew well she was belov'd ; and though her light
And bounding spirit still was wild and gay,
And sporting in the revel, yet her hours
Of solitude were visited by him
Who look'd with such deep passion.
Percival.
Unhappy he, who lets a tender heart,
Bound to him by the ties of earliest love.
Fall from him by his own neglect, and die,
Because it met no kindness.
Percival.
Love's altar oft is kindled by the ray
That beams from gratitude.
Mrs. Hale's Orrnond Grosvenor.
Love's reign is eternal,
The heart is his throne,
And he has all seasons
Of life for his own.
G. P. Morris
O, he 's accurst from all that 's good,
W r ho never knew Love's healing power ;
Such sinner on his sins must brood,
And wait alone his hour.
If stranger to earth's beauty — human love,
There is no rest below, nor hope above.
Dana
If we love one another,
Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mis
chances may happen.
Longfellow's Evangeline.
True love is at home on a carpet,
And mightily likes his ease, —
And true love has an eye for a dinner,
And starves beneath shady trees.
His wing is the fan of a lady,
His foot 's an invisible thing,
And his arrow is tipp'd with a jewel,
And shot from a silver string.
Willis's Poems.
Love knoweth every form of air,
And every shape of earth,
And comes, unbidden, everywhere,
Like thought's mysterious birth.
Willis's Poems
Love
Has lent life's wings a rosy hue ;
But, ah ! Love's dyes were caught above ;
They brighten — but they wither too.
Willis's Poems
Ask me not why I should love her :
Look upon those soul-full eyes !
Look while mirth or feeling move her,
And see there how sweetly rise
Thoughts gay and gentle from a breast
Which is of innocence the nest —
Which, though each joy were from it fled,
By truth would still be tenanted !
Hoffman' 8 Poem*
Oh, early love, too fair thou art
For earth, — too beautiful and pure; —
Fast fade thy day-dreams from the heart,
But all thy waking woes endure
Mrs. Whitman
23
3'J6
LOVERS.
LOVERS.
Thus warred he long- time against his will,
Till that through weakness he was fore'd at last
To yield himself unto the mighty ill,
Which as a victor proud gan ransack fast
His inward parts, and all his entrails wast,
That neither blood in face, nor life in heart,
It left, but both did quite dry up and blast,
As piercing leven, which the inner part'
Of every thing consumes, and calcineth by art.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
She greatly gan enamoured to wax,
And with vain thoughts her falsed fancy vex :
Her fickle heart conceived hasty fire,
Like sparks of fire that fall in slender flex,
That shortly burnt into extreme desire,
And ransack'd all her veins with passion entire.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Sad, sour, and full of fancies frail
She grew, yet wist she neither how nor why ;
She wist not (silly maid) what she did aile,
Yet wist she was not well at ease perdy,
Yet thought it was not love but some melancholy.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Nor aught it mote the noble maid avail,
Nor slake the fury of her cruel flame,
But that she still did waste, and still did wait,
That through long languor, and heart burning
brame,
She shortly like a pined ghost became.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
The gnawing envy, the heart fretting fear,
The vain surmises, the distrustful shows,
The false reports that flying tales do bear,
The doubts, the dangers, the delays, the woes,
The feigned friends, the unassured foes,
With thousands more than any tongue can tell,
Do make a lover's life a witch's hell.
Spenser's Hymn in honour of Love.
The rolling wheel, that runneth often round,
The hardest steel in tract of time doth tear ;
And drizzling drops, that often do redound,
Firmest flint doth in continuance wear :
Yet cannot T, with many a dropping tear,
And long entreaty, soften her hard heart,
That she will once vouchsafe my plaint to hear,
Or look with pity on my painful smart :
Rut when I plead, she bids me play my part;
And when 1 weep, she says tears are but water ;
And when I sigh, she says I know the art ;
And when I wail, she turns herself to laughter ;
Ko do I weep and wail, and plead in vain,
While she as steel and flint doth still remain.
Spenser.
Humbled with fear and awful reverence, J
Before the footstool of his majesty, )
Throw thyself down, with trembling innocence, I
Nor dare look up with corruptible eye
On the dread face of that great deity,
For fear, lest if he chance to look on thee,
Thou turn to nought, and quite confounded be.
Spenser
Lovers' eyes more sharply sighted be
Than other men's, and in dear love's delight
See more than any other eyes can see.
Spenser
Lovers and madmen have such soothing brains,
Such sharp fantasies, that they apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream
Such as I am, all true lovers are ;
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save, in the constant image of the creature
That is belov'd.
Shales. Twelfth Night
Then, the lover;
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow.
Shales. As you like it
If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not lov'd.
Shaks. As you like it
A lover may bestride the gossamours
That idle in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall ; so light is vanity.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
It is my soul, that calls upon my name ;
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Now it is about the very hour
That Silvia, at friar Patrick's cell, should meet me
She will not fail ; for lovers break not hours,
Unless it be to come before their time ;
So much they spur their expedition.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona
Why so pale and wan, fond lover ?
Pr'ythee why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail ?
Pr'ythee why so pale?
Quit, quit, for shame ! this will not move,
This cannot take her;
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her : —
The devil take her.
Sir John Suckling.
LUST.
327
A lover is the very fool of nature,
Made sick by his own wantonness of thought,
His fever'd fancy.
Thomson's Sophonisba.
Thus would he wile his lonely hours away
Dissatisfied, nor knowing what he wanted ;
Nor glowing reverie, nor poet's lay,
Could yield his spirit that for which it panted,
A bosom whereon he his head might lay,
And hear the heart beat with the love it granted.
Byron.
Instead of poppies, willows
Wav'd o'er his couch ; he meditated, fond
Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep,
And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep.
Byron.
Ah ! I remember well (and how can I
But evermore remember well) when first
Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The flame we felt ; when as we sat and sigh'd
And look'd upon each other, and conceiv'd
Not what we ail'd — yet something we did ail ;
And yet were well, and yet we were not well,
And what was our disease we could not tell.
Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look, and thus
In that first garden of our simpleness
We spent our childhood. But when years began
To reap the fruit of knowledge, ah, how then
Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern
brow,
Check my presumption and my forwardness ;
Yet still would give me flowers, still would me
show
What she would have me, yet not have me know.
Charles Lamb.
And had he not long read
The heart's hush'd secret, in the soft dark eye
Lighted at his approach, and on the cheek,
Colouring all crimson at his lightest look ?
Miss London.
They parted as all lovers part; —
She with her wrong'd and breaking heart ;
But he rejoicing to be free,
Bounds like a captive from his cham,
And wilfully believing she
Hath found her liberty again ;
Or if dark thoughts will cross his mind,
They are but clouds before the wind.
Miss London.
Never thread was spun so fine,
Never spider stretch'd the line,
Would not hold the lovers true
That would really swing for you.
O. W. Holmes.
Tell me not of a soft-sighing lover ;
Such things may be had by the score ;
I'd rather be bride to a rover,
And polish the rifle he bore.
Eliza Cook
This hand hath oft been held by one
Who now is far away;
And here I> sit and sigh alone,
Through all the weary day.
Bailey's Festus
They never lov'd as thou and I,
Who minister'd the moral,
That aught which deepens love can lie
In true love's lightest quarrel.
They never knew, in times of fear,
The safety of Affection,
Nor sought, when angry Fate drew neai,
Love's Altar for protection; —
They never knew how kindness grows
A vigil and a care,
Nor watch'd beside the heart's repose
In silence and in prayer.
Bulwer's P terns
For weaker loves be storms enough
To frighten back Desire;
We have no need of gales so rough
To fan our steadier fire.
Bulwer's Poems
Our love it ne'er was reckon'd,
Yet good it is and true ;
It 's half the world to me, dear,
It's all the world to you!
Hooa
Let us love now, in this our fairest youth,
When love can find a full and fond return.
Percical
LUST.
As pale and wan as ashes was his look,
His body lean and meagre as a rake,
And skin all wither'd like a dried rook ;
Thereto as cold and dreary as a snake,
That seem'd to tremble evermore and quake.
Spenser's Fairy Queen
Lust is, of all the frailties of our nature,
What most we ought to fear ; the headstrong beasi
Rushes along, impatient jf the course ;
Nor hears the rider's call, nor feels the rein.
Rome's Royal Convert
Capricious, wanton, bold, and brutal lust,
Is meanly selfish ; when resisted, cruel ;
And, like the blast of pestilential winds,
Taints the sweet bloom of nature's fairest fbrm»
Milton's Comu*
323
LUXURY -MADNESS.
But when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish arts of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.
Milton's Comus.
I know the very difference that lies
'Twixt hallow'd love and base unholy lust ;
I know the one is as a golden spur,
Urging the spirit to all noble aims ;
The other but a foul and miry pit,
O'erthrowing it in midst of its career.
Fanny Kemble Butler. — Francis I.
LUXURY.
There, in her den, lay pompous luxury,
Stretch'd out at length ; no vice could boast such
high
And genial victories as she had won :
Of which proud trophies there at large were shown,
Besides small states and kingdoms ruined,
Those mighty monarchies, that had o'erspread
The spacious earth, and stretch'd their conquering
arms
From pole to pole, by her ensnaring charms
Were quite consum'd : there lay imperial Rome,
That vanquish'd all the world, by her o'ercome :
Fetter'd was th' old Assyrian lion there ;
The Grecian leopard, and the Persian bear ;
With others numberless, lamenting by :
Examples of the power of luxury.
May's Henry II,
It is a shame, that man, that has the seeds
Of virtue in him, springing unto glory,
Should make his soul degenerous with sin,
Aj]d slave to luxury ; to drown his spirits
In lees of sloth ; to yield up the weak day
To wine, to lust, and banquets.
Marmyon's Holland's Leaguer.
luxury ! thou curs'd by heaven's decree,
How ill-exchang'd are things like these for thee !
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy !
Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own :
At ev'ry draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe ;
Till oapp'd their strength, and ev'ry part unsound,
Down down, they sink, and spread a ruin round.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Vain end of human strength, of human skill,
Conquests, and triumph, and domain, and pomp,
And ease and luxury ! O luxury,
Bane of elated life, of affluent states,
What dreary change, what ruin is not thine ?
How doth thy bowl intoxicate the mind !
To the soft entrance of thy rosy cave
How dost thou lure the fortunate and great !
Dreadful attraction ! while behind thee gapes
Th' unfathomable gulf where Asher lies
O'erwhelm'd, forgotten; and high boasting Cham;
And Elam's haughty pomp ; and beauteous
Greece ;
And the great queen of earth, imperial Rome.
Dyer's Ruins of Rome.
War destroys men, but luxury mankind
At once corrupts ; the body and the mind.
Crown's Caligula.
Fell luxury ! more perilous to youth
Than storms or quicksands, poverty or chains.
Hannah More's Belshazzar.
Sofas 't was half a sin to sit upon,
So costly were they ; carpets every stitch
Of workmanship so rare, they made you wish
You could glide o'er them like a golden fish.
Byron.
I cannot spare the luxury of believing
That all things beautiful are what they seem.
Halleck
MADNESS.
If a phrenzy do possess the brain,
It so disturbs and blots the form of things,
As fantasy proves altogether vain,
And to the wit no true relation brings.
Sir John Davis.
This is mere madness ;
And thus awhile the fit will work on him :
When that the golden couplets are disclos'd,
His silence will sit drooping.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Ecstasy !
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And make as healthful music : It is not madness
That I have utter'd : bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word ; which madness
Would gambol from.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks :
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place :
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.
Shaks. Hamlet
MAN.
329
Alas ! how is 't with you ?
That you do bend your ej T es on vacancy,
And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse ?
Shaks. Hamlet.
what a noble mind is here o'erthrown !
The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue,
sword ;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observ'd of all observers ! quite, quite down !
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
I Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
! Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh.
Shaks. Hamlet.
| This is the very coinage of your brain :
This bodiless creation ecstasy
! Is very cunning in.
Shaks. Hamlet.
I I am not mad ; — I would to heaven I were !
For then, 't is like I should forget myself;
O, if I could, what grief should I forget !
Shaks. King John.
1 am not mad ; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.
Shaks. King John.
Alack, 't is he ; why, he was met even now
As mad as the vext sea ; singing aloud,
Crown'd with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,
With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckow flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.
Shaks. King Lear.
How stiff is my vile sense,
That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling
Of my huge sorrows ! better I were distract :
So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs,
And woes, by wrong imagination, lose
The knowledge of themselves.
Shaks. King Lear.
O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believ'st
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
That I am touch'd with madness.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
There is a pleasure in being mad,
Which none but madmen know.
Dryden's Spanish Friar.
He raves, his words are loose
As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense :
So high he 's mounted on his airy throne,
That now the wind has got into his head,
And turns his brains to phrensy.
Dry den's SpanisJi Friar.
O this poor brain ! ten thousand shapes of fury
Are whirling there, and reason is no more.
Fielding's Eurydics.
His brain is wrecked —
For ever in the pauses of his speech
His lip doth work with inward mutterings
And his fixed eye is riveted fearfully
On something that no other sight can spy.
Maturin's Bertram.
She looked on many a face with vacant eye,
On many a token without knowing what;
She saw them watch her without asking why,
And reck'd not who around her pillow sate ;
Not speechless, though she spoke not ; not a sigh
Relieved her thoughts, dull silence and quick chat
Were tried in vain by those who served ; she gave
No sign, save breath, of having left the grave.
Byron.
Every sense
Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense ;
And each frail fibre of her brain
(As bow-strings, when relaxed by rain,
The erring arrow launch aside)
Sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide.
Byron's Parisina.
This wretched brain gave way,
And I became a wreck, at random driven,
Without one glimpse of reason or of heaven.
Moore's Lalla Rookh
Gentle as angel's ministry
The guiding hand of love should be,
Which seeks again those chords to bind
Which human woe hath rent apart —
To heal again the wounded mind,
And bind anew the broken heart.
The hand which tunes to harmony
The cunning harp whose strings are riven,
Must move as light and quietly
As that meek breath of summer heaven,
Which woke of old its melody ; —
And kindness to the dim of soul,
Whilst aught of rude and stern control
The clouded heart can deeply feel,
Is welcome as the odours fanned
From some unseen and flowery land,
Around the weary seaman's keel.
J. G. Whittle.
MAN.
His life was gentle ; and the elements
So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up.
And say to all the world, — This is a man !
Shaks. Julius Ccps'r
28*
330
MAN.
See, what a grace was seated on his brow:
Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command ;
A station, like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
Shales. Hamlet.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Shaks. Hamlet.
If you were men, as men you are in show,
You would not use a gentle lady so.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
He bears him like a portly gentleman ;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him,
To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
He was not born to shame :
Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;
For 't is a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men ; all perjur'd,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes ; one, that by suggestion
Ty'd all the kingdom ; simony was fair play ;
His own opinion was his law. I' th' presence
He would say untruths ; and be ever double,
Both in his words and meaning : He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful :
His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
S?azks. Henry VIII.
This cardinal,
Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
Was fashion'd to much honour. From his cradle
He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one ;
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading :
Lofty, and sour, to them that lov'd him not ;
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as
summer. Shaks. Henry VIII.
His nature is too noble for the world :
1 le would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for his power to thunder. His heart 's
nis mouth :
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent ;
And, being angry, does forget that ever
He hearo the name of death.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
But we all are muA,
In our own natures frail ; and capable
Of our flesh, few are angels.
SJtaks. Henry VIJl
His years but young, but his experience old ;
His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe
And, in a word, (for far behind his worth
Come all the praises that I now bestow,)
He is complete in feature, and in mind,
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
SJiaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt right royal ;
The spacious world cannot again afford.
Shaks. Richard III.
By his light,
Did all the chivalry of England move
To do brave acts : he was, indeed, the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
In speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In military rules, humours of blood,
He was the mark and glass, copy, and book,
That fashion'd others.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day, for melting charity :
Yet, notwithstanding, being incens'd, he 's flint ;
As humorous as winter, and as sudden
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
By my hopes,
(This present enterprise set off his head,)
I do not think a braver gentleman,
More active-valiant, or more valiant-young,
More daring, or more bold, is now alive,
To grace this latter age with nobler deeds.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
However we may praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and infirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
Than women's are.
Shaks. Twelfth Night.
Man is a vagabond both poor and proud,
He treads on beasts who give him clothes and
food;
But the gods catch him wheresoe'er he lurks,
Whip him, and set him to all painful works :
And yet he brags he shall be crown'd when dead.
Were ever princes in a Bridewell bred ?
Cruwne.
I:
MAN.
33i
For some philosophers of late here,
Write, men have four legs by nature,
And that 't is custom makes them go
Erroneously upon but two. ^^ Hudibms _
Man was mark'd
A friend in his creation to himself,
And may with fit ambition conceive
The greatest blessings, and the brightest honours
Appointed for him, if he can achieve them
The right and noble way.
Massingefs Guardian.
Man is supreme lord and master
i Of his own ruin and disaster ;
Controls his fate, but nothing less
In ord'ring his own happiness :
For all his care and providence
Is too, too feeble a defence
To render it secure and certain
Against the injuries of fortune ;
\ And oft, in spite of all his wit,
Is lost with one unlucky hit,
And ruin'd with a circumstance,
And mere punctilio of chance.
Massinger's Guardian.
His fair large front, and eye sublime, declar'd
Absolute rule, and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of heav'n on all his ways ;
While other animals unactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
Till thou return unto the ground ; for thou
Out of the ground wast taken, know thy birth,
For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Eternal deities,
Who rule the world with absolute decrees,-
And write whatever time shall bring to pass,
With pens of adamant, on plates of brass ;
Why is the race of human kind your care,
Beyond what all his fellow-creatures are ?
He with the rest is liable to pain,
And like the sheep, his brother beast, is slain.
Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure,
All these he must, and guiltless of, endure ;
Or does your justice, power, or prescience fail,
When the good suffer, or the bad prevail ?
What worse to wretched virtue could befall,
If fate or giddy fortune govern'd all ?
Nay, worse than other beasts is our estate :
Them, to pursue their pleasures, you create ;
We, bound by harder laws, must curb our will,
And your commands, not our desires, fulfil ;
Then, when the creature is unjustly slain,
Yet after death at least he feels no pain ;
But man, in life surcharg'd with woe before,
Not freed when dead, is doom'd to suffer more.
Dry den's Palamon and Arcitt.
Men are but children of a larger growth ;
Our appetites are apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving too, and full as vain.
Dry den's All for Love.
Man is but man, inconstant still, and various !
There 's no to-morrow in him like to-day !
Perhaps the atoms rolling in his brain,
Make him think honestly the present hour ;
The next a swarm of base ungrateful thoughts
May mount aloft.
Dryden
O inconstant man !
How will you promise I how will you deceive !
Otwai/s Venice Preserved.
Trust not a man : we are by nature false,
Dissembling, subtle, cruel, and inconstant;
When a man talks of love, with caution hear him,
But if he swears, he '11 certainly deceive thee.
Otway's Orphan.
Men are not still the same ; our appetites
Are various, and inconstant as the moon,
That never shines with the same face again :
'T is nature's curse never to be resolv'd,
Busy to-day in the pursuit of what
To-morrow's eldest judgment may despise.
Southern's Disappointment
Drive me, O drive me from that traitor, man !
So I might 'scape that monster, let me dwell
In lions' haunts, or in some tiger's den :
Place me on some steep, craggy, ruin'd rock,
That bellies out, just dropping in the ocean :
Bury me in the hollow of its womb :
Where, starving on my cold and flinty bed,
I may from far, with giddy apprehension,
See infinite fathoms down the rumbling deep;
Yet not e'en there, in that vast whirl of death.
Can there be found so terrible a ruin
As man ! false man ! smiling, destructive man
Li*
Cease, man of woman born, to hope relief
From daily trouble and continued grief;
The hope of joy deliver to the wind,
Suppress thy passions, and prepare thv mind
Free and familiar with misfortune grow.
Be us'd to sorrow, and inur'd to woe ■
MAN.
By weakening toil an hoary age o'crcome,
Sec thy decrease, and hasten to the tomb.
Prior's Soloman.
But do these worlds display their beams, or guide
Their orbs, to serve thy use, to please thy pride ?
Thyself but dust, thy stature but a span,
A moment thy duration, foolish man !
As well may the minutest emmet say,
That Caucasus was rais'd to pave his way ;
The snail, that Lebanon's extended wood
Was destin'd only for his walk and food ;
The vilest cockle, gaping on the coast
That rounds the ample seas, as well may boast
The craggy rock projects above the sky,
That he in safety at its foot may lie ;
And the whole ocean's confluent waters swell,
Only to quench his thirst, and blanch his shell.
Prior's Soloman.
Condcmn'd to sacrifice his childish years
To babbling ignorance, and empty fears;
To pass the riper period of his age,
Acting his part upon a crowded stage ;
To lasting toils expos'd, and endless cares,
To open dangers, and to secret snares ;
To malice, which the vengeful foe intends,
And the more dangerous love of seeming friends.
Prior's Soloman.
Brutes find out where their talents lie;
A bear will not attempt to fly;
A founder'd horse will oft debate,
Before he tries a five-barr'd gate;
A dog by instinct turns aside
Who sees the ditch too deep and wide;
But man we find the only creature
Who, led by folly, combats nature;
Who, when she loudly cries — forbear,
With obstinacy fixes there ;
And, where his genius least inclines,
Absurdly bends his whole designs.
Swift on Poetry.
As Rochefoucault his maxims drew
From nature, I believe them true;
They argue no corrupted mind
In him : the fault is in mankind.
Swift.
Vain human Kind ! fantastic race .
Thy various follies who can trace?
Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,
Their empire in our hearts divide.
Swift.
This vast and solid earth, that blazing sun,
Those skies, thro' which it rolls, must all have end.
Who I tnen is man? the smallest part of nothing.
Young's Revenge.
Fond man ! the vision of a moment made !
Dream of a dream ! and shadow of a shade !
Young's Paraphrase of Job.
Father of mercies ! why from silent earth
Did'st thou awake, and curse mc into birth ?
Tear me from quiet, ravish me from night,
And make a thankless present of thy light ?
Push into being a reverse of thee,
And animate a clod with misery ?
Young's Last Day.
O what a miracle to man is man,
Triumphantly distress'd ! what joy ! what dread !
Alternately transported, and alarm'd !
What can preserve my life ! or what destroy !
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave ;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.
Young's Night Thoughts
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man !
How passing wonder He, who made him such !
Who centred in our make such strange extremes .
From different natures marvellously mixt,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds !
Distinguish^ link in being's endless chain !
Midway from nothing to the Deity !
A beam ethereal, sully'd, and absorpt!
Tho' sully'd, and dishonour'd, still divine !
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory ! a frail child of dust !
Helpless immortal ! insect infinite !
A worm ! a god !
Young's Night Thoughts
All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that thro' ev'ry stage : when young indeed,
In full content, we, sometimes, nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves ; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool ;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves ; and re-resolves ; then dies the same.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Hcav'n's sov'reign saves all beings, but himself,
That hideous sight, — a naked human heart.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Man, know thyself. All wisdom centres there :
To none man seems ignoble, but to man.
Young's Night Thoughts.
'Tis vain to seek in men for more than man.
Though proud in promise, big in previous thought,
Experience damps our triumph.
Young's Night Thoughts.
MAN.
333
We wisely strip the steed we mean to buy :
Judge we, in their caparisons, of men ?
Young's Night Thoughts.
Let business vex him, avarice blind,
Let doubt and knowledge rack mankind,
Let error act, opinion speak,
And want afflict, and sickness break,
And anger burn, dejection chill,
And joy distract, and sorrow kill,
Till, arm'd by care, and taught to mow,
Time draws the long destructive blow,
Parnett's Allegory on Man.
Mankind one day serene and free appear ;
The next, they 're cloudy, sullen and severe ;
New passions, new opinions still excite ;
And what they like at noon, they leave at night.
They gain with labour what they quit with ease ;
And health, for want of change, becomes disease :
Religion's bright authority they dare,
And yet are slaves to superstitious fear.
They counsel others, but themselves deceive,
And though they're cozen'd still, they still believe.
So false their censure, fickle their esteem,
This hour they worship, and the next blaspheme.
Garth.
Not always actions show the man ; we find
Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind ;
Perhaps prosperity becalm' d his breast,
Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east :
Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat,
Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the
great :
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave,
He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave :
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,
His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.
Pope's Moral Essays.
In vain the sage with retrospective eye,
Would from th' apparent " what," conclude the
" why,"
Infer the motive from the deed, and show,
That which we chanc'd, was what we meant to do.
Behold if fortune or a mistress frowns,
Some plunge in business, others shave their erowns ;
To ease the soul of one oppressive weight,
This quits an empire, that embroils a state :
The same adust complexion has impell'd
Charles to the convent, Philip to the field.
Pope's Moral Essays.
See the same man in vigour, in the gout;
Alone, in company : in place, or out ;
Early at business, and at hazard late ;
Mad at a fox-chase, wise in a debate ;
Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball ;
friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.
Pope's Moral Essays.
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.
Pope's Moral Essays
What crops of wit and honesty appear
From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear !
See anger, zeal, and fortitude supply ;
Ev'n avarice, prudence ; sloth, philosophy ;
Lust, through some certain strainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind;
Envy, to which the ignoble mind 's a slave,
Is emulation in the learn'd or brave ;
Nor virtue, male or female, can we name,
But what will grow on pride or grow on shame.
This nature gives us (let it check our pride,)
The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd ;
Reason the bias turns to good from ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus if he will.
The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine :
The same ambition can destroy or save,
And make a patriot as it makes a knave.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Know nature's children all divide her care ;
The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear.
While man exclaims, " see all things for my use. !"
" See man for mine !" replies a pamper'd goose :
And just as short of reason he must fall,
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Man cares for all : to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods :
For some, his interest prompts him to provide,
For some his pleasure, yet for more his pride :
All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy
Th' extensive blessing of his luxury.
That very life his learned hunger craves,
He saves from famine, from the savage saves ;
Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being, makes it blest :
Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd man by touch ethereal slain.
The creature had his feast of life before ;
Thou too must perish when thy feast is o'er !
Pope's Essay on Man
See him from nature rising slow to art !
To copy instinct there was reason's part:
Thus then to man the voice of nature spake —
Go, from the creatures thy instructions take ;
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yiel<^
Learn from the beasts the physics of the field ,
Thy arts of building from the bee receive ;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to wea\ti
Learn of the little Nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin bit. and catch the driving gale.
Pope's Essay on Mav
334
MAN.
Heboid the child by nature's kindly law
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw ;
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite ;
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage ;
And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age ;
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before;
Till tir'd he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.
Pope's Essay on Man.
When the proud steed shall know why man
restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains ;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god ;
Then shall man's pride and dullness comprehend
His actions, passions, being's use and end ;
Why doing, suff 'ring, check'd, impell'd ; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan :
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great,
With too much knowledge for the sceptic's side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest ;
In doubt to deem himself a god or beast.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Superior beings when of late they saw
A mortal man unfold all nature's law,
Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And show'd a Newton as we show an ape.
Pope's Essay on Man.
A man so various that he scem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome ;
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong,
Was every thing by starts, and nothing .ong.
But in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks, that died in thinking ;
Blcss'd madman, who could every hour employ
In something new to wish, or to enjoy !
In squand'ring wealth was his peculiar art,
Nothing went unrewarded but desert, o , ,
What is the mind of man? A restless scene
Of vanity and weakness ; shifting still,
As shift the lights of our uncertain knowledge;
< >r as the various gale of passion breathes.
Thomson's Coriolanus.
Thus they rejoice, nor think
I hat. with to-morrow's sun, their annual toil
iteqixis again the never-ceasing round.
Thomson's Seasons.
Man, who madly deems himself the lord
Of all, is nought but weakness and dependence.
This sacred truth, by sour experience taught,
Thou must have learnt, when, wandering all alone,
Each bird, each insect, flitting thro' the sky,
Was more sufficient for itself than thou.
Thomson's Corioicrnus.
Allure the people;
Train them by every art : poise every temper :
Avarice will sell his soul : buy that and mould it
Weakness will be deluded ; these grow eloquent.
Is there a tottering faith ? grapple it fast
By flatt'ry : and profusely deal thy favour*.
Threaten the guilty. Entertain the gay.
Frighten the rich. Find wishes for the wanton :
And reverence for the godly; — let none 'scape
thee. Hill's Merope.
Men are machines, with all their boasted freedom,
Their movements turn upon some favourite passion ;
Let art but find the foible out,
We touch the spring, and wind them at our
pleasure. Brooke's Gustavus Vasa
The way to conquer men is by their passions ;
Catch but the ruling foible of their hearts,
And all their boasted virtues shrink before you.
Tolson's Earl of Warwick.
Man's feeble race what ills await,
Labour and penury, the racks of pain,
Disease and sorrow's sweeping train,
And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate.
Gray's Progress of Poesy.
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great !
Gray's Spring.
How few are found with real talents bless'd,
Fewer with nature's gifts contented rest.
Man from his sphere eccentric starts astray,
All hunt for fame ; but most mistake the way.
Churchill's Rosciad
Then what is man? and what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man.
Cowper's Task
I remember as her bier
Went to the grave, a lark sprung up aloft,
And soar'd amid the sunshine calling
So full of joy, that to the mourner's ear,
More mournfully than dirge or passing bell,
His joyful carol came, and made us feel
That of the multitude of beings, none
But man was wretched !
Southey's Joan of Arc.
MAN.
335
The million flit as gay,
As if created only like the fly
That spreads his motley wings in th' eye of noon,
To sport their season, and be seen no more.
Camper's Task.
Ah, why, all righteous father, didst thou make
This creature, man ? why wake the unconscious
dust
To life and wretchedness ? better far
Still had he slept in uncreated night,
If this be the lot of being ! Was it for this
Thy breath divine kindled within his breast
The vital flame ? For this was thy fair image
Stampt on his soul in godlike lineaments ?
For this dominion given him absolute
O'er all thy works, only that he might reign
Supreme in woe.
Porteus's Death.
Affliction one day as she hark'd to the roar
Of a stormy and struggling billow,
Drew a beautiful form on the sand of the shore
! With the branch of a weeping willow.
Jupiter, struck with the noble plan,
As he roam'd on the verge of the ocean,
Breath'd on the figure, and calling it man,
Endued it with life and with motion.
A creature so glorious in mind and in frame,
So stampt with each parent's impression,
Between them a point of contention became,
Each claiming the right of possession.
He is mine, says affliction, I gave him his birth,
I alone am his cause of creation ;
The materials were furnish'd by me, answer'd
earth ;
I gave him, said Jove, — animation.
The gods all assembled in solemn divan,
After hearing each claimant's petition,
Pronounced a definitive verdict on man,
And thus settled his fate's disposition.
Let affliction possess her own child till the woes
Of life seem to harass and goad it ;
After death — give his body to earth whence it rose,
And his spirit to Jove who bestow'd it.
Sheridan.
The mind of man is vastly like a hive ;
His thoughts so busy ever — all alive !
But here the simile will go no further ;
For bees are making honey, one and all ;
Man's thoughts are busy in producing gall,
Committing as it were self-murder.
Dr. Wolcofs Peter Pindar.
Man 's an ass I say ;
Too fond of thunder, lightning, storm and rain :
He hides the charming cheerful ray
That spreads a smile on hill and plain.
Dr. Wolcofs Peter Pindar.
And in that rock are shapes of shells, and forms
Of creatures in old worlds, of nameless worms,
Whose generations lived and died ere man,
A worm of other class, to crawl began.
Crabbe.
Again attend ! — and see a man whose cares
Are nicely plac'd on either world's affairs, —
Merchant and saint ; 't is doubtful if he knows
To which account he most regard bestows.
Crabbt
O man ! while in thy early years,
How prodigal of time !
Misspending all thy precious hours,
Thy glorious youthful prime!
Alternate follies take the sway ;
Licentious passions burn ;
With tenfold force give nature's law,
That man was made to mourn.
Burnt
The hunting tribes of earth and air,
Respect the brethren of their birth ;
Nature, who loves the claim of kind,
Less cruel chase to each assigned ;
The falcon, poised on soaring wing,
Watches the wild-duck by the spring;
The slow hound wakes the fox's lair,
The grey-hound presses on the hare ;
The eagle pounces on the lamb,
The wolf devours the fleecy dam ;
Even tiger fell, and sullen bear,
Their likeness and their lineage spare,
Man, only, mars kind nature's plan,
And turns the fierce pursuit on man.
Scott's RoJceby
And even the wisest, do the best they can,
Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared,
That you might "brain them with their lady's fan :'
And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard,
And fans turn into falchions in fair hands,
And why and wherefore no one understands.
Byron
He knew himself a villain — but he deemed
The rest no better than the thing he seemed ;
And scorned the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.
He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loathed him crouched and areaded
too.
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt.
Byron's Corsait
True they had vices — such are nature's growdi-
But only the barbarian's — we have both.
Byron's xilantt
336
MAN.
Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, — for here
There is such matter for all feeling : — Man !
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.
Byron's CMlde Harold.
Born to be plough' d with years, and sown with
cares,
And reap'd by death, lord of the human soil.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
Maturer manhood now arrives,
And other thoughts come on,
But with the baseless hopes of youth,
Its generous warmth is gone;
Cold, calculating cares succeed
The timid thought, the wary deed,
The full realities of truth ;
Back on the past he turns his eye,
Remembering, with an envious sigh,
The happy dreams of youth .
So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,
With feeble step and slow;
New ills that latter stage await,
And old experience learns too late,
That all is vanity below.
Southey's Poems.
Once in the flight of ages past,
There liv'd a man : — and who was he?
. — Mortal ! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.
James Montgomery.
'T is man's pride,
His highest, worthiest, noblest boast,
The privilege he prizes most,
To stand by helpless woman's side.
Mrs. HolforoVs Margaret of Anjou.
Yes, thou mayst sneer, but still I own
A love that spreads from zone to zone :
No time the sacred fire can smother !
Where breathes the man, I hail the brother.
Man ! how sublime, — from Heaven his birth —
The God's bright Image walks the earth !
And if, at times, his footstep strays,
I pity where I may not praise.
Bulwer's Poems.
Learn more reverence — not for rank or wealth, —
that needs no learning ;
That comes quickly — quick as sin does ! ay, and
often leads to sin ;
But for Adam's seed, Man ! Trust me, 't is a clay
above your scorning,
With God's image stamp'd upon it, and God's
kindling breath within.
Miss Barrett's Poems.
Let lis think .ess of men and more of God.
Bailey's Fcstus.
Man is one :
And he hath one great heart. It is thus we feel,
With a gigantic throb athwart the sea ;
Each others' rights and wrongs ; thus are we men.
Bailey's Feslus.
Man crouches and blushes,
Absconds and conceals;
He creepcth and peepeth,
He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,
Jealous glancing around;
An oaf, an accomplice,
He poisons the ground.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Profounder, profounder,
Man's spirit must dive :
To his aye-rolling orbit
No goal will arrive.
The heavens that now draw him
With sweetness untold,
Once found, — for new heavens
He spurneth the old.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
By misery unrepell'd, unawed
By pomp or power, thou seest a Man
In prince or peasant — slave or lord —
Pale priest or swarthy artisan.
Whittier's Poems
Through all disguise, form, place or name
Beneath the flaunting robe of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within :
On man, as man, retaining yet,
Howe'er debas'd, and soil'd, and dim,.
The crown upon his forehead set —
The immortal gift of God to him.
Whiltier's Poems
Man on his brother's heart hath trod —
Man is man's mortal foe !
Man is antagonist to God —
This only do I know !
A. J. H. Duganne.
O mighty brother-soul of man,
Where'er thou art, in low or high,
Thy skyey arches with exulting span
O'er-roof infinity.
James Russell Lowell
All that hath been majestical
In life or death, since time began,
Is native in the simple heart of all,
The angel-hcart of man.
James Russell Lowell.
Boy's pleasures are for boyhood — its best cares
Befit us not in our performing years.
W. G. Simms
MARRIAGE.
337
Manhood at last ! — and, with its consciousness,
Are strength and freedom ; freedom to pursue
The purposes of hope — the godlike bliss
Born in the struggle for the great and true !
And every energy that should be mine,
This day I dedicate to its object, — Life !
So help me Heaven, that never I resign
The duty which devotes me to the strife.
W. G. Simms.
The soul of man
1 Createth its own destiny of power ;
And as the trial is intenser here,
His being hath a nobler strength in Heaven.
Willis's Poems.
' Many a man, still young, though wisely sad,
; Paces the sweet old shadows with a sigh,
The spirits are so mute to manhood's ear
That tranc'd the boy with music.
Willis's Poems.
Thou hast the secret strange
' Yc read that hidden book, the human heart ;
Thoi» '^ast the ready writer's practis'd art;
Thou hast the thought to range
The broadest circle intellect hath ran —
And thou art God's best work — an honest man.
Willis's Poems.
MARRIAGE.
From that day forth, in peace and joyous bliss
! They liv'd together long without debate ;
j Nor private jars, nor spite of enemies,
\ Could shake the safe assurance of their states.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Nothing shall assuage
Vour love but marriage : for such is
The tying of two in wedlock, as is
The tuning of two lutes in one key : for
Striking the strings of the one, straws will stir
Upon the strings of the other ; and in
Two minds link'd in love, one cannot be
Delighted, but the other rejoiceth.
Lilly's Sappho and Phaon.
Marriage is a matter of more worth,
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I.
What is wedlock forced but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife ?
Whereas the contrary bringeth forth bliss,
And is a pattern of celestial peace.
Shaks. Henry VI. Parti.
The instances, that second marriage move,
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
Shaks. Hamlet.
w
But ear her happy is the rose distillid,
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phcebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Mistress, know yourself; down on your knees
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love.
For I must tell you friendly in your ear, —
Sell when you can ; you are not for all markets.
Shaks. As you like it.
Her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
For know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumspection, and confine
For the sea's worth.
Shaks. Othello.
'T is not to make me jealous,
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous :
Nor from my own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear.
Shaks. Othello
No sweet aspersions shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow ; but barren hate,
Sour-eyed disdain, and discord, shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly,
That you shall hate it both ; therefore take heecL
Shaks. Tempest.
When the priest
Should ask — if Catharine should be his wife,
Ay, by gogs-wouns, quoth he ; and swore so loud
That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book ;
And, as he stoop'd again to take it up,
This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cufi,
That down fell priest and book, and book and
priest ;
Now take them up, quoth he, if any list.
Shaks. Taming the Shrew
Neglected beauty now is priz'd by gold ;
And sacred love is basely bought and sold :
Wives are grown traffic, marriage is a trade
And when a nuptial of two hearts is made.
There must of moneys too a wedding be,
That coin, as well as men, may multiply.
Randoipft
29
OGS
MARRIAGE.
The joys of marriage are the heaven on earth,
Life's paradise, great princess, the soul's quiet,
Sinews of concord, earthly immortality, _
Eternity of pleasures.
John Ford's Broken Heart.
Take thus much of my counsel. Marry not
In haste ; for she that takes the best of husbands,
Puts on a golden fetter : for husbands
Are like to painted fruit, which promise much,
But still deceive us, when we come to touch them.
Cvpid's Whirligig.
How many shepherds' daughters, who in duty
To gripling fathers have enthrall'd their beauty,
To wait upon the gout, to walk when pleases
Old January halt ! O that diseases
Should link with youth ! she that hath such a mate,
Is like two twins, born both incorporate ;
Th' one living, th' other dead : the living twin
Must needs be slain through noisomeness of him
He carries with him : such are their estates,
Who merely marry wealth, and not their mates.
Brown's Pastorals.
The hour of marriage ends the female reign !
And we give all we have to buy a chain ;
Hire men to be our lords, who were our slaves ;
And bribe our lovers to be perjur'd knaves.
O, how they swear to heaven and the bride,
They will be kind to her, and none beside ;
And to themselves, the while in secret swear,
They will be kind to ev'ry one but her !
Crown's English Friar.
How near am I to happiness
That earth exceeds not ? not another like it.
The treasures of the deep are not so precious,
As are the conceal'd comforts of a man
Lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air
Of blessings, when I come but near the house ;
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth !
The violet-bed 's not sweeter. Honest wedlock
Is like a banqueting-house built in a garden,
On which the spring's chaste flowers take delight
To cast their modest odours.
Middleton's Women beware Women.
T'or any man to match above his rank
Is but to sell his liberty.
Massinger.
What do you think of marriage ?
I take 't, as those that deny purgatory :
It locally contains or heaven or hell ;
Them 's no third place in it
Webster.
Uere love his golden shafts employs, here lights
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
Keign« here and revels.
Rowley's Two Noble Kinsmen.
Tempting gold alone
In this our age more marriages completes
Than virtue, merit, or the force of love.
'T is not th' external sweetness of the face,
The inward excellence of a virtuous mind,
The just behaviour and the graceful mien,
With all th' endowment nature can bestow,
Can please the wretch whose riches are his god ;
Who 'd rather ransack Indian mines for gold,
Than revel in some matchless beauty's arms :
For which may he never taste the joy it yields ;
But as a Midas wallowing in his store,
Let him curs'd be amid his heaps of wealth.
Wandesford.
Not in court amours,
Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or serenade, which the starv'd lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.
Milton's Paradise LosL
Our Maker bids increase ; who bids abstain
But our destroyer, foe to God and man.
Milton's Paradise LosL
Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In paradise of all things common else !
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities
Of father, son, and brother first were known.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,
Whose bed is undefil'd and chaste pronoune'd,
Present or past, as saints and patriarchs us'd.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Whom thus the angel interrupted mild :
Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign
What justly thou hast lost ; nor set thy heart,
Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine
Thy going is not lonely ; with thee goes
Thy husband ; him to follow thou art bound ;
Where he abides, think there thy native soil.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
For wedlock without love, some say,
Is but a lock without a key;
It is a kind of rape to marry
One that neglects, nor cares not for ye;
For what does make it ravishment,
But being against the mind's consent?
Butler's Hudibras.
O horror ! horror ! after this alliance,
Let tigers match with hinds, and wolves with
And every creature couple with its foe.
Dryderis Spanish Friar.
MARRIAGE.
339
All of a tenour was their after-life,
No day discolour'd with domestic strife ;
No jealousy, but mutual truth believ'd,
Secure repose, and kindness undeceiv'd.
Dryderis Palamon and Arcite.
This is the way all parents prove,
In managing their children's love ;
That force 'em t' intermarry and wed,
As if th' were bur'ing of the dead ;
Cast earth to earth, as in the grave,
To join in wedlock all they have.
Butler's Hudibras.
When you would give all worldly plagues a name,
Worse than they have already, call 'em Wife !
But a new married wife 's a teeming mischief,
Full of herself: Why what a deal of horror
Has that poor wretch to come, that married yes-
terday. Otway's Orplian.
Marriage to maids is like a war to men ;
The battle causes fear, but the sweet hopes
Of whining at the last, still draws 'em in.
Lee's Mithridates.
And now your matrimonial Cupid,
Lash'd on by time, grows tir'd and stupid.
For story and experience tell us
That man grows old and woman jealous.
Both would their little ends secure ;
He sighs for freedom, she for power :
His wishes tend abroad to roam,
And hers to domineer at home.
Prior's Alma.
Thy rise of fortune did I only wed,
From its decline determin'd to recede ?
Did I but purpose to embark with thee
On the smooth surface of a summer's sea,
While gentle zephyrs play in prosperous gales,
And fortune's favour fills the swelling sails ;
But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,
When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar ?
No, Henry, no : one sacred oath has tied
Our loves ; one destiny our life shall guide,
Nor wild, nor deep, our common way divide !
Prior's Henry and Emma.
Though fools spurn Hymen s gentle powers,
We, who improve his golden hours,
By sweet experience know
That marriage, rightly understood,
Gives to the tender and the good
A paradise below.
Cotton.
Oh ! for a curse upon the cunning priest,
Who conjur'd us together in a yoke
That galls me now.
Southern's Disappointment.
Are we not one ? are we not join'd by heav'n ?
Each interwoven with the other's fate ?
Are we not mix'd like streams of meeting rivers.
Whose blended waters are no more distinguish'd,
But roll into the sea one common flood ?
Rowe's Fair Penitent.
Yet here and there we grant a gentle bride,
Whose temper betters by the father's side ;
Unlike the rest that double human care,
Fond to relieve, or resolute to share :
Happy the man whom thus his stars advance !
The curse is general, but the blessing chance.
Parnell's Hesiod.
Abroad too kind, at home 't is steadfast hate,
And one eternal tempest of debate.
Young's Love of Fame.
I 've heard my honest uncle often say,
That lads should a' for wives that's virtuous pray
For the maist thrifty man could never get
A weel-stor'd room, unless his wife wad let.
Allan Ramsay.
O marriage ! marriage ! what a curse is thine,
Where hands alone consent and hearts abhor.
Hill's Alzira.
Wedded love is founded on esteem,
Which the fair merits of the mind engage,
For those are charms which never can decay;
But time which gives new whiteness to the swan,
Improves their lustre.
Fenton's Mariamne.
Oh speak the joy ! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, when you look around,
And nothing strikes the eye but sights of bliss,
All various nature pressing on the heart,
And elegant sufficiency, content ;
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love ;
And thus their moments fly.
Thomson's Seasons.
But happy they ! the happiest of their kind !
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
'T is not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love •
Where friendship full exerts her softest power
Perfect esteem enlivened by desire
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul ;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence : for nought but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Thomson's Season*
340
MARRIAGE.
What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all ?
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish,
Or in the mind, or mind-illumin'd face ;
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent heaven.
Thomson's Seasons.
Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises I
Burns.
Ev'n in the happiest choice, where fav'ring heaven
Has equal love and easy fortune given, —
Think not, the husband gain'd, that all is done ;
Tlie prize of happiness must still be won :
And, oft, the careless find it to their cost,
The lover in the husband may be lost ;
The graces might, alone, his heart allure ;
They and the virtues, meeting must secure
Lord Lyttleton.
Oh friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural leisure pass'd !
Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets,
Though many boast thy favours, and affect
To understand and choose thee for their own.
Compels Task.
Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of paradise that has survived the fall !
Comperes Task.
Thou art the nurse of virtue. In thine arms
She smiles, appearing as in truth she is,
Heav'n-born and destined to the skies again.
Thou art not known where pleasure is adored.
That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist
And wand'ring eve, still leaning on the arm
Of novelty, her fickle frail support ;
For thou art meek and constant, hating change,
And finding in the calm of truth-tied love
Joy that her stormy raptures never yield.
Cowpefs Task.
No jealousy their dawn of love o'ercast,
Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife ;
Fiach season look'd delightful as it past,
To the fond husband, and the faithful wife.
Beyond the lowly vale of shepherd life
Tncy never roam'd ! secure beneath the storm,
Which in ambition's lofty land is rife,
Where peace and love are canker'd by the worm
W pride each bud of joy industrious to deform.
Beattie's Minstrel.
Wedlock 's a saucy, sad, familiar state,
Where folks are very apt to scold and hate :
Love keeps a modest distance, is divine,
Obliging, and says ev'ry thing that 's fine.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Across the threshold led,
And every tear kiss'd off as soon as shed,
His house she enters, there to be a light
Shining within, when all without is night ;
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasure, and his cares dividing !
Rogers's Human Life.
O we do all offend —
There 's not a day of wedded life, if we
Count at its close the little, bitter sum
Of thoughts, and words, and looks unkind and
froward,
Silence that chides and woundings of the eye —
But prostrate at each other's feet, we should
Each night forgiveness ask.
Maturing Bertram.
Full well we know that many a favourite air,
That charms a party, fails to charm a pair.
And as Augusta play'd, she look'd around,
To see if one was dying at the sound.
But all were gone — a husband, wrapt in gloom,
Stalk'd careless, listless, up and down the room.
Crabbe.
A something, light as air — a look,
A word unkind or wrongly taken —
Oh ! love, that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this has shaken.
And ruder winds will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day ;
And voices lose the tone tha.t shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds, — or like the stream,
That smiling left the mountain's brow,
As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet ere it reach'd the plain below,
Breaks into floods, and parts for ever.
Moore's Lalla Rookh
Although my heart, in earlier youth,
Might kindle with more wild desire,
Believe me, it has gain'd in truth
Much more than it has lost in fire ;
The flame now warms my inmost core,
That then but sparkled on thy brow :
And though I scem'd to love thee more,
Yet oh, I love thee better now.
Moore
MARRIAGE.
341
The pure, open, prosperous love,
That, pledg'd on earth, and seal'd above,
Grows in the world's approving eyes,
In friendship's smile, and home's caress ;
Collecting all the heart's sweet ties
Into one knot of happiness.
Moore.
To cheer thy sickness, watch thy health,
Partake, but never waste thy wealth,
Or stand with smile unmurmuring by,
And lighten half thy poverty.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Few — none — find what they love or could have
lov'd,
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
Necessity of loving, have remov'd
Antipathies — but to recur, ere long,
Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong.
Byron's Ckilde Harold.
The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear ;
And something, ev'ry day they live,
To pity, and perhaps forgive.
Cowpefs Mutual Forbearance,
On thee, blest youth, a father's hand confers
The maid thy earliest, fondest wishes knew ;
Each soft enchantment of the soul is hers ;
Thine be the joys to firm attachment due.
Rogers's Poems.
Say, shall I love the fading beauty less,
Whose spring-tide radiance has been wholly
mine ?
No — come what will, thy steadfast truth I '11 bless ;
In youth, in age, thine own — for ever thine.
A. A. Watts.
I bless thee for kind looks and words
Shower'd on my path like dew, *
For all the love in those deep eyes,
A gladness ever new !
For the voice which ne'er to mine replied,
But in kindly tones of cheer;
For every spring of happiness
My soul hath tasted here !
Mrs. Hemans' l s Poems.
She turn'd — and her mother's gaze brought back
Each hue of her childhood's faded track.
Oh ! hush the song, and let her tears
Flow to the dream of her early years !
Holy and pure are the drops that fall,
When the young bride goes from her father's hall ;
She goes unto love yet untried and new —
She parts from love which hath still been true.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
I bless thee for the noble heart,
The tender and the true,
Where mine hath found the happiest rest
That e'er fond woman's knew;
I bless thee, faithful friend and guide,
For my own, my treasur'd share,
In the mournful secrets of thy soul,
In thy sorrow and thy care.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems
And if division come, it soon is past,
Too sharp, too strange an agony to last !
And like some river's bright, abundant tide,
Which art or accident had fore'd aside,
The well-springs of affection gushing o'er.
Back to their natural channels flow once more.
Mrs. Norton.
Oh ! married love ! — each heart shall own,
Where two congenial souls unite,
Thy golden chains inlaid with down,
Thy lamp with heaven's own splendour bright.
Langhorne.
But if no radiant star of love,
Oh, Hymen, smile upon thy rite,
Thy chain a wretched weight shall prove,
Thy lamp a sad sepulchral light.
Langhorne.
Then come the wild weather — come sleet or come
snow,
We will stand by each other, however it blow ;
Oppression and sickness, and sorrow and pain,
Shall be to our true love as links to the chain.
Longfellow. — From the German.
While other doublets deviate here and there,
What secret handcuff binds that pretty pair ?
Compactest couple ! pressing side to side, —
Ah ! the white bonnet — that reveals the bride !
O. W. Holmes.
Together should our prayers ascend ;
Together would we humbly bend,
To praise the Almighty name;
And when I saw her kindling eye
Beam upward in her native sky,
My soul should catch the flame.
^evi Frisbit
I saw her, and I lov'd her —
I sought her, and I won;
A dozen pleasant summers,
And more, since then have run'
And half as many voices
Now prattling by her side,
Remind me of the autumn
When she became my bride.
Thomas Mc-cketttr
29*
342
MEETING.
The parent love the wedded love includes,
The one permits the two their mutual moods,
The two e;ich other know 'mid myriad multitudes.
S. Margaret Fuller.
Not for the summer-hour alone,
When skies resplendent shine,
And youth and pleasure fill the throne,
Our hearts and hands we twine;
But for those stern and wintry days
Of peril, pain, and fear,
When Heaven's wise discipline doth make
This earthly journey drear.
Mrs. Sigourney's Poems.
Not for this span of life alone,
Which as a blast doth fly,
And like the transient flower of grass,
Just blossom, droop, and die;
But for a being without end,
This vow of love we take ;
Grant us, oh God ! one home at last,
For our Redeemer's sake.
Mrs. Sigourney's Poems.
MEETING.
A hundred thousand welcomes : I could weep,
And I could laugh ; I am light, and heavy : wel-
come :
A curse begin at very root of his heart,
That is not glad to see thee!
Shales. Coriolanus.
As a long-parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting !
So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,
And do thee favour with my royal hands.
Shaks. Richard II.
Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
Tins neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
It gives me wonder, great as my content,
To see you here before me.
Shaks. Othello.
Sir, you are very welcome to our house :
Jt must appear in other ways than words,
Therefore I scant tnis breathing courtesy.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I swear
By the simplicity of Venus' doves !
By that which knittcth souls, and prospers lovers !
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
Sliaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
The joys of meeting pay the pangs of absence ;
Else who could bear it ?
Rowe's Tamerlane
Absence, with all its pains,
Is by this charming moment wip'd away.
Thomson's Agamemnon,
When lovers meet in adverse hour,
'T is like a sun-glimpse through a shower,
A watery ray an instant seen,
Then darkly closing clouds between.
Scott's Rokehy.
It is the hour when they
Who love us are accustom'd to descend
Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Ararat !
How my heart beats !
Byron's Heaven and Earth,
And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I 've been wand'ring away —
To see thus around me my youth's early friends,
As smiling and kind as in that happy day ?
Though haply o'er some of your brows as o'er mine.
The snow fall of time may be stealing — what then ?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,
We '11 wear the gay tinge of youth's roses again.
Anon.
There 's not a fibre in my trembling frame
That does not vibrate when thy step draws near,
There 's not a pulse that throbs not, when I hear
Thy voice, thy breathing, nay thy very name.
Frances Kemhle Butler
And must they meet first in a careless crowd ?
This was a moment's grief.
Miss London.
The morning blush was lighted up by hope, —
The hope of meeting her.
Miss London.
Ah me!
The worlds is full of meetings such as this —
A thrill, a voiceless challenge and reply —
And sudden partings after !
Willis's Poems.
I have said I would not meet him —
Have I said the words in vain ?
Sunset burns along the hill-tops,
And I 'm waiting here again :
But my promise is not broken,
Though I stand where once we met;
When I hear his coming footsteps,
I can fly him even yet.
Phoebe Carey
I will not wait his coming
He will surely come once more ;
Though I said I would not meet him,
I have told him so before.
Phabe Carey.
MELANCHOLY.
343
MELANCHOLY.
Tell me, sweet lord, what is 't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep ?
Why dost thou bend thy eyes upon the earth ?
And start so often when thou sitt'st alone ?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks,
And giv'n thy treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-ey'd musing, and curs'd melancholy ?
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
O melancholy!
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom ? find
The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish carrack
Might eas'liest harbour in?
Shahs. Cymbeline.
have neither the scholar's melancholy,
Which is emulation ; nor the musician's,
Which is fantastical ; nor the courtier's,
Which is pride; nor the soldier's, which is
Ambition ; nor the lawyer's, which is politic ;
Nor the lady's, which is nice ; nor the lover's,
Which is all these : but it is a melancholy
Of mine own ; compounded of many simples,
Extracted from many objects, and, indeed,
The sundry contemplation of my travels ;
In which my often rumination wraps me
In a most hum'rous sadness.
Shahs. As you like it.
That melancholy,
Though ending in distraction, should work
So far upon a man as to compel him
To court a thing that hath nor sense, nor being,
Is unto me a miracle.
Massinger's DuJce of Milan.
Melancholy
Is not, as you conceive, an indisposition
Of body, but the mind's disease ; so ecstasy,
Fantastic dotage, madness, frenzy, rapture,
Of mere imagination, differ partly
From melancholy ; which is briefly this :
A mere commotion of the mind, o'ercharg'd
With fear and sorrow; first begat i' th' brain,
The seal of reason, and from thence, derived
As suddenly into the heart, the seat
Of our affection.
John Ford's Lover's Melancholy.
But hail, thou goddess, sage and holy,
Hail, divinest melancholy!
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view,
O'erlaid with black, staid wisdom's hue.
Milton's II Penseroso.
These pleasures, melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.
Milton's n Penseroso,
He comes ! he comes ! in every breeze the power
Of philosophic melancholy comes !
His near approach, the sudden starting tear,
The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,
The softened feature, and the beating heart,
Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, declare.
O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes !
Inflames imagination ; thro' the breast
Infuses every tenderness ; and far
Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought.
Thomson's Seasons.
There is a mood
(I sing not to the vacant and the young,)
There is a kindly mood of melancholy,
That wings the soul, and points her to the skies.
Dyer's Ruins of Rome.
With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd,
Pale melancholy sat retir'd,
And from her wild sequester'd seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul.
Collins's Passions.
Responsive to the sprightly pipe, when all
In sprightly dance the village youth were join'd,
Edwin, of melody aye held in thrall,
From the rude gambol far remote reclin'd,
Sooth'd with the soft notes warbling in the wind :
Ah then, all jollity seem'd noise and folly
To the pure soul by fancy's fire refin'd !
Ah, what is mirth, but turbulence unholy,
When with the charm compared of heavenly
melancholy ! Beattie's Minstrel.
Melancholy is a fearful gift ;
What is it but the telescope of truth ?
Which strips the distance of its phantasies,
And brings life near in utter darkness,
Making the cold reality too real.
Byron.
Melancholy
Sits on me, as a cloud along the sky,
Which will not let the sun-beams through, nor yet
Descend in rain, and end ; but spreads itself
'Twixt heaven and earth, like envy between man
And man — an everlasting mist. N
Byron.
Go, you may call it madness, folly, —
You shall not chase my gloom away;
There 's such a charm in melancholy,
I would not. if I could, be gay !
Rogers
Ah, there are moments for us here, when, seeing
Life's inequalities, and woe, and care,
The buraens laid upon our mortal being
Seem heavier than the human heart can bear.
Phodbe Cam
344
MEMORY.
There is a shadow on my heart
I cannot fling aside.
Alice Carey.
A shade hath pass'd
Athwart my brightest visions here ;
A cloud of darkest gloom hath wrapp'd
The remnant of my brief career ;
No song, no echo can I win,
The sparkling fount hath dried within.
Margaret Davidson.
Strange that the love-lorn heart will beat
With rapture wild amid its folly ; —
No grief so soft, no pain so sweet
As love's delicious melancholy.
Mrs. Osgood.
I shrink from the embitter'd close
Of my own melancholy tale :
'T is long since I have wak'd my woes —
And nerve and voice together fail !
The throb beats faster at my brow,
My brain feels warm with starting tears,
And I shall weep — but heed not thou !
'Twill soothe awhile the ache of years !
The heart transflx'd — worn out with grief —
Will turn the arrow for relief.
Willis's Melanie.
Blame not, if oft in melancholy mood
This theme too far such fancy hath pursued,
And if the soul that with high hope should beat,
Turns to the gloomy grave's unblest retreat.
Robert Sands,
As the drain'd fountain, fill'd with autumn leaves,
The field swept naked of its garner'd sheaves ;
So wastes at noon the promise of our dawn,
The springs all choking, and the harvest gone.
O. W. Holmes.
There is no music in this life
That sounds with happy laughter solely ;
There 's not a string attun'd to mirth,
But has its chord of melancholy.
Thomas Hood.
MEMORY.
We will revive those times, and in our memories
Preserve, and still keep fresh, like flowers in water,
Those happier days ; when at our eyes our souls
Kindled their mutual fires, their equal beams
Shot and return'd, 'till link'd and twin'd in one,
Thev chain'd our hearts together.
Denham's Sophy.
Had memory Deen lost with innocence,
We had not known the sentence, nor th' offence :
'Twas his chief punishment, to keep in store,
*ne sad remembrance what he was before.
Denham.
None grow so old,
Not to remember where they hid their gold ;
From age such art of memory we learn,
To forget nothing what is our concern :
Their interest no priest, nor sorcerer
Forgets, nor lawyer, nor philosopher ;
No understanding, memory can want,
Where wisdom studious industry doth plant.
Denham-
Come, flattering memory ! and tell my heart
How kind she was, and with what pleasing art
She strove its fondest wishes to obtain,
Confirm her power, and faster bind my chain.
Lytileton,
O remembrance !
Why dost thou open all my wounds again ?
Lee's Theodosius
A confus'd report pass'd thro' my ears ;
But full of hurry, like a morning dream,
It vanish'd in the bus'ness of the day.
Lee's (Edipus.
Thinking will make me mad : why must I think,
When no thought brings me comfort?
Southern's Fatal Marriage.
Thought is damnation ! 'T is the plague of devils
To think on what they are !
Rowe's Ambitious Stepnother.
Perish the lover, whose imperfect flame
Forgets one feature of the nymph he loved.
Shenstone.
Ask the faithful youth
Why the cold urn of her, whom long he lov'd,
So often fills his arms ; so often draws
His lonely footsteps at the silent hour
To pay the mournful tribute of his tears ?
Oh ! he will tell thee that the wealth of worlds
Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego
That sacred hour when, stealing from the noise
Of care and envy, sweet remembrance soothes
With virtue's kindest looks his aching breast,
And turns his tears to rapture.
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination,
O memory ! thou fond deceiver,
Still importunate and vain,
To former joys recurring ever,
And turning all the past to pain ;
Thou, like the world, th' opprest oppressing,
Thy smiles increase the wretch's woe !
And he who wants each other blessing,
In thee must ever find a foe.
Goldsmith.
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
MEMORY.
345
Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care ;
Time but the impression deeper makes
As streams their channels deeper wear.
Burns.
And scenes, long past, of joy and pain,
Came wildering o'er his aged brain.
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Through the shadowy past,
Like a tomb-searcher, memory ran,
Lifting each shroud that time had cast
O'er buried hopes.
Moore'' s Loves of the Angels.
On this dear jewel of my memory
My heart will ever dwell, and fate in vain
Possessing that, essay to make me wretched.
' Lord John Russell's Don Carlos.
The intrepid Swiss, that guards a foreign shore,
Condemn'd to climb his mountain cliffs no more;
If chance he hears that song, so sweetly wild,
Which on those hills his infant hours beguiled ;
Melts at the long-lost scenes, that round him rise,
And sinks a martyr to repentant sighs.
Rogers.
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody. Rogerg , g /fc#
But ever and anon of griefs subdued.
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen but with fresh bitterness imbued ;
And slight withal may be the thingc whit 1 '! bring,
Back on the heart the weight which it could fling
Aside for ever : it may be a sound —
A tone of music — summer's eve — or spring,
A flower — the wind — the ocean — which shall
wound,
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are
darkly bound ;
And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
Which out of things familiar, undesign'd,
When least we deem of such, calls up to view
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind,
The cold — the chang'd — perchance the dead —
anew,
The mourn'd, the lov'd, the lost — too many! yet
how few ! Byron's Childe Harold.
But in that instant, o'er his soul
Winters of memory seem'd to roll,
And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.
O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears,
Such moment pours the grief of years.
Byron's Giaour.
Alas ! the heedlessness of all around
Bespoke remembrance only too profound.
Byron's Lara.
Joy's recollection is no longer joy,
While sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.
Byron's Doge of Venice
And thus, as in memory's bark we shall glide
To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew,
Though oft we may see, looking down on the tide,
The wreck of full many a hope shining throngh-
Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers,
That once made a garden of all the gay shore,
Deceiv'd for a moment, we'll think them still ours,
And breathe the fresh air of life's morning once
more. Anon.
A pen — to register; a key —
That winds through secret wards;
Are well assign'd to Memory
By allegoric Bards. Wordsworth.
Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain •
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise !
Each stamps its image as the other flies !
Rogers's Pleasures of Memory.
Recall the traveller, whose alter'd form
Has borne the buffet of the mountain storm :
And who will first his fond impatience meet ?
His faithful dog 's already at his feet !
Rogers's Pleasures of Memory.
Sweet memory, wafted by the gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of time I turn my sail,
To view the fairy haunts of long-lost hours,
Blest with far greener shades, far lovelier flowers,
Rogers's Pleasures of Memory
Hail, memory, hail ! in thy exhaustless mine,
From age to age unnumber'd treasures shine !
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And place and time are subject to thy sway !
Rogers's Pleasures of Memory.
That heart, methinks,
Were of strange mould, which kept no cherish'd
print
Of earlier, happier times, when life was fresh,
And love and innocence made holyday :
Or, that own'd
No transient sadness, when a dream, a glimpse
Of fancy touch'd past joys.
Hillhouse
Memories on memories ! to my soul again
There come such dreams ji vanishd love an<*
bliss,
That my wrung heart, though long inured to pain.
Sinks with the fulness of its wretchedness
Phoebe Caret/
,*U6
MERCY.
Ah, tell mc not that memory
Sheds gladness o'er the past:
What is recall'd by faded flowers
Save that they do not last?
Were it not better to forget,
Than but remember and regret?
Miss London.
Number the riches by thy memory hoarded,
Relics of joys thy by-past years have known, —
How many real things are tljere recorded ?
How much true light was .u'er thy pathway
thrown Mrs. Embury.
MERCY.
Some clerks no doubt in their deviceful art,
Whether this heavenly thing whereof I treat,
To weeten mercy, be of justice part,
Or drawn forth from her by divine entreat :
This well I wote, that sure she is as great,
And meriteth to have as high a place,
Sith in the Almighty's everlasting seat,
She first was bred and born of heavenly race,
From thence poured down on men by influence
of grace. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd ;
It droppeth, as the gentle rail from heaven
Upon the place beneath : it is twice bless'd ;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes :
'T is mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
Shahs. Merchant of Venice.
Earthly power doth then show likest gods,
When mercy seasons justice.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Though justice be thy plea, consider this —
That in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
Sliaks. Merchant of Venice.
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace,
As mercy does
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so ;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
Merciful heaven !
Hiou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
Split'st the unwedgeable anH gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.
How would you be,
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge as you do ? O, think on that ;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made !
Shaks. Mea. for Me
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods ?
Draw near them then in being merciful,
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
Shaks. Titus Andronicus.
If little faults proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye, I
When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and
digested,
Appear before us ?
Shaks. Henry V.
I am an unable suitor to your virtues ;
For pity is the virtue of the law,
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Say — pardon, king ; let pity teach thee how :
The word is short, but not so short as sweet ;
No word, like pardon, for kings' mouths so sweet
Shaks. Richard II.
The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd :
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy ;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters worrying them.
Shaks. Henry V.
'T is well known, that whiles I was protector,
Pity was all the fault that was in me ;
For I should melt at an offender's tears,
And lowly words were ransom for their fault.
Shaks. Henry V. Part II.
Press not a falling man too far; 'tis virtue :
His faults lie open to the laws ; let them,
Not you, correct him.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
The greatest attribute of heaven is mercy ;
And 't is the crown of justice, and the glory,
Where it may kill with right, to save with pity.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Lover's Progress.
Great minds erect their never-failing trophies
On the firm base of mercy ; but to triumph
O'er a suppliant, by base fortune captiv'd,
Argues a bastard conquest.
' Massinger's Emperor of the East.
O think ! think upward on the thrones above :
Disdain not mercy, since they mercy love ;
If mercy were not mingled with their pow'r,
This wretched world could not subsist an hour.
Sir W. Davenanfs Siege of Rhodes.
MERIT.
347
Wretched, by ev'ry passion led,
Born sinful, and to many errors bred,
Has use of mercy still ; and does esteem
Creation a less work, than to redeem.
Sir W. Davenant on the Restoration.
He that 's merciful
Unto the bad, is cruel to the good.
Randolph's Muse's Looking-glass.
Less pleasure take brave minds in battle won
Than in restoring such as are undone :
Tigers have courage, and the rugged bear,
But man alone can, whom he conquers, spare.
Waller, to my Lord Protector.
On piety humanity is built,
And on humanity much happiness.
Young's Night Thoughts.
'T is mercy ! mercy !
The mark of heav'n impress'd on human kind,
Mercy, that glads the world, deals joy around ;
Mercy that smooths the dreadful brow of power,
And makes dominion light; mercy that saves,
Binds up the broken heart, and heals despair.
Rome's Lady Jane Grey.
In mercy and justice both,
Through heaven and earth, so shall my glory excel,
But mercy first and last shall brightest shine.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
mercy, heav'nly born ! Sweet attribute !
Thou great, thou best prerogative of power !
Justice may guard the throne, but join'd with thee,
On rocks of adamant, it stands secure,
And braves the storm beneath.
Somerville's Chase.
Let usurpation, that eternal slave
To fear, the tyrant's greater tyrant, dye
Her thirsty purple deep in native blood :
The lawful prince, by daring to forgive,
Asserts the great prerogative of heav'n,
And proves his claim divine.
Jeffery's Edwin.
Hate shuts her scul when dove-eyed Mercy pleads.
Sprague's Poems.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,
But God will never.
Camper's Task.
Spider ! thou need'st not run in fear about
To shun my curious eyes :
1 won't humanely crush thy bowels out —
Lest thou should'st eat the flies ;
Nor will I roast thee with a damn'd delight,
Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see ;
For there is one who might
One day roast me.
Southey.
Of God she sung, and of the mild
Attendant mercy, that beside
His awful throne for ever smil'd,
Ready with her white hand to guide
His bolts of vengeance to their prey —
That she might quench them on their way !
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
The world would be lonely,
The garden a wilderness left to deform,
If the flowers but remember'd the chilling winds
only,
And the fields gave no verdure, for fear of the
storm. Charles Swain.
MERIT.
Who shall go about
To cozen fortune and be honourable
Without the stamp of merit ! let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
O, that estates, degrees, and offices,
Were not deriv'd corruptly '. and that dear honour
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer I
How many then should cover, that stand bare ?
How many be commanded, that command?
How much low peasantry would then be glean'd
From the true seed of honour ? and how much
honour
Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,
To be new varnish'd ?
Sliaks. Merchant of Venice.
Oh, your desert speaks loud ; and I should wrong
it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom ;
When it deserves with characters of brass
A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time,
And razure of oblivion.
Shaks. Mea.for Mca,
There 's a proud modesty in merit !
Averse from asking, and resolv'd to pay
Ten times the gifts it asks.
Dryden's Cleomenes.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend,
His praise is lost who waits till all commend.
Pope.
Good actions crown themselves with lasting bays
Who deserves well, needs not another's praise.
Usatr.
Merit like his, the fortune of the mind,
Beggars all wealth.
Tlwmson's Tancred and Sigismundo
Unrivall'd as thy merit, bs thy feme.
Tickek
&43
MESSENGER -MIND.
MESSENGER.
With that he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
Shake. Henry IV. Part II.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office ; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Thou tremblest ; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
One of my fellows had the speed of him :
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
Shaks. Macbeth.
If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive ;
Till famine cling thee : if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France •
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.
Shaks. King John.
Pr'ythee, say on ;
The sitting of thine eye, and cheek, proclaim
A matter from thee : and a birth indeed,
Which throes thee much to yield.
Shaks. Tempest.
I have not seen
So likely an ambassador of love ;
A day in April never came so sweet,
To show how costly summer was at hand,
As this fore-spurrer conies before his lord.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I must go send some better messenger;
I fear rny Julia would not deign my lines,
Receiving them from such a worthless post.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Be g'jne, I will not hear thy vain excuse,
liut. as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
I go, I go ; look, how I go ;
hivinc than arrow from the Tartar's bow.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spattcr'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen
locks ;
News from all nations lumbering at his back,
True to his charge, the close-pack'd load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destin'd inn ;
And, having dropp'd th' expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful : messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ;
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Cowper's Task.
The Tartar lighted at the gate,
But scarce upheld his fainting weight;
His swarthy visage spake distress,
But this might be from weariness :
His garb with sanguine spots was dyed,
But these might be from his courser's side ;
He drew the token from his vest,
Angel of death ! 't is Hassan's cloven crest !
Byron's Giaour.
MIND.
Sordid and dunghill
Minds, compos'd of earth, in that gross element
Fix all their happiness ; but purer spirits,
Purg'd and refin'd, shake off that clog of
Human frailty.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother.
Retir'd thoughts enjoy their own delights,
As beauty doth in self-beholding eye ;
Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights,
A brief wherein all miracles scumm'd lie,
Of fairest forms, and sweetest shapes the store,
Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them
more. Southwell.
Hail, horrors ! hail,
Infernal world, and thou, profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor ; one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Mind, mind alone, (bear witness eartn and
heaven !)
The living fountains in itself contains
Of beauteous and sublime : here, hand in hand,
Sit paramount the graces ; here enthron'd,
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs,
Invites the soul to never-fading joy.
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
MIND.
34 j
Look then abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense ;
And speak, O man, does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots ; and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove,
When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country hail ?
For lo ! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
And Rome again is free !
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
The immortal mind, superior to his fate,
Amid the outrage of external things,
Firm as the solid base of this great world,
Rests on- his own foundation. Blow, ye winds !
Ye waves ! ye thunders ! roll your tempests on !
Shake, ye old pillars of the marble sky !
Till all its orbs and all its worlds of fire
Be loosen'd from their seats ; yet still serene,
The unconqucr'd mind looks down upon the wreck ;
And ever stronger as the storms advance,
Firm through the closing ruin holds his way,
Where nature calls him to the destin'd goal.
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought !
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out her pow'rs, and leaves a blank behind.
Churchill.
For just experience tells, in ev'ry soil,
That those who think, must govern those who toil ;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
M ; nd, despatch'd upon the busy toil,
Should range where Providence has blessed the
soil;
Visiting every flow'r with labour meet,
And gathering all her treasures sweet by sweet,
She should imbue the tongue with what she sips,
And shed the balmy blessing on the lips,
That good diifus'd may more abundant grow,
And speech may praise the pow'r that bids it flow.
Cowper's Conversation.
Our souls at least are free, and 'tis in vain
We would against them make the flesh obey —
The spirit in the end will have its way.
Byron.
Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne,
And hands obey — our hearts are still our own.
Byron.
The gaudy glass of fortune only strikes
The vulgar eye ; the suffrage of the wise,
The praise that 's worth ambition, is attain'd
By sense alone, and dignity of mind.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
The mind doth shape itself to its own wants,
And can bear all things.
Joanna Baillie's Rayner.
By earth, and hell, and heaven,
The shroud of souls is riven,
Mind, mind alone
Is light, and hope, and life, and power !
Earth's deepest night, from this blest hour,
The night of mind is gone.
Ebenezer Elliott.
The mmd within me panted after mind,
The spirit sigh'd to meet a kindred spirit,
And in my human heart there was a void,
Which nothing but humanity could fill.
James Montgomery.
Mind's command o'er mind,
Spirit's o'er spirit, is the clear effect
And natural action of an inward gift,
Given of God.
Bailey's Festus.
Yet millions never think a noble thought ;
But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.
Bailey's Festus.
The mind is as the face — for who goes forth
In public walks without a veil at least ?
'Tis this constraint makes half life's misery.
Bliss Landon,
Time has small pow'r
O'er features the mind moulds. Roses where
They once have bloom'd a fragrance leave behind ;
And harmony will linger on the wind ;
And suns continue to light up the air,
When set ; and music from the broken shrine,
Breathes, it is said, around whose altar-stone
His flower the votary has ceas'd to twine: —
Types of the beauty that, when youth is gone,
Breathes from the soul whose brightness mocks
decline. George Hill.
With mind her mantling cheek must glow,
Her voice, her beaming eye must show
An all-inspiring soul.
Levi Frisbu.
It is sure,
Stamped by the seal of nature, that the well
Of mind, where all its waters gather pure,
Shall with unquestioned spell all hearts allure.
Wisdom enshrined in beauty — Oh ! how high
The order of that loveliness.
^ercival's Poem*
30
350
MIRTH.
The mind
Forges from knowledge an archangel's spear,
And with the spirits that compel the world,
Conflicts for empire.
Willis's Poems.
What's the brow
Or the eye's lustre, or the step of air,
Or colour, but the beautiful links that chain
The mind from its rare element ?
Willis's Poems.
Woe, woe, to all who grind
Their brethren of a common Father down !
To all who plunder from the immortal mind
Its bright and glorious crown!
Whittier's Poems.
MIRTH.
And therein sate a lady fresh and fair,
Making sweet solace to herself alone :
Sometimes she sung as loud as lark in air,
Sometimes she laugh'd that nigh her breath was
gone*
Yet was there not with her else any one
That to her might move cause of merriment :
Matter of mirth enough, though there were none,
She could devise ; and thousand ways invent
To feed her foolish humour and vain jolliment.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost.
Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come ;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue,
But moody and dull melancholy,
(Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair ;)
And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life ?
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.
'Tis ever common,
That men are merriest when they are from home.
Shaks. Henry V.
Come, thou goddess fair and free,
Jn heav'n yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing mirth.
Milton's L' Allegro.
tlaste thee, my nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wilea,
Nod«/ and becks and wreathed smiles.
- Milton's L' Allegro.
Come and trip it as you go,
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain nymph, sweet liberty.
Milton's L' Allegro.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
Milton's L' Allegro.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt;
And ev'ry grin so merry, draws one out.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
O spirits gay, and kindly heart !
Precious the blessings ye impart!
Joanna Baillie.
He is so full of pleasant anecdote,
So rich, so gay, so poignant in his wit,
Time vanishes before him as he speaks,
And ruddy morning through the lattice peeps.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch — so full of mirth,
The overflowing of an innocent heart ; —
It haunts me stiU. Rog£rs
While her laugh, full of life, without any control
But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from hei
soul.
And where it most sparkled, no glance could dis
cover,
In lip, cheek or eyes, for she brighten'd all over,
Like any fair lake that the breeze is upon,
When it breaks into dimples, and laughs in the sun
Moore
Merry books, once read for pastime,
If ye dar'd to read again,
Only memories of the last time
Would swim darkly up the brain!
Miss Barrett's Poems
The merry heart, the merry heart,
Of heaven's gift I hold thee best;
And they who feel its pleasant throb,
Though dark their lot, are truly blest. —
From youth to age it changes not,
In joy and sorrow still the same ;
When skies are dark, and tempests scowl,
It shines a steady beacon flame.
It gives to beauty half its power,
The nameless charms worth all the rest —
The light that dances o'er a face,
And speaks of sunshine in the breast
If Beauty ne'er have set her seal,
It well supplies her absence too,
And many a cheek looks passing fair,
Because a merry heart shines through.
JVeio England Magazine, Vol. I
MISCHIEF -MISER.
351
Snch excess
Of mirth's exuberance visits not for good.
Miss London's Poems-
— Do n't you know that people wont employ
A man who wrongs his manliness by laughing
like a boy?
And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon
a shoot,
As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its
root ! O. W. Holmes.
How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye,
Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky !
Whittier.
I look upon the fading flowers
Thou gavest me, lady, in thy mirth,
And mourn, that with the perishing hours
Such fair things perish from the earth ;
For thus, I know, the moment's feeling
Its own light web of life unweaves,
The dearest trace from memory stealing,
Like perfume from their dying leaves —
The thought that gave it, and the flower,
Alike the creatures of an hour.
And thus it better were, perhaps —
For feeling is the nurse of pain,
And joys that linger in their lapse
Must die at last — and so are vain.
Willis.
Often, often have I lifted
To my lip the cup of mirth,
When the beautiful and gifted
Crowded round the festal hearth.
W. H. C. Hosmer.
| A little of thy merriment,
Of thy sparkling, light content,
Give me, my cheerful brook, —
That I may still be full of glee
And gladsomeness where'er I be,
Though fickle fate hath prison'd me
In some neglected nook.
James Russell Lowell.
MISCHIEF.
O mischief! thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men !
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet,
He that may hinder mischief,
And yet permits it, is an accessary.
Freeman's Imperiale,
Mischief that may be help'd, is hard to know ;
And danger going on still multiplies.
Where harm hath many wings, care arms too late,
Lord Brooke's Alaham,
Ah, me ! full sorely is my heart forlorn,
To think how modest worth neglected lies ;
While partial fame doth with her blasts adorn
Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise,
Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprise.
Shenstone
As lamps burn silent, with unconscious light,
So modest ease in beauty shines most bright ;
Unaiming charms with edge resistless fall,
And she who means no mischief, does it all.
A. Hill
MISER.
The miser lives alone, abhorr'd by all
Like a disease, yet cannot so be 'scap'd,
But. canker-like, eats through the poor men's
hearts
That live about him : never has commerce
With any but to ruin them : his house
Inhospitable as the wilderness,
And never look'd upon but with a curse.
He hoards in secret places of the earth,
Not only bags of treasure, but his corn ;
Whose every grain he prizes 'bove a life ;
And never prays at all but for dear years.
May's Old Couple
Good morning to the day ; and next my gold ;
Open the shrine that I may see my saint :
Hail the world's soul and mine ! more than glad is
The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun,
Peep through the horns of the celestial ram,
Am I to view thy splendour, dark'ning his ;
That lying here amongst my other hoards,
Show'st like a flame by night, or like the day,
Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled
Unto the centre.
Ben Jonson,
He that toils and labours hard
To gain, and what he gets has spar'd,
Is from the use of all debarr'd.
And though he can produce more spankers,
Than all the usurers and bankers,
Yet after more and more he hankers;
And after all his pains are done,
Has nothing he can call his own
But a mere livelihood alone.
Butler.
Now tianks to heaven
For blessings chainless in the rich man's keeping •
Wealth that the miser cannot hide away !
Buy, if they will, the invaluable flower —
They cannot store its fragrance from the breeze .
Wear, if they will, the costliest gem of T nd —
It pours its light on every passing eye !
Willis's Poems
352
MISFORTUNE -MOB.
Unnumber'd maladies man's joints invade,
Lay siege to life, and press the dire blockade ;
But unextinguish'd avarice still remains,
And dreaded losses aggravate his pains ;
He turns with anxious heart and crippled hands,
His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands ;
Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes,
Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies.
Dr. Johnson.
O, may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see,
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid,
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul : —
'T is thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.
John Dyer.
MISFORTUNE.
He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.
Shales. Romeo and Juliet.
'T is easy to accuse
Whom fortune hath made faulty by their fall ;
They who are vanquished, may not refuse
The titles of reproach they 're charg'd withal.
DanieVs Cleopatra.
Nothing is a misery,
Unless our weakness apprehend it so :
We cannot be more faithful to ourselves
In any thing that 's manly, than to make
111 fortune as contemptible to us,
As it makes us to others.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune.
I pray, sir, deal with men in misery,
Like one that may himself be miserable :
Insult not too much upon my wretchedness ;
The noble minds still will not, when they can.
Heywood's Royal King.
Misfortune brings
Sorrow enough : 't is envy to ourselves,
To augment it by prediction.
Habbington's Queen of Arragon.
The thrifty heav'ns mingle our sweets with gall,
Lest being glutted with excess of good,
We should forget the giver.
Thomas Rawlins's Rebellion.
From this unhappy palace let us fly !
But wliither shall we leave our misery ?
Who to the unfortunate will kind appear ?
The wretched are unwelcome ev'ry where.
Crown's Andromache.
mortals, short of sight, who think the past
O'erblown misfortunes shall still prove the last
Alas ! misfortunes travel in a train,
And oft in life form one perpetual chain ;
Fear buries fear, and ills on ills attend,
Till life and sorrow meet one common end.
Young
Know, smiler ! at thy peril art thou pleas' d ;
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor severe,
But rises in demand for her delay ;
She makes a scourge of past prosperity,
To sting thee more and double thy distress.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Misfortune does not always wait on vice ;
Nor is success the constant guest of virtue.
Havard's Regulus
And even should misfortune come,
I, here who sit, hae met wi' some,
An's thankfu' for them yet ;
They gie the wit of age to youth,
They let us ken oursel ;
They mak us see the naked truth,
The real guid an' ill.
Burns's Poems.
The furrows of long thought dried up in tears.
Byron's Childe Harold.
But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's th-'d denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we may
bless. Byron's Childe Harold.
The quivering flesh, though torture-torn, may live,
But souls, once deeply wounded, heal no more.
Ebenezer Elliott.
A malady
Prays on my heart, that medicine cannot reach,
Invincible and cureless.
Maturin's Bertram.
1 may not weep — I cannot sigh,
A weight is pressing on my breast ;
A breath breathes on me witheringly,
My tears are dry, my sighs supprest.
Willis's Poems
MOB.
They praise, and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other ;
And what delight to be by such extoll'd,
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,
Of whom to be disprais'd were no small praise ?
Milton's Paradise Regained.
MODESTY.
353
When both were parted on the sudden,
With hideous clamour, and a loud one,
As if all sort of noise had been
Contracted into one loud din ;
Or that some member to be chosen,
Had got the odds above a thousand,
And, by the greatness of his noise,
Prov'd fittest for his country's choice.
Butler's Hudibras.
The scum
That rises upmost, when the nation boils.
Dryderi's Don Sebastian.
Some popular chief,
More noisy than the rest, but cries halloo
And in a trice the bellowing herd come out ;
The gates are barr'd, the ways are barricadoed :
And one and all's the word: true cocks o' th'
game !
They never ask for what, or whom they fight ;
But turn 'em out, and show 'em but a foe ;
{ Cry liberty, and that 's a cause for quarrel.
Dryderi's Spanish Friar.
These slaves,
These wide-mouth'd brutes, that bellow thus for
freedom ;
O how they run before the hand of power,
Flying for shelter into every brake !
Otway's Caius Marius.
Ah ! can you bear contempt ? the venom'd tongue
Of those whom ruin pleases ? the keen sneer,
The rude reproaches of the rascal herd ;
Who for the self-same actions, if successful,
Would be as grossly lavish in your praise ?
Thomson's Agamemnon.
Inconstant, blind,
Deserting friends at need, and dup'd by foes ;
Loud and seditious, when a chief inspir'd
Their headlong fury, but, of him depriv'd,
Already slaves that lick'd the scourging hand.
Thomson's Liberty.
Their feet through faithless leather meet the dirt,
And oft'ner chang'd their principles than shirt.
Young's Epistle to Mr. Pope.
The multitude unaw'd is insolent ;
Once seiz'd with fear, contemptible and vain.
Mallet's Mustapha.
What, dare the ungrateful miscreants thus return
The many favours of my princely grace ?
'T is ever thus : indulgence spoils the base ;
Raising up pride, and lawless turbulence,
Like noxious vapours from the fulsome marsh,
When morning shines upon it.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
X
Then rose on air
Loud shouts of joy mix'd wildly strange
With voice of weeping and of prayer,
Expressive of their blessed change
From death to life, from fierce to kind,
From all that sinks to all that elevates the mind.
Joanna Baillie
All upstarts, insolent in place,
Remind us of their vulgar race.
Gay
And the brute crowd, whose envious zeal
Huzzas each turn of Fortune's wheel,
And loudest shouts when lowest lie
Exalted worth, and station high.
Scott's Rokeby.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain !
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream ;
Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as frenzy's fever'd blood.
Thou many-headed monster-thing,
who would wish to be thy king I
Scott's Lady of the Lake
Thus look'd he proudly on the vulgar crew,
Whom statutes govern, and whom fears subdue.
Crabbe.
Each pull'd different ways with many an oath,
" Arcades ambo," id est — blackguards both.
Byron.
These slaves, whom I have nurtur'd, pamper'd, fed,
And swoll'n with peace, and gorg'd with plenty,
till
They reign themselves — all monarch in their
mansions —
Now swarm forth in rebellion, and demand
His death, who made their lives a jubilee.
Byron's Sardanapalus,
The good old Rule
Sufflceth them, the simple Plan
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
Scott — Rob Roy
MODESTY.
In the modesty of fearful duty,
1 read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream
Her looks do argue her replete with modesty
Sliaie
The blushing t>eauties of a modest maid.
Dryden's Ovtd
30*
854
MOON. MOONLIGHT.
Methinks the rose * * * *
Is the very emblem of a maid : ,
For when the west wind courts her gently,
How modestly she blows, and paints the sun
With her chaste blushes ; when the north comes
near her,
Rude and impatient, then like chastity
She locks her beauties in her bud again,
And leaves him to base briars.
Rowley's Two Nolle Kinsmen.
Sure 'twas his modesty. He might have thriven
Much better possibly, had his ambition
Been greater much. They ofttimes take more
pains
Who look for pins, than those who find out stars.
John Fountain's Rewards of Virtue.
That modest grace subdu'd my soul,
That chastity of look which seems to hang,
A veil of purest light o'er all her beauties,
And by forbidding most inflames desire.
Young's Busiris.
Merit was ever modest known.
Gay.
Yet innocence and virgin modesty,
Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,
That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won,
Not obvious, not obtrusive, but retir'd,
The more desirable, or, to say all,
Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought,
Wrought in her so, that seeing me she turn'd ;
I follow'd her ; she what was honour knew,
And with obsequious majesty approv'd
My pleaded reason.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.
Thomson's Seasons.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers.
Thomson's Seasons.
I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain,
And bear the marks upon a blushing face
Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.
Our sensibilities are so acute,
The fear of being silent makes us mute.
Coicper's Conversation.
True modesty is a discerning grace,
And only blushes in the proper place ;
But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear,
Where 't is a shame to be asham'd t' appear :
Humility the parent of the first,
The last by vanity produe'd and nurs'd.
Cowper's Conversation.
The crimson glow of modesty o'erspread
Her cheek, and gave new lustre to her charms.
Dr. Thomas Franklin.
Still, from the sweet confusion, some new grace
Blushed out by stealth, and languish'd in her face.'
Eusden's Ovid.
The meek mountain daisy, with delicate crest,
And the violet whose eye told the heaven of her
breast. Mrs. Sigourney.
The violet droops its soft and bashful brow,
But from its heart, sweet incense fills the air ;-—
So rich within — so pure without — art thou,
With modest mien and soul of virtue rare !
Mrs. Osgood.
Heaven help me ! how could I forget
To beg of thee, dear violet !
Some of thy modesty !
James Russell Lowell.
MOON. MOONLIGHT.
This night methinks is but the day-light sick,
It looks a little paler ; 't is a day,
Such as the day is when the sun is hid.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank !
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears ; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice-
In such a night, did
Young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well ;
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
And ne'er a true one.
Shaks. Merchant of Venict
The moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound :
And, through this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
The neighbouring moon
(So call that opposite fair star) her aid
Timely interposes, and her monthly round
Still ending, still renewing, through mid-heaven,
With borrow'd light her countenance triform,
Hence fills and empties to enlighten th' earth,
And in her pale dominion checks the night.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The queen of night
Shines fair with all her virgin stars about her.
Otway's Caius Marius.
MOON. MOONLIGHT.
355
rke queen of night, whose large command
Rules all the sea, and half the land,
And over moist and crazy brains,
In high spring tide, at midnight reigns,
Was now declining to the west,
To go to bed and take her rest.
Butler's Hudibras.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.
Thomson's Seasons.
Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere,
Since all things lost on earth are treasur'd there ;
There heroes' wits are kept in pond'rous vases,
And beaux' in snuff-boxes and tweezer-cases.
There broken vows, and death-bed alms are found,
And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound ;
The courtiers' promises, and sick men's prayers,
The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs,
Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea,
Dried butterflies, and tomes of casuistry.
Pope's Rape qf the Lock.
The queen of night
Round us pours a lambent light :
Light that seems but just to show
Breasts that beat, and cheeks that glow.
Dr. Johnson.
My own lov'd light,
That every soft and solemn spirit worships,
That lovers love so well — strange joy is thine,
Whose influence o'er all tides of soul hath power,
Who lend'st thy light to rapture and despair ; —
The glow of hope and wan hue of sick fancy
Alike reflect thy rays : alike thou lightest
The path of meeting or of parting love —
Alike on mingling or on breaking hearts
Thou smil'st in throned beauty !
Maturin's Bertram.
Sweet moon ! if like Crotona's sage,
By any spell my hand could dare
To make thy disk its ample page.
And write my thoughts, my wishes there ;
How many a friend, whose careless eye
Now wanders o'er that starry sky,
Should smile upon thy orb to meet
The recollection, kind and sweet,
The reveries of fond regret,
The promise, never to forget,
And all my heart and soul would send
To many a dear-lov'd, distant friend !
Moore.
such a blessed night as this,
1 often think if friends were near,
How we should feel, and gaze with bhss
Upon the moonlight scenery here !
Moore.
'T was one of those delicious nights,
So common in the climes of Greece,
When day withdraws but half his lights,
And all is moonshine, balm and peace !
Moore
And be their rest unmov'd
By the white moonlight's dazzling power :
None, but the loving and belov'd,
Should be awake at this sweet hour.
Moore.
The moon arose ; she shone upon the lake,
That lay one smooth expanse of silver light ;
She shone upon the hills and rocks, and cast,
Upon their hollows and their hidden glens,
A blacker depth of shade.
Southey's Madoc.
The wild rose, eglantine, and broom,
Wasted around their rich perfume !
The birch-trees wept in fragrant balm,
The aspens slept beneath the calm ;
The silver light, with quivering glance,
Play'd on the water's still expanse, —
Wild were the heart whose passion's sway
Could rage beneath the sober ray.
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
The silver light, which, hallowing tree and tower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
A loving languor which is not repose.
Byron.
There is a dangerous silence in that hour,
A stillness which leaves room for the full soul
To open all itself, without the power
Of calling wholly back its self-control.
Byron.
And thou did'st shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 't were, anew, the gaps of centuries ;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship.
Byron
How calmly gliding through the dark blue sky
The midnight moon ascends ! Her placid beams.
Through thinly scatter'd leaves and boughs gm
tesque,
Mottle with mazy shades the orchard slope ,
Here o'er the chesnut's Netted foliage, gr«j
358
MOON. MOONLIGHT.
And massy, motionless they spread ; here shine
Upon the crags, deepening with blacker night
Their chasms ; and there the glittering argentry
Ripples and glances on the confluent streams.
A lovelier, purer light than that of day
Rests on the hills ; and, oh, how awfully
Into the deep and tranquil firmament
The summits of Anseva rise serene !
The watchman on the battlements partakes
The stillness of the solemn hour, and feels
The silence of the earth ; the endless sound
Of flowing water soothes him, and the stars,
Which in that brightest moonlight well nigh
quenched
Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth
Of yonder sapphire infinite are seen,
Draw on with elevating influence
Toward eternity the attempered mind :
Musing on worlds beyond the grave he stands,
And to the virgin mother silently
Breathes forth her hymn of praise.
Southey's Don Roderick.
Now let us with a spell invoke
The full-orb'd moon to grieve our eyes.
Not bright, not bright, but with a cloud
Lapp'd all about her, let her rise
AH pale and dim as if from rest
The ghost of the late buried sun
Had crept into the skies.
The
Hood.
The moon ! she is the source of sighs,
The very face to make us sad ;
If but to think in other times
The same calm quiet look she had.
Thomas Hood.
See
The moon is up, it is the dawn of night ;
Stands by her side one bold, bright, steady star ;
Star of her heart, and heir to all her light,
Whereon she looks so proudly, mild and calm,
As though she were the mother of that star.
Bailey's Festus.
moon ! old boughs lisp forth a holier din,
The while they feel thine airy fellowship :
Thou dost bless every where with silver lip,
Kissing dead things to life.
John Keats.
Wha 4 if there in thee, moon, that thou should'st
move
My heart so potcnt.y ? When yet a child
1 oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd.
Thou scem'dst my sister ; hand in hand we went
From eve to morn across the firmament.
John Keats.
O moon ! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in.
John Keats.
The moon ! the moon ! oh, tell me, do ye love her
placid ray ?
Do ye love the shining starry train that gathers
round her way ?
Oh, if ye do, go watch her when she climbs above
the main,
While her full transcript lives below upon the
crystal plain !
While her soft light serenely falls, and rising
billows seem
Like sheets of silver spreading forth to meet her
hallow'd beam !
Miss Eliza Cook's Poems.
Myriads have sung thy praise,
Fair Dian, virgin goddess of the skies !
And myriads will raise
Their songs while time yet onward flies,
To thee, chaste prompter of the lover's sighs,
And of the minstrel's lays ;
But still exhaustless as a theme
Shall be thy name
While lives immortal Fame —
As when to people the first poet's dream,
Thy inspiration came.
Mrs. E. C. Kinney.
The moon is sailing o'er the sky,
But lonely all as if she pin'd
For somewhat of companionship,
And felt it were in vain she shin'd.
Earth is her mirror, and the stars
Are as the court around her throne;
She is a beauty and a queen, —
But what of this ? she is alone.
Miss London.
Night on the waves ! and the moon is on high,
Hung like a gem on the brow of the sky ;
Treading its depths, in the power of her might,
And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light.
T. K. Hervey.
There is no grave in all the earth
That moonlight hath not seen ;
It gazcth cold and passionless
Where agony hath been ;
And it is well : that changeless ray
A deeper thought should throw,
When mortal love pours forth its tide
Of unavailing woe ;
It tcachcth us no shade of grief
Can touch the starry sky,
That all our soirow liveth here —
The glory is on high !
Mrs. J. T. Worthington.
MORNING.
357
The shadows of the ruin lay
Heavy and black athwart his way; —
Long-, leaning- shapes that frowning- took
The forms of foes he ill could brook ;
Save where, between the rifted rocks,
The moonbeams, dropt in silver blocks,
Were sleeping — yet he scarce would dare,
To set his darkening- footstep there,
And mar the beauteous light that brought
Sweet fancies to his troubled thought.
Mrs. Hale.
The rising- moon has hid the stars,
Her level rays, like golden bars
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between,
And silver white the river gleams,
; As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.
Longfellow.
The full-orb'd moon has reach'd no higher
Than yon old church's mossy spire,
And seems, as gliding up the air,
She saw the fane ; and pausing there,
Would worship, in the tranquil night,
The Prince of Peace — the Source of light,
Where man for God prepar'd the place,
And God to man unveils his face,
Her tribute all around is seen;
She bends and worships like a queen !
Her robe of light and beaming crown
In silence she is casting down.
Miss Gould's Poems.
Above, the overhanging banks
Were lin'd by trees in broken ranks,
And moonlight falling gently down,
Set with rich pearls each emerald crown.
Willia?n C. H. Hosmer.
Suns may darken, — heaven be bow'd —
Still unchanged shall be, —
Soul-deep — here — that moonlit cloud
To which I look'd with thee.
Miss Barrett.
MORNJNG.
At last the golden oriental gate
Of greatest heaven 'gan to open fair ;
And Phoebus, fresh as bridegroom to his mate,
Came dancing forth shaking his dewy hair,
And hurl'd his glist'ring beams through gloomy
air. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Shaks. Hamlet.
But, look, the morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.
Shales. Hamlet.
The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night,
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of
light;
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path, and Titan's fiery wheels.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east :
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
But soft ! what light through yonder window
breaks !
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
See, how the morning opes her golden gates,
And takes her farewell of the glorious sun !
How well resembles it the prime of youth,
Trimm'd like a yonker, prancing to his love !
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
The silent hours steal on,
And flaky darkness breaks within the east.
Shaks. Richard III
This morning, like the spirit of a youth
That means to be of note, begins betimes.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
The wolves have prey'd ; and look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.
Shaks. Much Ado about Nothing.
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger ;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and
there,
Troop home to churchyards : damned spirits all,
That in crossways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Hrtain.
When the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murders, and in outrage, bloody hire ;
But when from under this terrestrial ball,
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being pluck'd from off thei
backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at tnemselves
Shaks. Richard [J
333
MORNING.
The sun is in the heaven ; and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton.
Shaks. King John.
Yon grey lines,
That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar,
It is, methinks, a morning full of fate !
It riscth slowly, as her sullen car
Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it!
She is not rosy-finger'd, but swol'n black !
Her face is like a water turn'd to blood ;
And her sick head is bound about with clouds,
As if she threaten'd night ere noon of day !
It does not look as it would have a hail
Or health wish'd in it as on other morns.
Jonson's Catiline,
Yet hath the morning sprinkled through the clouds
But half her tincture ; and the sail of night
Sticks still upon the bosom of the air.
Chapman's Humorous Day's Mirth.
Is not yon gleam the shudd'ring morn that lakes,
With silver tincture, the east verge of heaven ?
Marston's Antonio and Melida.
See the dapple grey coursers of the morn,
Beat up the light with their bright silver hoofs,
And chase it through the sky.
Marston's Antonio and Melida.
Now 'gins the fair dew-dabbling blushing morn
To open to the earth heav'n's eastern gates,
Displaying, by degrees, the new-born-light,
The stars have trae'd their dance ; and unto night
Now bid good-night:
The young day's sentinel, the morning-star,
Now drives before him all his glitt'ring flock,
And bids them rest within the fold unseen ;
Till with his whistle Hesperus calls them forth.
Now Titan up, and ready, calls aloud,
And bids the rolling hours bestir them quick,
And harness up his prancing foaming steeds,
To hurry out the sun's bright chariot:
O now I hear their trampling feet approach !
Now, now I see that glorious lamp to dart
His nearer beams, and all be-paint with gold
The over-peeping tops of highest hills.
Hawkings's Apollo Shroving.
JNow the bright morning-star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.
Milton's May Morning.
kSweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Now morn her rosy steps in th' eastern clime
Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Awake,
My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found,
Heav'n's last best gift, my ever new delight,
Awake ; the morning shines, and the fresh field
Calls us ; we lose the prime, to mark how spring
Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove,
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed,
How nature paints her colours, how the bee
Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Thus pass'd the night so foul, till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps in amice grey.
Milton's Paradise Regained,
The birds,
Who all things now behold more fresh and green,
After a night of storm sc ruinous,
Clear'd up their choicest notes in bush and spray,
To gratulate the sweet return of morn.
Milton's Paradise Regained
See Aurora puts on her crimson blush,
And with resplendent rays gilds o'er the top
Of yon aspiring hill ! the pearly dew
Hangs on the rose-bud's top ; and, knowing it
Must be anon exhal'd, for sorrow shrinks
Itself into a tear.
Lewis Sharp's Noble Stranger
The rosy-finger'd morn did there disclose
Her beauty, ruddy as a blushing bride,
Gilding the marigold, painting the rose,
With Indian chrysolites her cheeks were dy'd.
Baron
The sun had long since, in the lap
Of Thetis, taken out his nap,
And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn.
Butler's Hudilras
Sullen, methinks, and slow the morning breaks t
As if the sun were listless to appear,
And dark designs hang heavy on the day.
Dryden's Duke of Guise,
The morning lark, the messenger of day,
Saluted in her song the morning grey ;
And soon the sun arose with beams so bright,
That all th' horizon laugh'd to see the joyous sight;
He with his tepid rays the rose renews,
And licks the dropping leaves, and dries the dews.
Dryden's P alamort and Arcite.
Now from night's womb the glorious day breaks
forth,
And seems to kindle from the setting stars.
Lee's Lucius Junius Brutus,
MORNING.
359
Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach
Appearing show'd the ruddy morn's approach.
The slip-shod 'prentice from his master's door,
Had par'd the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirl'd her mop with dextr'ous airs,
Prepar'd to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The small-coal-man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drown'd in shriller notes of chimney-sweep ;
Duns at his lordship's gate begin to meet ;
And brick-dust Moll has scream'd through half a
street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out at nights to steal for fees ;
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And school-boys lag with satchels in their hands.
Swift.
See ! the night wears away, and cheerful morn,
All sweet and fresh, spreads from the rosy east ;
Fair nature seems reviv'd, and e'en my heart
Sits light and jocund at the day's return.
Howe's Royal Convert.
The morning lowers, and heavily in clouds
Brings on the day, the great, the important day,
Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome.
Colo.
At length the world, renew'd by calm repose,
Was strong for toil, the dappled morn arose.
ParneWs Hermit.
But now the clouds in airy tumults fly ;
The sun emerging opes the azure sky ;
A fresher green the smiling leaves display,
And, glittering as they tremble, cheer the day.
ParnelVs Hermit.
Hail to the joyous day ! with purple clouds
The whole horizon glows. The breezy spring
Stands loosely floating on the mountain-top,
And deals her sweets around. The sun too seems,
As conscious of my joy, with brighter beams,
To gild the happy world
Thomson's Sophonisba.
See, how at once the bright effulgent sun,
Rising direct, swift chases from the sky ^
The short-liv'd twilight ; and with ardent blaze
Looks gaily fierce o'er all the dazzling air.
Thomson's Seasons.
The lengthen'd night elaps'd, the morning shines
Serene, in all her dewy beauty bright,
Unfolding fair the last autumnal day.
And now the morning sun dispels the fog ;
The rigid hoar-frost melts before his beam ;
And hung on every spray, on every blade
Of grass, the myriad dew-drops twinkle round.
Thomson's Seasons.
Now flaming up the heavens, the potent sun
Melts into limpid air the light-rais'd clouds,
And morning fogs, that hover'd round the hills,
In party-colour'd bands ; till wide unveil'd
The face of nature shines, from where earth seems
Far stretch'd around, to meet the bending sphere.
Thomson's Seasons,
The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews
At first faint glimmering in the dappled east ;
Till far o'er ether spreads the wid'ning glow ;
And, from before the lustre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quicken'c
step,
Brown night retires ; young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Thomson's Seasons
Hence every harsher sight ! for now the day
O'er heaven and earth diffus'd, grows warm and
high;
Infinite splendour ! wide investing all.
Thomson's i
O'er yonder eastern hill the twilight pale
Walks forth from darkness ; and the god of day.
With bright Astrsea seated by his side,
Waits yet to leave the ocean.
Akenside.
'T is morning, and the sun with ruddy orb
Ascending fires the horizon.
Cowpefs Task
But who the melodies of morn can tell ?
The wild brook babbling down the mountain's
side;
The lowing herd ; the sheepfold's simple bell ;
The pipe of early shepherd, dim descried
In the lone valley, echoing far and wide
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ;
The hollow murmur of the ocean tide ;
The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love,
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove
Beanie's Minstrel
Day takes his daily turn,
Rising between the gulfy dells of night,
Like whiten'd billows on a gloomy sea.
Joanna Baillie's On a
Day glimmer'd in the east, and the white moon
Hung like a vapour in the cloudless sky.
Rogers's lian,
Day dawns, the twilight gleam dilates,
The sun comes forth, and, like a god.
Rides through rejoicing heaven.
Soutiieifs Ttwiai}"
300
MORNING.
Far in the chambers of the west,
The gale had sighed itself to rest;
The moon was cloudless now and clear
But pale and soon to disappear.
The thin grey clouds waxed dimly light
On Brusleton and Houghton height,
And the rich dale, that eastward lay,
Waited the wakening touch of day,
To give its woods and cultured plain,
And towers and spires, to light again.
Scott's Rokeby.
The sun, awakening, through the smoky air
Of the dark city casts a sullen glance,
Rousing each caitiff to his task of care,
Of sinful man the sad inheritance ;
Summoning revellers from the lagging dance ;
Scaring the prowling robber to his den ;
Gilded on battled tower the warder's lance ;
And warning student pale to leave his pen,
And yield his drowsy eyes to the kind nurse of
men. Scott's Lady of the Lake.
What various scenes, and, O ! what scenes of woe,
Are witnessed by that red and struggling beam !
The fevered patient, from his pallet low,
Through crowded hospital beholds it stream ;
The ruined maiden trembles at its gleam,
The debtor wakes to thought of gyve and jail,
The love-lorn wretch starts from tormenting dream ;
The wakeful mother, by the glimmering pale,
Trims her sick infant's couch, and soothes his
feeble wail. Scotfs Lady of the Lake.
Blest power of sunshine ! genial day !
What balm, what life is in thy ray ;
To fee] thee is such real bliss,
That had the world no joy but this,
To sit in sunshine calm and sweet —
It were a world too exquisite
For man to leave it for the gloom,
The deep, cold shadow of the tomb.
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
But mighty nature bounds as from her birth,
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth ;
Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam,
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.
Byron's Lara.
Night wanes — the vapours round the mountains
curl'd
.Melt into morn, and light awakes the world.
Byron's Lara.
'I he morn is up again, the <}ewy morn,
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth contained no tomb —
And glowing into day
Byron's Childe Harold.
I now, an early riser, love to hail
The dreamy struggles of the stars with light,
And the recovering breath of earth, sleep-drown'd.
Awakening to the wisdom of the sun,
And life of light within the tent of Heaven ;
To kiss the feet of morning as she walks
In dewy light along the hills, while they,
All odorous as an angel's frcsh-cull'd crown,
Unveil to her their bounteous loveliness.
Bailey's Festus.
A night had pass'd away among the hills,
And now the first faint tokens of the dawn
Show'd in the east. The bright and dewy star
Whose mission is to usher in the morn,
Look'd through the cool air like a blessed thing
In a far purer world. I had wak'd
From a long sleep of many changing dreams,
And now in the fresh forest air I stood
Nerv'd to another day of wandering.
Percital's Poems
Throw up the window ! 'T is a morn for life
In its most subtle luxury. The air
Is like a breathing from a rarer world;
And the south wind is like a gentle friend,
Parting the hair so softly on my brow.
It has come over gardens, and the flowers
That kiss'd it are betray'd ; for as it parts,
With its invisible fingers my loose hair,
I know it has been trifling with the rose,
And stooping to the violet. There is joy
For all God's creatures in it.
Willis's Poems.
I had awoke from an unpleasant dream,
And light was welcome to me. I look'd out
To feel the common air, and when the breath
Of the delicious morning met my brow,
Cooling its fever, and the pleasant sun
Shone on familiar objects, it was like
The feeling of the captive who conies forth
From darkness to the cheerful light of day.
Willis's Poema.
Wake, slumberer ! morning's golden hours
Are speeding fast away;
The sun has wak'd the opening flowers,
To greet the new-born day,
The deer leaps from his leafy haunt ;
Fair gleams the breezy lake ;
The birds their matin carols chaunt —
All Nature cries, awake !
Epes Sargent.
'Tis beautiful, when first the dewy light
Breaks on the earth ! while yet the scented air
Is breathing the cool freshness of the night
And the bright clouds a tint of crimson wear.
Elizabeth M. Chandler.
J
MOTHER.
361
The morning comes, but brings no sun ;
The sky with storm is overrun ;
And here I sit in my room alone,
And feel, as I hear the tempest moan,
Like one who hath lost the last and best,
The dearest dweller from his breast !
T. Buchanan Read.
MOTHER.
Nay, mother,
Where is your ancient courage ? You were us'd
To say, extremity was the trier of spirits ;
That common chances common men could bear;
That when the sea was calm, all boats alike
Show'd mastership in floating ; Fortune's blows,
When most struck home, being gentle wounded,
crave
A noble calmness. You were us'd to load me
With precepts that would make invincible
The heart that conn'd them.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
The mother, in her office, holds the key
Of the soul ; and she it is who stamps the coin
Of character, and makes the being who would be
a savage,
But for her gentle cares, a Christian man.
Then crown her Queen o' the world.
Old Play.
Maternal love ! thou word that sums all bliss,
Gives and receives all bliss, — fullest when most
Thou givest ! spring-head of all felicity,
Deepest when most is drawn ! emblem of God !
O'erflowing most when greatest numbers drink !
Pollock's Course of Time.
There is none
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within
A mother's heart!
Mrs. Hemans's Siege of Valencia.
The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
I miss thee, my mother, when young health has
fled,
And I sink in the languor of pain,
Where, where is the arm that once pillow'd my
head,
And the ear that once heard me complain ?
Other hands may support me, gentle accents may
fall— •
For the fond and the true are still mine :
I've a blessing for each; I am grateful to all, —
But whose care can be soothing as thine ?
Eliza Cook's Poems.
I miss thee, my mother ! thy image is still
The deepest impress'd on my heart,
And the tablet so faithful in death must be chill,
Ere a line of that image depart.
Eliza Cook's Poems
Sweet is the image of the brooding dove !
Holy as heaven a mother's tender love !
The love of many prayers, and many tears,
Which changes not with dim declining years —
The only love, which, on this teeming earth,
Asks no return for passion's wayward birth.
Mrs. Norton's Dream,
Ah ! bless'd are they for whom, 'mid all their
pains,
That faithful and unalter'd love remains ;
Who, life wreck'd round them — hunted from their
rest —
And by all else forsaken or distress'd —
Claim in one heart, their sanctuary and shrine —
As I, my mother, claim'd my place in thine !
Mrs. Norton.
She was my friend — I had but her — no more,
No other upon earth — and as for heaven,
I am as they that seek a sign, to whom
No sign is given. My mother ! Oh, my mother ]
Taylor's Edwin the Fair.
Would, Mother, thou couldst hear me tell
How oft, amid my brief career,
For sins and follies lov'd too well,
Hath fallen the free, repentant tear.
And, in the waywardness of youth,
How better thoughts have given to me
Contempt for error, love for truth,
'Mid sweet remembrances of thee.
James Aid rich
She led me first to God;
Her words and prayers were my young spirit e
dew —
For when she us'd to leave
The fireside every eve,
I knew it was for prayer that she withdrew.
How often has the thought
Of my mourn'd mother brought
Peace to my troubled spirit, and new power
The tempter to repel!
Mother, thou knowest well
That thou hast bless'd me since my natal houi .
John Pierponi
My mother ! — manhood's anxious brow
And sterner cares have long been mine •
Yet turn I to thee fondly now,
As when upon thy bosom's shrine
My infant griefs were gently hush'd to rest,
And thy low whisper'd prayers my slumber bless a
George W Piethunt
31
3e;2
MOTHER.
I ve por'd o'er many a yellow page
Of ancient wisdom, and have won,
Perchance, a scholar's name — but sage
Or bard have never taught thy son
Lessons so dear, so fraught with holy truth,
As thekse Ins mother's faith shed on his youth.
George W. Bethune.
A mother's love — how sweet the name !
What is a mother's love ?
— A noble, pure, and tender flame,
Enkindled from above,
To bless a heart of earthly mould ;
The warmest love that can grow cold ;
This is a mother's love.
James Montgomery.
There are smiles and tears in the mother's eyes,
For her new-born babe beside her lies ;
Oh, heaven of bliss ! when the heart o'erflows
With the rapture a mother only knows !
Henry Ware, Jr.
Our little ones inquire of me, where is their mother
gone ? —
What answer can I make to them, except with
tears alone :
For if I say, to heaven — then the poor things
wish to learn,
How far is it, and where, and when their mother
will return. Albert Pike.
Yes, I have left the golden shore,
Where childhood 'midst the roses play'd :
Those sunny dreams will come no more,
That youth a long bright Sabbath made.
Yet while those dreams of memory's eye
Arise in many a glittering train,
My soul goes back to infancy,
And hears my mother's song again I
Willis Gaylord Clark.
And while my soul retains the power
To think upon each faded year,
In every bright or shadow'd hour,
My heart shall hold my mother dear.
The hills may tower — the waves may rise,
And roll between my home and me ;
Yet shall my quenchless memories
Turn with undying love to thee.
WiUis Gaylord Clark.
Mother ! dear mother ! the feelings nurst
As I hung at thy bosom, clung round thee first.
"I was the earliest link in love's warm chain —
'T is the only one that will long remain :
And as year by year, and day by day,
feume friend still trusted drops away,
Mother ! dear mother ! oh '. dost thou see
Now the shorten 1 d chain brings me nearer thee ?
Willis's Earlier Poems.
-
Number thy lamps of love, and tell me now
How many canst thou re-light at the stars,
x\nd blush not at their burning ? One — one only-
Lit while your pulses by one heart kept time
And fed with faithful fondness to your grave —
(Though sometimes with a hand stretch'd back
from heaven)
Steadfast through all things — near when most
forgot —
And with its finger of unerring truth
I Pointing the lost way in thy darkest hour —
One lamp — thy mother's love — amid the stars
Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before
The throne of God burn through eternity —
Holy — as it was lit and lent thee here.
Willis's Poems.
Dear mother, of the thousand strings which waken
The sleeping harp within the human heart,
The longest kept in tune, though oft forsaken,
Is that in which the mother's voice hath part :
Her still, small voice, which e'en the careless ear
Turneth with reverence deep and pure delight to
hear. Mrs. E. J.
My mother ! at that holy name
Within my bosom there 's a gush
Of feeling which no time can tame,
A feeling which for years of fame
I would not, could not crush !
George P. Morris
When we see the flower seeds wafted
From the nurturing mother tree,
Tell we can, wherever planted,
What the harvesting will be ;
Never from the blasting thistle
Was there gather'd golden grain, —
Thus the seal the child receiveth
From its mother will remain.
Mrs. Hale's Poems
Earth held no symbol, had no living sign
To image forth the mother's deathless love ;
And so the tender care the righteous prove,
Beneath the ever-watching Eye divine,
Was given as type to show how pure a shrine
The mother's heart was hallow'd from above ;
And how her mortal hopes must intertwine
With hopes immortal ; — and she may not move
From this high station which her Saviour seal'd,
When in maternal arms he lay reveal'd.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
O wondrous power ! how little understood, —
Entrusted to the mother's mind alone,
To fashion genius, form the soul for good,
Inspire a West, or train a Washington !
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
MOUNTAINS.
363
Sweet mother ! you fear while no longer you guide
me,
The Past will be lost in the Present's gay show ;
But ah ! whether joy or misfortune betide me,
I love you too dearly your love to forego !
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
And still, when the chill wing of woe darkens
o'er me,
I am grateful its shadow extends not to thee ;
While if praise thrill my heart or if joy smile be-
fore me,
I sigh — " Could she know it, how glad she would
be !"
Sweet mother ! too fondly your darling you cher-
ish'd,
For me to forget you wherever I go ; —
Ah no ! not till memory's power has perish'd ;
I love you too dearly to turn from you so !
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
I am one who hold a treasure
And a gem of wondrous cost ;
But I mar my heart's deep pleasure
With the fear it may be lost.
Oh ! for some heavenly token,
By which I may be sure
The vase shall not be broken —
Dispers'd the essence pure.
Then spoke the angel of mothers
To me in gentle tone,
" Be kind to the children of others,
And thus deserve thine own."
Mrs. Julia W. Howe.
The mothers of our Forest-Land !
Stout-hearted dames were they ;
With nerve to wield the battle-brand,'
And join the border-fray :
They shrank not from the foeman —
They quail'd not in the fight —
But cheer'd their husbands through the day,
And sooth'd them through the night.
William D Gallagher.
The mothers of our Forest-Land
Their bosoms pillow'd men '.
And proud were they by such to stand,
In hammock, fort or glen ;
To load the sure old rifle —
To run the leaden ball —
To watch a battling husband's place,
And fill it should he fall:
No braver dames had Sparta, >
No nobler matrons Rome —
Yet who or lauds or honours them,
Even in their own green home?
William P. Gallagher.
Thou art not mine — upon thy sweet lip lingers
Thy mother's smile —
And while I press thy soft and baby fingers
In mine the while —
In the deep eyes so trustfully upraising
Their light to mine —
I deem the spirit of thy mother gazing
To my soul's shrine.
They ask me with their meek and soft beseeching
A mother's care —
They ask a mother's kind and patient teaching —
A mother's prayer —
Not mine — yet dear to me — fair fragrant blossom
Of a fair tree —
Crush'd to the earth in life's first glorious summer —
Thou 'rt dear to me,
Child of the lost, the buried, and the sainted,
I call thee mine —
Till fairer still with tears and sin untainted —
Her home be thine.
Mrs. Welly
MOUNTAINS.
Who first beholds those everlasting clouds,
Seed-time and harvest, morning, noon and night,
Still where they were, steadfast, immovable;
Who first beholds the Alps — that mighty chain
Of mountains, stretching on from east to west,
So massive, yet so shadowy, so ethereal,
As to belong rather to heaven than earth —
But instantly receives into his soul
A sense, a feeling that he loses not,
A something that informs him 'tis a moment
Whence he may date henceforward and forever ?
Rogers's Italy
A herdsman on the lonely mountain top,
Oh then how beautiful, how bright appear'd
The written promise ! Early had he learn'd
To reverence the volume that displays
The mystery, the life that cannot die ;
But in the mountains he did feel his faith !
Wordsworth,
The whispering air
Sends inspiration from the mountain heights.
Wordswo) Ih
Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacl'd in clouds their snowy scalps,
And thron'd eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow .
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather around these summits, or to show
How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain
man below. Byron's Childe Harold
3G4
MOURNING.
He who first met the highland's swelling blue,
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue ;
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace.
Byron's Island.
Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains ;
They crown'd him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow,
Around his waist are forests brae'd,
The Avalanche in his hand.
Byron's Manfred.
Mountains have fallen,
Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock
Rocking their Alpine brethren ; filling up
The ripe green vallies with destruction's splinters ;
Damming the rivers with a sudden dash,
Which crush'd the waters into mist, and made
Their fountains find another channel.
Byron's Manfred.
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God !
Thou hast made thy children mighty
By the touch of the mountain sod.
Mrs. Hemans.
There is a wakening on the mighty hills,
A kindling with the spirit of the morn !
Bright gleams are scatter'd from the thousand rills,
And a soft visionary hue is born
On the young foliage worn.
By all the embosom'd woods — a silvery green,
Made up of spring and dew, harmoniously serene.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer
sky,
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scoop' d between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.
Bryant's Poems.
pTere mountain on mountain exultingly throws
Through storm, mist, and snow, its bleak crags
to the sky;
In their shadow the sweets of the valley repose,
While streams, gay with verdure and sunshine
steal by. William Peter.
These mountains, piercing to the sky
With their eternal cones of ice, —
Change not, but still remain as ever,
nnwasting, deatn.ess and sublime,
r»nd will remain while lightnings quiver,
Or stars the hoary summits climb,
Or rolls the tfiunder-chariot of eternal Time.
Albert Pike.
My mountain home, my mountain home !
Though vallies fairer lie,
My spirit pines amid their bloom —
It shuts me from the sky ;
The mountains holier visions bring
Than e'er in vales arise,
As brightest sunshine bathes the wing
That's nearest to the skies.
Mrs. Hale.
MOURNING.
We must all die!
All leave ourselves, it matters not where, when,
Nor how, so we die well : and can that man that
does so
Need lamentation for him ? children weep,
Because they have offended, or for fear ;
Women, for want of will and anger: is there
In noble man, that truly feels both poises
Of life and death, so much of this set weakness,
To drown a glorious death in child and woman,
Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian.
They truly mourn, that mourn without a witness.
Baron's Mirza.
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe,
To midnight dances and the public show !
Pope.
Many, my friend, have mourn'd for thee,
And yet shall many mourn,
Long as thy name on earth shall be
In sweet remembrance borne ;
For while thine absence they deplore,
'T is for themselves they weep,
That they behold thy face no more.
James Montgomery.
Thou art lost to me forever, — I have lost thee,
Isadore,
Thy head will never rest upon my loyal bosom
more.
Thy tender eyes will never more gaze fondly into
mine,
Nor thine arms around me lovingly and trustingly
entwine.
Thou art dead and gone, loving wife, — thy heart
is still and cold, —
And I at one stride have become most comfortless
and old;
Of our whole world of love and song, thou wast me
only light,
A star, whose setting left behind, ah ! me, how dark
a night !
Thou are lost to me, forever, Isadore.
Albert Pike.
MURDER.
365
Oh ! thou who dry'st the mourners' tear,
How dark tliis world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to thee !
The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes, are flown ;
And he who has but tears to give,
Must weep those tears alone ;
But thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.
Moore's Poems.
A voice upon the prairies,
A cry of woman's woe
That mingleth with the autumn blast
AH fitfully and low;
It is a mother's wailing:
Hath earth another tone
Like that with which a mother mourns
Her lost, her only one?
Mrs. Sigoumry's Poems.
MURDER.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is ;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Shales. Hamlet.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd :
Cut off even in the blossom of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanneal'd ;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account,
With all my imperfections on my head.
Shaks. Hamlet.
He took my father grossly, full of bread ;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May ;
And how his credit stands,who knows, save heaven ?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'T is heavy with him. Shaks. Hamlet.
I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall :
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe ;
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,
And call it accident. ^ ^^
Ere the bat hath flown
His cloister'd flight ; ere, to black Hecate's sum-
mons,
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be
done
A deed of dreadful note.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell .
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry, hold, hold!
Shaks. Macbeth.
Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. — Whiles I threat, he
lives ;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
Shaks. Macbeth.
One cry'd, God bless us, and Amen, the other ;
As they had seen me, with these hangman's hands,
Listening their fear. I could not say, Amen,
When they did say, God bless us.
Shaks. Macleth
The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan : for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.
Shaks. Macbeth.
This Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu'd, against
The deep damnation of his taking off.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Then live, Macduff; what need I fear of thee ?
But yet I '11 make assurance doubly sure,
And take a bond of fate : thou shalt not five ;
That I may tell pale-hearted fear, it lies,
And sleep in spite of thunder.
Shaks. Macbeth
Safe in a ditch he lies,
With twenty trenched gashes on his head ;
The least a death to nature.
Shaks. Macbeth.
I am in blood
Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
Shaks. Macbeth.
If the assissination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success ; that but this blow
Might be the he-all, and the end-all, here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We 'd jump the life to come. — But, in these cases.
We still have judgment here ; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor : this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'? 1 ?halice
To our own lips.
Shaks. Macbeth
31*
J60
MURDER.
I will have blood, they say ; blood will have blood :
Stones have been known to move, and trees to
speak ;
Augurs, and understood relations, have
By magot-pics, and coughs, and rooks, brought
forth
The secrct'st man of blood.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Will all Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand ? No, this my hand will
rather
The multitudinous seas incarnardine,
Making the green one, red.
Shaks. Macbeth.
The tyrannous and bloody act is done ;
The most arch deed of piteous massacre,
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton, and Forrest, whom I did subborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery,
Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,
Melting with tenderness, and mild compassion,
Wept like two children, in their death's sad story.
Shaks. Richard III.
The great king of kings
JIath in the table of his law commanded,
That thou shalt do no murder ; wilt thou then
Spurn at his edict, and fulfil a man's.
Shaks. Richard III.
Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull; —
Shall I be plain ? I wish the bastards dead ;
And I would have it suddenly perform'd,
What say'st thou now ? speak suddenly, be brief.
Sftaks. Richard III.
Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes drop
tears :
I like you lads ; — about your business straight ;
Go, go, despatch.
Shaks. Richard III.
Let 's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully ;
Let 's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcase fit for hounds.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers !
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man,
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience
To do no contriv'd murder , I lack iniquity
Sometimes, to do me service : nine or ten times
1 had thougnt t "> have ycrk'd bim here under the
riba
Shaks. Othello.
Now, how dost thou look now ? O ill-starr'd wench !
Pale as thy smock ! when we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it.
Shaks. Othello.
Durst thou have Iook'd upon him, being awake,
And hast thou kill'd him sleeping ? O brave touch .
Could not a worm, an adder do so much ?
An adder did it ; for with deadlier tongue
Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals !
How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd !
You have no children, butchers ! if you had,
The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
This is the man should do the bloody deed ;
The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye ; that close aspect of his
Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast
Shaks. King John.
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes deeds ill done ! Hadst not thou been by,
A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
Quoted and sign'd, to do a deed of uhame,
This murder had not come into my mind.
Shaks. King John
See, his face is black and full of blood ;
His eye-balls further out, than when he liv'd ;
Staring full-ghastly, like a strangled man ;
His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with strug-
gling :
His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
Look on the sheets ; his hair, you see is sticking ;
His well-proportion' d beard, made rough and rug-
ged,
Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd :
It cannot be, but he was murder'd here :
The least of all these signs are probable.
Sliaks. Henry VI. Part II
Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies :
The gods on murd'rers fix revengeful eyes.
Chapman's Widow's Tears
Blood ha tli strange organs to discourse withal ;
It is a clam'rous orator, and then
Ev'n nature will exceed herself, to tell
A crime, so thwarting nature.
GomersalVs Lodovic S/otzu.
Judgment itself would scarce a law enact
Against the murd'rer, thinking it a fact
That man 'gainst man would never dare commit;
Since the worst things of nature do not it
Gofe's Orestes.
MUSIC.
3fi7
Morder itself is past all expiation,
The greatest crime that nature doth abhor.
Goffe's Orestes,
Other sins only speak, murder shrieks out.
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.
Webster.
Is there a crime
Beneath the roof of heaven, that stains the soul
Of man, with more infernal hue, than damn'd
Assassination.
Ciller's Cccsar in Egypt.
Twice it call'd, so loudly call'd,
With horrid strength, beyond the pitch of nature ;
And murder ! murder ! was the dreadful cry.
A third time it return'd with feeble strength,
But o' the sudden ceas'd, as though the words
Were smother'd rudely in the grappl'd throat.
And all was still again, save the wild blast
Which at a distance growl'd —
Oh ! it will never from my mind depart !
That dreadful cry, all i' the instant still'd.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
Villains,
I know you both, ye are slaves that for a ducat
Would rend the screaming infant from the breast,
To plunge it in the flames :
Yea, draw your keen knives 'cross a father's throat,
And carve with them the bloody meal ye earn'd.
Maturings Bertram.
Aye, heaven and earth do cry, impossible,
The shuddering angels round the eternal throne,
Veiling themselves in glory, shriek, impossible,
But hell doth know it true.
Maturiri's Bertram.
Hear thou, and hope not — if by word or deed,
Yea, by invisible thought, unutter'd wish,
Thou hast been ministrant to this horrid act —
With full collected force of malediction
I do pronounce unto thy soul — despair.
Maturings Bertram.
Cease, triflers ; would you have me feel remorse,
Leave me alone — nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon,
Speaks to the murderer with the voice of solitude,
Maturiri's Bertram.
Oh ! thou dead
And everlasting witness ! whose unsinking
Blood darkens earth and heaven ! what thou now
art,
I know not ! but if thou sees't what I am,
I think thou wilt forgive him, whom his God
Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul — farewell !
Byron's Cain.
[ Still as a tomb the ship keeps on ;
I Nor sound nor stirring now.
Hush, hark ! as from the centre of the deep —
Shrieks — fiendish yells ! They stab them in their
sleep '. Dana's Buccaneer.
The scream of rage, the groan, the strife,
The blow, the gasp, the horrid cry,
The panting, throttled prayer for life,
The dying's heaving sigh,
The murd'rer's curse, the dead man's fix'd, still
glare,
And fears, and death's cold sweat — they all are
there ! Dana's Buccaneer
* — "I know thou com'st for me,"
Lee's spirit to the spectre said ;
" I know that I must go with thee —
Take me not t the dead !
I 'm weak and faint. O, let me stay !"
" Nay, murd'rer, rest nor stay for thee !"
Dana's Buccaneer
MUSIC.
EfFsoons they heard a most melodious sound,
Of all that might delight a dainty ear,
Such as at once might not on living ground,
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere :
Right hard it was for wight which did it hear,
To rede what manner of music that might be ;
For all that pleasing is to living ear,
Was there consorted in one harmony;
Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree
Spenser's Fuiry Queen
But soon the eyes rendered the ears their right;
For such strange harmony he seem'd to hear,
That all his senses flock'd into his ear,
And every faculty wish'd to be seated there.
Spenser's Britain's Ida.
Give me some music ; music moody food
For us that trade in love.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
This music mads me, let it sound no more ;
For though it have help'd mad men to their wits,
In me, it seems, it will make wise men mad.
Shaks. Richard II
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it ; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
Shaks. Twelfth Nighi
That strain again ; it had a dying fall :
O, it came o'er my eai like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour.
Shaks Twelfth NigM
36*3
MUSIC.
Mark it, Ccsario ; it is old, and plain :
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with
bone,
Do use to chaunt it ; it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.
Shaks. Twelfth Night,
This music crept by me upon the waters ;
Allaying both their fury, and my passion,
With its sweet air.
Shaks. Tempest,
Preposterous ass ! that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordain'd 1
Was it not to refresh the mind of man,
After his studies, or his usual pain ?
Shaks. Taming the Shrew.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus :
Let no such man be trusted.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends :
Unless some dull and favourable hand
Will whisper music to my weary spirit.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews ;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones ;
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Once I was upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song ;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Music so softens and disarms the mind,
That not an arrow docs resistance find.
Thus the fair tyrant celebrates the prize,
And acts herself the triumph of her eyes.
So Nero once, with harp in hand, survey'd
Mis flaming Rome, and as it burn'd he play'd.
Waller.
I '11 think no more on 't ;
Give me some music ; look that it be sad.
Dryden.
Music nas cnarms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, and bend the knotted oak.
Congreve's Mourning Bride.
M last a soft and solemn-breathing sound
Rose like a steam of rich distill'd perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even silence
Was took ore she was 'ware, and wish'd she might
Deny her nature and be never more,
Still to be so displac'd. I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.
Milton's Comus.
Often our seers and poets have contest,
That music's force can tame the furious breast ;
Can make the wolf, or foaming boar, restrain
His rage ; the lion drop his crested mane,
Attentive to the song ; the lynx forget
His wrath to man, and lick the minstrel's feet
Are we, alas 1 less savage yet than these ?
Else music, sure, may human cares appease.
Prior's Soloman.
E'en rage itself is cheer'd with music :
It wakes a glad remembrance of pur youth,
Calls back past joys, and warms us into transport.
Rowe's Fair Penitent.
Each sound too here to languishment inclin'd,
Lull'd the weak bosom, and induced ease.
Aerial music in the warbling wind,
At distance rising oft, by small degrees
Nearer and nearer came, till o'er' the trees
It hung, and breath'd such soul-dissolving airs,
As did, alas ! with soft perdition please :
Entangl'd deep in its enchanting snares,
The list'ning heart forgot all duties and all cares.
Thomson's Castle of Indolence.
Ah me ! what hand can touch the string so fine ?
Who up the lofty diapason roll
Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine,
Then let them down again into the soul ?
Now rising love they fann'd, now pleasing dole
They breath'd in tender musings through the
heart ;
As when seraphic hands a hymn impart :
Wild warbling nature all, above the reach of art.
Thomson's Castle of Indolence.
Ask me no more, whither does haste
The nightingale, when May is past,
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters and keeps warm her note.
Carew
How music charms ?
How metre warms?
Parent of actions good and brave !
How vice it tames ?
And worth inflames?
And holds proud empire o'er the grave!
Young
MUSIC.
369
Though cheerfulness and I have long been
strangers,
Harmonious sounds are still delightful to me,
There 's sure no passion in the human soul,
But finds its food in music.
Lino's Fatal Curiosity.
By music, minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low :
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft persuasive voice applies ;
Or, when the soul is press'd with cares,
Exalts her in enliv'ning airs.
Warriors she fires with animated sounds,
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds :
Melancholy lifts her head,
Morpheus rouses from his bed,
Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
List'ning envy drops her snakes ;
Intestine wars no more our passions wage,
And giddy factions hear away their rage.
Pope's Cecilia.
O music, sphere descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid !
Collins^ Passions.
Music resembles poetry : in each
Are nameless graces, which no method teach,
And which a master's hand alone can reach !
Pope.
I do remember, too,
She told me of a mermaid once, that lay
Along the scoop'd side of a hollow wave,
Singing such dulcet music, that the ear,
Like a woo'd damsel, trembled with delight.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
Perhaps the breath of music
May prove more eloquent than my poor words :
It is the medicine of the breaking heart.
Sir A. Hunts Julian.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet ! now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again and louder still,
Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on.
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where mem'ry slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Camper's Task.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleas'd
With melting airs of martial, brisk or grave.
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
Cowper's Task.
Y
Yet what is music, and the blended power
Of voice with instruments of wind and string I
What but in empty pageant of sweet noise ?
'T is past : and all that it has left behind
Is but an echo dwelling in the ear
Of the toy-taken fancy, and beside,
A void and countless hour life's brief day
Crowe,
But hark ! the village clock strikes nine — the
chimes
Merrily follow, tuneful to the sense
Of the pleased clown attentive, while they make
False measur'd melody on crazy bells.
wondrous power of modulated sound !
Which like the air (whose all obedient shape
Thou mak'st thy slave) canst subtilely pervade
The yielded avenues of sense, unlock
The close affections, by some fairy path
Winning an easy way through every ear,
And with thine unsubstantial quality
Holding in mighty chains the hearts of all ;
All, but some cold and sullen temper'd spirits,
Who feel no touch of sympathy or love.
Crowe.
Is there a heart that music cannot melt ?
Alas ! how is that rugged heart forlorn !
Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt
Of solitude and melancholy born ?
He needs not woo the muse ; he is her scorn ;
The sophist's rope of cobweb he shall twine ;
Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page ; or mourn,
And delve for life in mammon's dirty mine ;
Sneak with the scoundrel fox or grunt with glutton
swine. Beanie's Minst r rl
1 was a wild and wayward boy,
My childhood scorn'd each childish toy.
Retir'd from all, reserv'd, and coy,
To musing prone,
I woo'd my solitary joy,
My harp alone.
Ambition's dream I 've seen depart,
Have read of penury the smart,
Have felt of love the venom'd dart
When hope was flown :
Yet rests one solace tc my heart, —
My harp alone.
Scoffs Rokeon
So far was heard the mighty knell,
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,
Spread his broad nostrils to the wind.
Listed before, aside, behind ;
And quak'd among the mountain fern,
To hear that sound so dull and stern.
Scotfs Marmup^.
370
MUSIC.
The sound, upon the fitful gale,
In solemn wise did rise and fail,
Like that wild harp, whose magic toiie
Is waken'd by the winds alone.
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.
There is a charm, a power, that sways the breast;
Bids every passion revel or be still ;
Inspires with rage, or all our cares dissolves ;
Can soothe distraction, and almost despair —
That power is music.
Armstrong' 1 s Art of Preserving Health.
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison and of plague.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Whose story is so pleasing, and so sad,
The swains have turn'd it to a plaintive lay,
And sing it as they tend their mountain sheep.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
I thank thee ; this shall be our daily song,
Jt cheers my heart, although these foolish tears
Seem to disgrace its sweetness.
Joanna Baillie's Beacon.
Anon through every pulse the music stole,
And held sublime communion with the soul,
Wrung from the coyest breast the imprison' d sigh,
And kindled rapture in the coldest eye.
Montgomery's World before the Flood.
Music ! — O how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell !
Why should feeling ever speak
When thou canst breathe her soul so well ?
Friendship's balmy words may feign,
Love's are e'en more false than they ;
Oh ' 't is only music's strain
Can sweetly soothe, and not betray !
Moore.
u This must be the music," said he, " of the spears,
For I'm blest if each note of it doesn't run
through one ! Moore's Fudge Family.
Sweet notes ! they tell of former peace,
Of all that look'd so rapturous then ; —
Not wither'd, lost — Oh ! pray thee, cease,
I cannot bear these sounds again.
Moore.
Here paus'd he, while the music, now less near,
Breath'd with a holier language on his ear,
As though the distance, and that heav'nly ray
Through which the sounds came floating, took
away
All that had been too earthly in the lay.
could he listen to such sounds unmov'd,
And by that light — nor dream of her he lov'd !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
For mine is the lay that lightly floats,
And mine are the murmuring dying notes,
That fall as soft as snow on the sea,
And melt in the heart as instantly !
And the passionate strain that, deeply going,
Refines the bosom it trembles through,
As the musk-wind, over the water blowing,
Ruffles the wave, but sweetens it too !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
But the gentlest of all, are those sounds full of
feeling,
That soft from the lute of some lover are stealing —
Some lover, who knows all the heart-touching
power
Of a lute, and a sigh, in the magical hour.
Moore.
Oh ! that I were
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,
A living voice, a breathing harmony,
A bodiless enjoyment — born and dying,
With the blest tone that made me !
Byron's Manfred,
'T is sweet to hear
At midnight, on the blue and moonlit deep,
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep.
Byron.
There 's music in the sighing of a reed ;
There 's music in the gushing of a rill ;
There 's music in all things, if men had ears ;
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
Byron.
It rose, that chaunted mournful strain,
Like some lone spirit's o'er the plain :
'T was musical, but sadly sweet,
Such as when winds and harp-strings meet,
And take a long unmeasur'd tone,
To mortal minstrelsy unknown.
Byron's Siege of Corinth
The convent bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow ;
In the grey square turret swinging,
With a deep sound, to and fro :
Heavily to the heart they go !
Byron's Parisina.
And there are songs and quavers, roaring, hum-
ming,
Guitars, and every other sort of strumming.
Byron's Beppo.
To hear him, you 'd believe
An ass was practising recitative.
Byron.
Music, where soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory.
MUSIC.
3T1
That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight ;
Can he keep himself still, if he would ? oh, not he !
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.
Wordsworth — Power of Music.
Blest be the song that brightens
The blind man's gloom.
Song lifts the languid oar
And bids it aptly fall, with chime
That beautifies the fairest shore.
Wordsworth.
And yonder lattice, where thick vine-leaves
Are canopy, a maiden leans — she has caught
A shadow — and she sees a well-known form
Amid those trees, and, with her hair flung back,
She listens to his song — ' The song she loved.'
Rogers.
Music ! why thy power employ
Only for the sons of joy?
Only for the smiling guests
At natal or at nuptial feasts?
Rather thy lenient numbers pour
On those whom secret griefs devour ;
And with some softly- whisper 'd air
Smooth the brow of dumb despair.
Warton, from Euripides.
Bring music, stir the brooding air
With an ethereal breath !
Bring sounds my struggling soul to bear
Up from the couch of death !
Mrs. Hemans.
By what strange spell
Is it, that ever, when I gaze on flowers,
I dream of music ?
Mrs. Hemans.
It was my evil star above,
Not my sweet lute, that wrought me wrong ;
It was not song that taught me love,
But it was love that taught me song.
Miss London's Poems.
The music was
Of divine stature — strong to pass !
And those who heard it understood
Something of life in spirit and blood —
Something of Nature's fair and good.
Miss Barrett's Poems.
There 's music in the forest leaves,
When summer winds are there,
And in the laugh of forest girls,
That braid their sunny hair.
The first wild bird that drinks the dew,
From violets of the spring,
Has music in his song, and in
The fluttering of his wing.
HaUech
There's something in
The shape of harps as though they had been made
By music.
Bailey's Festus
Oh, nature first was fresh to men,
And wanton without measure ;
So youthful and so flexile then,
You mov'd her at year pleasure.
Twang out, my fiddle ! shake the twigs !
And make her dance attendance ;
Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,
And schirrous roots and tendons.
'T is vain ! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle ;
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle ;
Ah, had I liv'd when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber !
Tennyson's Poems.
The words that bear a mission high,
If music-hallow'd, never die !
Mrs. Hale's Poems
The Songs that flow'd on Zion's Hill
Are chanted in God's Temple still,
And to the eye of faith unfold
The glories of His House of old.
Mrs. Hale's Poems
A mystery this — but who can see
The soft south wind that sways the tree,
And warms its vital flood to flow,
And wakes its folded buds to blow ?
Even thus the Power of Music, felt,
The soul is sway'd, the heart will melt,
Till Love and Hope so bless the Hours,
Life's dial-plate is mark'd by flowers.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
The Father spake ! In grand reverberations
Through space roll'd on the mighty music-tide,
While to its low, majestic modulations
The clouds of chaos slowly swept aside.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems
And wheresoever, in His rich creation,
Sweet music breathes — in wave, or bird, or sou"
'T is but the faint and far reverberation
Of that grand tune to which the planets roll I
Mrs. Osgood's Poemt
Rich, though poor !
My low-roof'd cottage is this hour a heaven
Music is in it — and the song she sings,
That sweet-voie'd wife of mine, arrests the ea»
Of my young child, awake upon her knee.
WiUis's Poem*
372
NAME -NATURE.
NAME.
What 's in a name ? that which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Shales. Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo, doff tl^ name ;
And for that name which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Brutus and Caesar : what should be in Caesar ?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them tog-ether, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well ;
Weigh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with them,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.
Now in the names of all the gods aPonce,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great ?
Shaks. Julivs Cczsar.
T was born free as Caesar ; so were you :
We both have fed as well ; and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
I do beseech you,
(Chiefly, that I may set it in my prayers,)
What is your name ?
Shaks. Tempest.
Cood name in man or woman dear —
Is the immediate jewei of their souls.
Shaks. Othello.
Who swerves from innocence, who makes divorce
Of that serene companion — a good name,
Recovers not his loss ; but walks with shame,
With doubt, with fear, and haply with remorse.
Wordsworth — Sonnet.
My hopes are with the dead ; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all futurity :
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
Southey.
1 breathe the dear and cherished name,
And long-lost scenes arise ;
Life 's glowing landscape spreads the same, —
The same Hope's kindling skies.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
j^ thv name Mary, maiden fair?
Such should, methinks, its music be ;
The sweetest name that mortals bear,
Were best oefitting thee ;
At>f! she, to whom it once was given,
Was half of earth, and half of heaven
O. W. Holmes's Poems.
Oh ! never breathe a dead one's name,
When those who lov'd that one are nigh ;
It pours a lava through the frame
That chokes the breast and fills the eye.
Eliza Cook's Poems.
Oh never breathe a lost one's name
To those who call'd that name their own ;
It only stirs the smouldering flame
That burns upon a charnel stone.
Eliza Cook's Poeins.
He that is ambitious for his son, should give him
untried names,
For those have scrv'd other men, haply may
injure by their evils ;
Or otherwise may hinder by their glories ; there-
fore set him by himself,
To win for his individual name some clear praise.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy
The sweetest tales of human weal and sorrow,
The fairest trophies of the limner's fame,
To my fond fancy, Mary, seem to borrow
Celestial halos from thy gentle name.
H. T. Tuckerman.
Call me pet names, dearest ! Call me thy bird,
That flies to thy breast at one cherishing word,
That folds its wild wings there, ne'er dreaming
of flight,
That tenderly sings there in loving delight !
Oh ! my sad heart keeps pining for one fond word, —
Call me pet names, dearest ! Call me thy bird !
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Land of the West ! though passing brief
The record of thine age,
Thou hast a name that darkens all
On history's wide page !
Let all the blasts of fame ring out —
Thine shall be louder far :
Let others boast their satellites —
Thou hast the planet star !
Thou hast a name whose characters
Of light shall ne'er depart;
'T is stamp'd upon the dullest brain,
And warms the coldest heart ;
A war-cry fit for any land
Where freedom 's to be won :
Land of the West ! it stands alone —
It is thy Washington !
Miss Eliza Cook's Poems.
NATURE.
Nature is motion's mother,
The spring whence order flows ; that all directs,
And knits the cause with th' effects.
Jonson's Masques.
NATURE.
373
Oh, noble strain!
worthiness of nature, breed of greatness !
Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base
Nature hath meal and bran ; contempt and grace.
Shaks. Cymheline.
Nature hath made nothing so base, but can
Read some instruction to the wisest man.
Aleyn's Crescey.
Nature is impartial,
And in her work of man, prefers not names
Of ancestors ; she sometimes forms a piece
For admiration from the basest earth,
That holds a soul; and to a beggar's issue
Gives those perfections make a beauty up ;
When purer moulds, polish'd and gloss'd with titles,
Honours and wealth bestow upon their bloods
Deform'd impressions, objects only fit
For sport or pity.
Nabb's Tottenham Court.
In contemplation of created things
By steps we may ascend to God.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
By viewing nature, nature's handmaid, art,
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow
Thus fishes first to shipping did impart,
Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.
Dryden's Annus Mirabilus.
How mean the order and perfection sought
In the best product of the human thought,
Compar'd to the great harmony that reigns
In what the spirit of the world ordains !
Prior's Soloman.
A frirer red stands blushing in the rose
Than that which on the bridegroom's vestment
flows,
Take but the humblest lily of the field,
And, if our pride will to our reason yield,
It must, by sure comparison, be shown
That on the regal seat great David's sen,
Array'd in all his robes and types of power,
Shines with less glory than that simple flower.
Prior's Soloman.
Wno lives to nature rarely can be poor ;
Who lives to fancy, never can be rich.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Man 's rich with little, were his judgment true ;
Nature is frugal, and her wants are &w.
Young's Love of Fame.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul ;
That, changed through all, is yet in all the same ;
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame ;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent ;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart,
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns ;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small ;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Pope's Essay on Man.
See through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high ! progressive life may go !
Around, how wide ! how deep extend below !
Vast chain of being ! which from God began,
Nature 's ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach, from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Who can paint
Like nature ? can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like her's ?
Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows.
Thomson's Seasons.
Nature ! great parent ! whose unceasing hand
Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year,
How mighty how majestic, are thy works !
With what a"pleasing dread they swell the soul !
That sees astonish'd ! and astonish'd sings !
Thomson's Seasons
Ask the swain
Who journeys homeward from a summer day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds,
O'er all the western sky ; full soon, I ween,
His rude expression and untutor'd airs,
Beyond the power of language, will unfold
The form of beauty smiling at his heart,
How lovely ! how commanding !
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination
Thus nature works as if to mock at art,
And in defiance of her rival powers ;
By these fortuitous and random strokes
Performing such inimitable feats,
As she with all her rules can never reach.
Cowper's Task.
How oft upon yon eminence, our pace
Has slacken'd to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind scarce conscious that it blew
While admiration feeding at the eye,
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene i
Cowper's Task
32
374
NATURE.
All natural objects have
An echo in the heart. This flesh doth thrill,
And has connexion by some unseen chain
With its original source and kindred substance.
The mighty forest, the proud tides of ocean,
Sky-clearing hills, and in the vast of air,
The starry constellations ; and the sun,
Parent of life exhaustless — these maintain
With the mysterious mind and breathing mould
A co-existence and community.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
Liberal, not lavish, is kind nature's hand ;
Nor was perfection made for man below.
Yet all her schemes with nicest art are plann'd,
Good counteracting ill, and gladness woe.
With gold and gems if Chilian mountains glow,
If bleak and barren Scotia's hills arise,
There plague and poison, lust and rapine grow ;
Here peaceful are the vales, and pure the skies,
And freedom fires the soul, and sparkles in the
eyes. Beanie's Minstrel.
O nature, how in every charm supreme !
Whose votaries feast on raptures ever new !
O for the voice and fire of seraphim,
To sing thy glories with devotion due !
Blest be the day I 'scaped the wrangling crew,
From Pyrrho's maze, and Epicurus' sty ;
And held high converse with the godlike few,
Who to th' enraptur'd heart, and ear, and eye,
Teach beauty, virtue, truth, and love, and melody.
Beanie's Minstrel.
Nature makes her happy home with man
Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed,
With its own rill, on its own spangled bed.
Coleridge.
Where rose the mountains, there to him were
friends ;
Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home ;
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime extends,
He had the passion and the power to roam ;
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam,
Were unto him companionship ; they spake
A mutual language, clearer than the tome
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake
For nature's pages glaz'd by sun-beams on the lake.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Live not the stars and mountains ? are the waves
Without a spirit ? are the dropping caves
Without a feeling in their silent tears ?
No, no; — they woo and clasp us to their spheres,
Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before
llw hour, and merge our soul in the great shore.
Byron's Island.
Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth — o'er gazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek
The spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare,
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer
Byron's Childe Harold
'T is nature's law
That none, the meanest, of created things,.
Of forms created the most vile and brutish
The dullest and most noxious, should exist
Divorc'd from good — a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul to every mode of being
Inseparably link'd.
Wordsworth.
Nothing is lost on him who sees
With an eye that genius gave ;
For him there's a story in every breeze,
And a picture in every wave.
Moore.
I can pass days
Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar-trees,
Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall, —
The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs,
Each tree a natural harp, — each different leaf
A different note, blent in one vast thanksgiving.
Miss Landon.
Within the sun-lit forest,
Our roof the bright blue sky,
Where streamlets flow, and wild flowers blow,
We lift our hearts on high ;
Our country's strength is bowing ;
But, thanks to God, they can't prevent
The lone wild-flower from blowing !
Ebenezer Elliott.
Oft have I listen'd to a voice that spake
Of cold and dull realities of life.
Deem we not thus of life ; for we may fetch
Light from a hidden glory, which shall clothe
The meanest thing that is with hues of heaven.
Our light should be the broad and open day ;
And as we lose its shining, we shall look
Still on the bright and daylight face of things.
Henry Alford.
Well I remember, in my boyish days,
How deep the feeling, when my eye look'd forth
On Nature, in her loveliness, and storms ;
How my heart gladden'd, as the light of spring
Came from thee, with zephyrs and with showers,
Waking the earth to beauty, and the woods
To music, and the atmosphere blew,
Sweetlv and calmly, with its breath of balm.
PercivaVs Poems
:
NECESSITY.
375
How patient Nature smiles at Fame !
The weeds that strew'd the victor's way,
Feed on his dust to shroud his fame,
Green where proudest towers decay.
O. W. Holmes.
If man would but his finer nature learn,
And not in life fantastic lose the sense
Of simpler things ; could Nature's features stern
Teach him be thoughtful, then, with soul intense
I should not yearn for God to take me hence.
Dana's Poems.
If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills ! — no tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Longfellow's Poems.
Nature — faint emblem of Omnipotence! —
Shap'd by His hand — the shadow of His light —
The veil in which He wraps His majesty,
And through whose mantling folds He deigns to
show,
Of His mysterious, awful attributes
And dazzling splendours, all man's feeble thought
Can grasp uncrush'd, or vision bear unquench'd.
Street's Poems.
Nature is man's best teacher. She unfolds
Her treasures to his search, unseals his eye,
Illumes his mind, and purifies his heart,
An influence breathes from all the sights and
sounds
Of her existence ; she is wisdom's self.
Street's Poems.
There 's not a plant that springeth,
But bears some good to earth ;
There 's not a life but bringeth
Its store of harmless mirth ;
The dusty, wayside clover
Has honey in its cells, —
The wild bee, humming over,
Her tale of pleasure tells ;
The osiers, o'er the fountain,
Keep cool the water's breast, —
And on the roughest mountain
The softest moss is press'd.
Thus holy Nature teaches
The worth of blessings small,
That Love pervades, and reaches,
And forms the bliss of all. «, TT , , „
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around ;
When even the blue deep heavens look glad,
And gladness blooms from the blossoming
ground? Bryant's Poems.
Go abroad
Upon the paths of nature, and when all
Its voices whisper, and its silent things
Are breathing the deep beauty of the world.
Kneel at its simple altar, and the God,
Who hath the living waters, shall be there.
Willi*.
The book of nature, and the print
Of beauty on the whispering sea,
Give aye to me some lineament
Of what I have been taught to be.
My heart is harder, and perheps
My manliness hath drunk up tears ;
And there 's a mildew in the lapse
Of a few swift and chequer'd years —
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.
Willis's Poems.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn from the alder bough ;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even ;
He sings the song, but it pleases not now,
For I did not bring home the river and sky ; —
He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye.
Ralph Waldo Emerszn
The green earth sends its incense up
From every mountain shrine —
From every flower and dewy cup
That greeteth the sunshine.
The mists are lifted from the rills,
Like the white wing of prayer ;
They lean above the ancient hills,
As doing homage there.
The forest-tops are lowly cast
O'er breezy hill and glen,
As if a prayerful spirit pass'd
O'er all the homes of men.
The clouds weep o'er the fallen world,
E'en as repentant love ;
Ere, to the blessed breeze unfurl'd,
They ia.de in light above.
Whittier's Worship of Nature.
NECESSITY.
Fatal necessity is never known,
Until it strike ; and till that blow be come,
Who falls, is by false visions overthrown.
Lord Brooke's Mustapha
'T is necessity,
To which the gods must yield ; and I obey.
Till I redeem it by some glorious way.
Beaumont and Fletcher's False Out.
When fear admits no hope of safety, then
Necessity makes dastards valiant men.
Herrick
376
NEWS.
Let those go see who will — I like it not —
For, say he was a slave to rank and pomp,
And all the nothings he is now divore'd from
By the hard doom of stern necessity ;
Yet is it sad to mark his alter'd brow,
Where vanity adjusts her flimsy veil
O'er the deep wrinkles of repentant anguish.
Old Play. Antiquary.
It was, we own, subject of much debate,
And worthy men stood on opposing sides,
Whether the cup of mortal life had more
Of sour or sweet. Vain question this, when ask'd
In general terms, and worthy to be left
Unsolv'd. — The sweet was in the taste,
The beauty in the e}'e, and in the ear
The melody; and in the man — for God
Necessity of sinning laid on none.
Pollock's Course of Time.
Between you and your best intent
Necessity her brazen bar
Will often interpose, as sent
Your pure benevolence to mar.
R. M. Milnes.
Necessity, like electricity,
Is in ourselves and all things, and no more
Without us than within us.
Bailey's Festus.
We will and act and talk of liberty ;
And all our wills and all our doings both
Are limited within this little life.
Free will is but necessity in play, —
The clattering of the golden reins which guide
The thunder- footed coursers of the sun.
Bailey's Festus.
The ship which goes to sea inform'd with fire, —
Obeying only its own iron force,
Reckless of adverse tides, breeze dead, or weak
As infant's sporting breath, too faint to stir
The feather held before it, — is as much
The appointed thrall of all the elements,
As the white-bosom'd bark which wooes the wind,
And when it dies desists. And thus with man;
However contrary he set his heart
To God, he is but working out His will ,
And, at an infinite angle, more or less
Obeying his own soul's necessity.
Bailey's Festus.
NEWS.
With news the time' s in labour, and throws forth
F.ach minute some
Shakspeare.
What news, Lord Bardolph ? every minute now
Should be the father of some stratagem :
The times are wild ; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.
Shahs. Henry IV. Part II.
That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker ;
Each minute teems a new one.
Shahs. Macbeth.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the
grave,
To tell us this.
Shahs. Hamlet.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news ;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet) ;
Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embattled and rank'd in Kent :
Another lean unwash'd artificer
Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.
Shahs. King John.
Let me speak, to the yet unknowing world,
How these things came about : so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts ;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters ;
Of deaths put on by cunning, and fore'd cause ;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' heads : all this can I
Truly deliver.
Shahs. Hamlet.
The rabble gather round the man of news,
And listen with their mouths wide open ; some
Tell, some hear, some judge of news, some make
it,
And he that lies most loud, is most believed.
Dryden's Spanish Friar.
Cat'racts of declamation thunder here :
There forests of no meaning spread the page,
In which all comprehension wanders lost:
While fields of pleasantry amuse us there
With merry descants on a nation's woes.
The rest appear a wilderness of strange
But gay confusion ; roses for the cheeks,
And lilies for the brows of faded age,
Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald,
Heaven, earth, and ocean, plunder'd of their sweets,
Nectareous essences, Olympian dews,
Sermons, and city feasts, and fav'rite alter,
Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits,
And Katcrfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wond'ring for his bread.
Cowper's Task.
NIGHT.
37?
This folio of four pages, happy work ;
Which not e'en critics criticise that holds
Inquisitive attention, while I read,
Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ;
What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns ?
Compels Task.
The news ! our morning, noon, and evening cry,
Day after day repeats it till we die.
For this the cit, the critic, and the fop,
Dally the hour away in Tonsor's shop ;
For this the gossip takes her daily route,
And wears your threshold and your patience out ;
For this we leave the parson in the lurch,
And pause to prattle on our way to church ;
Even when some coffin'd friend we gather round,
We ask — "what news?" — then lay him in the
ground. Sprague's Curiosity.
NIGHT.
By this the drooping daylight 'gan to fade,
And yield his room to sad succeeding night,
Who with her sable mantle 'gan to shade
The face of earth and ways of living wight,
And high her burning torch set up in heaven
bright. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Grisly night, with visage deadly sad,
That Phoebus' cheerful face durst never view,
And in a foul black pitchy mantle clad,
She finds forthcoming from her darksome mew ;
Where she all day did hide her hated hue;
Before the door her iron chariot stood
Already harnessed for a journey new ;
And ccal black-steeds yborne of hellish brood,
That on their rusty bits did champ as they were
wood. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
But well I wot that to a heavy heart
Thou art the root and nurse of bitter cares,
Breeder of new, renewer of old smarts :
Instead of rest thou lendcst railing tears,
Instead of sleep thou sendest troublous fears :
And dreadful visions, in the which alive
The dreary image of sad death appears :
So from the weary spirit thou dost drive
Desired rest, and men of happiness deprive.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Under thy mantle black there hidden lie,
Light-shaming theft, and traitorous intent,
Abhorred bloodshed, and vile felony,
Shameful deceit, and danger imminent,
Foul horror and eke hellish dreriment.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Now 'gan the noble Phoebus for to steep
His fiery face in billows of the west,
And his faint steeds watered in ocean deep,
Whiles from their journal labours they did rest.
Spenser's Fairy Queen
Who can express the horror of that night,
When darkness lent his robes to monster fear ?
And heav'n's black mantle banishing the light
Made every thing in ugly form appear.
Brandon's Octavia.
Fair eldest child of love, thou spotless night !
Empress of silence, and the queen of sleep ;
Who, with thy black cheek's pure complexion,
Mak'st lovers' eyes enamour' d of thy beauty.
Marlot
Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead ; and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep ; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings ; and wither'd murder,
Alarmed by his sentinel the wolf,
Whose howl 's his watch, thus with his stealthy
pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his
design
Moves like a ghost.
Shales. Macheih.
Light thickens ; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood;
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse ; "
Whiles night's black agents to their prey do rouse.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Hark ! peace !
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bell-man,
Which giv'st the stern'st good night.
Shaks. Macbeth
Come, seeling night,
Skarf up the tender eye of pitiful day ;
And, with thy bloody and invisible hand,
Cancel, and tear to pieces, that great bond
Which keeps me pale.
Shaks. Macbeth.
The gaudy, babbling, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea ;
And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades
That drag the tragic melancholy night;
Who, with their drowsy, slow and nagging wings,
Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws
Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air
Shaks. Henry VI. Part U
Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes ;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.
Shaks. Midsummer JNight's Dream
32*
378
NIGHT.
The weary sun hath made a golden set,
And by the bright track of his golden car,
Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.
Shahs. Richard III.
The midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
Sound one unto the drowsy race of night.
Shaks. King John.
'T is now + he very witching time of night ;
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes
out
Contagion to this world : now could I drink hot
blood,
And do such business as the bitter day
Would quake to look on.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Look how the floor of heaven
Ir thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ;
There 's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still giving to the young-ey'd cherubims ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls ;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Night's silent reign had robb'd the world of light;
To lend, in lieu, a greater benefit,
Repose and sleep ; when ev'ry mortal breast
Whom care or grief permitted, took their rest.
May's Continuation of Lucan.
Quiet night, that brings
Rest to the labourer, is the outlaw's day,
In which he rises early to do wrong,
And when his work is ended dare not sleep.
Massinger.
Now glow'd the firmament
With livid sapphires : Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in cloudy majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad :
Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the woeful nightingale.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
'Twixt dav and night, and now from end to end
Night's hemisphere had veil'd th' horizon round.
Milton's Parodist Loan.
Now is the pleasant time,
The cool, the silent, save when silence yields
To the night- warbling bird, that now awake,
Tunes sweetest his love-labour'd song ; now reigns
Full-orb'd the moon, and with more pleasing fight
Shadowy sets off* the face of things ; in vain,
If none regard.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Now bogan
Night with her sullen wings to double shade
The desert ; fowls in their clay nests were couch' d ;
And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
The day is fled, and dismal night descends,
Casting her sable arms around the world,
And folding all within her sable grasp.
Hopkins's Pyrrhus.
The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,
And luxury more late, asleep were laid :
All was the night's : and in her silent reign
No sound the rest of nature did invade.
Dryden's Annus Mirabilis.
This dead of night, this silent hour of darkness,
Nature for rest ordain'd, and soft repose.
Route's Fair Penitent.
The drowsy night grows on the world, and now
The busy craftsmen, and o'er-labour'd hind
Forget the travail of the day in sleep :
Care only wakes, and moping pensiveness ;
With meagre discontented looks they sit,
And watch the wasting of the midnight taper.
Rome's Jane Shore.
The setting sun descends
Swift to the western waves ; and guilty night,
Hasty to spread her horror o'er the world,
Rides on the dusky air.
Rome's Ulysses.
Now sunk the sun ; the closing hour of day
Came onward, mantled o'er with sober grey ;
Nature in silence bid the world repose.
Parnell's Hermit.
Night, sable goddess ! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.
Silence, how dead ! and darkness, how profound !
Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds ;
Creation sleeps. 'T is as the gen'ral pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause ;
An awful pause ! prophetic of her end.
Young's Night Thouglds.
By day, the soul o'erborne by life's career,
Stunn'd by the din, and giddy with the glare,
Reels far from reason, jostled by the throng
Young's Night Thoughts.
NIGHT.
379
How is night's sable mantle labour'd o'er,
How richly wrought with attributes divine !
What wisdom shines ! what love ! this midnight
pomp,
This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds enlarg'd !
Built with divine ambition.
Young's Night Thoughts.
This sacred shade and solitude, what is it ?
'T is the felt presence of the deity.
Few are the faults we flatter when alone,
Vice sinks in her allurements, is ungilt.
And looks, like other objects, black by night.
By night an atheist half-believes a God.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Let Indians, and the gay, like Indians, fond
Of feather'd fopperies, the sun adore :
Darkness has more divinity for me ;
It strikes thought inward ; it drives back the soul
To settle on herself, our point supreme !
There lies our theatre ; there sits our judge.
Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene ;
'T is the kind hand of Providence stretcht out
'T wixt man and vanity : 't is reason's reign,
And virtue's too ; these tutelary shades
Are man's asylum from the tainted throng.
Night is the good man's friend, and guardian too ;
It no less rescues virtue, than inspires.
Young's Night Thoughts.
How like a widow in her weeds, the night,
Amid her glimmering tapers, silent sits !
How sorrowful, how desolate, she weeps
Perpetual dews, and saddens nature's scene.
Young's Night Thoughts.
The trembling stars
See crimes gigantic, stalking through the gloom
With front erect, that hide their head by day,
And making night still darker by their deeds.
Slumbering in covert, till the shades descend,
Rapine and murder, link'd, now prowl for prey.
Young's Night Thoughts.
The sun went down in clouds, and seem'd to mourn
The sad necessity of his return ;
The hollow wind, and melancholy rain, ,
Or did, or was imagin'd to, complain:
The tapers cast an inauspicious light ;
Stars there were none, and doubly dark the night.
Young's Force of Religion.
Now black, and deep the night begins to fall,
A shade immense. Sunk in the quenching gloom,
Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.
Order confounded lies ; all beauty void ;
Distinction lost ; and gay variety
One universal blot : such the power
Of light, to kindle and create the whole.
Thomson's Seasons.
The sun was set ; the night came on apace.
And falling dews bcwet around the place ;
The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings,
And the hoarse owl his woeful dirges sings.
Gay's Shepherd's Week
As yet 't is midnight deep. The weary clouds,
Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom.
Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep,
Let me associate with the serious night,
And contemplation her sedate compeer ;
Let me shake off the intrusive cares of day,
And lay the meddling senses all aside.
Thomson's Seasons
In sable pomp, with all her starry train,
The night resum'd her throne.
Glover.
The night look'd black, and boding darkness fell
Precipitate and heavy o'er the world ;
At once extinguishing the sun.
Malleit's Mustapha.
O, treach'rous night !
Thou lend'st thy ready veil to ev'ry treason,
And teeming mischiefs thrive beneath thy shade.
Hill's Zara
How those fall'n leaves do rustle on the path,
With whisp'ring noise, as tho' the earth around me
Did utter secret things !
The distant river, too, bears to mine ear
A dismal wailing. O mysterious night !
Thou art not silent ; many tongues hast thou !
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
No was the noon of night ; and all was still,
Save where the sentinel paced on his rounds,
Humming a broken song. Along the camp
High flames the frequent fire. The warrior
Franks,
On the hard earth extended, rest their limbs
Fatigued, their spears lay by them, and the shield
Pillow'd the helmed head : secure they slept,
And busy fancy in her dream renew'd
The fight of yesterday.
Southey
How beautiful is night !
A dewy freshness fills the silent air,
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor staiii.
Breaks the serene heaven :
In full-orb' d glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, gird'sd with the sky
How beautiful is night i
Southey's Thataoa
J50
NIGHT.
Behold the world
{tests, and her tir'd inhabitants have paus'd
From trouble and turmoil. The widow now
Has ceas'd to weep, and her twin-orphans lie
Lock'd in each arm, partakers of her rest.
The man of sorrow has forgot his woes ;
The outcast that his head is shelterless,
His griefs unshar'd. The mother tends no more
Her daughter's dying slumbers, but surpris'd
With heaviness, and sunk upon her couch,
Dreams of her bridals. Even the hectic lull'd
On death's lean arm to rest, in visions wrapt,
Crowning with hope's bland wreath his shuddering
nurse,
Poor victim ! smiles. — Silence and deep repose
Reign o'er the nations ; and the warning voice
Of nature utters audibly within
The general moral ; — tells us that repose,
Death-like as this, but of far longer pain,
Is coming on us — that the weary crowds,
Who now enjoy a temporary calm,
Shall soon taste lasting quiet, wrapt around
With grave-clothes; and their aching restless
Mouldering in holes and corners unobserved
Till the last trump shall break their sullen sleep.
Henry Kirke White.
The night comes calmly forth,
Bringing sweet rest upon the wings of even :
The golden wain rolls round the silent north,
And earth is slumbering 'neath the smiles of
heaven. Bowring.
Another day is added to the map
Of buried ages. Lo ! the beauteous moon,
Like a fair shepherdess, now comes abroad
With the full flock of stars, that roam around
The azure meads of heaven. And, oh ! how
charm'd,
Beneath her loveliness, creation looks ;
Far gleaming hills, and light in-weaving streams,
And sleeping boughs with dewy lustre clothed,
And green-hair'd valleys, — all in glory dress'd,
Make up the pageantries of night.
Robert Montgomery.
'T is night, the spectred hour is nigh ;
Pensive I hear the moaning blast
Passing with sad sepulchral sigh,
My lyre that hangs neglected by,
.Vnd seems to mourn for pleasures past
Moore.
How oft a cloud, with envious veil,
Otiscures yon bashful light,
Vo/iich seems so modestly to steal
Along the waste of night!
'T is thus the world's obtrusive wrongs
Obscure, with malice keen,
Some timid heart, which only longs
To live and die unseen.
Moore
The stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains. — Beautiful!
I linger yet with nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man ; and, in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learn'd the language of another world.
Byron's Manfred
All is gentle : nought
Stirs rudely ; but congenial witli the night,
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm !
I thank thee, night ! for thou hast chased away
These horrid bodements which, amidst the throng,
I could not dissipate : and with the blessing
Of thy benign and quiet influence —
Now will I to my couch, although to rest
Is almost wronging such a night as this.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
'T is midnight : on the mountain's brown
The cold, round moon shines deeply down ,
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright ;
Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turned to earth without repining,
Nor wished for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray ?
Byron's Siege of Corinth
All was so still, so soft, in earth and air,
You scarce would start to meet a spirit there ;
Secure that nought of evil could delight
To walk in such a scene, on such a night !
Byron's Lara.
The night
Shows stars and women in a better light.
Byron.
Just one look before I sleep,
Just one parting glance to keep
On my heart and on my brain
Every line and feature plain,
In sweet hopes that they may be
Present in those dreams to me,
Which the gentle night-hour brings
Ever on her starry wings.
Miss London's Poemtr.
Night is a lively masquerade of day.
J. Montgomery.
NIGHTINGALE.
391
Stringing the stars at random round her head,
Like a pearl network, there she sits — bright Night !
I love night more than day, — she is so lovely,
But I love night the most because she brings
My love to me in dreams.
Bailey's Festus.
Mind and Night
"Will meet, though in silence, like forbidden lovers.
Bailey's Festus.
Night hath made many bards, she is so lovely.
Bailey's Festus.
How beautiful this night ! the balmiest sigh
."Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon
vault,
Studded with stars innumerably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur
rolls,
Seems like a canopy whiob love has spread
Above the sleeping world.
Shelley's Poems.
'T is dark abroad. The majesty of night
Bows down superbly from her utmost height,
Stretches her starless plumes across the world,
And all the banners of the wind are furl'd.
John Neal.
The deep, transparent sky is full
Of many a thousand glittering lights —
Unnumber'd stars that calmly rule
The dark dominions of the night.
The mild bright moon has upward risen,
Out of the grey and boundless plain,
And all around the white snows glisten,
Where frost, and ice, and silence reign,
While ages roll away, and they unchang'd remain.
Albert Pike.
The night has come, but not too soon ;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.
Longfellow's Poems.
Sleep chains the earth ; the bright stars glide on
high,
Filling with one effulgent smile the sky ;
And all is hush'd so still, so silent there,
That one might hear an angel wing the air.
Mrs. Lewis's Child of the Sea.
The last red gold had melted from the sky,
"Where the sweet sunset linger'd soft and warm,
And starry night was gathering silently
The jewell'd mantle round her regal form ;
"While the invisible fingers of the breeze
Shook the young blossoms lightly from the trees.
Phcebe Carey.
Night is the time when Nature seems
God's silent worshipper,
And ever with a chasten'd heart
In unison with her,
I lay me on my peaceful couch,
The day's dull cares resign'd,
And let my thoughts fold up like flowers,
In the twilight of the mind.
Sara J. Clarke
I dread the night — it holds,
Within its weary bounds,
Strife, grief, and fears, red battle-fields,
And spectre-haunted grounds.
Sara J. Clark r
Oh, Night ! most beautiful, most rare !
Thou giv'st the heavens their holiest hue !
And through the azure fields of air,
Bringest down the golden dew !
For thou, with breathless lips apart,
Didst stand in that dim age afar,
And hold upon thy trembling heart
Messiah's herald-star !
For this I love thy hallow'd reign !
For more than this thrice blest thou a,rt !
Thou gain'st the unbeliever's brain
By entering at his heart !
T. Buchanan Read
Thick darkness broodeth o'er the world ; —
The raven pinion of the Night,
Close on her silent bosom furl'd,
Reflects no gleam of orient light.
E'en the wild norland fires that mock'd
The faint bloom of the eastern sky,
Now leave me, in close darkness lock'd,
To Night's weird realm of fantasy.
Mrs. Whitman
NIGHTINGALE.
O nightingale, that on yon blooming spray
"Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still ,
Thcu with fresh hope the lover's heart doth fill,
"While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love ; oh I if Jove's will
Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh.
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why :
Whether the muse or love call the* \ -s matt,
Both them I serve, and of their tram am L
Mitten
392
NOBILITY.
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection !
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Sweet bird that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy.
Milton's II Penseroso.
The melancholy Philomel,
Thus perch'd all night alone in shady groves,
Tunes her soft voice to sad complaints of love,
Making her life one great harmonious woe.
Southei-n's Disappointment.
— Hark ! the nightingale begins his song,
" Most musical, most melancholy" bird !
A melancholy bird ! O idle thought !
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
But some night-wandering man, whose heart was
piere'd
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper, or neglected love,
(And so, poor wretch ! fill'd all things with himself
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrows,) he, and such as he,
First nam'd these notes a melancholy strain.
Coleridge.
'T is the merry nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates,
With fast, thick warble, his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburden his full soul
Of all its music !
Coleridge.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird !
No hungry generations tread thee down ;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown.
Keats.
NOBILITY.
Vain-glorious man, when fluttering wind does blow
In his light wings, is lifted up to sky ;
The scorn of knighthood and true chivalry,
To think, without desert of gentle deed
4rd noble worth, to be advanced high,
Such praise is shame , but honour, virtue's meed,
_)oth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Should vice expect to 'scape rebuke,
Because its owner is a duke ?
Surift.
True is, that whilome that good poet said,
The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known,
For man by nothing is so well bewray'd,
As by his manners, in which plain is shown
Of what degree and what race he is grown.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
So man's true fame must strike from his own
deeds. Middleton.
How vain are all hereditary honours,
Those poor possessions from another's deeds,
Unless our own just virtues form our title,
And give a sanction to our fond assumption !
Shirley.
'T is from high life high characters are drawn,
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn ;
A judge is just, a chanc'llor juster still,
A gown-man, learn'd ; a bishop, what you will ;
Wise, if a minister ; but if a king,
More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'ry
thing. Pope.
But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only that were good and great.
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood
Go ! and pretend your family is young ;
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards ?
Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Pope's Essay on Man
Whoe'er amidst the sons
Of reason, valour, liberty, and virtue,
Displays distinguish'd merit, is a noble
Of nature's own creating. Such have risen,
Sprung from the dust; or where had been our
honours ? Thomson's Coriolanus.
Look round
Among the titled great ones of the world ;
Do they not spring from some proud monarch'
flatterer,
Some favourite mistress, or ambitious minister,
The ruin of his country, while their blood
Rolls down through many a fool, through many a
villain,
To its now proud possessors ?
Frances's Eugenia.
Ev'n to the dullest peasant standing by,
Who fasten'd still on him a wondering eye,
He seem'd the master spirit of the land.
Joanna Baillie.
There were twelve peers
Like Charlemagne's — and all such peers in look
And intellect, that neither eyes nor ears
For commoners had ever them mistook.
Byron
NOVELTY -NUN.
353
Even to the delicacy of their hands
There was resemblance, such as true blood wears.
Byron.
The noble ranks of fashion and birth
Are fetter'd by courtly rule;
They dare not rend the shackles that tend
To form the knave and fool.
Eliza Cook's Poems.
And what if court or castle vaunt
Its children loftier born?
Who heeds the silken tassel's vaunt
Beside the golden corn?
They ask not for the courtly toil
Of ribbon'd knights and earls,
The daughters of the virgin soil,
Our freeborn Yankee girls !
O. W. Holmes.
There's no power
In ancestry to make the foolish wise,
The ignorant learn'd, the cowardly and base
Deserving our respect as brave and good.
All men feel this : nor dares the despot say
His fiat can endow with truth the soul,
Or, like a pension, on the heart bestow
The virtues current in the realms above.
Hence man's best riches must be gain'd — not
given ;
His noblest name deserv'd, and not deriv'd.
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.
The ruffian warriors of the olden times,
Boisterous as winter, and with minds as hard
And barren as the frozen wilderness, —
Did such as these possess exclusive right
To patent Nature for Nobility?
And to their silly, sinning offspring grant
A perpetuity of dignities
To the end of time ? A charter of that power
Which only should be plac'd in hands that wield
The public destinies for public good ;
And a monopoly of fame and praise
Which talents and true nobleness should gain ?
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.
Go, then, to heroes, sages if allied,
Go ! trace the scroll, but not with eye of pride,
Where Truth depicts their glories as they shone,
And leaves a blank where should have been your
own.
Mark the pure beam on yon dark wave impress'd ;
So shines the star on that degenerate breast —
Each twinkling orb, that burns with borrow'd
fires,
So ye reflect the glory of your sires.
George HiU.
NOVELTY.
New customs,
Though they be never so ridiculous,
Nay, let them be unmanly, yet are follow'd.
Shaks. Henry VIII
All with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of tilings past
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work ;
But, when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch,
Transform themselves so strangely as the rich /
Well, but the poor — the poor have the same itch,
They change their weekly barber, weekly news,
Prefer a new japanner to their shoes;
Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and run
(They know not whither) in a chaise and one ;
They hire their sculler, and when once abroad,
Grow sick, and damn the climate — like a lord.
Pope.
Papillia, wedded to her amorous spark,
Sighs for the shades — " How charming is a park ?'"
A park is purchas'd, but the fair he sees
All bath'd in tears — O odious, odious trees !
Pope's Moral Essays
Of all the passions tbat possess mankind,
The love of novelty rules most the mind ;
In search of this, from realm to realm we roam ;
Our fleets come fraught with ev'ry folly home.
Ftote
Still sighs the world for something new,
For something new;
Imploring me, imploring you,
Some Will-o'-wisp to help pursue ;
Ah, hapless world, what will it do !
Imploring me, imploring you,
For something New!
Ralph Hoyt
I have liv'd in cities from my birth,
Where all was noise, and life, and varying scene,
Recurrent news which set all men agape —
New faces, and new friends, and shows and revels.
Mingled in constant action and quick change,
Which things drive on the wheels of time apace
Boker's Calaynoe
NUN.
Ah, wretch ! believ'd the spouse of God in vaio,
Confess'd within the slave of love and man
Pope's Eloisa
3S4
OATHS.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot !
The world forgetting, by the world forgot ;
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind !
Each pray'r accepted and each wish resign'd ;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep ;
Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep ;
Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n ;
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to heav'n :
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
Pope's Eloisa.
Canst thou forget that sad, that solemn day,
When victims at yon altar's foot we lay ?
Canst thou forget what tears that moment fell,
When, warm in youth, I bade the world farewell ?
As with cold lips I kiss'd the sacred veil,
The shrines all trembled and the lamps grew
pale :
Heaven scarce believ'd the conquest it survey'd,
And saints with wonder heard the vows I made.
Pope's Eloisa.
Oh come ! oh teach me nature to subdue,
Renounce my love, my life, myself, and you ;
Fill my fond heart with God alone, for he
Alone can rival, can succeed to thee.
Pope's Eloisa.
Relentless walls ! whose darksome round contains
Repentant sighs and voluntary pains :
Ye rugged rocks , which holy knees have worn ;
Ye grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn !
Shrines ! where their vigils pale-ey'd virgins keep ;
And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep !
Though cold like you, unmov'd and silent grown,
I have not yet forgot myself to stone.
Pope's Eloisa.
Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom,
Lost in a convent's solitary gloom !
There stern religion quench'd th' unwilling flame,
There died the best of passions, love and fame.
Pope's Eloisa.
Love, to her ear, was but a name,
Combin'd with vanity and shame ;
Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all
Bounded within the cloister wall.
Scott's Mannion.
There, those parted lips, —
Prayer could but give such voiceless eloquence, —
Shining like snow her clasp'd and earnest hands,
She seems a dedicated nun, whose heart
Is God's own altar. By her side I feel
A* in some holy place.
Miss London.
OATHS.
'T is not the many oaths, that make the truth ;
But the plain single vow, that is vowed true.
Stwks. All's Well
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows ;
They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
The vows of women
Of no more bondage be, to where they are made,
Than they are to their virtues ; which is nothing.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
Look thou be true ; do not give dalliance
Too much rein ; the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood ; be more abstemious,
Or else, good-night your vow.
Shaks. Tempest.
Your oaths are past, and now subscribe your name
That his own hand may strike his honour down,
That violates the smallest branch herein.
Shaks. Love's Lahour.
O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Come, swear it, damn thyself,
Lest being lik-e one of heaven, the devils themselves
Should fear to seize thee : therefore be double
damn'd,
Swear — thou art honest.
Shaks. Othello.
Thou seest, that all the grace that she hath left,
Is, that she will not add to her damnation
A sin of perjury : she not denies it.
Shaks. Much Ado.
Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautclous,
Old fable carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs ; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt : but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,
Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think, that, or our cause, or our performance,
Did need an oath.
Shaks. Julius Cezsar
Myself, myself confound !
Heaven, and fortune, bar me happy hours !
Day, yield me not thy light ; nor night, thy rest J
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if, with pure heart's love
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter !
Shaks. Richard III
OBITUARY.
335
This in the name of heaven, I promise here :
The which, if he be pleased, I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty may salve
The long grown wounds of my intemperance :
If not, the end of life cancels all bonds,
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths,
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
The oath in any way or form you please,
I stand resolv'd to take it.
Massinger's Duke of Milan.
Oaths were not purpos'd more than law
To keep the good and just in awe,
But to confine the bad and sinful,
Like moral cattle, in a pinfold.
Butler's Hudibras.
That saints may claim a dispensation
To swear and forswear on occasion,
I doubt not but it will appear
With pregnant light : the point is clear.
Oaths are but words, and words but wind ;
Too feeble instruments to bind.
Butler's Hudibras.
He that imposes an oath makes it,
Not he that for convenience takes it :
Then how can any man be said
To break an oath he never made.
Butler's Hudibras.
For breaking of an oath and lying,
Is but a kind of self-denying ;
A saint-like virtue ; and from hence
Some have broke oaths by Providence ;
Some, to the glory of the Lord,
Perjur'd themselves, and broke their word.
Butler's Hudibras.
Nay, but weigh well what you presume to swear !
Oaths are of dreadful weight ! and, if they are false,
Draw down damnation.
Savage's Sir Thomas Overbury.
Jack was embarrassed — never hero more,
And, as he knew not what to say, — he swore.
Byron's Island.
And was it strange that this poor boy,
In such companionship,
Should let the curses in his heart
Soon rise upon his lip ?
And he, who ne'er had call'd on God
But when on bended knee,
Invok'd Him now but in his oaths
Of rage or blasphemy !
Oh, when a youth before you stands,
Think what the sin in you,
By wicked words or evil deeds,
To make him sinful too!
Mrs. Hale's Harry Guy,
Z
An oath is a recognizance to heaven,
Binding us over in the courts above,
To plead to the indictment of our crimes,
That those who 'scape this world should suffer
there. Southern's Oroonolco.
OBITUARY.
From his cradle,
He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one;
Exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading ;
Lofty and sour, to them that lov'd him not ;
But to those men who sought him, sweet as summer
And to add greater honours to his age
Than man could give, he died, fearing God.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much virtue as could die,
Which, when alive, did vigour give
To as much beauty as could live.
Ben Jonson.
Had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.
Milton's Miscellaneous Poems.
Gentle Lady, may thy grave
Peace and quiet ever have.
Milton's Miscellaneous Poems.
Here rests his head, upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown ;
Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Nor further seek his virtues to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode',
There they alike in trembling hope repose —
The bosom of his Father and his God.
Gray's Elegy
Each lovely scene shall thee restore,
For thee the tear be duly shed ;
Belov'd, till life could charm no more,
And mourn'd, till pity's self be dead.
Collins
How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot ;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
'T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be.
Pope.
What though the mounds that mark'd each name.
Beneath the wings of Time,
Have worn away ? — Theirs is the fame
Immortal and sublime;
For who can tread on Freedom's plain,
Nor wake her dead to life again.
Robert Montgaf-m v
386
OBLIVION - OBSTINACY - OCEAN.
They fell devoted, but undying:
The very gale their names secm'd sighing,
Their spirits wrapp'd the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain ;
The meanest rill, the mightiest river,
Roll'd mingling with their fame for ever.
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Give thanks
That she is safe with Him who hath the power
O'er pain, and sin, and death.
Mrs. Sigourney.
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days ;
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor nam'd thee but to praise.
Halleck's Poems.
Thou art not in the grave confin'd, —
Death cannot claim th' immortal mind;
Let earth close o'er its sacred trust,
But goodness dies not in the dust.
Sprague's Poems.
O, many a time it hath been told,
The story of those men of old ;
For this fair poetry hath wreath'd
Her sweetest, purest flower ;
For this proud eloquence hath breath'd
His strain of loftiest power ;
Devotion, too, hath linger'd round
Each spot of consecrated ground,
And hill and valley bless'd ;
There, where our banish'd fathers stray'd,
There, where they lov'd, and wept, and pray'd,
There, wheie their ashes rest.
Sprague's Poems.
As the bird to its sheltering nest,
When the storm on the hills is abroad,
So her spirit hath flown from this world of unrest,
To repose on the bosom of God.
William H. Burleigh.
The strife is o'er ! The lov'd of years,
To whom our yearning hearts had grown,
Hath left us, with life's gathering fears
To struggle darkly and alone ;
Gone, with the wealth of love which dwelt,
Heart-kept, with holy thoughts and high —
Gone, as the clouds of evening melt
Lcyond tne dark and solemn sky.
William H. Burleigh.
Sae hv'd as peacefk. as a dove ;
She died a» olossoms die ;
And now aer spirit floats above,
A seraph in the skj '.
Mrs. Welly.
Ay, turn and weep — 't is manliness
To be heart-broken here —
For the grave of earth's best nobleness
Is water'd by the tear.
Willis's Poena.
OBLIVION. — (See Forgetfulxess.)
OBSTINACY.
You may as well go stand upon the beach,
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb ;
You may as well bid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise,
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven ;
You may as well do any tiling most hard,
As seek to soften that (than which what's
harder ?) —
His Jewish heart !
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
You may as well '
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon,
As, or by oath, remove, or counsel, shake
The fabric of his folly.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
But, out, affection !
All bond and privilege of nature break: !
Let it be virtuous, to be obstinate.
Shaks. Coriolanua
Your blund'rer is as sturdy as a rock,
The creature is so sure to kick and bite,
A muleteer's the man to set him right.
First appetite enlists him truth's sworn foe,
Then obstinate self-will confirms him so.
Tell him he wanders ; that his error leads
To fatal ill ; that though the path he treads
Be flow'ry, and he see no cause of fear,
Death and the pains of hell attend him there.
In vain the slave of arrogance and pride,
He has no hearing on the prudent side.
His still refuted quirks he still repeats ;
New rais'd objections with new quibbles meets ;
Till sinking in the quicksand he defends,
He dies disputing, and the contest ends.
Cowper.
OCEAN.
How happy they,
Who, from the toil and tumult of their lives,
Steal to look down where nought but ocean strives !
Byron's Island
OCEAN.
337
Others may use the ocean as their road,
Only the English make it their abode ;
Whose ready sails, with every wind can fly,
And make cov'nant with the inconstant sky :
Our oaks secure as if they there took root,
We tread on billows with a steady foot
Waller.
I lov'd to stand on some high beetling rock,
Or dusky brow of savage promontory,
Watching the waves with all their white crests
dancing,
Come, like thick plum'd squadrons, to the shore
Gallantly bounding.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll !
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and un-
known. Byron's Childe Harold.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests : in all time,
Calm or convuls'd — in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime —
The image of eternity — the throne
Of the invisible, even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless,
alone. Byron's Childe Harold.
Lovely seem'd any object that should sweep
Away the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep.
Byron.
Oh ! how he listen'd to the rushing deep,
That ne'er till now so broke uponhis sleep ;
And his wild spirit wilder wishes sent,
Rous'd by the roar of his own element.
Byron's Corsair.
Ocean, thou dreadful and tumultuous home
Of dangers, at eternal war with man !
Death's capital where most he domineers,
With all his chosen terrors frowning round,
Wide opening and loud roaring still for more,
Too faithfid mirror ! how dost thou reflect
The melancholy face of human life.
Anon.
'Tis lone on the waters,
When eve's mournful bell
Sends forth to the sunset
A note of farewell !
Mrs. Hemans.
Thou glorious sea ! more pleasing far
When all thy waters are at rest,
And noonday sun or midnight star
Is shining on thy waveless breast.
Yet is the very tempest dear,
Whose mighty voice but tells of thee ;
For wild or calm, or far or near,
I love thee still, thou glorious sea !
Mrs. Hemans
The sea ! the sea ! the open sea !
The blue, the fresh, the ever free !
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round ;
It plays with the clouds ; it mocks the skies ;
Or like a cradled creature lies.
Bryan W. Proctor.
What was it that I lov'd so well about my child-
hood's home ?
It was the wide and wave-lash'd shore, the black
rocks crown'd with foam !
It was the sea-gull's flapping wing, all trackless
in its flight,
Its screaming note that welcom'd on the fierce
and stormy night !
The wild heath had its flowers and moss, the
forest had its trees,
Which bending to the evening wind, made music
in the breeze.
But earth, ha ! ha ! I laugh e'en now, earth had
no charms for me;
No scene half bright enough to win my young
heart from the sea !
No ! 't was the ocean, vast and deep, the fathom-
less, the free !
The mighty rushing waters, that were ever dear
to me ! Eliza Cook's Poems.
My earliest steps would wander from the green
and fertile land,
Down where the clear blue ocean roll'd, to pace
the rugged strand ;
Oh ! how I lov'd the waters, and even long'd to be
A bird, a boat, or any thing that dwelt upon the
sea ! Eliza Cook's Poems.
Great Source of Being, Beauty, Light, and Love
Creator ! Lord ! the waters worship Thee !
Ere thy creative smile had sown the flowers,
Ere tire glad hills leap'd upward, or the earth
With swelling bosom, waited for her child ;
Before eternal Love had lit the sun,
Or Time had trae'd his dial-plate in stars,
The joyful anthem of the Ocean flow'd ; - -
And Chaos like a frighten'd felon fled,
While on the Deep the Holy Spirit mov'd.
Mrs. Hale's Poem*
OFFENCE -OFFICE.
And evermore the waters worship God ; —
And bards and prophets tune their mystic lyres
Wliile listening to the music of the waves !
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
Type of the Infinite ! I look away
Over thy billows, and I cannot stay
My thought upon a resting-place, or make
A shore beyond my vision, where they break ;
But on my spirit stretches, till it 's pain
To think ; then rests, and then puts forth again.
Dana's Factitious Life.
Oh ! how old
Thou art to me ! For countless years thou 'st
roll'd;
Before an ear did hear thee, thou didst mourn,
Prophet of sorrow, o'er a race unborn ;
Waiting, thou mighty minister of death,
Lop.ely thy work, ere man had drawn his breath !
Dana's Factitious Life.
Thou art the same, eternal sea !
The earth hath many shapes and forms,
Of hill and valley, flower and tree ;
Fields that the fervid noontide warms,
Or winter's rugged grasp deforms,
Or bright with autumn's golden store ;
Thou coverest up thy face with storms,
Or smil'st serene — but still thy roar
And dashing foam go up to vex the sea-beat shore.
George Lunt.
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
As 't were a living thing ;
The homage of its waves is given
In ceaseless worshipping.
They kneel upon the sloping sand,
As bends the human knee,
A beautiful and tireless band,
The priesthood of the sea !
Whittier's Poems.
Look how the grey, old ocean,
From the depth of his heart rejoices,
Heaving with a gentle motion,
When he hears our restful voices ;
List, how he sings in an under tone,
Chiming with our melody;
And there, where the smooth, wet pebbles be,
The waters gurgle longingly,
As if they fain would seek the shore,
To be at rest from the ceaseless roar,
To be at rest for evermore.
J. R. Lowtn — The Syrens.
Thus on life's gloomy sea,
Heareth the marinere,
Voices sweet from far and near,
Kver singing in his ear,
" Here is rest and peace for thee !"
J. II. Lowell— Tlie Syrens.
OFFENCE.
All 's not offence that indiscretion finds,
And dotage terms so.
Shaks. Lear.
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this intent, no more.
Shaks. Othello.
If my offence be of such mortal kind,
That neither service past, nor present sorrows,
Nor purpos'd merit in futurity,
Can ransom me into his love again,
But to know so must be my benefit ;
So shall I clothe me in a fore'd content,
And shut myself up in some other course,
To fortune's alms.
Shaks. Othello.
In such a time as this, it is not meet
That every nice offence should bear its comment.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
For well you know we of th' offending side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrament :
And stop all sight-holes, every loop, from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
What is my offence ?
Where is the evidence that doth accuse me ?
What lawful quest have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge ?
Shaks. Richard III.
He hath wrong'd his queen, but still he is her lord ;
He hath wrong'd my sister, still he is my brother ;
He hath wrong'd his people, still he is their sove-
reign,
And I must be his friend, as well as subject; —
He must not perish thus.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
Be not too ready to condemn
The wrongs thy brothers may have done ;
Ere ye too harshly censure them
For human faults, ask — "Have I none?"
Miss Eliza Cook
OFFICE.
Custom calls me to 't,
What custom wills in all things, should we do 't.
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap'd
For truth to overpeer. Rather than feel it so,
Let the high office and the honour go
To one who would do thus.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
You, yourself
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm ;
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservcrs.
Shaks. Julius Casai
OPINION - OPPORTUNIT Y.
369
To hold a place
In council, which was once esteem'd an honour,
And a reward for virtue, hath quite lost
Lustre and reputation, and is made
A mercenary purchase.
Massinger.
The seals of office glitter in his eyes ;
He climbs, he pants, he grasps them ; at his heels,
Close at his heels a demagogue ascends,
And, with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,
And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
Cowper.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.
Addison.
And here and there some stern, high patriot stood,
Who could not get the place for which he sued.
• Byron.
Why, look around,
And count, if possible, the pamper'd numbers
Who fatten on the state : they are the men,
Who, if they find a man too honourable
To be a fellow-gleaner of the spoils,
When faction's sickle sweeps the public wealth,
Lift up their angry voices to the crowd
And breathe around their pestilential breath,
Till virtue's self is tainted by the touch.
Dawes's Athenia of Damascus.
They who bend to Power, and lap its milk,
Are fickler and more dangerous far than they
Who honestly defy it!
Bolter's Calaynos.
OPINION.
Opinion 's but a fool, that makes us scan
The outward habit by the inward man.
Shaks. Pericles.
Opinion, the blind goddess of fools, foe
To the virtuous, and only friend to
Undeserving persons.
Chapman's Widow's Tears.
Let not opinion make thy judgment err ;
The evening conquest crowns the conqueror.
Lady Alimony.
Opinion is that high and mighty dame
Which rules the world ; and in the mind doth frame
Distaste or liking : for in human race,
She makes the fancy various as the face.
Howel.
Opinionators naturally differ
From other men ; as wooden legs are stiffer
Than those of pliant joints, to yield and bow,
Which way soe'er they are design'd to go.
Butler's Hudibras.
Opinion governs all mankind,
Like the blind's leading of the blind ;
For he that has no eyes in 's head
Must be b' a dog glad to be led ;
And no beasts have so little in 'em,
As that inhuman brute, opinion ;
'T is an infectious pestilence,
That fastens upon wit and sense,
That with a venomous contagion,
Invades the sick imagination ;
And when it seizes any part,
It strikes the poison to the heart.
This men of one another catch
By contact, as the humours match ;
And nothing 's so perverse in nature
As a profound opinionator.
Butler's Hudibras
How can you rest where pow'r is still alarm'd :
Each crowd a faction, and each faction artn'd ?
Who fashions of opinion love to change,
And think their own the best for being strange ;
Their own, if it were lasting, they would hate ;
Yet call it conscience when 't is obstinate.
Sir W. Davenant
We all, my lords, have err'd.
Men may, I find, be honest, though they differ.
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn.
Thomson's Seasons.
How much there is self-will would do,
Were it not for the dire dismay
That bids ye shrink, as ye suddenly think
Of " what will my neighbours say ?"
Miss Eliza Cook.
He lov'd his kind, but sought the love of few,
And valued old opinions more than new.
Park Benjamin.
Yet in opinions look not always back ;
Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track ;
Leave what you 've done for what you have to do ,
Don't be " consistent," but be simply true.
O. W. Holmes
OPPORTUNITY.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flow, leads on to fortune ,
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Shaks. Julius Ccesi*
33*
390
OPPRESSION-ORATOR.
I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most suspicious star; whose influence
II now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.
SJuiks. Tempest.
A little fire is quickly trodden out ;
Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.
Shake. Henry VI. Part III.
Our hands are full of business ; let 's away ;
Advantage feeds them fat, while men delay.
Shahs. Henry IV. Part I.
The means that heaven yields must be embrae'd,
And not neglected ; else, if heaven would,
And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,
The proffer'd means of succour and redress.
Shahs. Richard II.
Occasion, set on wing, flies fast away,
Whose back once turned, no hold-fast can we
find;
Her feet are swift, bald is her head behind :
Whoso hath hold, and after lets her go,
Doth lose the lot which fortune did bestow.
Mirror for Magistrates.
Opportunity to statesmen, is as the just degree
Of heat to chymists ; it perfects all the work.
Suckling's Brennoralt.
The old Scythians
Painted blind fortune's powerful hands with wings,
To show her gifts come swift and suddenly,
Which, if her fav'rite be not swift to take,
Up loses them for ever.
Chapman's Busy D'Ambois.
Accursed opportunity !
Hip midwife and the bawd to all our vices :
That work'st our thoughts into desires : desires
To resolutions : and these being ripe and quicken'd,
Thou giv'st 'em birth, and bring'st 'em forth to
action.
Benham's Sophy.
Miss not the occasion ; by the forelock take
That subtle Power, the never-halting time,
Lest a mere moment's putting-off should make
Mischance almost as heavy as a crime.
Wordsworth.
The golden opportunity
Is never offer'd twict , seize then the hour
Whe.» fortune smiles and duty points ie way ; —
Nor shrink aside to 'scape the spectre Fear, —
Nor pause though pleasure beckon from her
bower • —
But bravely Dear thee onward to the goal.
Old Play.
OPPRESSION. — (See Tyranny.)
ORATOR.
This said, th' impatient statesmonger
Could now contain himself no longer ;
Who had not spar'd to show his piques
Against the haranguer's politics,
With smart remarks of leering faces,
And annotations of grimaces.
Butler's Hudibras.
After h' had administer'd a dose
Of snuff mundungas to his nose,
And powder'd th' inside of his skull,
Instead of th' outward jobbernol,
He shook it with a scornful look
On th' adversary, and thus he spoke.
Butler's Hudibras.
For brevity is very good,
When w' are, or are not understood.
Butler's Hudibras.
And 't is remarkable that they
Talk most, that have the least to say.
Your daily speakers have the curse,
To plead their causes down to worse :
As dames who native beauty want,
Still uglier look the more they paint.
Prior's Alma.
Grac'd as thou art with all the power of word's,
So known, so honour'd at the house of lords.
Pope.
With studied impropriety of speech,
He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach ;
To epithets allots emphatic state,
Whilst principles ungrae'd, like lacquies wait ;
In ways first trodden by himself excels,
And stands alone in undeclinables ;
Conjunction, preposition, adverb join
To stamp new vigour on the nervous line ;
In monosyllables his thunders roll,
He, she, it, and we, ye, they, fright the soul.
Churchill's Rosciad.
Statesman all over ! in plots famous grown!
He mouths a sentence, as curs mouth a bone.
Churchill's Rosciad.
While words of learned length, and thund'ring
sound,
Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around ;
And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew
That one small head should carry all he knew.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
PAIN - PARASITE - PARENTS.
391
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing-, while they thought
of dining. Goldsmith's Retaliation.
So quick the words too, when he deign' d to speak,
As if each syllable would break its neck.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Proud of his "hear hims," proud too of his vote
And last virginity of oratory,
Proud of his learning (just enough to quote),
He revell'd in his Ciceronian glory :
With memory excellent to get by rote,
With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story,
Graced with some merit and with more effrontery,
"His country's pride;" he came down to the
country. Byron.
His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,
Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call " rigmarole."
Byron.
He answer'd like a statesman or a prophet,
In such guise that she could make nothing of it.
Byron.
He scratch'd his ear, the infallible resource
To which embarrass'd people have recourse.
Byron.
PAIN.
Sense of pleasure we may well
Spare out of life perhaps, and not repine,
But live content, which is the calmest life :
But pain is perfect misery, the worst
Of evils, and excessive, overturns
All patience
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Our pains are real things, and all
Our pleasures but fantastical ;
Diseases of their own accord,
But cures come difficult and hard.
Butler's Hvdibras.
Thee, too, my Paridel ! she mark'd thee there,
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness.
Pope.
Again the play of pain
Shoots o'er his features as the sudden gust
Crisps the reluctant lake, that lay so calm
Beneath the mountain shadow.
Byron.
They talk of short-liv'd pleasure — be it so —
Pain dies as quickly ; stern, hard-featur'd pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign.
Bryant's Poems.
PARASITE.
Ah, when the means are gone, that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made !
Feast-won, fast lost : one cloud of winter show'ra
These flies are couch'd
Shaks. Timon.
Live loath'd, and long ;
You smiling, smooth, detested parasite ;
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears
You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time-flies,
Cap-and-knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks ;
Of man and beast the infinite malady
Crust you quite o'er.
Shaks. Timon.
O ! your parasite
Is a most precious thing dropp'd from above ;
Not bred 'mongst clods and clod-polls here on
earth.
I muse, the mystery was not made a science,
It is so lib'rally profest ! almost
All the wise world is little else in nature,
But parasites or sub-parasites.
Jonson's Volpone.
PARENTS.
Unreasonable creatures feed their young ;
And tho' man's face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
Who hath not seen them, even with those wings
Which sometimes they have us'd with fearful
flight,
Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest.
Off 'ring their own lives in their young's defence l
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Parents are o'erseen,
When, with too strict a rein, they do hold in
Their child's affections ; and control that love,
Which the powers divine instruct them with :
When in their shallow judgments, they may know
Affection cross'd, brings misery and woe.
Robert Taylour's Hog hath lost its Pearl.
Fathers their children, and themselves abuse ;
That wealth, a husband, for their daughters choose
Shirley's School of Compliments
Honour thy parents to prolong thine end ;
With them, though for a truth, do not contend :
Though all should tr uth defend, do thou lose rathe<
The truth awhile, than lose their love for ever :
Whoever makes his father's heart to bleed,
Shall have a child that will revenge the deed.
Randolph.
392
PARTING.
Me let the tender office long- engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age ;
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death ;
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep awhile one parent from the sky.
Pope.
PARTING.
AH she did, was but to wear out day.
Full oftentimes she leave of him did take ;
And oft again devis'd somewhat to say,
Which she forgot ; whereby excuse to make,
So loath she was his company for to forsake.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Good night, good night ! parting is such sweet
sorrow
That I shall say — good night till it be to-morrow.
Shahs. Romeo and Juliet.
'T is almost morning, I would have thee gone :
And yet no further than a wanton's bird ;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silken thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Shahs. Romeo and Juliet.
Farewell; God knows, when we shall meet again,
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
Shahs. Romeo and Juliet.
What ! gone without a word ?
Ay, so true love should do : it cannot speak :
For truth hath better deeds, than words, to grace
it. Shahs. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Sweet Valentine, adieu !
Think on thy Porteus, when thou, haply, seest
Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel :
Wish me partaker in thy happiness,
When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy
danger,
If ever danger do environ thee,
Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
For I will be tny beadsman, Valentine.
Shahs. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
1 would have broke mine eye-strings; crack'd
them, but
To look upon him ; till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle :
.Nav, follow'd him, till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air ; and then
I rave turn'd mine eye and wept.
Shahs. Cymbeline.
Art thou gone so ? my love ! my lord ! my friend !
I must hear from thee ev'ry day i' the hour,
For in a minute there are many days :
Oh ! by this count I shall be much in years,
Ere I again behold my Romeo !
Shahs. Romeo and Juliet.
I did not take my leave of him, but I had
Most pretty things to say : ere I could tell him,
How I would think on him, at certain hours,
Such thoughts, and such ; or I could make him
swear
The shes of Italy should not betray
Mine interest, and his honour ; or ere I could
Give him that parting kiss, which I had set
Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,
And like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Shakes all our buds from growing.
Shahs. Cymbeline.
So long
As he could make me with his eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving as the fits and stirs of his mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on, —
How swift his ship.
Shahs. Cymbeline.
And even there, his eye being big with tears,
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
And with affection wondrous sensible,
He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted.
Shahs. Merchant of Venice.
Farewell : the leisure and the fearful time
Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love,
And ample interchange of sweet \discourse,
Which so long sunder'd friends should dwell upon ;
God give .us leisure for these rites of love !
Once more, adieu !
Shahs. Richard III.
And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take : —
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius !
If we do meet again why we shall smile ;
If not, why then this parting was well made.
Shahs. Julius Ceesar.
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit, that we shake hands and part :
You, as your business, and desire, shall point you •.
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is, — and for my own poor part,
Look you, I will go pray.
Shahs. Hamlet.
With that, wringing my hand he turns away,
And tho' his tears would hardly let him look,
Yet such a look did through his tears make way,
As show'd how sad a farewell there he took.
Daniel's Arcadia.
PARTING.
393
How sad and dismal sound the farewells which
Poor lovers take, whom destiny disjoins,
Although they know their absence will be short :
And when they meet again, how musical
And sweet are all the mutual joys they breathe !
Like birds, who when they see the weary sun
Forsake the world, they lay their little heads
Beneath their wings, to ease that weight which his
Departure adds unto their grief.
'T is true, my love : But when they see that bright
Perpetual traveller return, they warm
i And air their feathers at his beams, and sing
Until their gratitude hath made them hoarse.
Sir W. Davenanfs Platonic Lovers.
My eyes won't lose the sight of thee,
But languish after thine, and ache with gazing.
Otway's Venice Preserved.
In taking leave,
Thro' the dark lashes of her darting eyes,
Methought she shot her soul at ev'ry glance,
Still looking back, as if she had a mind
That you should know she left her soul behind her.
Lee's Theodosius.
I part with thee
As wretches that are doubtful of hereafter,
Part with their lives, unwilling, loath and fearful,
And trembling at futurity.
Howe's Tamerlane.
Oh ! wherefore dost thou soothe me with thy soft-
ness?
Why dost thou wind thyself about my heart,
And make this separation painful to us ?
Rome's Lady Jane Grey.
Oh ! had he ever lov'd, he would have thought
The worst of tortures bliss, to silent parting.
Cibber's Casar in Egypt.
Farewell, my home, my home no longer now,
Witness of many a calm and happy day ;
And thou, fair eminence, upon whose brow
Dwells the last sunshine of the evening ray.
Farewell ! Mine eyes no longer shall pursue
The westering sun beyond the utmost height,
When slowly he forsakes the fields of light.
No more the freshness of the falling dew,
Cool and delightful here shall bathe my head,
As from this western window dear, I lean,
Listening the while I watch the placid scene, —
The martins twittering underneath the shed.
Farewell my home, where many a day has past,
In joys whose lov'd remembrance long shall last.
Southey.
Well — peace to thy heart, though another's it be,
And health to thy cheek, though it bloom not for
me. Moore.
Farewell to the few I have left with regret ;
May they sometimes recall what I cannot forget,
That communion of heart and that parley of soul,
Which has lengthen'd our nights, and illumined
our bowl ! Moore
Enough, that we are parted — that there rolls
A flood of headlong fate between our souls,
Whose darkness severs me as wide from thee
As hell from heaven, to all eternity !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Then came the parting hour, and what arise
When lovers part ! expressive looks, and eyes
Tender and tearful, — many a fond adieu,
And many a call the sorrow to renew ;
Sighs such as lovers only can explain,
And words that they might undertake in vain.
Crabbe's Hall
Bear witness earth and heaven,
That ne'er was hope to mortal given,
So twisted with the strings of life,
As this — to call Matilda wife ;
I bid it now for ever part,
And with the effort bursts my heart.
ScoWs Rokeby
When fore'd to part from those we love,
Though sure to meet to-morrow ;
We yet a kind of anguish prove
And feel a touch of sorrow.
But oh ! what words can paint the fears
When from those friends we sever,
Perhaps to part for months — for years —
Perhaps to part for ever.
Anon,
I fly like a bird of the air,
In search of a home and a rest ;
A balm for the sickness of care;
A bliss for a bosom unblest.
Byron's Farewell to England,
I wander — it matters not where;
No clime can restore me my peace,
Or snatch from the frown of despair
A cheering — a fleeting release !
Byron's Farewell to England.
With thee, my bark, I '11 swiftly go,
Athwart the foaming brine,
Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
So not again to mine.
Byron's CJdlde Harola
For pleasures past I do not grieve,
Nor perils gathering near ;
My greatest grief is that I leave
No thing that claims a tear.
Byron's Childe Harola
PARTING.
She rose — she sprung — she clung to his embrace,
Till his heart heaved beneath her hidden face.
He dared not raise to his that deep blue eye,
That downcast droop'd in tearless agony.
Her long fair hair lay floating o'er his arms,
In all the wildncss of dishcvcll'd charms ;
Scarce beat that bosom where his image dwelt
So full — that feeling scem'd almost unfelt !
Hark ! peals the thunder of the signal gun !
It told 'twas sunset, and he cursed that sun.
Again — again — that form he madly press'd,
Which mutely clasp'd, imploringly caress'd ;
And tottering to the couch, his bride he bore —
One moment gazed — as if to gaze no more ;
Felt — that for him earth held but her alone,
Kiss'd her cold forehead — turn'd — is Conrad gone ?
Byron's Corsair.
Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness :
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated ; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon nights so sweet, such awful morn
could rise. Byron's Childe Harold.
Yet, O yet, thyself deceive not
Love may sink by slow decay ;
P \t by sudden wrench, believe not,
Hearts can thus be torn away.
Byron's Fare thee Well.
Think'st thou that I could bear to part
With thee, and learn to halve my heart ?
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Let 's not unman each other — part at once :
All farewells should be sudden, when for ever,
Else they make an eternity of moments,
And clog the last sad sands of life with tears.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
Have not all past human beings parted,
And must not all the present one day part.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
One struggle more, and I am free
From pangs that rend my heart in twain,
One last long sigh to love and thee,
Then back to busy life again.
Byron
i had not liv'd till now, could sorrow kill ;
Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would
meet ;
And I must even survive this last adieu,
And bear with life, fr love and pray for you !
Byron.
They tell me 'tis decided ; you depart:
'T is wise, 'tis well, but not the less a pain ;
I have no further claim on your young heart,
Mine is the victim, and would be again J
To love too much has been the only art
I used ; — I write in haste, and if a stain
Be on this sheet, 'tis not what it appears,
My eye-balls burn and throb, but have no tears.
Byron.
Here 's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate ;
And whatever sky's above me,
Byron.
Here 's a heart for every fate.
Why do I weep ? to leave the vine
Whose clusters o'er me bend —
The myrtle — yet oh ! call it mine ! —
The flowers I lov'd to tend.
A thousand thoughts of all things dear,
Like shadows o'er me sleep,
I leave my sunny childhood here —
Oh, therefore let me weep ! Mrg ^^
I have no parting sigh to give,
So take my parting smile. ^ ^^
Lightly won, and lightly lost, love I shed no tears
for thee ;
There was little to. remember, and nothing to
regret. Miss Landon.
When thou art gone there creeps into my heart
A cold and bitter consciousness of pain ;
The light, the warmth of life with thee depart,
And I sit dreaming o'er and o'er again
Thy greeting clasp, thy parting look and tone ;
And suddenly I wake — and am alone !
Frances Kemblc Butler.
There are two hearts whose movements thrill
In unison so closely sweet !
That pulse to pulse responsive still,
They both must heave — or cease to beat.
Bernard Barton.
There are two souls whose equal flow
In gentle streams so calmly run,
That when they part — they part ! — ah, no !
They cannot part — those souls are one.
Bernard Barton.
We part — no matter how we part,
There are some thoughts we utter not,
Beep treasur'd in our inmost heart,
Never reveal'd, and ne'er forgot !
Why murmur at the common lot ?
We part — I speak not of the pain, —
But when shall I each lovely spot,
And each lov'd face behold again.
Richard Henry Wilde.
PASSIONS.
395
We parted in sadness, but spoke not of parting ;
We talk'd not of hopes that we both must resign ;
I saw not her eyes, and but one teardrop starting
Fell down on her hand as it trembled in mine:
Each felt that the past we could never recover,
Each felt that the future no hope could restore,
She shudder'd at wringing the heart of her lover,
I dared not to say I must meet her no more.
Long years have gone by, and the spring-time
smiles ever
As o'er our young loves it first smiled in their
birth;
.Long years have gone by, yet that parting, oh !
never
Can it be forgotten by either on earth.
The note of each wild bird that carols toward
heaven
Must tell her of swift-wing'd hopes that were
mine,
While the dew that steals over each blossom at
even
Tells me of the teardrop that wept their decline.
Hoffman's Poems.
I must leave thee, lady sweet !
Months shall waste before we meet,
Winds are fair, and sails are spread,
Anchors leave their ocean bed;
Ere this shining day grow dark,
Skies shall gird my shoreless bark ;
Through thy tears, O lady mine,
Read thy lover's parting line.
O. W. Holmes.
Once my soul was fondly plighted
To a holy one of earth —
Like two music-notes united,
Notes that sever in their birth.
Yet not sever'd we, though parted,
Still in truth our souls are one,
Though on earth the gentle-hearted
Hath her blessed mission done.
Duganne.
But then to part ! to part when Time
Has wreathed his tireless wings with flowers,
And spread the rfchness of a clime
Of fairy o'er this land of ours.
When glistening leaves and shaded streams
In the soft light of autumn lay,
And, like the music of our dreams,
The viewless breezes seem'd to stray —
'Twas bitter then to rend the heart
With the sad thought that we must part :
And, like some low and mournful spell,
To whisper but one word — farewell.
Park Benjamin.
PASSIONS.
Behold the image of mortality
And feeble nature cloth'd with fleshly tire ;
When raging passion with fierce tyranny,
Robs reason of her true regality,
And makes it servant to her basest part !
The strong it weakens with infirmity,
And with bold fury arms the weakest heart,
The strong, through pleasure, soonest falls, tlir
weak thro' smart.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Who would the title of true worth were his,
Must vanquish vice, and no base thoughts con-
ceive :
The bravest trophy ever man obtain'd,
Is that, which, o'er himself, himself hath gain'd.
Earl of Sterline's Darius.
Passions are likened best to floods and streams ;
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb :
So when affections yield discourse, it seems
The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
They that are rich in words must needs discover,
They are but poor in that which makes a lover.
Sir W. Raleigh.
When headstrong passion gets the reins of reason,
The force of nature, like too strong a gale,
For want of ballast, oversets the vessel.
Higgons's Generous Conqueror.
Exalted souls
Have passions in proportion violent,
Resistless, and tormenting : they 're a tax
Impos'd by nature on pre-eminence ;
And fortitude, and wisdom must support them.
Lino's Elmerick.
While passions glow, the heart, like heated steel,
Takes each impression, and is worked at pleasure.
Young's Busiris.
When reason, like the skilful charioteer,
Can break the fiery passions to the bit,
And, spite of their licentious sallies, keep
The radiant tract of glory ; passions, then,
Are aids and ornaments. Triumphant reason,
Firm in her seat, and swift in her career,
Enjoys their violence, and, smiling, thanks
Their formidable flame, for bright renown. -
Young's Brothers
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Pop.
The worst of slaves is he whom passion rules,
Uncheck'd by reason and the pow'rful voice
Of friendship.
Brooke's Earl of Warwick
PASSIONS.
How terrible is passion ! how our reason
Falls down before it ! whilst the tortur'd frame,
Like a ship dash'd by fierce encount'ring tides,
And of her pilot spoil'd, drives round and round,
The sport of wind and wave.
Bat-ford's Virgin Queen.
His soul, like bark with rudder lost,
On passion's changeful tide was tost ,
Nor vice nor virtue had the power
Beyond the impression of the hour ;
And O, when passion rules, how rare
The hours that fall to virtue's share !
Scott's RobeJcy.
O how the passions, insolent and strong,
Bear our weak minds their rapid course along ;
Make us the madness of their will obey ;
Then die, and leave us to our griefs a prey :
Crabbe.
Alas ! too well, too well they know,
The pain, the penitence, the woe
That passion brings down on the best,
The wisest and the loveliest.
Moore's Loves of the Angels
Alas ! our young affections run to waste,
Or water but the desert ; whence arise
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,
Rank at the core though tempting to the eyes,
Flowers, whose wild odours breathe but agonies,
And trees, whose gums are poison ; such the plants
Which spring beneath her steps as passion flies
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants
For some celestial fruit, forbidden to our wants.
Byron's Childe Harold.
An empire thou could'st crush, command, rebuild,
But govern not thy pettiest passion.
Byron's Childe Harold,
My passions were all living serpents, and
Twin'd, like the gorgons, round me.
Byron's Werner.
The cold in clime are cold in blood,
Their love can scarce deserve the name ;
But mine was like the lava-flood
That boils in Etna's breast of flame.
Byron's Giaour.
for on his brow the swelling vein
Throbb'd, as if back upon his brain
Tne hot blood ebb'd and flow'd again.
Byron's Parisina.
Mtrange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to te 1 '
D it in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befel.
Wordsworth.
In the human breast
fwo master passions cannot co-exist.
Campbell,
I cannot love as I have lov'd,
And yet I know not why;
It is the one great woe of life
To feel all feeling die ;
As one by one the heartstrings snap,
As age comes on so chill;
And hope seems left that hope may cease
And all will soon be still.
And the strong passions, like to storms,
Soon rage themselves to rest,
Or leave a desolated calm —
A worn and wasted breast;
A heart that like the Geyser spring,
Amidst its bosom snows,
May shrink, not rest — but with its blood
Boils even in repose.
Bailey's Festus.
Passion, when deep, is still : the glaring eye
That reads its enemy with glance of fire,
The lip, that curls and writhes in bitterness,
The brow contracted, till its wrinkles hide
The keen, fix'd orbs, that burn and flash below,
The hand firm clench'd and quivering, and the foot
Planted in attitude to spring, and dart
Its vengeance, are the language it employs.
Percival's Poems.
One passion prominent appears, the lust
Of power, which ofttimes took the fairer name
Of liberty, and hung the popular flag
Of freedom out
Pollock's Course of Time.
When thou art with me every sense is dull,
And all I am, or know, or feel, is thee ;
My soul grows faint, my veins run liquid flame,
And my bewilder'd spirit seems to swim
In eddying, whirls of passion dizzily.
Frances Kemble Butler.
Oh ! precious is the flower that passion brings
To his first shrine of beauty, when the heart
Runs over in devotion, and no art
Checks the free gush of the wild lay he sings ;
But the rapt eye and the impetuous thought
Declare the pure affection.
Shnms's Grouped Thoughts.
The wildest ills that darken life
Are rapture to the bosom's strife ;
The tempest, in its blackest form,
Is beauty to the bosom's storm.
J. W. Easthurn.
And underneath that face, like summer's ocean's,
Its lip as moveless, and its cheek as clear,
Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotions,
Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow — all save fear.
Halleck's Poems.
PATIENCE.
307
In thy breast there springs a poison fountain,
Deadlier than that where breathes the Upas tree.
Halleck's Poems.
To thought's tumultuous flow
I strive to give the strength of glowing words ;
The waves of feeling, tossing to and fro,
In broken music o'er my heart's loose chords,
Give but their fainting echoes from my soul,
As through its silent depths their wild, swift cur-
rents roll. Mrs. Welly's Poems.
Oh ! Passion's words are faithless things,
And Love disowns them ere they fall ;
It is the reckless tongue that stings,
The tongue that knows not Reason's thrall.
Mrs. Osgood.
PATIENCE.
Patience, unmov'd, no marvel tho' she pause ;
(They can be meek, that have no other cause ;)
A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,
We bid be quiet, when we hear it cry ;
But were we burden'd with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.
How poor are they, that have not patience !
What wound did ever heal but by degrees ?
Shaks. Othello.
Patience, my lord ! why 't is the soul of peace :
Of all the virtues 't is the nearest kin to heaven ;
It makes men look like gods : the best of men
That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breath'd.
Decker.
Patience in cowards is tame hopeless fear ;
But in brave minds, a scorn of what they bear.
Sir R. Howard's Indian Queen.
Many are the sayings of the wise,
In ancient and hi modern books enroll'd,
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude ;
And to the bearing well of all calamities,
All chances incident to man's frail life,
Consolitaries writ,
With studied argument, and much persuasion
sought,
Lenient of grief and anxious thought :
But witb th' afflicted in his pangs their sound
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune
Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint ;
Unless he feel within
Some source of consolation from above,
Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,
And fainting spirits uphold.
Milton.
Thy injuries would teach patience to blaspheme,
Yet still thou art a dove.
BeaumonVs Double Marriage.
Patience ! preach it to the winds,
To roaring seas, or raging fires ! the knaves
That teach it, laugh at you when you believe 'en).
Otway's Orphan.
O ye cold-hearted, frozen formalists !
On such a theme, 't is impious to be calm ;
Passion is reason, transport temper, here.
Young's Night Thoughts.
E'en the best must own,
Patience and resignation are the pillars
Of human peace on earth.
Young's Night Thoughts.
But patience is the virtue of an ass,
That trots beneath his burden, and is quiet.
Lansdowne's Heroic Lore..
Preach patience to the sea, when jarring winds
Throw up her swelling billows to the sky !
And if your reasons mitigate her fury,
My soul will be as calm.
Smith's Princess of Parma
As the pent water of a mill-dam lies
Motionless, yielding, noiseless, and serene,
Patience waits meekly with compassion'd eyes ;
Or, like the speck-cloud, which alone is seen
Silver'd within blue space, ling'ring for air
On which to sail prophetic voyages ;
Or as the fountain stone that doth not wear,
But suits itself to pressure, and with ease
Diverts the dropping crystal ; or the wife
That sits beside her husband, and her love
Subliming to another state and life,
Off'ring him consolation as a dove —
Her sighs and tears, her heartache, and her mind
Devout, untir'd, calm, precious, and resign'd.
./1 72071.
In your patience ye are strong.
Miss Barrett.
He is a coward who would borrow
A charm against the present sorrow,
From the vague Future's promise of delight !
As life's alarums nearer roll,
The ancestral buckler calls,
Self-clanging from the walls
In the high temple of the soul ;
Where are most sorrows there the poet's sphere 1*
To feed the soul with patience,
To heal its desolations,
With words of unshorn truth, with love that neve*
wearies. James R. I oweL
34
PATRIOTISM.
PATRIOTISM.
This was the noblest Roman of them all:
Ali the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar ;
He, only, in a general honest thought,
And common good to all, made one of them.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho !
A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend,
Shaks. Julius CcBsar.
Be just, and fear not :
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be. thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's, then if thou fall'st, O
Cromwell !
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,
As easily as a king.
Shaks. Julius CcBsar,
Judge me not ungentle,
Of manners rude, and insolent of speech,
If, when the public safety is in question,
My zeal flows warm and eager from my tongue.
Rome's Jane Shore.
Greatly unfortunate, he fights the cause
Of honour, virtue, liberty and Rome :
His sword ne'er fell but on the guilty head :
Opprepsion, tyranny, and power usurped,
Draw all the vengeance of his arm upon them.
Addison's Cato.
No common object to your sight displays, 1
But what with pleasure heaven itself surveys,
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause ?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed ?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Pope.
Statesman, yet friend to truth ! of soul sincere,
Tn action faithful, and in honour clear !
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend :
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
Praised, wept, and honour'd, by the muse he lov'd.
Pope.
Whiie in the radiant front, superior shines
That first paternal virtue, public zeal ;
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey,
And, evci musing on the common weal,
Sti'' labours glorious with some great design.
Thomson''* Seasons.
A people
Who cannot find in their own proper force
Their own protection, are not worth saving.
Thomson's Coriolanus
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants singly stood,
Invincible.
Thomson's Seasons.
In public life severe,
To virtue still inexorably firm ;
But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,
Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth'd his brow,
Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind.
Thomson's Seasons
He alone
Remains unshaken. Rising he displays
His god-like presence. Dignity and grace
Adorn his frame, and manly beauty join'd
With strength Herculean. On his aspect shines
Sublimest virtue, and desire of fame,
Where justice gives the laurel ; in his eye
The inextinguishable spark, which fires
The soul of patriots; while his brow supports
Undaunted valour, and contempt of death.
Serene he rose, and thus address'd the throng.
Glover's Leonidas
To fight,
In a just cause, and for our country's glory,
Is the best office of the best of men ;
And to decline when these motives urge,
Is infamy beneath a coward's baseness.
S~^ Havard's Regulus
Our country's welfare is our first concern,
And who promotes that best, best proves his duty.
Havard's Regulus
What constitutes a state ?
Not high-rais'd battlement or labour'd mound,
Thick wall or moated gate ;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd ;
Not bays and broad-arm'd ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ;
Not starr'd and spangled courts,
Where low-brow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No : — Men, high-minded Men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude :
Men, who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare main-
tain,
Prevent the long-aim'd blow,
And crush the tyra.it, while tbey repd the chain : —
These constitute, a state.
Sir William Jones
PATRIOTISM.
Turn from the glittering- bribe thy scornful eye,
Nor sell for gold what gold could never buy ;
The peaceful slumber, self-approving day,
Unsullied fame, and conscience ever gay.
Dr. Johnson's London.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest !
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod,
Than fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung,
There honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
Collins.
Of patriots bursting with heroic rage, *
Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles.
Comperes Task.
But the age of virtuous politics is past,
And we are deep in that of cold pretence.
Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere,
And we too wise to trust them.
Compels Task
I see thee weep, and thine are honest' tears,
A patriot's for his country. Thou art sad
At thought of her forlorn and abject state,
From which no power of thine can raise her up.
Cowper's Task,
Through private pique some do the public right,
And love their king and country out of spite.
Coioper.
Give me the death of those
Who for their country die;
And oh ! be mine like their repose,
When cold and low they lie
Their loveliest mother earth
Enshrines the fallen brave;
In her sweet lap who gave them birth,
They find their tranquil grave.
Montgomery's Wanderer of Switzerland.
In that dread hour my country's guard I stood,
From the state's vitals tore the coiled serpent,
First hung with writhing up to public scorn,
Then flung him forth to ruin.
Maturing Bertram.
O heaven, he cried, my bleeding country save !
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave ?
Yet, though destruction sweep those lovely plains,
Rise,* fellow-men ! our country yet remains !
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live ! with her to die !
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm ;
Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly,
Revenge or death — the watchword and reply ;
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin toll'd their last alarm !
Campbells Pleasures of Hope.
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And freedom shriek'd, as Kosciusko fell !
Campbells Pleasures of Hope.
He who maintains his country's laws
Alone is great ; or he who dies in the good cause
Sir A. Hunt
Far he fled — indignant fled,
The pageant of his country's shame ;
While every tear her children shed
Fell on his soul, like drops of flame ;
And as a lover hails the dawn
Of a first smile, so welcom'd he
The sparkle of the first sword drawn
For vengeance and for liberty !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
'T is come, — his hour of martyrdom
In freedom's sacred cause is come ;
And, though his life hath pass'd away
Like lightning on a stormy day,
Yet shall his death-hour leave a track
Of glory, permanent and bright,
To which the brave of after-times,
The suffering brave, shall long look back
With proud regret, — and by its light v
Watch through the hours of slavery's night,
For vengeance on the oppressor's crimes.
Moore's Lalla Rookh
The sword may pierce the bearer,
Stone walls in time may sever :
'Tis heart alone,
Worth steel and stone,
That keeps men free for ever !
O fbr the swords of former time,
O fbr the men who bore them,
When arm'd for right, they stood sublime,
And tyrants crouch'd beforeTthem !
Moore.
Moort.
" Land of song !" said the warrior bard,
" Though all the world betray thee ;
One sword at least thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee !"
Moort
This love of thine,
For an ungrateful and tyrannic soil,
Is passion, and not patriotism.
Byron's Two Fuscan.
400
PATRIOTISM.
Calendaro. But if .we fail —
Bertuccio. They never fail who die
In a great cause : the block may soak their gore :
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls —
But still their spirit walks abroad. Tho' years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to freedom.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires,
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear,
That tyranny shall quake to hear.
Byron's Giaour.
And here and there some stern, high patriot stood;
Who could not get the place for which he sued.
Byron.
There was something
In my native air that buoy'd my spirits up,
Like a ship on the ocean toss'd by storms,
But proudly still bestriding the high waves,
And holding on her course.
Byron.
I will teach thine infant tongue
To call upon those heroes old
In their own language, and will mould
Thy growing spirit in the flame
Of Grecian lore ; that by each name
\. patriot's birth-right thou may'st claim.
Shelley.
Then none was for a party ;
Then all were for the state ;
Then the great man help'd the poor,
And the poor man lov'd the great;
Then lands were fairly portion'd ;
Then spoils were fairly sold;
fhe Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
Macauleifs Horatius.
u Qui vive ?" these is the sentry's cry, —
The sleepless soldier's hand, —
Are these, — the painted folds thus fly
And lift their emblems, printed high
On morning mist and sunset sky, —
The guardians of a land ?
No ! if the patriot's pulses sleep ;
How vain the watch that hirelings keep; — ■
The idle flag that waves,
When Conquest, with his iron heel,
Treads down the standards and the steel
That belt the soil of slaves.
O. W. Holmes.
'T is home-felt pleasure prompts the patriot's sigh,
This makes him wish to live, and dare to die.
Campbell.
Land of the West — beneath the Heaven
There 's not a fairer, lovelier clime ;
Nor one to which was ever given
A destiny more high, sublime.
W. D. Gallagher.
Our country ! — 't is a glorious land !
With broad arms stretch'd from shore to shore,
The proud Pacific chafes her strand,
She hears the dark Atlantic roar ;
And nurtur'd on her ample breast,
How many a goodly prospect lies
In Nature's wildest grandeur drest,
Enamell'd with the loveliest dyes.
r William Jewett Pabodie.
Great God ! we thank thee for this home —
This bounteous birthland of the free ;
Where wanderers from afar may come,
And breathe the air of liberty ! —
Still may her flowers untrampled spring,
Her harvests wave, her cities rise ;
And yet, till Time shall fold his wing,
Remain Earth's loveliest Paradise !
William Jewett Pabodie,
Pride in the gift of country and of name
Speaks in the eye and step —
He treads his native Land !
Halleclc's Poems.
Land where he learn'd to lisp a mother's name,
The first belov'd in life, the last forgot,
Land of his frolic youth,
Land of his bridal eve,
Land of his children — vain your column's strength,
Invaders ! vain your battles' steel and fire !
Choose ye the morrow's doom —
A prison or a grave !
Halleck's Poems.
The patriot ! go, to Fame's proud mount repair,
The tardy pile, slow rising there,
With tongueless eloquence shall tell
Of them who for their country fell.
Sprague's Poems.
All are not born the glory of their race,
But all may shun the pathway to disgrace ;
In humblest vales the patriot heart may glow ;
That nurtures men — they give the inspiring blow !
James T. Fields.
Our Country first, their glory and their pride,
Land of their hopes, land where their fathers
died,
When in the right, they '11 keep thy honour bright,
When in the wrong, they '11 die to set it right.
James T. Fields
PEACE.
401
PEACE.
In peace there 's nothing- so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humilitv.
Shales. Henry V.
A peace is of the nature of a conquest ;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
Skaks. Henry IV. Part II.
In her days, every man shall eat in safety,
Under his own vine, what he plants ; and sing
The merry song- of peace to all his neighbours.
Shaks. Henry VIIL
Ay ; but give me worship and quietness,
I like it better than a dangerous honour.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths ;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments ;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meeting,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war has smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, — instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, —
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
Shaks. Richard III.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York ;
And all the clouds, that low'rd upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Shaks. Richard III.
If I unwittingly, or in my rage,
Have aught committed that is hardly borne
By any in this presence, I desire
To reconcile me to his friendly peace :
'Tis death to me to be at enmity;
I hate it, and desire all good men's love.
Shaks. Richard III.
Peace, greatness best becomes. Calm pow'r doth
guide
With a far more imperious stateliness,
Than all the swords of violence can do :
And easier gains those ends she tends unto.
Daniel.
In this plenty,
And fat of peace, your young men ne'er were
train'd
In martial discipline ; and your ships, unrigg'd,
Rot in the harbor ; nor defence prepar'd,
But thought unuseful ; as if that the gods,
Indulgent to your sloth, had granted you
A perpetuity of pride and pleasure ;
Nor change fear'd, or expected.
Massinger's Bondman.
2 A
States that never knew
A change but in their growth, which a long peace
Hath brought unto perfection, are like steel,
Which, being neglected, will consume itself
With its own rust : so doth security-
Eat through the hearts of states, while they 're
sleeping ,
And lull'd in her false quiet.
Nabb's Hannibal and Scipio.
Men are unhappy when they know not how
To value peace, without its loss ;
And from the want learn how to use
What they could so ill manage when enjoy'd.
Sir R. Howard's Blind Lady.
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting, was grown rusty,
And ate into itself for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack.
Butler's Hudibras
O beauteous peace-!
Sweet union of a state ! what else but thou
Gives safety, strength, and glory to a people ?
Thomson.
Oh, peace ! thou source and soul of social life :
Beneath whose calm inspiring influence,
Science his views enlarges, art refines,
And swelling commerce opens all her ports ;
Blest be the man divine, who gives us thee ! -
Thomson's Britannia.
Oh first of human blessings ! and supreme !
Fair peace ! how lovely, how delightful thou !
By whose wide tie, the kindred sons of men
Live brothers like, in amity combin'd,
And unsuspicious faith ; while honest toil
Gives every joy, and to those joys a right,
Which idle, barbarous rapine but usurps.
Thomson's Britannia.
Sweet peace, who long hath shunn'd my plaintive
lay,
Consents, at length, to bring me short delight.
Collins.
Now no more the drum
Provokes to arms, or trumpet's clangour shrill
Affrights the wives, or chills the virgin's blood ;
But joy and pleasure open to the view
Uninterrupted! Phillips's Cida.
The goodness of the heart is shown in deeds
Of peacefulness and kindness. Hand and heart
Are one thing with the good, as thou should'st be.
Do my words trouble thee ? then treasure them ,
Pain overgot gives peace, as death doth Heaven .
All things that speak of Heaven speak of peace,
Bailey's Festus-
34*
402
PEASANT.
Long peace, I find,
But nurses dangerous humours up to strength,
License and wanton rage, which war, alone,
Can purge away.
Mallet's Mustapha.
O, these were hours when thrilling joy repaid
A long, long course of darkness, doubts, and fears !
The heart-sick faintness of the hope delay'd,
The waste, the woe, the bloodshed, and the tears,
That track'd with terror twenty rolling years,
All was forgot in that blithe Jubilee ;
Her downcast e}'e even pale affliction rears,
To sigh a thankful prayer amid the glee
That hail'd the despot's fall, and peace and liberty !
Scolis Lord of the Isles.
What is peace ? — when pain is over
And love ceases to rebel,
Let the last faint sigh discover
That precedes the passing knell.
Wordsworth.
Peace, thy olive wand extend,.
And bid wild war his ravage end,
Man with- brother man to meet,
And as a brother kindly greet.
Burns.
O then that wisdom may we know,
Which yields a life of peace below !
Charles Sprague.
God of Peace ! — whose Spirit fills
All the echoes of our hills,
All the murmurs of our rills,
Now the storm is o'er ; —
O, let freemen be our sons ;
And let future Washingtons
Rise to lead their valiant ones,
Till there 's war no more.
John Pierpont.
O ! never yet did peace her chaplet twine
To lay upon base mammon's sordid shrine,
Where earth's most precious things are bought
and sold ;
Thrown on that pile, the pearl of price would be
Despis'd, because unfit for merchantry.
Mrs. Embury.
Peace, sweet peace is ever found
In her eternal home on holy ground.
Mrs. Embury.
Were half tne power that fills the world with
terror,
Were half the wealth bestow'd on camps and
courts,
<*tven to redeem the human mind from error,
There were nn need of arsenals and forts !
Longfellow's Poems.
Peace seem'd to reign upon earth, and the restless
heart of the ocean
Was for a moment consol'd. All sounds were in
harmony blended.
Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks
in the farm-yard,
Whirr of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing
of pigeons,
All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love,
and the great sun
Look'd with eye of peace through the golden va
pours around him.
Longfellow' 1 s Evangeline.
Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease ;
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,
I hear once more the voice of Christ say —
"Peace!" Longfellow's Poems.
Look at him
Who reads aright the image on his soul,
And gives it nurture like a child of light.
His life is calm and blessed, for his peace,
Like a rich pearl beyond the diver's ken,
Lies deep in his own bosom. He is pure,
For the soul's errands are not done with men;
His senses are subdued and serve the soul.
Willis's Poems.
Speak gently ! He who gave his life
To bend man's stubborn will,
When elements were fierce with strife,
Said to them, " Peace, be still 1"
David Bates
PEASANT.
His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place |
His little son into his bosom creeps,
The lively picture of his father's face :
Never his humble house nor state torment him ;
Less he could like, if less his God had sent him !
And when he dies, green turfs, with grassy tomb,
content him. Phineas Fletcher
He trudg'd along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went for want of thought.
Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia
His corn and cattle were his only care,
And his supreme delight, a country fair.
Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia.
Cheerful, at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes.
Goldsmith's Traveller
At night returning, ev'ry labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed.
Goldsmith's Traveller
PEN.
Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey,
vVhere wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade ;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made :
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Yes, let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train ;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art ;
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway ;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd,
In these, ere triflcrs half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ;
And, e'en while passion's brightest arts decoy,
•The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy ?
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy ;
Unknown those pow'rs that raise the soul to flame,
Catch ev'ry nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a mould'ring fire,
Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire ;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer,
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.
Goldsmiths Traveller.
Far from the madd'ning crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequcster'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Gray's Churchyard.
November chill blows loud wi' angry sugh ;
The short'ning winter-day draws near a close ;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn at ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does home-
ward bend.
Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night.
Right of voice in framing laws,
Right of peers to try each cause ;
Peasant homestead, mean and small,
Sacred as the monarch's hall.
Whittier's Poems.
From labour health, from health contentment
springs :
Contentment opes the source of every joy.
He envied not, he never thought of kings ;
Nor from those appetites sustain'd annoy,
That chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy ;
Nor fate his calm and humble hope beguil'd ;
He mourn'd no recreant friend, nor mistress coy !
For on his vows the blameless Phoebe smil'd,
And her alone he lov'd, and lov'd her from a child.
Bealtie's Minstrel.
Let luxury, sickening in profusion's chair,
Unwisely pamper his unworthy heir ;
And while he feeds him, blush and tremble too,
But, Love and Labour, blush not, fear not you.
Your children, (splinters from the mountain's side,)
With rugged hands, shall for themselves provide.
Parent of valour, cast away thy fear ;
Mother of men, be proud without a tear !
While round your hearth the woe-nurs'd virtues
move,
All, all that manliness can ask of love ;
Remember Hogarth, and abjure despair,
Remember Arkwright, and the peasant Clare.
Ebenezer Elliott.
PEN.
Oh ! nature's noblest gift — my grey goose quill :
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men !
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
Ye safe and formal men,
Who write the deeds, and with unfeverish hand
Weigh in nice scales the motives of the great,
Ye cannot know what ye have never tried.
Bulwer's Richelieu.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch enchanter's wand ! itself a nothing !
But taking sorcery from the master hand,
To paralyze the Ca5sars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless !
Bulwer's Richelieu
In days of yore, the poet's pen
From wing of bird was plunder'd,
Perhaps of goose, but now and then,
From Jove's own eagle sunder'd.
But now, metallic pens disclose
Alone the poet's numbers ;
In iron inspiration glows,
Or with the poet slumbers.
John Quincy Adams
404
PERFECTION - PERSEVERANCE - PHILANTHROPY.
The poet's pen is the true divining rod
Which trembles towards the inner founts of fueling ;
Bringing to light and use, else hid from all,
The many sweet clear sources which we have
Of good and beauty in our own deep bosoms ;
And marks the variations of all mind
As does the needle.
Bailey's Festus.
I would not have my pen pursue
. The " beaten track" — a slave for ever ;
No ! roam as thou wert wont to do
In author-land, by rock and river.
Be like the sunbeam's burning wing, /
Be like the wand in Cinderella,
And if you touch a common thing,
Ah ! change to gold the pumpkin yellow !
May grace come fluttering round your steps,
Whene'er, my bird, you light on paper,
And music murmur at your lips,
And truth restrain each truant caper.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Be tun'd to tenderest music when
Of sin and shame thou 'rt sadly singing ;
But diamond be thy point, my pen,
When folly's bells are round thee ringing !
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
— Forc'd to drudge for the dregs of men,
And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen,
And mingle among the jostling crowd,
Where the sons oF strife are busy and loud.
Bryant's Poems.
PERFECTION.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
Shaks. King John.
Nature, in her productions, slow, aspires
Bv just degrees to reach perfection's height.
Somerville's Chase.
So slow
The growth of what is excellent, so hard
'J ' attain perfection in this nether world.
Cowper's Taslc.
I et other bards of angels sing,
Bright suns without a spot;
Bui thou art no such perfect thing :
Rejoice that thou art not !
Wordsworth.
PERSEVERANCE.
Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright. To have none, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail
In monumental mockery.
Shakspeare.
Revolt is recreant, when pursuit is brave ;
Never to faint, doth purchase what we crave.
Machen's Dumb Knight.
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt ;
Nothing 's so hard, but search will find it out.
Herrick.
He who flies,
In war or peace, who his great purpose yields,
He is the only villain of this world :
But he who labours firm and gains his point,
Be what it will, which, crowns him with success
He is the son of fortune and of fame ;
By those admir'd, those specious villains most,
That else had bellow'd out reproach against him
Thomson's Agamemnor
Perseverance is a Roman virtue,
That wins each god-like act, and plucks success
E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger.
Havard's Regulus.
The proudest motto for the young !
Write it in lines of gold
Upon thy heart, and in thy mind
The stirring words enfold ;
And in misfortune's dreary hour,
Or fortune's prosperous gale,
'Twill have a holy, cheering power —
" There 's no such word as fail!"
Mrs. Neal.
Press on ! for it is godlike to unloose
The spirit, and forget yourself in thought ;
Bending a pinion for the deeper sky,
And, in the very fetters of your flesh,
Mating with the pure essences of heaven !
Press on ! " for in the grave there is no work,
And no device." — Press on ! while yet you may !
Willis's Poems.
Stick to your aim ; the mongrel's hold will
slip,
But only crow-bars loose the bull-dog's lip ;
Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields
Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields.
O. W. Holmes
PHILANTHROPY. — (See Kindness.)
PHILOSOPHY.
405
PHILOSOPHY.
I '11 give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee. „, 7 D , T ,. .
Shaks. Komeo and Juliet.
Hang- up philosophy !
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom ;
It helps not, it prevails not ; talk no more.
Shales. Romeo and Juliet.
I pray thee, peace ; I will be flesh and blood ;
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently;
However they have writ the style of gods,
And made a pish at chance and sufferance.
Shaks. Much Ado.
Therefore, brave conquerors — for so you are,
That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's desires.
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost.
Blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger,
To sound what stop she please : give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of hearts,
As I do thee. Something too much of this.
Shaks. Hamlet.
There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Shaks. Hamlet.
A man, whose blood
Is very snow broth ; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense :
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
Shaks. Mea.for Mea.
How charming is divine philosophy !
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, "
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Milton's Comvs.
Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Besides, he was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over.
Butler's Hudibras.
But Hudibras, who scorn'd to stoop
To fortune, or be said to droop,
Cheer'd up himself with ends of veise,
And sayings of philosophers.
Butler's Hudibras-
A deep occult philosopher,
As learn'd as the wild Irish are.
Butler's Hudibras.
Whatever skeptic could inquire for,
For ev'ry why he had a wherefore.
Butler's Hudibras.
His notions fitted things so well,
That which was which he could not tell ;
But oftentimes mistook the one
For th' other, as great clerks have done.
He could reduce all things to acts,
And knew their natures by abstracts ;
Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts and defunct bodies fly ;
Where truth in person does appear,
Like words congeal'd in northern air.
Butler's Hudibras
Go, wiser thou ! and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such ;
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet say, if man's unhappy, God's unjust.
Pope's Essay on Man
In lazy apathy let Stoics boast
Their virtue fix'd ; 't is fix'd as in a frost ;
Contracted all, returning to the breast ;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest :
The rising tempest puts in act the soul ;
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.
Pope's Essay on Man
Philosophy consists not
In airy schemes, or idle speculations :
The rule and conduct of all social life
Is her great province. Not in lonely cells
Obscure she lurks, but holds her heavenly light
To senates and to kings, to guide their councils,
And teach them to reform and bless mankind.
Thomson's Coriolanus
Serene philosophy,
Effusive source of evidence and truth !
Without thee what were unenlighten'd man !•
A savage roaring through the woods and wilds,
Rough clad, devoid of every finer art
And elegance of life.
Thomson
Alas ! had reason ever yet the power
To talk down grief, or bid the tortur'd wretch
Not feel his anguish ? 't is impossible !
Whitehead's Roman Father
400
PHILOSOPHY.
Deluded man ! who, fondly proud of reason,
Think'st that thy crazy nature's privilege,
Which is thy great tormentor ! senseless fools,
In stupid dulness bless'd, are only happy ;
They feel no thrcat'ning evils at a distance :
Never reflect on their past miseries :
Their solid comfort is their want of sense.
But reason is the tyrant of the mind ;
Awakes our thoughts to all our cares and griefs ;
Distracts our hopes, and in a thousand shapes
Presents our fears to multiply our woes.
Smith's Princess of Parma.
Reason ! the hoary dotard's dull directress,
That loses all because she hazards nothing :
Reason ! tim'rous pilot, that, to shun
The rocks of life, for ever flies the port.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
Much learned dust
Involves the combatants, each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend
The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp,
In playing tricks with nature, giving laws
To distant worlds, and trifling in their own.
Comperes Task.
Such was the rigid Zeno's plan
To form his philosophic man;
Such were the modes he taught mankind
To weed the garden of the mind :
They tore away some weeds, 't is true,
But all the flow'rs were ravish'd too.
Moore
Then far be all the wisdom hence,
And all the lore, whose tame control
Would wither joy with chill delays !
Alas ! the fertile fount of sense,
At which the young, the panting soul
Drinks life and love, too soon decays !
Moore
O, then, if earth's united power
Can never chain one feathery hour ;
If every print we leave to-day,
To-morrow's wave shall steal away ;
Who pauses, to inquire of Heaven
Why were the fleeting treasures given,
The sunny days, the shady nights,
And all their brief but dear delights,
Which Heaven has made for man to use,
And man should think it guilt to lose ?
Who, that has cull'd a weeping rose,
Will ask it why it breathes and glows,
Unmindful of the blushing ray,
In which it shines its soul away ;
Unmindful of the scented sigh,
On which it dies and loves to die !
Moore.
The plain good man, whose actions teach
More virtue than a sect can preach,
Pursues his course, unsagely blest,
His tutor whisp'ring in his breast :
Nor could he act a purer part,
Though he had Tully all by heart ;
And when he drops the tear on woe,
He little knows, or cares to know,
That Epictetus blam'd that tear,
By Heav'n approv'd, to virtue dear.
Moore, ,
Oh ! who that has ever had rapture complete,
Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet :
How rays are confus'd, or how particles fly
Through the medium refin'd of a glance or a sigh !
Is there one, who but once would not rather have
known it,
Than written, with Harvey, whole volumes upon it ?
,. Moore.
There is a calm upon me —
Inexplicable stillness ! which till now
Did not belong to what I know of life.
If that I did not know philosophy
To be of all our vanities the motliest,.
The merest word that ever fool'd the ear
From out the schoolman's jargon, I should deem
The golden secret, the sought " Kalon" found,
And seated in my soul.
Byron's Manfred.
He saw with his own eyes the moon was round,
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he had journey'd fifty miles, and found
No sign that it was circular any where.
Byron.
Some talk of an appeal unto some passion,
Some to men's feelings, others to their reason ;
The last of these was never much the fashion,
For reason thinks all reasoning out of season.
Byron.
Ah, yes, Philosopher, thy creed is true '
'T is our own eyes that give the rainbow's hue ;
What we call matter in this outer earth,
Takes from our senses, those warm dupes, its birth.
How fair, to sinless Adam, Eden smil'd !
But sin brought tears, and Eden was a wild !
Man's soul is as an everlasting dream,
Glassing life's fictions on a phantom stream :
To-day, in glory all the world is clad —
Wherefore, O Man ? — because thy heart is glad !
To-morrow, and the self-same scene survey —
The same ! Oh ! no — the pomp hath pass'd away!
Wherefore the change .' Within, go ask reply —
Thy heart hath given its winter to the sky !
Vainly the world revolves upon its pole; — ■
Light — Darkness — Seasons — these are in the soul !
Bulwer's Poems
PHRENOLOGY - PHYSIC.
407
Yes, vain philosophy, thine hour is come !
Thy lips were iin'd with the immortal lie,
And dyed with all the look of truth. Men saw,
Believ'd, embrac'd, detested, cast thee off.
Those lights, the morn of Truth's immortal day,
As thou didst falsely swear them, have they not
Vanish'd, the mere auroras of the mind ?
And thou didst vow to gather clear again
The fallen waters of humanity ;
To smooth the flaw from out the eye, to piece
A pounded pearl. Thank God ! I am a man ;
Not a philosopher! Bailees Feslus.
If this familiar spirit that communes
With your^ this hour — that has the power to
search
All things — but its own compass — is a spark
Struck from the burning essence of its God —
If, when these weary organs drop away,
We shall forget their uses, and commune
With angels and each other, as the stars
Mingle their light in silence and in love —
What is this fleshy fetter of a day,
That we should crown it with immortal flowers ?
Willis's Poems.
Philosophy and Reason ! Oh, how vain
Their lessons to the feelings ! They but teach
To hide them deeper, and to show a calm
Unruffled surface to the idle gaze.
Miss Elizabeth Bogart.
PHRENOLOGY.
For of the soul the body form doth take ;
For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Spenser.
Away with all doubt and misgiving ;
Now lovers must woo by the book —
There 's an end to all trick and deceiving,
No men can be caught by a look.
Bright eyes or a love-breeding dimple
No longer their witchery fling ;
That lover indeed must be simple
Who yields to so silly a thing.
Literary Gazette.
No more need we fly the bright glances
Whence Cupid shot arrows of yore ;
To skulls let us limit our fancies,
And love by the bumps we explore !
Oil, now we can tell in a minute
What fate will be ours when we wed ;
The heart has no passion within it
That is not engraved on the head.
Literary Gazette.
In vain we fondly strive to trace
The soul's reflection in the face ;
In vain we dwell on lines and crosses,
Crooked mouth, or short proboscis ;
Boobies have look'd as wise and bright
As Plato, or the Stagyrite :
And many a sage and learned skull
Has peep'd through windows dark and dull.
Moore
We may know by the head on Cupid's seal,
What impression the heart will take ;
If shallow the head, oh ! how soon we feel
What a poor impression 't will make.
Moore.
PHYSIC.
Throw physic to the dogs, I '11 none of it.
Shafts. Macbeth.
If thou could'st, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.
Shaks. Maclelh.
What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug
Would scour these English hence ? Hearest thou
of them ? Shaks. Macbeth.
I do remember an apothecary, —
And hereabouts he dwells, — whom late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples ; meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
About his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scattered to make up a show.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
Wounds by wider wounds are heal'd,
And poisons by themselves expell'd.
Butler's Hudibras.
Knew many an amulet and charm,
That would do neither good nor harm.
Butler's Huaioras
For men are brought to worse distresses
By taking physic than diseases ;
And therefore commonly recover,
As soon as doctors give them over.
Butlerianu.
So, when small humours gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out
Pope's Essay on ilfa*.
PITY.
When nature cannot work, th' effect of art is void.
For physic can but mend our crazy state,
Patch an old building, not a new create.
Dryderi's Palamon and Arciie.
You tell your doctor that you 're ill : ^
And what does he but write a bill?
Of which you need but read one letter :
The worse the scrawl, the dose the better.
For if you knew but what you take,
Though you recover, he must break.
Prior's Alma.
The first physicians by debauch were made ;
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
By chase our long-liv'd fathers earn'd their food ;
Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood ;
But we their sons, a pamper'd race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise for cure on exercise depend :
God never made his work for man to mend.
Dryden.
Physicians mend or end us,
Secundem artem : — but although we sneer
In health — when sick, we call them to attend us,
Without the least propensity to jeer.
Byron.
We own that numbers join with care and skill,
A temperate judgment, a devoted will;
Men who suppress their feelings, but who feel
The painful symptoms they delight to heal :
Patient in all their trials, they sustain,
The starts of passion, the reproach of pain :
With hearts affected, but with looks serene,
Intent they wait through all the solemn scene,
Glad if a hope should rise from nature's strife,
To aid their skill and save the lingering life ;
But this must virtue's generous effort be,
And spring from nobler motives than a fee :
To the physicians of the soul, and these,
Turn the distress'd for safety and for Peace.
Crabbers Borough.
PITY.
Naught is there under Heaven's wide hollowness
That moves more dear compassion of the mind
Than beauty brought t' unworthy wretchedness
Through envy's snares, or fortune's freaks unkind :
I. whether lately through her brightness blind,
Or through allegiance and vast fealty,
Which I do owe unto all womankind,
Feel mv heart piere'd with so great agony,
Wnen such 1 see, that all for pity I could die.
Spenser.
And pity, like a new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.
Shaks. Macbeth
If ever you have look'd on better days ;
If ever been where bells have knoll' d to church ;
If ever sat at any good man's feast ;
If ever from your eyelids wip'd a tear,
And know what 't is to pity and be pitied ;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.
Shaks. As you like it.
And, if thou tellest the heavy story right,
Upon my soul the hearers will shed tears ;
Yea, even my foes will shed fast falling tears,
And say — Alas, it was a piteous deed !
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness ; and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Villain, thou know'st no law of God or man :
No beast so fierce, but knows some touch of pity.
Shaks. Richard III
But I am in
So far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin,
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.
Shaks. Richard III.
Take heed of pity, pity was the cause
Of my confusion, pity hath undone
Thousands of gentle natures in our sex ;
For pity is sworn servant unto love,
And this be sure, wherever it begin
To make the way, it lets the master in.
DanieVs Arcadia.
If he die innocent, thrice happy soul ;
If guilty — weep that man should so transgress :
Nature of reason thus much doth importune,
Man should partake in grief with man's misfortune.
Lewis Machen's Dumb Knight.
A crown of pine upon his head he wore ;
And thus began her pity to implore.
Dryderi's Ovid
Nature has cast me in so soft a mould,
That but to hear a story feign'd for pleasure,
< Of some sad lover's death, moistens my eyes,
And robs me of my manhood.
Dryderis All for Love.
There must be some proportion still to pity,
Between ourselves, and what we moan: 'tis hard
For men to be aught sensible, how motes
Press flics to death.
John Fountain's Rewards of Virtue.
PLAYERS - PLEASURE.
409
I pity him, but must not dare to show it :
It adds to some men's misery not to know it.
Richard Brome.
A common pity does not love express ;
Pity is love when grown into excess.
Sir R. Howard's Vestal Virgin.
Her very judges wrung- their hands for pity ;
Their old hearts melted in them as she spoke,
And tears ran down upon their silver beards.
Rome's Lady Jane Grey.
Those moving- tears will quite dissolve my frame :
They melt that soul which threats could never
shake.
Higgons's Generous Conqueror.
The brave are ever tender,
And feel the miseries of suffering virtue.
Marty n's Thnoleon.
I find a pity hangs upon his breasts,
Like gentle dew, that cools all cruel passions.
Howard's Duke of Lerma.
The generous heart
Should scorn a pleasure which gives others pain.
Thomson's Sophonisba.
A generous warmth opens the hero's soul,
And soft compassion flows where courage dwells.
C. Johnson's Medea.
Why clingest thou to my raiment ?
Thy grasp of grief is stronger on my heart —
For sterner oft our words than feelings are.
Maturin's Bertram.
The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes,
And feel for what their duty bids them do.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
Pity ! is it pity to recall to feeling
The wretch too happy to escape to death
By the compassionate trance, poor nature's last
Resource agauist the tyranny of pain ?
Byron's Two Foscari.
Not always is the heart unwise,
Nor pity idly born,
If even a passing stranger sighs
For those who do not mourn.
Wordsworth.
Pity thee ! So I do !
I pity the dumb victim at the altar —
But does the rob'd priest for his pity falter ?
Willis's 1 Poems.
Oh, brother man ! fold to thy heart thy brother ;
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there.
Whitlier's Poems.
PLATERS.
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his visage warm'd :
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit ? and all for nothing ?
For Hecuba?
What 's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her ? and all for nothing ?
Shahs. Ha?nlet
Players
Were never more uncertain in their lives ;
They know not when to play, where to play, nor
What to play ; not when to play, for fearful fools ,
Where to play, for puritan fools ; nor what
To play, for critical fools.
Middleton's Mad World my Masters
They abuse our scene,
And say we live by vice ; indeed 't is true ;
As the physicians by diseases do,
Only to cure them : they do live, we see,
Like cooks by pampering prodigality ;
Which are our fond accusers. On the stage,
We set an usurer to tell his age ;
How ugly looks his soul : a prodigal
Is taught by us how far from liberal
His folly bears him. Boldly I dare say,
There has been more by us in some one play
Laugh'd into wit, and virtue, than hath been
By twenty tedious lectures drawn from sin,
And foppish humours : hence the cause doth rise,
Men are not won by th' ears, so well as eyes.
Randolph's Muse's Looking Glass.
PLEASURE.
His sports were fair, his joyance innocent,
Sweet without sour, and honey without gall ;
Aid he himself seem'd made for merriment,
Merrily masking both in bower and hall.
Spenser's AstropheL
Pleasure is like a building, the more high,
The narrower it grows; cedars die
Soonest at the top.
Shales, and Rowley's Birth of Merlin
Why, all delights are vain ; but that most vain,
Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain.
Shaks. Love's Labour Losi
Where is his son,
The nimble-footed, mad-cap prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that doff 'd the world aside,
And bid it pass.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part 1
35
410
PLEASURE.
To business that we love, we rise betime,
And go to it with delight.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
Pleasure never comes sincere to man :
But lent by heaven upon hard usury.
Dryden's GZdipus.
Pleasures, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
Pope's Essay on Man,
For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam ;
No thought of peace or happiness at home.
But wisdom's triumph is well tim'd retreat,
As hard a science to the fair as great ! .
Beauties, like tyrants, old and friendless grown,
Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone ;
Worn out in public, weary ev'ry eye,
Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die.
Pope.
O the dark days of vanity ! while here,
How tasteless ! and how terrible, when gone !
Gone ! they ne'er go ; when past they haunt us
still ;
The spirit walks of every day deceas'd
And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
Young's Night Thoughts.
A change of evils is thy good supreme ;
Nor, but in motion, canst thou find thy rest.
Man's greatest strength is shown in standing still :
The first sure symptom of a mind in health,
Is rest of heart and pleasure felt at home.
Young.
Pleasures are few, and fewer we enjoy ;
Pleasure, like quicksilver, is bright and coy;
We strive to grasp it with our utmost skill,
Still it eludes us, and it glitters still
If seiz'd at last, compute your mighty gains ;
What is it, but rank poison in your veins ?
Young.
How happy art thou man, when thou 'rt no more
Thyself! when all the pangs that grind thy soul,
In rapture, and sweet oblivion lost,
Yield a short interval, and ease from pain.
Somerville's Chase.
Pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ;
Or like the snow-falls in the river,
A moment white — then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
'JTiat flits, ere you can point their place ;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm —
Nae man can tether time or tide.
Burns.
Whom call we gay? that honour has been long
The boast of mere pretenders to the name
The innocent are gay — the lark is gay
That dries his feathers saturate with dew
Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams
Of day-spring overshoot his humble nest.
Cowper's Task
Methinks I 've cast full twenty years aside,
And am again a boy. Every breath
Of air that trembles through the window bears
Unusual odour.
Proctor's Mirandola
What 's i' the air ? —
Some subtle spirit runs thro' all my veins.
Hope seems to ride this morning on the wind,
And joy outshines the sun.
Proctor's Mirandola
Pleasure 's the only noble end
To which all human powers should tend;-
And virtue gives her heav'nly lore,
But to make pleasure please us more I
Wisdom and she are both design'd
To make the senses more refin'd,
That man might revel free from cloying,
Then most a sage when most enjoying !
Pleasure ! thou only good on earth !
One little hour resign'd to thee —
O ! by my Lais' lip, 't is worth
The sage's immortality !
Moore
Moore.
O sages ! think' on joy like this,
And where 's your boast of apathy ?
Moore.
Strike up the dance, the cava bowl fill high,
Drain every drop ! — to-morrow we may die.
Byron's Island.
Though sages may pour out their wisdom's trea
sure,
There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
Byron
Pleasure, that comes unlook'd for, is thrice wel
come ;
And if it stir the heart, if aught be there
That may hereafter in a thoughtful hour
Wake but a sigh, 't is treasur'd up among
The things most precious ; and the day it came,
Is noted as a white day in our lives.
Rogers's Italy
It is sad
To think how few our pleasures really are :
And for the which we risk eternal good.
Bailey's Festus
POETS.
41J
POETS.
Heaps of huge words uphoarded hideously,
With horrid sound, though having little sense,
They think to be chief praise of poetry,
And thereby wanting true intelligence,
Have marr'd the face of goodly poesie,
And made a monster of their fantasie.
Spenser's Tears of the Muses.
They to the vulgar sort now pipe and sing,
And make them merry with their fooleries ;
They cheerly chant, and rhymes at random fling,
The fruitful spawn of their rank fantasies :
They feed the ears of fools with flattery,
And good men blame, and losels magnify.
Spenser's Tears of the Muses.
How shall my debts be paid ? or can my scores
Be clear'd with verses to my creditors ?
Hexameter 's no sterling ; and I fear
What the brain coins goes scarce for current there.
Can metre cancel bonds ? is there a time
Ever to hope to wipe out chalk with rhyme ?
Or if I now were hurrying to a jail,
Are the nine muses held sufficient bail ?
Would they to any composition come,
If we should mortgage our Elysium,
Tempe, Parnassus, and the golden streams
Of Tagus and Pactolus, those rich dreams
Of active fancy ?
Randolph.
A poet 's then exact in every part
That is born one by nature, nurst by art :
Whose happy mixture both of skill and fate,
Makes the most sudden thought elaborate :
Whose easy strains a flowing sense does fit ;
Unforc'd expressions, and unravish'd wit :
Words fill'd with equal subject, such as brings,
To chosen language, high and chosen things.
Harsh reason clear as day, as smooth as sleep,
Glide here like rivers, even still though deep :
Discords grow music; grief itself delight;
Horror, when he describes, leaves off t' affright.
Sullen philosophy does learn to go
In lightest dressings, and becomes them too.
Dr. Lluellin.
A poem's life and death dependeth still
Not on the poet's wits, but reader's will.
Alexander Brome.
With equal eagerness contend
Some to cry down, and others to commend :
So easy 'tis to judge, so hard to do ;
There 's so much frailty, yet such prying too ;
That who their poetry to view expose,
Must be prepar'd to be abus'd in prose.
A. Brome and R. Brome.
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to
heaven ;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
I had rather be a kitten, and cry — mew,
Than one of these same metre-ballad-mongers :
I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,
Or a dry wheel grate on an axle-tree ;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
Worthiest poets
Shun common and plebeian forms of speech,
Every illiberal and affected phrase,
To clothe their matter ; and together tie
Matter and form with art and decency.
Chapman.
Poets may boast, as safely vain,
Their works shall with the world remain ;
Both bound together live or die,
The verses and the prophecy.
Waller on English Verse.
Poets that lasting marble seek,
Must carve in Latin or in Greek :
We write in sand, our language grows,
And like the tide, our work o'erflows.
Waller on English Verse.
The poets may of inspiration boast,
Their rage, ill governed, in the clouds is lost,
He that proportioned wonders can disclose,
At once his fancy and his judgment shows ;
Chaste moral writing we may learn from hence,
Neglect of which no wit can recompense.
The fountain which frorii Helicon proceeds,
That sacred stream should never water weeds,
Nor make the cup of thorns and thistles grow,
Which envy or perverted nature sow.
WJlei.
I thence
Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
Milton's Paradise Lost
But those that write in rhyme, still make
The one verse for the other's sake ;
For, one £«• sense, and one for rhyme,
I think 's sufficient at one time.
Butler' 8 Hud&rat.
412
POETS.
Beside all this, he served his master
In quality of poetaster ;
And rhymes appropriate could make
To ev'ry month in th' almanac ;
What terms begin and end could tell,
With their returns in doggerel.
Butler's Hudibras.
It is not poetry that makes men poor ;
For few do write, that were not so before ;
And those that have writ best, had they been rich,
Had ne'er been seized with a poetic itch ;
Had lov'd their ease too well to take the pains
To undergo that drudgery of brains ;
But being for all other trades unfit,
Only t' avoid being idle, set up wit.
Butler's Hudibras.
Rhyme the rudder is of verses,
With which, like ships they steer their courses.
Butler's Hudibras.
O? those few fools, who with ill stars are curst,
Sure scribbling fools, call'd poets, fare the worst :
For they 're a set of fools which fortune makes,
And after she has made them fools, forsakes.
Congreve.
Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in majesty of thought surpass'd,
The next in gracefulness ; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join'd the former two.
Dryden on Milton.
Base rivals, who true wit and merit hate,
Caballing still against it with the great,
Maliciously aspire to gain renown,
By standing up and pulling others down.
Dryden.
Then rising with Aurora's light,
The muse invok'd, sit down to write ;
Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline ;
Be mindful when invention fails,
To scratch your head, and bite your nails.
Swift on Poetry.
A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
vVho pens a stanza, when he should engross.
Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
High in Drury Lane,
Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,
'Jblig'd bv hunger and request of friends.
Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
just writes to make his barrenness appear,
A.»d strain frcr.n hard-bound brains, eight lines a
year. Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
And he whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad.
Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
That flattery ev'n to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same.
Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
Fir'd that the house rejected him, " Sdeath ! I '11
print it,
And shame the fools."
Pope's Epistle to Dr. Ar^uthnct.
\
Why did I write ? what sin to me unknown
Dipp'd me in ink, my parents' or my own ?
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
Commas and points they set exactly right,
And 't were a sin to rob them of their mite.
Pope.
Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb
through,
He spins the slight self-pleasing thread anew :
Destroy his fib, or sophistry, in vain,
The creature 's at his dirty work again,
Thron'd on the centre of "his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines !
Pope.
Sages and chiefs long since had birth,
Ere Caesar was, or Newton nam'd ;
These rais'd new empires o'er the earth, —
And those, new heav'ns and systems fram'd :
Vain was the chiefs', the sages' pride !
They had no poet, and they died.
In vain they schem'd, in vain they bled !
They had no poet, and are dead.
Pope.
Where'er you find " the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line, it " whispers through the trees :"
If crystal streams " with pleasing murmurs creep,"
The reader's threatcn'd (not in vain) with " sleep."
Pope.
Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art, the art to blot.
Pope.
Now times are chang'd, and one poetic itch
Has sciz'd the court and city, poor and rich :
Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays,
Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays;
To theatres and to rehearsals throng,
And all our grace at table is a song.
Pope.
But fill their purse, our poet's work is done,
Alike to them, by pathos, or by pun.
Pope.
POETS.
413
Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-ey'd virgin steal a tear !
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Insults fall'n worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out ;
That fop whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent wounds an author's honest fame ;
Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it, without the love ;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend,
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And if he lie not, must at least betray ;
Who to the dean and silver bell can swear,
And sees at canons what was never there ;
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,
Makes satire a lampoon, and fiction lie ;
A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.
Pope.
With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head ;
A brain all feathers, and a heart all lead :
And empty words she gave, and sounding strain,
But senseless, lifeless idol ! void and vain !
Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit,
A fool, so just a copy of a wit.
Pope.
Some beauties yet no precepts can declare ;
For there 's a happiness as well as care :
Music resembles poetry ; in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master-hand alone can reach.
Pope.
All other trades demand, verse-makers beg ;
A dedication is a wooden leg.
Young's Love of Fame.
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new :
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting time toil'd after him in vain.
Dr. Johnson.
Smit with the love of honour — or of pence —
O'errun with wit, and destitute of sense,
Should any novice in the rhyming trade
With lawless pen the realms of verse invade,
Forth from the court where sceptred sages sit,
Abus'd with praise, and flatter'd into wit,
Where in lethargic majesty they reign,
And what they win by dulness still maintain,
Legions of factious authors throng at once,
Fool beckons fooL and dunce awakens dunce.
Churchill
What if a man delight to pass his time
In spinning reason into harmless rhyme,
Or sometimes boldly venture to the play? —
Say, where 's the crime — great man of prudence,
say;
No two on earth in all things can agr«e,
All have some darling irregularity :
Women and men, as well as girls and boys,
In gewgaws take delight, and sigh for toys.
Your sceptres, and your crowns, and such-lika
things,
Are but a better kind of toys for kings.
In things indiff'rent, reason bids us choose,
Whether the whim 's a monkey or a muse.
Churchill
And thou, sweet poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade !
Unfit, in these degen'rate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame.
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decay' d,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride ;
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so
Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well !
Goldsmith's Deserted Village
But seldom (as if fearful of expense)
Vouchsafes to man a poet's just pretence —
Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought,
Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought ;
Fancy, that, from the bow that spans the sky,
Brings colours, dipp'd in heaven, that never die
A soul exalted above earth, a mind
Skill'd in the characters that form mankind.
Compel
The just is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words — but in the gap between :
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense and wit
Cowpe;
To charm the languid hours of solitude,
He oft invites her to the muse's lore,
For none have vainly e'er the muse pursued,
And those whom she delights, regret no more
The social, joyous hours, while wrapt they soai
To worlds unknown, and live in fancy's dream :
O muse divine ! thee only I implore,
Shed on my soul thy sweet inspiring beams,
And pleasure's gayest scene insipid folly seems '.
Mrs. Tighe's Psycht.
A great deal, my dear liege, depends
On having clever bards for friends ■
What had Achilles been without his Homer
A tailor, woollen-draper, or a comber ?
Dr. Wdco1\ Peter Pinda>
35*
414
POETS.
The man who printeth his poetic fits,
Into the public's mouth his head commits.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
'Tis very dang'rous to attack a poet —
Also ridiculous — the end would show it.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
Oh ! woman's heart was made
For minstrel hands alone;
By other fingers play'd,
It yields not half the tone.
Moore.
No ! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sere, their former laurels fade.
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame.
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
I Ve half a mind to tumble down to prose,
But verse is more in fashion — so here goes.
Byron.
And though these lines should only line portman-
teaus,
Trade will be all the better for these cantos.
Byron.
Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive,
To make three guineas do the work of five.
Burns.
His countrymen came ten thousand strong,
To weep o'er his narrow bed,
And tears they gave to that child of song,
Who had sued to them for bread.
Allan Cunningham.
A drainless renown
Of light is Poesy : 'T is the supreme of power :
The might half slumbering on its own right arm !
John Keats.
The fame of those pure bards whose faces lie
Like glorious clouds in summer's calmest even,
Fringing the western sky of darkening heaven,
And sprinkled o'er with hues of rainbow dye,
Awakes no voice of thunder, which may vie
With mighty chiefs' renown ; — from ages gone,
In low, undying strain, it lengthens on,
Earth's greenest solitudes with joy to fill, —
Felt breathing in the silence' of the sky,
Or trembling in the gush of new-born rill,
Or whispering o'er the lake's undimplcd breast ;
Vet blest to live when trumpet-notes are still,
To wake a pulse of earth-born ecstasy
In the deep bosom of eternal rest.
Thomas Noon Talfourd.
l^ict! esteem thy noble uart,
Still listen, still record,
K,icred historian of the heart,
And moral nature's lord.
Richard M. Milnes.
It is a fearful stake the poet casts,
When he comes forth from his sweet solitude
Of hopes, and songs, and visionary things,
To ask the iron verdict of the world.
Miss London,
Trace the young poet's fate :
Fresh from his solitude, the child of dreams,
His heart upon his lips he seeks the world,
To find him fame and fortune, as if life
Were like a fairy tale. His song has led
The way before him ; flatteries fill his ear,
His presence courted, and his words are caught;
And he seems happy in so many friends.
What marvel if he somewhat overrate
His talents and his state ? These scenes soon
change.
The vain, who sought to mix their name with his ;
The curious, who but live for some new sight ;
The idle — all these have been gratified,
And now neglect stings even more than scorn.
Miss London
Oh, never had the poet's lute a hope,
An aim so glorious as it now may have,
In this our social state, where petty cares
And mercenary interests only look
Upon the present's littleness, and shrink
From the bold future, and the stately past
'T is the poet's gift
To melt these frozen waters.
Miss London.
I see poets darting in splendour,
Bright birds from the tropic of mind.
Why mock at each self-deem'd immortal ?
To-day he is lord of his kind.
Miss Jewshur-y
Sit still upon your thrones,
O ye poetic ones !
And if, sooth, the world decry you,
Let it pass, unchalleng'd by you !
Ye to yourselves suffice,
Without its flatteries,
Self-contentedly approve you
Unto Him who sits above you !
Miss Barrett.
O brave poets, keep back nothing ;
Nor mix falsehood with the whole !
Look up Godward ! speak the truth in
Worthy song from earnest soul !
Hold in high poetic duty,
Truest Truth the fairest Beauty !
Miss Barrett.
The bard must have a kind, courageous heart,
And natural chivalry to aid the weak.
He must believe the best of every thing ;
Love all below, and worship all above.
Bailey's Festus.
POETS.
413
Poet3 are all who love — who feel great truths — ]
And tell them.
Bailey's Festus.
He knew himself a bard ordain'd,
More than inspir'd of God, inspirited : —
Making himself, like an electric rod,
A lure for lightning feelings ; and his words
Fell like the things that fall in thunder, which
The mind, when in a dark, but cloudful state.
Doth make metallic, meteoric, ball-like.
He spake to spirits with a wizard tongue,
Who came compell'd by wizard power of truth,
And 'ray'd them round him from the ends of
Heaven. Bailey's Festus.
Poetry is itself a thing of God ;
He made his prophets poets, and the more
We feel of poesie do we become
Like God in love and power — under-makers.
Bailey's Festus.
God wills, man hopes : in common seuls
Hope is but vague and undefin'd,
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls,
A blessing to his kind.
James Russell Lowell.
Never did poesy appear
So full of heaven to me, as when
I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear
To the lives of coarsest men !
I thought, these men will carry hence
Promptings their former life above,
And something of a finer reverence
For beauty, truth, and love.
James Russell Lowell.
The world is full of poetry — the air
Is living with its spirit ; and the waves
Dance to the music of its melodies,
And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is veil'd
And mantled with its beauty ; and the walls,
That close the universe with crystal in,
Are eloquent with voices, that proclaim
The unseen glories of immensity,
In harmonies too perfect and too high
For aught but beings of celestial mould, -
And speak to man in one eternal hymn,
Unfading beauty, and unyielding power.
FercivaVs Poems.
Praise to the bard ! — his words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven,
The birds of fame have flown.
Halleck's Poems.
He, whose thoughts differing, not in shape, but
dress,
What others feel, more fitly can express.
0. W. Holmes.
There breathes no being but has some pretence
To that fine instinct called poetic sense.
O. W. Holm- s.
This be the poet's praise,
That he hath ever been of Liberty
The steadfast friend ; of Justice and of Ti uth
Firmest supporters ; of high thoughts,
And all true beauty of the inner world,
Creator.
American Prospectus — 1763
On a blue summer night,
When the stars were asleep,
Like gems of the deep,
In their own drowsy fight ;
While the new-mown hay
On the green earth lay,
And all that came near it went scented away,
From a lone woody place
There look'd out a face
With large blue eyes,
Like the warm, wet skies,
Brimfull of water and fight ;
A profusion of hair
Flashing out on the air,
And a forehead alarmingly bright :
'T was the head of a poet. He grew
As the sweet strange flowers of the wilderness
grow,
In the droppings of natural dew.
Unheeded — alone —
Till his heart had blown —
As the sweet strange flowers of the wilderness
blow —
Till every thought wore a changeable strain,
Like flower-leaves wet with the sunset rain.
A proud and passionate boy was he,
Like all the children of poesy,
With a haughty look, and a haughty tread,
And something awful about his head ;
With wonderful eyes,
Full of woe and surprise —
Like the eyes of them that can see the dea^
Looking about.
For a moment or two he stood
On the shore of a mighty wood ;
Then ventur'd out
With a bounding step and a joyful shout,
The blue sky bending o'er him,
The broad sea all before him 1
Juhn Nca~
Love well
The poet who may sow your grave with flowers,
The traveller to l"e far land of the Past
WUU*' Poems
416
POLITENESS - POLITICS.
The poor man, from his door,
Look d forth with cheerful face, and as his eye,
The soft eye of the poet, turn'd to his,
A whisper from the tree said, " This is he,
Who knows thy heart is human as his own,
Who, with inspired numbers, tells the world
That love dwells with the lowly. He has made
The humble roof a burthen in sweet song —
Interpreted thy heart to happier men !
Love him ! oh ! love him, therefore !
Willis's Poems.
Oh, many a sad and weary heart
That treads a noiseless way apart,
Has bless'd the humble poet's name,
For fellowship refin'd and free,
In meek wild-flowers of poesy
That ask'd no higher fame !
Mrs. Elizabeth C. Kinney.
For this present, hard
Is the fortune of the bard
Born out of time ;
All his accomplishment
From nature's utmost treasure spent,
Booteth not him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The land of song within thee lies,
Water'd by living springs ;
The lids of Fancy's sleepless eyes
Are gates unto that Paradise,
Holy thoughts, like stars arise,
Its clouds are angels' wings.
Look, then, into thy heart and write !
Yes, into Life's deep stream !
All forms of sorrow and delight,
All solemn Voices of the Night,
These can soothe thee, or affright, —
Be these henceforth thy theme.
Longfellow's Voices of the Night.
Leave me not yet ! Leave me not cold and lonely,
Thou dear ideal of my pining heart!
Thou art the friend — the beautiful — the only,
Whom I would keep if all the world depart,
Thou, that dost veil the frailest flower with glory,
Spirit of light, and loveliness, and truth !
Thou that didst tell me a sweet, fairy story,
Of the dim future, in my wistful youth ;
Thou, who canst weave a halo round the spirit,
Through which naught mean or evil dare in-
trude,
Resume not yet tne gift which I inherit
From Heaven and thee, that dearcst,holicst good !
I l paid the salutations of the crowd.
Dryderi's Palamon and Arcite.
I have no taste
Of popular applause : The noisy praise
Of giddy crowds as changeable as winds ;
Still vehement, and still without a cause :
Servants to chance, and blowing in the tide
Of swoln success ; but veering with the ebb,
It leaves the channel dry.
DryderCs Spanish Friar
Yet of manners mild,
And winning every heart, he knew to please,
Nobly to please ; while equally he scorn'd
Or adulation to receive, or give.
Thomson.
He who can listen pleas'd to such applause,
Buys at a dearer rate than I dare purchase,
And pays for idle air with sense and virtue.
MalleWs Mustapha.
O breath of public praise,
Short-liv'd and vain ! oft gain'd without desert,
As often lost, unmerited : composed
But of extremes : Thou first beginn'st with love
Enthusiastic, madness of affection; then
(Bounding o'er moderation and o'er reason)
Thou turn'st to hate, as causeless and as fierce.
Havard's Regulus.
Oh, popular applause, what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms ?
The wisest and the best feel urgent need
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales ;
But swell' d into a dust; — who then, alas!
With all his canvas set, and inexpert,
And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power ?
Cowpefs Task.
Some shout him, and some hang upon his car
To gaze in 's eyes and bless him. Maidens wave
Their 'kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy.
While others, not so satisfied, unhorse
The gilded equipage, and, turning loose
His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve.
Cowper's Task.
Their's was the glee of martial breast,
And laughter their's at little jest;
And oft lord Marmion deign'd to aid,
And mingle in the mirth they made :
For though with men of high degree,
The proudest of the proud was he,
Yet train'd in camps, he knew the art
To win the soldier's hardy heart.
ScoWs Marmion.
Track not the steps of such as hold you cheap, —
Too mean to prize, though good enough to keep ;
Your "real, genuine, no-mistake Tom Thumbs"
Are little people fed on great men's crumbs.
O. W. Holmes.
PORTRAIT.
419
Curse on his virtues ! they 've undone his country,
Such popular humanity is treason. -
Addison's Cato.
Courteous and cautious, therefore, in his country,
He was all things to all men, and dispensed
To some civility to others bounty,
And promises to all — which last commenced
To gather to a somewhat large amount, he
Not calculating how much they condensed ;
But what with keeping some, and breaking others,
His word had the same value as another's.
Byron.
PORTRAIT.
What find I here ?
Fair Portia's counterfeit ? what demy-god
Hath come so near creation.
Shahs. Merchant of Venice.
But her eyes —
How could he see to do them ? having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfurnish'd.
Shahs. Merchant of Venice.
'T was pretty, though a plague
To see him every hour : to sit and draw
His arched brow, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table ; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour :
But now he 's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics.
Shaks.
Good heaven ! that sots and knaves should be so
vain,
To wish their vile remembrance may remain !
And stand recorded at their own request,
To future days a libel or a jest.
Dryden.
Her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, her shape, her
features, .
Seem to be drawn by love's own hands, by love
Himself in love.
Dryden.
Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love ?
Rowe.
There were the painted forms of other times,
'Twas all they left of virtues or of crimes,
Save vague tradition ; and the gloomy vaults
That hid their dust, their foibles, and their faults ;
And half the column of the pompous page,
That speeds the specious tale from age to age ;
Where history's pen its praise or blame supplies,
And lies like truth, and still most truly lies.
Byron's Lara.
Here fabled chiefs, in darker ages born,
Or worthies old, whom arms or arts adorn.
Who cities rais'd, or tam'd a monstrous race,
The walls in venerable order grace :
Heroes in animated marble frown,
And legislators seem to think in stone.
Pope's Temple of Fame.
Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim
To quench it.
Cowper.
Love on his lips and hatred in his heart,
His motto — constancy; his creed — to part ;
Words that like honey feeble flies enthral
To hide a soul of black envenom'd gall.
Rash, cruel, wavering, subtle, insincere,
The winds of heaven not so widely veer ;
Strong in his words but in his actions weak,
His greatest talent not to do — but speak,
Language that burns th' unwary to entice,
A head all fire, and a heart all ice:
So does the mountain's summit fiercely glow,
While deep beneath still lies the frozen snow.
Byron's Lara
Thy beauty, not a fault is there ;
No queen of Grecian line
E'er braided more luxuriant hair
O'er forehead more divine ; —
The light of midnight's starry heaven
Is in those radiant eyes ;
The rose's crimson life has given
That cheek its glowing dyes ; —
And yet I love thee not : — thy brow
Is but the sculptor's mould :
It wants a shade — it wants a glow —
It is less fair than cold.
Miss London's Poetical Portraits.
Waking, I must dream no more,
Night has lovelier dreams in store.
Picture dear, farewell to thee,
Be thine image left with me !
Mis* Landcn
I 've gazed on many a brighter face,
But ne'er on one for years,
Where beauty left so soft a trace
As it had left on hers ;
But who can paint the spell that wove
A brightness round the whole !
'T would take an angel from the skies
To paint the immortal soul —
To trace the light, the inborn grace,
The spirit sparkling o'er her face.
Mrs. WelUy
420
POVERTY.
O serious eyes ! how is it that the light,
The burning rays that mine pour into yc,
Still find ye cold, and dead, and dark as night —
lifeless eyes ! can yet not answer me ?
O lips ! whereon my own so oft hath dwelt,
Hath love's warm, fearful thrilling touch no spell
To waken sense in ye ? — O misery ! —
breathless lips ! can ye not speak to me ?
Thou soulless mimicry of life; my tears
Fall scalding over thee ; in vain, in vain ;
1 press thee to my heart, whose hopes and fears
Are all thine own ; thou dost not feel the strain,
thou dull image ! wilt thou not reply
To my fond prayers and wild idolatry ?
Frances Kemhle Butler.
1 ne'er have look'd upon thy fbrm of face,
Albeit they tell me thou art passing fair ;
1 know but of the Intellectual there,
And shape from thence all loveliness and grace.
Mrs. Elizabeth J. Eames.
Clear on the expansion of that snow-white forehead
Sits intellectual beauty meekly thron'd ;
Yet oh, the expression tells that thou hast sorrow'd,
And in thy yearning, human heart, aton'd,
For thy soul's lofty gifts.
Mrs. Elizabeth J. Eames.
Thy picture, in my memory now,
Is fair as morn, and fresh as May !
Willis's Poems.
A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face,
And slightly nonchalant,
Which seems to claim a middle place
Between one's love and aunt,
Where childhood's star has left a ray
In woman's sunniest sky,
As morning dew and blushing day
On fruit and blossom lie.
O. W. Holmes.
There ever is a form, a face
Of maiden beauty in my dreams,
Speeding before me, like the race
To ocean of the mountain streams —
With dancing hair and laughing eyes,
That seem to mock me as it flies.
Hailed.
Oil, it is life ! departed days
Fling back their brightness while I gaze ;
'T is Emma's self — this brow so fair,
JIalf-curtain'd in this glossy hair,
These eyes, the very home of love,
The dark twin arches trae'd above,
These red-ripe lips that almost speak,
The fainter blush of this pure cheek,
The rose and lily's beauteous strife —
1 1 is — ah no ' — 'tis all but life !
Sprague's Poems.
POVERTY.
His raw-bon'd cheeks, through penury and pine,
Were shrunk into his jaws, as he did never dine.
Spenser's Fairy Queen
O, reason not the need, our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous ;
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Ptlan's life is cheap as beast's.
Shahs. Lear
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm !
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these ?
Shahs. King Lear.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear ;
Robes, and fiirr'd gowns hide all.
Shaks. King Lear.
Why should you want ? Behold, the earth hath
roots ?
Within this mile break forth an hundred springs :
The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips ;
The bounteous huswife, nature, on each bush
Lays her full mess before you. Want -' why want ?
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die ! famine is in thy checks,
Need and oppression stareth in thine eyes,
Upon thy back hangs ragged misery,
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
The rich
Have wakeful nights, whilst the poor man's turf
Begets a peaceful sleep ; in which they 're blest
From frigid fears all day, at night with rest.
Goffers Careless Shepherdess.
To men
Press'd by their wants, all change is ever welcome.
Ben Jonson's Catiline.
Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood ;
Yet many things, impossible to thought,
Have been by need to full perfection brought.
The daring of the soul proceeds from thence,
Sharpness of wit, and active diligence ;
Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives ;
And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.
Dryden's Wife of Bath.
What numbers once in fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of charity !
To shock us more, solicit it in vain !
Young's Night Thoughts.
POVERTY.
421
What wretch art thou ? whose misery and baseness
Hangs on my door; whose hateful whine of woe
Breaks in upon my sorrows, and distracts
My jarring senses with thy beggar's cry ?
Rowe's Jane Shore.
Thus while my joyless minutes tedious flow,
With looks demure, and silent pace, a dun,
Horrible monster ! hated by gods and men,
To my aerial citadel ascends ;
With vocal heel, thrice thund'ring at my gate,
With hideous accent thrice he calls.
Philips's Splendid Shilling.
Sore piere'd by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty.
Thomson's Seasons.
O grant me, heav'n, a middle state,
Neither too humble nor too great ;
More than enough for nature's ends,
With something left to treat my friends.
Mallet.
O blissful poverty !
Nature, too partial to thy lot, assigns
Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace,
Her real goods ; and only mocks the great,
With empty pageantries.
Fenian's Mariamne.
Be honest poverty thy boasted wealth ;
So shall thy friendships be sincere, tho' few,
So shall thy sleep be sound, thy waking cheerful.
Havard's Regulus.
She, wretched matron, fore'd in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Where then, ah ! where shall poverty reside,
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride ?
If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And e'en the bare-worn common is deny'd.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Sleep seems their only refuge. For alas ! -
Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd,
And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.
Camper's Task.
But poverty, with most who whimper forth
Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe,
Th' effect of laziness, or sottish waste.
Co-toper's Task.
The frugal housewife trembles when she lights
Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear
But dying soon, hke all terrestrial joys.
Cowper's Task.
Where mice with music charm, and vermin crawl,
And snails with silver traces deck the wall.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
And mark the wretch, whose wanderings never
knew
The world's regard, that soothes, though half un-
true ;
Whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore,
But found not pity when it err'd no more.
Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye
Th' unfeeling proud one looks, and passes by;
Condemn'd on penury's barren path to roam,
Scorn'd by the world, and left without a home.
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Ay ! idleness ! the rich folks never fail
To find some reason why the poor deserve
Their miseries.
Souihey
Burns o'er the plough sung sweet his wood-notes
wild ;
And richest Shakspeare was a poor man's child.
Ebenezer Elliott .
Oh, faithful love by poverty embrae'd !
Thy heart is fire amid a wintry waste ;
Thy joys are roses born on Hecla's brow ;
Thy home is Eden, warm amid the snow ;
And she, thy mate, when coldest blows the storrn,
Clings then most fondly to thy guardian form ;
Even as thy taper gives intensest light,
When o'er thy bow'd roof darkest falls the night,
Ebenezer Elliott
Few save the poor feel for the poor ;
The rich know not how hard
It is to be of needful rest
And needful food debarr'd :
They know not of the scanty meal,
With small pale faces round;
No fire upon the cold damp hear-h
When snow is on the ground.
Miss Landon-
I said to Penury's meagre train,
Come on — your threats I brave ;
My last poor life-drop you may drain,
And crush me to the grave ;
Yet still, the spirit that endures,
Shall mock your force the while,
And meet each cold, cold grasp of yours,
With bitter smile.
Mrs. Stoddaiu
Speak gently, kindly, to the poor;
Let no harsh term be heard ;
They have enough they must endure,
Without an unkind word.
David tfiux
36
422
PRAISE.
Have pity on them, for their life
Is full of grief and care ;
You do not know one half the woes
The very poor must bear ;
You do not see the silent tears
By many a mother shed,
As childhood offers up the prayer —
" Give us our daily bread."
Mrs. Jane F. Wot tldngton.
What doth the poor man's son inherit ?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands, he does his part
III every useful toil and art ;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
James R. LowelVs Poems.
O, poor man's son, scorn not thy state ;
There is worse weariness than thine,
In merely being rich and great ;
Toil only gives the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign ;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.
James R. LowelVs Poems.
PRAISE.
Or who would ever care to do brave deed,
Or strive in virtue others to excel,
If none should yield him his deserved meed,
Due praise, that is the spur of doing well ?
For if good were not praised more than ill.
None would choose goodness of his own free will.
Spenser's Tears of the Muses.
Praising what is lost,
Makes the remembrance dear.
All's Well.
Pray now, no more ; my mother,
Who has a charter to extol her blood,
When she does praise me, grieves me.
Shaks. Coriolanus,
He gave you all the duties of a man ;
Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue :
Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;
Making you ever better than his praise,
By still dispraising praise, valued with you
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
'■"rown us with praise, and make us
A.s fat as tame tilings : one good deed, dying
tongueless,
ftUugnters a thousand, waiting upon that :
< 'or praises are our wages.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Do not smile at me, that I boast her off,
For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,
And make it halt behind her.
Shaks. Tempes%
That praise contents me more which one imparts
Of judgment sound, though of a mean degree,
Than praise from princes, void of princely parts
Who have more wealth, but not more wit than he
Earl of Sterline's Crcesub
And what is most commended at this time,
Succeeding ages may account a crime.
Earl of Sterline's Darius
Praise
Is the reflection doth from virtue rise ;
These fair encomiums do virtue raise
To higher acts : to praise is to advise.
Telling men what they are, we let them see,
And represent to them what they should be.
Aleyn's Poictiers.
Praise is but virtue's shadow; who courts her,
Doth more the handmaid than the dame admire.
Heath's Clarastclla
Commend but sparingly whom thou dost love ;
But less condemn whom thou dost not approve ;
Thy friend, like flattery, too much praise doth
wrong ;
And too sharp censure shows an evil tongue.
Denham.
In vain would art presume to guide
The chariot-wheels of praise ;
When fancy driving ranges free,
Fresh flowers selecting like the bee,
And regularly strays
Phillips.
The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns, more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart :
The proud to gain it toils on toils endure,
The modest shun it but to make it sure.
Young's Love of Fame.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who peppcr'd the highest was surest to please.
Goldsmith's Retaliation.
My soul,
Like yours, is open to the charms of praise :
There is no joy beyond it, when the mind
Of him who hears it can with honest pride
Confess it just, and listen to its music.
Whitehead's Roman Father
I will not sing a mortal's praise,'
To Thee I consecrate my lays,
To whom my powers belong !
James Montgomery
PRAYER.
Human praise
fs sweet — till envy mars it, and the touch
Of new-won gold stirs up the pulses well.
Willis's Poems.
The worthlessness of common praise —
The dry-rot of the mind,
By which its temple secretly
But fast is undcrmin'd !
Miss Landon's Poems.
Alas ! the praise given to the ear
Ne'er was nor e'er can be sincere,
And does but waste the mind
On which it preys : — in vain
Would they in whom the poison lurks
A worthier state attain.
Miss London's Poems.
PRAYER.
We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good ; so find we profit,
By losing of our prayers.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
When holy and devout religious men
Are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence,
So sweet is zealous contemplation.
Shales. Richard III.
That high all-seer, which I dallied with,
Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head,
And given in earnest, what I begg'd in jest.
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men
To turn their own points on their masters' bosoms.
Shaks. Richard III.
If you bethink yourself of any crime,
Unreconcil'd as yet to heaven and grace,
Solicit for it straight.
Shaks. Othello.
I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night ;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know'st, is cross and full of sin.
Romeo and Juliet.
What then ? what rests ?
Try what repentance can : what can it not ?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent ?
Oh wretched state ! oh bosom, black as death !
Oh limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more cngag'd ! help, angels ! make assay !
Bow, stubborn knees ! and heart, with strings of
steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe !
All may be well !
Shaks. Hamlet.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Temporal blessings heaven doth often share
Unto the wicked, at the good man's prayer.
Quarles.
Man's plea to man is, that he never more
Will beg ; and that he never begg'd before :
Man's plea to God is, that he did obtain
A former suit, and therefore sues again.
How good a God we serve ; that, when we sue,
Makes his old gifts th' examples of his new !
Quarles.
They forthwith to the place
Repairing where he judg'd them, prostrate fell
Before him reverent, and both confess'd
Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd with tears
Watering the ground, and with their sighs the air
Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
If by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my assiduous cries :
But pray'r against his absolute decree
No more avails than breath against the wind
Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth .
Therefore to his great bidding I submit.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Sighs now breath'd
Unutterable, which the spirit of prayer
Inspir'd and wing'd for heav'n with speedier flight
Than loudest oratory.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
God gives us what he knows our wants require,
And better things than those which we desire :
Some pray for riches ; riches they obtain ;
But watch'd by robbers, for their wealth are slain
Some pray from prison to be freed, and come,
When guilty of their vows, to fall at home ;
Murder'd by those they trusted with their life,
A favour'd servant, or a bosom wife.
Such dear-bought blessings happen every day,,
Because we know not for what things to pray.
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.
' His pure thoughts were borne
Like fumes of sacred incense o'er the clouds,
And wafted thence on angels' wings, thro' way*
Of light to the bright source of all.
Congreve's Mourning Bnw
The few that pray at all, pray oft amiss,
And seeking grace t' improve the prize they hole
Would urge a wiser suit, than asking more.
Cowper's lash
1:24
PRAYER.
Or if she joins the service, 't is to speak ;
Thro' dreadful silence the pent heart might break ;
Untaught to bear it, women talk away
To God himself, and fondly think they pray.
Young's Love of Fame.
They had no stomach, o'er a grace to nod,
Nor time enough to offer thanks to God ;
That might be done, they wisely knew,
When they had nothing else to do.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
A good man's prayers
Will from the deepest dungeon climb to heaven's
height,
And bring a blessing down.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
Fountain of mercy ! whose pervading eye
Can look within and read what passes there,
Accept my thoughts for thanks ; I have no words.
My soul, o'erfraught with gratitude, rejects
The aid of language — Lord ! — behold my heart.
Hannah Morels Moses.
O sad estate
Of human wretchedness ! so weak is man,
So ignorant and blind, that did not God
Sometimes -withhold in mercy what we ask,
We should be ruin'd at our own request.
Hannah More's Moses.
His comrade too arose,
And with the outward forms
Of righteousness and prayer insulted God.
Southey.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'T is sweeter far for me,
To walk together to the kirk,
With a goodly company ! —
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay !
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
Jt hath not been my use to pray,
With moving lips or bended knees ;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to love compose,
In humble trust my eyelids close,
With reverential resignation,
JSo wish conceived, no thought express'd
Only a sense of supplication ;
A sense o'er all my soul impress'd
That 1 am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, everywhere
Kiernai strength and wisdom are.
Coleridge's Poems.
j O Thou, that holdest in thy spacious hands
The destinies of men ! whose eye surveys
j Their various actions ! Thou, whose temple stands
| Above all temples ! Thou, whom all men praise !
; Of good the author '. Thou, whose wisdom sways
j The universe ! all bounteous ! grant to me
j Tranquillity, and health, and length of days ;
! Good will towards all, and reverence unto Thee ;
. Allowance for man's failings, and of my own
The knowledge and the power to conquer all
; Those evil things to which we are too prone —
Malice, hate, envy — all that ill we call.
To me a blameless life, Great Spirit, grant,
Nor burden'd with much care, nor narrow'd by
much want. Anon.
The saints will aid, if men will call,
For the blue sky bends over all.
Coleridge's Chrislabel.
Child, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away ;
Mother, with thine earnest eye
Ever following silently ;
Father, by the breeze of eve
CalPd thy harvest work to leave ;
Pray ! — ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee !
Mrs. Hemans.
Traveller, in the stranger's land,
Far from thine own household band ;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone ;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell ;
Sailor on the darkening sea —
Lift the heart and bend the knee !
Warrior, that from battle won
Breathless art at set of sun ;
Woman, o'er the lowly slain
Weeping on his burial plain ;
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie,
Heaven's first star alike ye see —
Lift the heart and bend the knee !
Mrs. Hemans.
Mrs. Hemans.
Night is the time to pray :
Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away,
So will his followers do ;
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And commune there alone with God.
James Montgomery.
Any heart, turn'd Godward, feels more joy
In one short hour of prayer, than e'er was rais'd
By all the feasts on earth since their foundation.
Bailey's Festus.
PREFERMENT.
425
How purely true, how deeply warm,
The inly-breath'd appeal may be,
Though adoration wears no form,
In uprais'd hand or bended knee.
One spirit fills all boundless space,
No limit to the when or where ;
And little recks the time or place
That leads the soul to praise or prayer,
Eliza Cook's Poems.
In desert wilds, in midnight gloom ;
In grateful joy, in trying pain ;
In laughing youth, or nigh the tomb ;
Oh ! when is prayer unheard or vain ?
Eliza Cook's Poems.
In reverence will we speak of those who woo
The ear divine with clear and ready prayer ;
And while their voices cleave the Sabbath air,
Know their bright thoughts are winging heaven-
ward too.
Yet many a one, — " the latchet of whose shoe "
These might not loose — will often only dare
Lay some poor words between him and despair —
I Father, forgive ! we know not what we do."
Richard M. Milnes.
Thank God that yet I live '.
In tender mercy, heeding not the prayer
I boldly utter'd in my first despair
He would not give
The punishment an erring spirit brav'd !
Mrs. Neat.
Night comes, with love upon the breeze,
And the calm clock strikes, stilly, " ten !"
I start to hear it beat, for then
know that thou art on thy knees —
And at that hour, where'er thou be,
Ascends to heaven a prayer for me !
Willis's
O, still my fervent prayer -will be,
■ Heaven's choicest blessings rest on thee."
Miss Gould.
0, the precious privilege
To the pious given, —
Sending by the dove of prayer
Holy words to heaven !
Arrows from the burning sun
Cleave the quivering air, —
Swifter, softlier, surer on,
Speeds the dove of prayer,
Bearing from the parted lips
Words of holy love,
Warm, as from the heart they gush'd,
To the throne above !
Mrs. Hale.
Even as a fountain, whose unsullied wave
Wells in the pathless valley, flowing o'er
With silent waters, kissing, as they lave
The pebbles with bright rippling, and the shore
Of matted grass and flowers, — so softly pour
The breathings of her bosom, when she prays
Low bow'd before her Maker ; then no more
She muses on the griefs of former days ;
Her full heart melts, and flows in heaven's dis-
solving rays. Percival.
There are God and peace above thee :
Wilt thou languish in despair ?
Tread thy griefs beneath thy feet,
Scale the walls of heaven with prayer —
'T is the key of the apostle,
That opens heaven from below ;
'T is the ladder of the patriarch,
Whereon angels come and go !
Miss Lynch's Poenw.
When the evening shadows gather,
Round about our quiet hearth,
Comes our eldest born unto us,
Bending humbly to the earth !
And with hands enclasped tightly,
And with meek eyes rais'd above,
This the prayer he offers nightly
To the source of light and love :
" Bless my parents, Oh ! my Father !
Bless my little sister dear ;
While I gently take my slumber,
Be thy guardian angels near !
Should no morning's dawn e'er greet me,
Beaming brightly from the skies,
Thine the eye of love to meet me,
In the paths of Paradise !" ^^ ^ Jf .
Our little babe ! our bright-eyed one I
Our youngest, darling joy,
We teach, at evening hour, to kneel
Beside our little boy ;
And though she cannot lisp a word
Nor breathe a simple prayer,
We know her Maker blesseth hei
The while she kneeleth there.
Richard Coe, .h
PREFERMENT.
When knaves come to preferment, they rise a.s
Gallows are rais'd in the low countries, one
Upon another's shoulders.
Webster's White Devi,
For places in the court, are but like beds
In the hospital ; where this man's head lies
At that man's foot, and so lower and lowe\
Webster's Duchess cf Malfit.
3fi*
120
PRESS -PRIDE.
If on the sudden he begins to rise ;
No man that lives can count his enemies.
Middleton's Trick to Calch the Old One.
All preferment
That springs from sin and lust shoots up quickly;
As gard'ner's crops do in the rott'nest grounds ;
So is all means rais'd from base prostitution,
Even like a salad growing upon a dunghill.
MiddletorCs Women heware Women.
lie who cannot merit
Preferment by employments ; let him bare
His throat unto the Turkish cruelty ;
Or die or live a slave without redemption.
John Ford's Lady's Trial.
What throngs of great impediments besiege
The virtuous mind ! so thick, they jostle
One another as they come. Hath vice a
Charter got, that none must rise, but such, who
Of the devil's faction are ? the way to
Honour is not evermore the way to
Hell: a virtuous man may climb. Let the
Flatterer sell his lies elsewhere, it is
Unthrifty merchandise to change my gold
For breath. ^ ^ BavenanVs Cruel Brother.
PRESS.
The press from her fecundous womb
Brought forth the arts of Greece and Rome :
Her offspring, skill'd in logic war,
Truth's banner wav'd in open air :
Then monster superstition fled,
And hid in shades its Gorgon head ;
And lawless power the long-kept field,
By reason quell'd, was fore'd to yield.
This nurse of arts, and freedom's fence
To chain, is treason against sense ;
And liberty, thy thousand tongues
None silence, who design no wrongs ,
For those, who use the gag's restraint,
First rob before they stop complaint.
Greene's Spleen.
But mightiest of the mighty means,
On which the arm of progress leans,
Man's noblest mission to advance,
His woes assuage, his weal enhance,
His rights enforce, his wrongs redress, —
Mightiest or Mighty is the tiiess.
Dr. Bowring.
" The Press !" all lands shall sing ;
The piess, the press we bring
All lands to bless .
O pallid 'Want! O Labour stark!
Rehold, we bnng the second ark!
The press ! the press ! the press !
Ebcnezer Elliott,
Turn to the press — its teeming sheets survey,
Big with the wonders of each passing day ;
Births, deaths, and weddings, forgeries, fjres, and
wrecks,
Harangues and hail-storms, brawls and broken
necks,
Where half-fledg'd bards, on feeble pinions, seek
An immortality of near a. week;
Where cruel eulogists the dead restore,
In maudlin praise to martyr them once more ;
Where rufhan slanderers wreak their coward spite,
And need no venom'd dagger while they write ;
While hard to tell, so coarse a daub he lays,
Which sullies most — the slander or the praise, ■
Sprague's Curiosity.
There are, thank Heaven,
A nobler troop to whom this trust is given ;
Who, all unbrib'd, on Freedom's altar stand,
Faithful and firm, bright warders of the land.
By them still lifts the press its arm abroad,
To guide all-curious men along life's road ;
To cheer young Genius, Pity's tear to start,
In Truth's bold cause to rouse each fearless heart ;
O'er male and female quacks to shake the rod,
And scourge the unsex'd thing that scorns her God:
To hunt corruption from his secret den,
And show the monster up, the gaze of wondering
men. Sprague's Curiosity.
PRIDE.
Pride hath no other gloss
To show itself, but pride ; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Shales. Troilus and Cressida.
Things small as nothing for request's sake only,
He makes important : possess'd he is with great-
ness ;
And speaks not to himself but with a pride,
That quarrels at first breath.
Shahs. Troilus and Cressida.
He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is
His own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle ;
And whatever praises itself but in
The deed, devours the deed in the praise.
Shahs. Troilus and Cressida.
Why who cries out on pride,
That can therein tax any private party 1
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
Till that the very means do ebb.
Shaks. As you like it,
You speak o' the people,
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.
Shdkspeare.
PRIDE.
42?
I will from, henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty, and to be fear'd, than my condition,
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect,
Which the proud soul ne'er pays, but to the proud.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
I am too high born to be property'd,
To be a secondary at control,
Or useful serving-man, and instrument,
To any sovereign.
SJwks. King John.
How blind is pride ! what eagles are we still
In matters that belong to other men,
What beetles in our own?
Chapman's All Fools.
How poor a thing is pride ! when all, as slaves,
Differ but in their fetters, not their graves.
Daniel's Civil War.
Pride by presumption bred, when at a height,
Encount'ring with contempt, both march in ire ;
And ?twixt 'em bring base cruelty to light ;
The loathsome offspring of a hated sire.
Earl of Sterlings Alexandrian Tragedy.
I '11 offer, and I '11 suffer no abuse,
Because I 'm proud ; pride is of mighty use.
The affectation of a pompous name,
Has oft set wits and heroes in a flame :
Volumes, and buildings, and dominions wide,
Are oft the noble monuments of pride.
Crown's Caligula.
Take heed of pride, and curiously consider,
How brittle the foundation is, on which
You labour to advance it. Niobe,
Proud of her numerous issue, durst contemn
Latona's double burthen ; but what follow'd ?
She was left a childless mother, and mourn'd to
marble.
The beauty you o'erprize so, time or sickness
Can change to loath'd deformity ; your wealth
The prey of thieves.
Massinger.
" Pride was not made for men ;" a conscious sense
Of guilt, and folly, and their consequencef
Destroys the claim, and to beholders tells, -
_ Here nothing but the shape of manhood dwells.
Waller.
Spite of all the fools that pride has made,
'T is not on man a useless burthen laid ;
Pride has ennobled some, and some disgraced ;
It hurts not in itself, but as 't is placed ;
When right, its views know none but virtue's
bound ;
When wrong, it scarcely looks one inch around.
Stillingfleet.
Pride (of all others the most dangerous fault;
Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought.
The men who labour and digest things most,
Will be much apter to despond than boast ;
For if your author be profoundly good,
'T will cost you dear before he 's understood.
Roscommon
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies ;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels men rebel ;
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of order, sins against th' Eternal cause.
Man.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Pope's Essay on Criticism.
The snarler pride,
Plac'd by a mirror, starts, and barks, and bites
At its own image.
Jeffrey's Edwin.
Yes — the same sin that overthrew the angels,
And of all sins most easily besets
Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature :
The vile are only vain ; the great are proud.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
What is pride ? a whizzing rocket
That would emulate a star.
Wordsworth
The fiend that man harries
Is love of the Best,
Yawns the Pit of the Dragon
Lit by rays from the Blest;
The Lethe of Nature
Can't trance him again,
Whose soul sees the Perfect
Which his eyes seek in vain.
Pride ruin'd the angels,
Their shame them restores.
Ralph Waldo Emersv*
She has all
That would ensure an angel's fall ;
But there 's a cool collected look,
As if her pulses beat by book, —
A measured tone, a cold reply,
A management of voice and eye,
A calm, possessed, authentic air,
That leaves a doubt of softness there,
Till look and worship as I maj ,
My fevered thoughts will pass away,
428
PRISON - PRODIGALITY.
Oh, it is hard to put the heart,
AJone and desolate, away,
To curl the lip in pride, and part
With the kind thoughts of yesterday
Tis strange they know not that the chill
Of their own looks hath made me cold,
That though my words fall seldom, still
Their own proud bearing hath controll'd
My better feelings.
Willis's Poems.
Oh ! ask not a home in the mansions of pride,
Where marble shines out in the pillars and
walls ;
Though the roof be of gold it is brilliantly cold,
Arid joy may not be found in its torch-lighted
halls. Eliza Cook's Poems.
PRISON.
A prison is a house of care,
A place where none can thrive,
A touchstone true to try a friend,
A grave for one alive;
Sometimes a place of right,
Sometimes a place of wrong,
Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves,
And honest men among.
Inscription on Edinburgh Tolbooth.
A prison ! heav'ns, I loath the hated name,
Famine's metropolis, the sink of shame,
A nauseous sepulchre, whose craving womb
Hourly inters poor mortals in its tomb ;
By ev'ry plague and ev'ry ill possess'd,
Ev'n purgatory itself to thee 's a jest ;
Emblem of hell, nursery of vice,
Thou crawling university of lice :
Where wretches numberless to ease their pains,
With smoke and ale delude their pensive chains.
How shall I thee avoid ? or with what spell
Dissolve th' enchantment of thy magic cell ?
Ev'n Fox himself can't boast so many martyrs,
As yearly fall within thy wretched quarters.
Money I 've none, and debts I cannot pay,
Unless my vermin will those debts defray.
Not scolding wife, nor inquisition's worse ;
Thou 'rt ev'ry mischief cramm'd into one curse.
Tom Brown.
How like
A prison 's to a grave ! when dead, we are
With solemn pomp brought thither ; and our heirs,
Masking their joy in false dissembled tears,
Weep o'er the hearse : but earth no sooner covers
The earth brought thither, but they turn away
With inward smiles, the dead no more rcmember'd :
So enter'd into a prison.
Massinger's Maid of Honour.
Here 's the place
Which men (for being poor) are sent to starve in,— *
Rude remedy, I trow, for sore disease.
Within these walls, stifled by damp and stench,
Docs hope's fair torch expire ; and at the snutT,
Ere yet 't is quite extinct, rude, wild, and wayward
The desperate reveries of wild despair,
Kindling their hell-born cressets, like to deeds
That the poor captive would have died ere practised,
Till bondage sunk his soul to this condition.
The Prison.
A prison is in all things like a grave,
Where we no better privileges have
Than dead men ; nor so good. The soul once fled
Lives freer now, than when she was cloist'red
In walls of flesh ; and though she organs want
To act her swift designs, yet all will grant
Her faculties more clear, now separate,
Than if the same conjunction, which of late
Did marry her to earth, had stood in force ;
Incapable of death, or of divorce ;
But an imprison'd mind, though living, dies,
And, at one time, feels two captivities :
A narrow dungeon which her body holds,
But narrower body, which herself enfolds.
Dr. King, Bishop Chichester
They say this is the dwelling of distress,
The very mansion-house of misery !
To me, alas ! it seems but just the same,
With that more spacious jail — the busy world!
Beliefs Injured Innocence.
They enter'd — 'twas a prison room
Of stern serenity and gloom.
Scotfs Lady of the Lake.
A felon's cell —
The fittest earthly type of hell !
Whittier.
And faint not, heart of man ! though years wane
slow!
There have been those that from the deepest caves,
And cells of night and fastnesses below
The stormy dashing of the ocean waves,
Down, farther down than gold lies hid, have nurs'd
A quenchless hope, and watch'd their time and
burst
On the bright day, like wakencrs from the grave.
Mrs. Hemans.
PRODIGALITY.
Young heirs, left in this town, where sin's so rank,
And prodigals gape to grow fat by them,
Are, like young whelps, thrown in the lions' den,
Who play with them awhile, at length devour
them.
Wilkins's Miseries of enforced Marriage,
PRODIGIES.
4:29
This like a fever that doth shake a man
From strength to weakness, I consume myself:
I know this company, their custom wild,
Hated, abhorr'd of good men ; yet, like a child,
By reason's rule instructed how to know
Evil from good, I to the worser go.
Wilkins , s Miseries of enforced Marriage.
What is a prodigal ? faith, like a brush,
That wears himself, to flourish others' clothes ;
And having worn his heart ev'n to the stump,
He 's thrown away like a deformed lump :
O such am I ! I have spent all the wealth
My ancestors did purchase ; made others brave
In shape and riches, and myself a knave :
For tho' my wealth rais'd some to paint their door,
'Tis shut against me, saying, I am poor.
Wilkins's Miseries of enforced Marriage.
What will this come to ? he commands us to •
Provide, and give great gifts, and all out of
An empty coffer : nor will he know
His purse, or yield me this —
To show him what a beggar his heart is,
Being of no power to make his wishes good ;
His promises fly so beyond his state,
That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes for
every word.
He is so kind, that he pays interest for 't :
His lands put to their books.
Shaks. Timon of Athens.
That which made him gracious in your eyes,
And gilded over his imperfections,
Is wasted and consumed ev'n like ice,
Which by the vehemence of heat dissolves,
And glides to many rivers ; so his wealth,
That felt a prodigal hand, hot in expense,
Melted within his gripe, and from his coffers
Ran like a violent stream to other men's.
Cook's Green's Tu quoque.
Liberality
In some circumstances may be allow'd ;
As when it has no end but honesty ;
With a respect of person, quantity,
Quality, time, and place : but this profuse,^
Vain, injudicious spending makes him idiot;
And yet the best of liberality
Is to be liberal to ourselves : and thus
Your wisdom is most liberal, and knows
How fond a thing it is for discreet men
To purchase with the loss of their estate
The name of one poor virtue, liberality,
And that too, only from the mouth of beggars !
One of your judgment would not, I am sure,
Buy all the virtues at so dear a rate
Randolph's Muse's Looking-Glass.
PRODIGIES.
At my nativity,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets : and, at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward.
Shahs. Henry IV. Part I.
The night has been unruly : where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down : and, as they say,
Lamenting heard i' the air ; strange screams of
death ;
And prophesying with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,
Newhatch'd to the woeful time : the obscure bird
Clamour'd the live -long night : some say the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.
Shaks. Macbeth.
When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let no men say
These are their reasons — they are natural;
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.
Shaks. Macbeth,
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder ?
Shaks. Macbeth
The spring, the summer.
The chilling autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the 'maz'd world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream
No 'scape of nature, no distemper'd day,
No common wind, no customed event,
But they will pluck away its natural cause,
And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,
Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven.
Shaks. King John
Learn'd men oft greedily pursue
Things that arc rather wonderful than true,
And, in their nicest speculations, choose
To make their own discoveries strange news,
And nat'ral hist'ry rather a gazette
Of rarefies stupendous and far-fet ;
Believe no truths are worthy to be known
That are not strongly vast and overgrown,
And strive to explicate appearances,
Not as they 're probable, but as they please
In vain endeavour nature to suborn,
And, for their pains, are justly paid with scorn
But.*
430
PROMISES - PROPOSAL.
PROMISES.
His promises were, as he then was, mighty ;
But his performance, as he now is, nothing.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Divinest creature, bright Astrea's daughter,
How shall I honour thee for this success !
Thy promises are like Adonis's gardens,
That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next.
Shales. Henry IV. Part I.
He lin'd himself with hope,
Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts ;
And so with great imagination,
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And winking leap'd into destruction.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Promise me friendship, but perform none :
If thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee,
For thou art a man ! If thou dost perform,
Confound thee, for thou art a man !
Shaks. Tirnon of Athens.
I see, sir, you are liberal in offers :
You taught me first to beg ; and now, methinks,
You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd.
Shakspeare.
Promising is the very air of the
Time ; it opens the eyes of expectation.
Performance is ever the duller for
His act ; and, but in the plainer and simpler
Kind of people, the deed is quite out of
Use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable ;
Performance is a kind of will or testament,
Which argues a great sickness in his judgment
That makes it.
Shakspeare.
My deeds, and speeches, sir,
Are lines drawn from one centre ; what I promise
To do, I '11 do.
Daniel's Match me in London.
The man that is not in the enemies' pow'r,
Nor fcttcr'd by misfortune, and breaks promises,
Degrades himself; he never can pretend
To honour more.
Sir Rohert Stapleton's Slighted Maid.
Within the hearts of all men lie
Those promises of wider bliss,
Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,
In sunny hours like this.
James R. Lowell's Poems.
When wicked men make promises of truth,
T in weakness to believe 'em.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
A promise may be broke ;
Nay, start not at it — 'Tis an hourly practice;
The trader breaks it, yet is counted honest.
The courtier keeps it not — yet keeps his honour
Husband and wife in marriage promise much,
Yet follow separate pleasure, and are — virtuous.
The churchmen promise too, but wisely they
To a long payment stretch the crafty bill,
And draw upon futurity.
Havard's King Charles
They promise — I bow and am thankful ;
They fail to perform — I ne'er fret.
Eliza Cook's Poems.
PROPOSAL.
Wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags ;
And 't is the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at. .
Shaks.
I know not why
I love this youth ; and I have heard you say
Love's reason's without reason.
Shaks.
Full many a lady
I have ey'd with best regard ; and many a time
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear : for several virtues
Have I lik'd several women ; never any
With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she own'd
And put it to the foil. But you, O you,
So perfect, and so peerless, are created
Of every creature's best
Shaks. Temp
Do I not in plainest truth
Tell you — I do not, nor I cannot love you ?
Sha
Hence, then, for ever from my Emma's breast,
(That heaven of softness, and that seat of rest)
Ye doubts and fears, and all that know to move
Tormenting grief, and all that trouble love,
Scattered by winds recede, and wild in forests
rove. Prior.
Hear, solemn Jove ! and, conscious Venus, hear!
And thou, bright maid, believe me whilst I swear;
No time, no change, no future flame shall move
The well-placed basis of my lasting love.
Prior
Too much, Alexis, I have heard —
But you shall promise, ne'er again
To breathe your vows, or speak your pain.
Prwr.
[p m <■■
PROPOSAL.
431
'his hand, I cannot but in death resign !
Dryden.
[ave I not managed my contrivance well
o try your love and make you doubt of mine ?
Dryden.
'like my esteem, if you on that can live,
or frankly, sir, ' tis all I have to give.
Dryden.
court others in verse, but love thee in prose !
;'hc.y have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.
Prior.
■lutual love the crown of all our bliss !
Milton.
^Jiall I go on ? — Or have I said enough ?
Milton.
t is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit,
Irength, comeliness of shape^ or amplest merit,
That woman's love can win;
iut what it is, hard is to say, harder to hit.
Milton.
The very thoughts of change I hate,
As much as of despair ;
S'or ever covet to be great,
Unless it be for her.
Parnell.
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Cach other's pillow to repose divine.
Young.
Mas ! my lord, if talking would prevail,
L could suggest much better arguments
Than those regards you throw away on me ;
Your valour, honour, wisdom, prais'd by all :
liut bid physicians talk our veins to temper,
\nd with an argument new-set a pulse ;
Then think, my lord, of reasoning into love.
Young.
'Tis you, alone, can save, or give my doom.
Ovid.
On you, most loved, with anxious fear I wait,
And from your judgment must expect my fate.
Addison.
As letters some hand has invisibly trae'd,
When held to the flame will steal out to the
sight,
So, many a feeling that long seem'd effae'd,
The warmth of a meeting like this brings to
light ! Moore.
Thinkest thou
That I could live, and let thee go,
Who art my life itself ?—- no — no.
Moore.
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,
And the heart, and the hand, all thy own to the
last Moore.
'T is not in fate to harm me,
While fate leaves thy love to me;
'T is not in joy to charm me,
Unless that joy be shar'd with thee.
Moore.
For ever thine, whate'er this world betide,
In youth, in age, thine own, for ever thine.
A. A. Watts
To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,
Or, crush'd in its ruins, to die !
Campbell
Never wedding, ever wooing,
Still a love-lorn heart pursuing,
Read you not the wrong you 're doing,
In my cheek's pale hue ?
All my life with sorrow strewing,
Wed, or cease to woo.
Campbell.
Love is not in our power,
Nay, what seems stranger, is not in our choice :
We only love where fate ordains we should,
And, blindly fond, oft slight superior merit.
Frowde
On your hand, that pure altar, I vow,
Though I 've look'd, and have lik'd, and have felt— •
That I never have lov'd — till now.
M. G. Lewis
By those tresses unconfin'd,
Woo'd by every gentle wind ;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheek's blooming tinge ;
By those wild eyes, like the roe,
Ah ! hear my vow before I go —
My dearest life, I love thee !
Can I cease to love thee ? — no !
Zoe mous s-as agapo.
Byron
Yet, it is love — if thoughts of tenderness,
Tried in temptation, strengthen'd by distress, ■
Unmov'd by absence, firm in every clime,
And yet — oh ! more than all ! — untir'd by timo
Byron,
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace,
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.
Coleridgf
O lady ! there be many things
That seem right fair above ;
But sure not one among them all
Is half so sweet as love ; —
Let us not pay our vows alone.
But join two altars into one.
O. W.Holm
432
PROSPERITY.
I said, "You know — you must have known —
I long have lov'd — lov'd you alone,
But cannot know how dearly."
I told her if my hopes were cross'd,
My every aim in life was lost —
She knew I spoke sincerely !
She answer' d — as I breathless dwelt
Upon her words, and would have knelt,
*' Nay, move not thus the least,
You have — you long have had" — " Say on,
Sweet girl ! thy heart ?" — " Your fool upon
The flounce of my battiste."
Hoffman's Poems.
I knelt,
And with the fervour of a lip unus'd
To the cool breath of reason, told my love.
Willis's Poems.
Whither my heart is gone, there follows my hand,
and not elsewhere.
For where the heart goes before, like a lamp, and
illumines the pathway,
Many tnings are made clear, that else lie hidden
in darkness.
Long fellow' 1 s Evangeline.
" Yes !" I answer'd you last night ;
" No !" this morning, sir, I say !
Flowers seen by candle-light,
Will not look the same by day.
Miss Barrett's Poems.
Look how the bh.e-eyed violets
Glance love to one another !
Their little leaves are whispering
The vows they may not smother.
The birds are pouring passion forth,
In every blossoming tree —
If flowers and birds talk love, lady,
Why not we ?
T. Buchanan Read.
And over all the happy earth,
Love flowcth — like a river —
I rue love vvhose glory fills the sky
For ever and for ever.
The pale nearts of the silver star?
Throb too, as mine to thee
Ah tilings delight in love, lady,
Why not wc ?
T. Buchanan Read.
PROSPERITY.
1'rosperity 'a tbc very bond of love,
Whose frcsa comulcxion, and whose heart together,
Aflliction alter.
Shales. Winter's Tale.
Daily and hourly proof
Tell us, prosperity is at highest degree
The fount and handle of calamity:
Like dust before a whirlwind those men fly
That prostrate on the ground of fortune lie ;
And being great, like trees that broadest sprout,
Their own top-heavy state grubs up their root.
Chapman's First Part of Byron's Conspiracy.
Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear ;
But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks arc
near. Webster's White Devil.
He that suffers
Prosperity to swell him 'bove a mean ;
Like those impressions 'n the air, that rise
From dunghill vapours, scatter'd by the wind,
Leaves nothing but an empty name behind.
1 Nabb's Hannibal and Scipio.
Of both our fortunes, good and bad, we find •
Prosperity more searching of the mind :
Felicity flies o'er the wall and fence,
While misery keeps in with patience.
Herrick.
When fortune raisetb to the greatest height,
The happy man should most suppress his state ; i
Expecting still a change of things to find,
And fearing, when the gods appear too kind.
Sir Robert Howard.
Prosperity puts out unnumbered thoughts,
Of import high, and light divine, to man.
Young.
Who feels no ills,
Should, therefore, fear them ; and, when fortune
smiles,
Be doubly cautious, lest destruction come
Remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied.
Sophocles' Philoctetes.
Thou hast been nurs'd in wealth and luxury,
Thy every wish been father to a deed ;
Thou, from o'erflowing means hast freely given
That which it cost thee nothing to impart.
Buker's Caluynos.
Prosperity, alas !
Is often but another name for pride.
Mrs. Sigourney.
And when our children turn the page,
To ask what triumphs mark'd our age —
What we achiev'd to challenge praise,
Through the long line of future days —
This let them read, and hence instruction draw :
"Here were the many bless'd,
Here found the virtues rest,
Faith link'd with Love, and Liberty with Law.
Sprague's Centennial Ode.
PROVIDENCE.
PROVIDENCE.
And is there care in heaven ? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to the creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move ?
There is ; else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But O ! th' exceeding grace
Of highest God that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe !
How oft do they their silver bowers leave
To come to succour us that succour want?
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,
Against foul fiends to aid us militant ?
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant ;
And all for love, and nothing for reward :
O why should heavenly God to men have such re-
gard ! Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well;
When our deep plots do pall : and that should teach
us,
There 's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will. ^ fc HamU
That I am wretched,
Makes thee the happier : — Heavens deal so still !
Let the superfluous, and lust-directed man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly ;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough.
Shaks. Lear.
Thus doth th' all-working Providence retain
And keep for good effects the seed of worth ;
And so doth point the stops of time thereby,
In periods of uncertain certainty.
Daniel.
O, all-preparing Providence divine !
In thy large book what secrets are enroll'd !
What sundry helps doth thy great power assign,
To prop the course which thou intend'st to hold ?
What mortal sense is able to define
Thy mysteries, thy counsels manyfold ?
It is thy wisdom strangely that extends
Obscure proceedings to apparent ends.
Drayton's Baron's Wars.
Wisdom and virtue be
The only destinies set for a man to follow.
The heavenly pow'rs are to be reverenc'd,
Not search'd into ; their mercies rather be
By humble prayers to be sought, than their
Hidden councils by curiosity.
Baron's Mirza.
2C
Who is it, that will doubt
The care of heaven ; or think th' immortal
Pow'rs are slow, 'cause they take the privilege
To choose their own time, when they will send
their
Blessings down.
Sir W. Davenant's Fair Favourite,
'T is the curse of mighty minds oppress'd,
To think what their state is, and what it should
be:
Impatient of their lot, they reason fiercely,
And call the laws of Providence unequal.
Rome.
The ways of heaven are dark and intricate,
Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors ;
Our understanding traces them in vain,
Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search ;
Nor sees with how much art the windings run,
Nor where the regular confusion ends.
Addison's Cato
All nature is but art unknown to thee ;
All chance direction, which thou canst not see ;
All discord harmony not understood ;
All partial evil universal good :
And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.
Pope's Essay on Mail.
This is thy work, Almighty Providence !
Whose power, beyond the reach of human thought,
Revolves the orbs of empire ; bids them sink
Deep in the dead'ning night of thy displeasure,
Or rise majestic o'er a wondering world.
Thomson's Coriolanus.
The gods take pleasure oft, when haughty mortals
On their own pride erect a mighty fabric,
By slightest means, to lay their towering schemes
Low in the dust, and teach them they are nothing.
Thomson's Coriolanus.
Wondrous chance !
Or rather wondrous conduct of the gods !
By mortals, from their blindness, chance misnam'd.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
Thus wisdom speaks
To man ; thus calls him through this actual form
Of nature, though religion's fuller noon,
Through life's bewildering mazes to observe
A Providence in all. rt .,
Ugtlvit
Go, mark the matchless working of the power
That shuts within the seed the future flowei •
Bids these in elegance of form excel,
In colour these, and those delight the smell ,
Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies.
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes
Cowpe*
37
434
PRUDENCE - PUNISHMENT.
One part, one little part, \vc dimly scan
Through the dark medium of life's fevering
dream ;
Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan,
If but that little part incongruous seem,
Nor is that part perhaps what mortals deem ;
Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise.
O then renounce that impious self-esteem,
That aims to trace the secrets of the skies :
For thou art but of dust; be humble and be wise.
Beanie's Minstrel.
Yes, thou art ever present, Power Supreme !
Not circumscrib'd by time, nor fixt to space,
Confin'd to altars, nor to temples bound.
In wealth, in want, in freedom, or in chains,
In dungeons, or on thrones, the faithful find Thee !
Hannah Mare's Belshazzar.
Just as a mother, with sweet pious face,
Yearns tow'rds her children from her seat,
Gives onte a kiss, another an embrace,
Takes this upon her knee, that on her feet ;
And while from actions, looks, complaints, pre-
tences,
She learns their feelings and their various will,
To this a look, to that a word dispenses,
And whether stern or smiling, loves them still : —
So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task,
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants .
And ev'n if it denies what seems our right,
Either denies because 'twould have us ask,
Or seems but to deny, or in denying grants.
Anon.
PRUDENCE.
Rightly'to be great,
Is not to stir without great argument ;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake.
Shakspeare.
She 's a majestic ruler, and commands
Even with terror of her awful brow.
As in a throng, sedition being rais'd,
Th' ignoble multitude inflam'd with madness,
Firebrands and stones fly; fury shows them
weapons :
Till spying some grave man, honour'd for wisdom
They straight are silent, and erect their ears ;
W Inlst he, with his sage counsel, doth assuage
Their mind's disorder and appease their rage :
So prudence, when rebellious appetites
Have rais'd temptations, with their batteries
Assaulting reason, then doth interpose,
Anil keep it safe
NabVs Microcosmus.
Prudence, thou virtue of the mind, by which
We do consult of all that 's good or evil,
Conducting to felicity ; direct
My thoughts and actions by the rules of reason .
Teach me contempt of all inferior vanities;
Pride in a marble portal gilded o'er,
Assyrian carpets, chairs of ivory, ■
The luxuries of a stupendous house,
Garments perfum'd, gems valued not for use,
But needless ornament : a sumptuous table,
And all the baits of sense. A vulgar eye
Sees not the dangers which beneath them lie.
NabVs Microcosmus.
Look forward what 's to come, and back what 's
past;
Thy life will be with praise and prudence grae'd ,
What loss or gain may follow, thou may'st guess;
Thou then wilt be secure of the success.
Denham
Prudence, thou vainly in our youth art sought,
And with age purchas'd, art too dearly bought :
We 're past the use of wit for which we toil :
Late fruit, and planted in too cold a soil.
Dryden.
Prudence protects and guides us ; wit betrays ;
A splendid source of ill ten thousand ways ;
A certain snare to miseries immense ; •
A gay prerogative from common sense ;
Unless strong judgment that wild thing can tame,
And break to paths of virtue and of fame.
Young.
Consult your means, avoid the tempter's wiles,
Shun grinning hosts of unreceipted files,
Let Heaven-ey'd prudence battle with desire,
And win the victory, though it be through fire.
James T. Fields' Poems.
PUNISHMENT.
The Moor 's abus'd by some most villanous knave,
Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow :
O, heaven, that such companions thou'dst unfold ;
And put in every honest hand a whip,
To lash the rascal naked through the world.
Shales. Othello.
A whisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,
To make this shameless callet know herself
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
All have not offended :
For those that were, it is not square to take
On those that are, revenge : crimes, like to lands
Are not inherited.
Shakt. Titian
PURITY.
435
Where sits the offence,
Let the fault's punishment be deriv'd from thence.
Middleton.
Nor custom, nor example, nor vast numbers
Of such as do offend, make less the sin;
For each particular crime a strict account
Will be exacted ; and that comfort, which
The damn'd pretend, follows in misery,
Takes nothing from their torments : every one
Must suffer in himself the measure of
His wickedness.
Massinger's Picture.
The land wants such
As dare with rigour execute the laws.
Her fester'd members must be lanc'd and tented :
He 's a bad surgeon that for pity spares
The part corrupted till the gangrene spread,
And all the body perish : he that 's merciful
Unto the bad, is cruel to the good.
Randolph's Muses' Looking-Glass.
The laws are sinfully contriv'd. Justice
Should weigh the present crime, not future
Inference on deeds ; but now they cheapen
Blood; 'tis spilt
To punish the example, not the guilt
Sir W. Davenant's Just Italian.
Do not, if one but lightly thee offend,
The punishment beyond the crime extend ;
Or after warning the offence forget ;
So God himself our failings did remit.
Orgula, or the Fatal Error.
PURITY.
And steal immortal kisses from her lips;
Which even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush as thinking their own kisses sin.
Shahs. Romeo and Juliet.
Who has a breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets, and law-days, and in session sit
With meditations lawful ?
Shahs'. Othello.
Every thing about her resembles the purity of her
soul. Law.
Her face, O call it pure, not pale !
Coleridge. Christabel.
'T is said the lion will turn and flee
From a maid in the pride of her purity ;
And the Power on high that can shield the good
Thus from the tyrant of the wood,
Hath extended its mercy to guard me well
From the hands of the leaguering infidel.
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
Around her shone
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face ;
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole ;
And, oh ! that eye was in itself a soul !
Byron.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose
When the dew wets its leaves ; unstained and pure
As is the lily, or the mountain snow.
Thomson,
Let me be pure !
Oh ! I wish I was a pure child again,
When life was calm as is a sister's kiss.
Bailey's Festus.
Spring has no blossom fairer than thy form ;
Winter no snow-wreath purer than thy mind ;
The dew-drop trembling to the morning beam
Is like thy smile, pure, transient, heaven-refin'd.
Mrs. Lydia Jane Pierson.
A lovelier nymph the pencil never drew ;
For the fond graces formed her easy mien,
And heaven's soft azure in her eye was seen.
Hayley
Be purity of life the test, —
Leave to the heart, to heaven, the rest.
Sprague's Poems,
'T is not the fairest form that holds
The mildest, purest soul within ;
'T is not the richest plant that folds
The sweetest breath of fragrance in.
Rufus Dawea
Fair girl ! by whose simplicity
My spirit has been won
From the stern earthliness of life,
As shadows flee the sun ;
I turn again to think of thee,
And half deplore the thought,
That for one instant, o'er my soul,
Forgetfulness hath wrought !
I turn to that charmed hour of hope,
When first upon my view
Came the pure sunshine of thine heart,
Borne from thine eyes of blue.
'T was thy high purity of soul —
Thy thought-revealing eye,
That placed me spell-bound at thy feet,
Sweet wanderer from the sky.
Willis G. Clark
Cast my heart's gold into the furnace flame,
And if it come not thence refined and pure.
I '11 be a bankrupt to thy hope, and heaven
Shall shut its gates on me.
Mrs. Signurnm
•13b
QUACKS -RAGE.
Patience and hope, that keep the soul
Unruffled and secure,
Though floods of grief beneath it roll,
I learn, when calm and pure
I see the floating water-lily
Gleam amid shadows dark and chilly.
Caroline May.
Thine is a face to look upon and pray
That a pure spirit keep thee — I would meet
With one so gentle by the streams away,
Living with nature ; keeping thy pure feet
For the unfingered moss, and for the grass
Which leaneth where the gentle waters pass.
The autumn leaves should sigh thee to thy sleep;
And the capricious April, coming on,
Awake thee like a flower ; and stars should keep
A vigil o'er thee like Endymion ;
And thou for very gentleness shouldst weep
As dews of the night's quietness come down.
Willis.
She had grown,
In her unstain'd seclusion, bright and pure
As a first opening lilac, when it spreads
Its clear leaves to the sweetest dawn of May.
Percival.
And she were one on whom to fix my heart,
To sit beside me when my thoughts are sad,
And, by her tender playfulness impart
Some of her pure joy to me.
Percival.
I cannot look upon a star,
Or cloud that seems a seraph's car,
Or any form of purity —
Unmingled with a dream of thee.
Park Benjamin.
Pure and undimmed, thy angel smile
Is mirrored on my dreams,
Like evening's sunset-girded isle
Upon her shadowed streams :
And o'er my thoughts thy vision floats,
Like melody of spring-bird notes,
When the blue halcyon gently laves
His plumage in the flashing waves.
Park Benjamin.
Sweet beauty sleeps upon thy brow,
And floats before my eyes :
As meek and pure as doves art thou,
Or beings of the skies.
Robert Morris.
QUACKS.
Out, you impostors,
^uack-salving cheating mountebanks — your skill
Is t; make sound men sick, and sick men kill
Massinger and Decker's Virgin Martyr.
They are
Made all of terms and shreds ; no less belyers
Of great men's favours, than their own vila
med'eines,
Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths :
Selling that drug for two pence ere they part,
Which they have valu'd at twelve crowns before.
Jonsori's Volpone.
There was a time when we beheld the quack,
On public stage, the licens'd trade attack ;
He made his labour'd speech with poor parade,
And then a laughing zany lent him aid.
Crabbe's Borough.
But now our quacks are gamesters, and they*
play
With craft and skill to ruin and betray j
With monstrous promise they delude the mind,
And thrive on all that tortures human-kind.
Crabbers Borough.
Void of all honour, avaricious, rash,
The daring tribe compound their boasted trash- -
Tincture or syrup, lotion, drop or pill :
All tempt the sick to trust the lying bill ;
There are among them those who cannot read,
And yet they '11 buy a patent and succeed ;
Will dare to promise dying sufferers aid,
For who, when dead, can threaten or upbraid ?
With cruel avarice still they recommend
More draughts, more syrups to the journey's
end.
"I feel it not;" — "Then take it every hour ;"
" It makes me worse ;" — " Why then it shows its
power :"
"I fear to die;" — "Let not your spirits sink, —
"You're always safe, while you believe and
drink I"
Crabbers Borough.
From powerful causes spring the empiric's gains,
Man's love of life, his weakness, and his pains ;
These first induce him the vile trash to try,
Then lend his name that other men may buy.
Crabbers Borough.
No class escapes them — from the poor man's
pay
The nostrum takes no trifling part away ;
Time, too, with cash is wasted ; 'tis the fate
Of real helpers, to be call'd too late ;
This find the sick, when (time and patience
gone)
Death with a tenfold terror hurries on.
Crabbe's Borough.
RAGE. — (See Anger.)
RAIN - RAINBOW - REAPERS.
437
RAIN.
When the black'ng clouds in sprinkling showers
Distil, from the high summits down the rain
Runs trickling, with the fertile moisture cheer'd,
The orchards smile, joyous the farmers see
Their thriving plants, and bless the heavenly dew,
Philips's Cider.
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields,
And softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshen'd world.
Thomson's Seasons.
The rain is o'er — How densely bright
Yon pearly clouds reposing lie !
Cloud above cloud, a glorious sight,
Contrasting with the deep-blue sky !
In grateful silence earth receives
The general blessing ; fresh and fair
Each flower expands its little leaves,
As glad the common joy to share.
Andrew Norton.
The rain is playing its soft pleasant tune
Fitfully on the skylight, and the shade
Of the fast flying clouds across my book
Passes with delicate change.
Willis's Poems.
The April rain — the April rain —
I hear the pleasant sound;
Now soft and still, like little dew,
Now drenching all the ground.
Pray tell me why an April shower
Is pleasanter to see
Than falling drops of other rain ?
I'm sure it is to me.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith's Poems.
Dashing in big drops on the narrow pane,
And making mournful music for the mind,
While plays his interlude the wizzard wind,
I hear the singing of the frequent rain.
^l| William H. Burleigh.
The later rain, — it falls in anxious haste
Upon the sun-dried fields and branches bare,
Loosening with searching drops the rigid waste,
As if it would each root's lost strength repair.
Jones's Very.
RAINBOW.
Meantime refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense ; and every hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the red,
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Thomson's Seasons.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky!
Wordsworth.
Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky,
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To tell me what thou art
Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given
For happy spirits to alight,
Betwixt the earth and heaven!
Campbell's Poems
The rainbow dies in heaven and not on earth.
Bailey's Festus.
Far up the blue sky a fair rainbow unroll'd
Its soft-tinted pinions of purple and gold ;
'T was born in a moment, yet quick at its birth,
It had stretch'd to the uttermost ends of the earth,
And fair as an angel, it floated as free,
With a wing on the earth and a wing on the sea
Mrs. Welly's Poems.
O, beautiful rainbow ; — all woven of light ! —
There 's not in thy tissue, one shadow of night;
Heaven surely is open when thou dost appear,
And, bending above thee, the angels draw near,
And sing — " The rainbow ! the rainbow !
" The smile of God is here."
Mrs. Hale's Poems
REAPERS.
Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And, unperceiv'd, unfolds the spreading day ;
Before the ripen'd field the reapers stand,
In fair array ; each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.
At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves ;
While through their cheerful band the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,
Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time,
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Thomson's Seasons
I love, I love to see
Bright steel gleam through the land ;
'Tis a goodly sight, but it must be
In the reaper's tawny hand.
Eliza Coo\
Around him ply the reapers' band,
With lightsome heart and eager hand.
Pringit
There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.
Longfellow s Poem*
37*
136
REASON - REBELLION.
REASON.
He that is of reason's skill bereft,
And wants the staff of wisdom him to stay,
Is like a ship in midst of tempest left,
Without an helm or pilot her to sway :
Full sad and dreadful is that ship's event,
So is the man that wants intendiment.
Spenser.
Oil most imperfect light of human reason,
Thou mak'st us so unhappy, to foresee
What we can least prevent!
Webster's Duchess of Malfy,
Man is not the prince of creatures,
But in reason ; fail that, he is worse
Than horse, or dog, or beast of wilderness.
Field's Amends for Ladies,
Where men have several faiths, to find the true,
We only can the aid of reason use ;
'T is reason shows us which we should eschew,
When by comparison we learn to choose.
But though we there on reason must rely,
Where men to several faiths their minds dispose ;
Yet after reason's choice, the schools are shy
To let it judge the very faith it chose.
Sir W. Davenant.
I see the errors that I would avoid,
And have my reason still, but not the use on 't :
It hangs upon me like a wither'd limb
Bound up and numb'd by some disease's frost,
The form the same, but all the use is lost.
Sir R. Howard's Great Favourite.
Thought
Precedes the will to think, and error lives
Ere reason can be born. Reason, the power
To guess at right and wrong, the twinkling lamp
Ofwand'ring life, that winks and wakes by turns,
Fooling the follower betwixt shade and shining.
Congreve.
Within the brain's most secret cells,
A certain lord chief justice dwells,
Of sov'reign power, whom one and all,
With common voice we reason call.
Churchill.
The Infinite speaks in our silent hearts,
And draws our being to himself, as deep
falleth unto deep. He who all thought imparts,
Demands the pledge, the bond of soul to keep ;
Hut reason, wandering from its fount afar,
And stooping downward, breaks the subtle chain
That oinus it to itself, like star to star,
^tid sim to sun, upward to God again.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
Every creature knoweth its capacities, running in
the road of instinct,
And reason must not lag behind, but serve itself
of all proprieties.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
I would not always reason. The straight path
Wearies us with its never-varying lines,
And we grow melancholy. I would make
Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit
Patiently by the wayside, while I trae'd
The mazes of the pleasant wilderness
Around me. She should be my counsellor
But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs
Impulses from a deeper source than hers,
And there are motions, in the mind of man,
That she must look upon with awe.
Bryant's Poems
— When I see cold man of reason proud,
My solitude is sad — I 'm lonely in the crowd.
Dana's Poems,
REBELLION.
White beards have arm'd their thin and hairless
scalps
Against thy majesty ; boys with women's voice
Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown.
Shahs. Richard II.
God omnipotent
Is mustering in his clouds, on our behalf,
Armies of pestilence ; and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn, and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head,
And threat the glory of my precious crown.
Shaks. Richard II.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,
The meteors fight the fixed stars of heaven ;
The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets^-hisper fearful change :
Rich men look sad, and^prians dance and leap.
Shaks. Richard II.
Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of two fast growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth :
All must be even in our government.
Shaks. Richard II.
Here do we make his friends
Blush, that the world goes well ; who rather had,
Though they themselves did suffer by 't, behold
Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see
Our tradesmen singing in their shops, and going
About their functions friendly.
Shaks. CorioJanus.
REBELLION.
439
All the regions
Do smilingly revolt; and who resist
Are only mock'd for valiant ignorance,
And perish constant fools.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
Thus we debase
The nature of our seats, and make the rabble
Call our cares, fears ; which will in time break ope
The locks o' th' senate, and bring in the crows
To peck the eagles.
Shales. Coriolanus.
You may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves, as lift them
Against the Roman state : whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder, than can ever
Appear in your impediment.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
The hearts
Of all his people shall revolt from him,
And kiss the lips of unacquainted change.
Shaks. King John.
The spinsters, corders, fullers, weavers, who,
Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger
And lack of other means, in desperate manner
Daring th' event to th' teeth, are all in uproar,
And danger serves among them.
Shales. Henry VIII.
There have been commissions
Sent down among them, which have flaw'd the
heart
Of all their loyalties : — wherein, although,
My good lord cardinal, they vent reproaches
Most bitterly on you, as putter-on
Of these exactions, yet the king, our master,
(Whose honour heaven shield from soil) even he
escapes not :
Language unmannerly, yea, such which breaks
The sides of loyalty, and almost appears
In loud rebellion.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
O turn thy edged sword another way ;
Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help !
One drop of blood drawn from- thy country's
Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign
gore;
Return thee, therefore, with a flood of tears,
And wash away thy country's stained spots.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I.
Pluck down my officers, break my decrees ;
For now a time is come to mock at form :
Harry the Fifth is crown'd.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Now, neighbour-confines, purge you of your scum
Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, danco,
Revel the night ; rob, murder, and commit
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways ?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more :
England shall give him office, honour, might.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Their weapons only
Seem'd on out side : But for their spirits and
souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion ;
Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He 's follow'd both with body and with mind.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II
Contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II
What rein can hold licentious wickedness,
When down the hill he hold his fierce career ?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon th' enraged soldiers in their spoil,
Or send precepts to the Leviathan
To come ashore
Shaks. Henry \
These things, indeed, you have articulated,
Proclaim'd at market-crosses, read in churches,
To face the garment of rebellion, that may please
the eye
Of fickle changelings, and poor discontents,
Which gape, and rub the elbow, at the news
Of hurly-burly innovation.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part 1.
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again,
And make poor England weep in streams of blood !
Shaks. Richard III
O, pity, God, this miserable age ! —
What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,
Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,
This deadly quarrel daily doth beget !
Shaks. Henry VI. Part Ul
Go, rate thy minions, proud insulting boy !
Becomes it thee to be so bold in terms,
Before thy sovereign, and thy lawful king ?
Shaks. Henry VI. Pan 1 1 1
Now let it work : mischief, thou art a fool,
Take thou what course thou wilt !
Shaks. Julius Caisa
440
REBELLION.
I have not stopp'd mine cars to their demands,
Nor posted off their suits with slow delays ;
My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,
My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,
My mercy dried their water-flowing tears :
I have not been desirous of their wealth,
Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies,
Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd ;
Then why should they love Edward more than me ?
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony,
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Why headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.
There 's nothing, situate under heaven's eye,
But hath his bound in earth, in sea, in sky.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows ! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy : the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe :
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead :
Force should be right.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
Yet famine,
Ere clean it o'erthrow nature, makes it valiant.
Plenty, and peace, breed cowards ; hardness ever
Of hardness is mother.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
Want made them murmur ; for the people who,
To get their bread, do wrestle with their fate,
Or those who in superfluous riot flow,
Soonest rebel : convulsions in a state,
Like those which nat'ral bodies do oppress,
Rise from repletion, or from emptiness.
Aleyn's Henry VII.
Let them call it mischief;
When it 's past, and prosper'd, 't will be virtue.
Jonson's Catiline.
But of this be sure,
To do aught good will never be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being tne contrary to his will
Whom we resist.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Rumour next, and chance,
And tumult and confusion all embroil'd,
And discor-i with a thousand various mouths.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
| He spake : and to confirm his words, out flew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty cherubim ; the sudden blaze
Far round illumin'd hell : highly they rag'd
Against the High'st, and fierce with grasped arms
Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of heaven.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The happier state
In heaven, which follows dignity, might draw
Envy from each inferior ; but who here
Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the thund'rer's aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain ?
Milton's Paradise Lost,
What peace will be given
To us enslav'd, but custody severe,
And stripes, and arbitrary punishment
Inflicted ? and what peace can we return,
But to our power, hostility, and hate,
Untam'd reluctance, and revenge, though slow,
Yet ever plotting how the conq'ror least
May reap his conquest, and may least rejoice
In doing what we most in suffering feel?
Milton's Paradise Lost.
In knots they stand, or in a rank they walk,
Serious in aspect, earnest in their talk :
Factious, and favouring this or t' other side,
As their strong fancy or weak reason guide.
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.
Great discontents there are, and many murmurs ;
The doors are all shut up : the wealthier sort,
With arms across, and hats upon their eyes,
Walk to and fro before their silent shops ;
Whole droves of lenders crowd the bankers' doors,
To call in money : those who have none, mark
Where money goes; for when they rise — 'tis
plunder. Dryden's Spanish Friar.
Consumes his time
That talking knave
speeches to Ihe rabble,
And sows sedition up and down the city
Picking up discontented fools, belying
The senators and government; destroying
Faith among honest men, and praising knaves.
Otway's Caius Marius.
And since the rabble now is ours,
Keep the fools hot, preach dangers in their ears
Spread false reports o' th' senate ; working up
Their madness to a fury quick and desp'rate : '
Till they run headlong into civil discords,
And do our bus'ness with their own destruction.
Otway's Caius Marius.
REBELLION.
441
How durst th\ I say, oppose thy curship
'Gainst arms, authority and worship ?
Butler's Hudibras.
The resty knaves are overrun with ease,
As plenty ever is the nurse of faction :
If in good days, like these, the headstrong herd
Grow madly wanton and repine; it is
Because the reins of power are held too slack, j
And reverend authority of late
Has worn a face of mercy more than justice.
Rouse's Jane Shore.
The state is out of time ; distracting fears
And jealous doubts jar in our public counsels ;
Amidst the wealthy city, murmurs rise,
Loud railings, and reproach, on those that rule,
With open scorn of government ; hence credit,
And public trust 'twixt man and man are broke,
The golden streams of commerce are withheld,
Which fed the wants of needy hinds, and artizans,
Who therefore curse the great, and threat rebellion.
Rome's Jane Shore.
Curse on the innovating hand attempts it !
Remember him, the villain, righteous heaven,
In thy great day of vengeance ! blast the traitor !
And his pernicious counsels ; who, for wealth,
For pow'r, the pride of greatness, or revenge,
Would plunge his native land in civil wars.
Rowe's Jane Shore.
When shall the deadly hate of faction cease,
When shall our long divided land have rest,
If every peevish, moody malcontent,
Shall set the senseless rabble in an uproar ?
Fright them with dangers, and perplex their brains,
Each day with some fantastic giddy change ?
Rome's Jane Shore.
For forms of government let fools contest ;
Whate'er is best administer'd.is best.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Who strikes at sov'reign pow'r had need strike
home;
For storms that fail to blow the cedar down,
May tear the branches, but they fix the roots.
Jeffrey's Edwin.
The more the bold, the. bustling, and the bad,
Press to usurp the reins of power, the more
Behoves it virtue, with indignant zeal,
To check their combination.
Thomson.
I do despise these demagogues, that fret
The angry multitude : they are but as
The froth upon the mountain wave — the bird
That shrieks upon the sullen tempest's wing.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
Permitted oft, tho' not inspir'd by Heaven,
Successful treasons punish impious kings
Dr. Johnson's Irene,
Their eyes look fire on him who questions them :
The hollow murmurs of their mutter'd wrath
Sound dreadful thro' the dark extended ranks,
Like subterranean grumblings of an earthquake
Joanna Baillic's Basil.
The land is full of blood : her savage birds
O'er human creatures do scream and batten :
The silent hamlet smokes not ; in the field
The f ged grandsire turns the joyous soil :
Dark spirits are abroad, and gentle worth,
Within the narrow house of death, is laid
An early tenant.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
Rebellion ! foul dishonouring word,
Whose wrongful blight so oft has stain'd
The holiest cause that tongue or sword
Of mortal ever lost or gain'd !
How many a spirit born to bless
Hath sunk beneath that withering name,
Whom but a day's, an hour's success
Had wafted to eternal fame !
As exhalations, when they burst
From the warm earth, if chill'd at first,
If check'd in soaring from the plain,
Darken to fogs and sink again ; —
But if they once triumphant spread
Their wings above the mountain-head,
Become erthroned in upper air,
And turn to sun-bright glories there !
Moore's Lalla Rookh
I know that there are angry spirits
And turbulent mutterers of stifled treason,
Who lurk in narrow places, and walk out
Muffled to whisper curses to the night ;
Disbanded soldiers, discontented ruffians,
And desperate libertines who brawl in taverns.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
The sight
Of blood to crowds begets the thirst of more,
As the first wine-cup leads to the long revel ;
And you will find a harder task to quell
Than urge them when they have commented
but till
That moment a mere voice, a straw, a shadow,
Are capable of turning them aside.
Byron's Doge of Venice
A spark creates the flame ; 't is the last drop
Which makes the cup run o'er, and mine was fuli
Already.
Byron's Doge of Venue-
U2
RECIPROCITY -REFORMATION -REGICIDE.
I have seen some nations, like o'erloaded asses,
Kick off their burdens — meaning the high classes.
Byron.
But never mind — "God save the king!" and
kings !
For if He don't, I doubt if men will longer;
I think I hear a little bird, who sings
The people bye and bye will be the stronger,
The veriest jade will wince, whose harness wrings
So much into the raw as quite to wrong her
Beyond the rules of posting — and the mob
At. last will fall sick of imitating Job.
Byron.
" Hoist out the boat !" was now the leading cry ;
And who dare answer " no" to mutiny,
In the first dawning of the drunken hour,
The saturnalia of unhoped-for power ?
Byron.
RECIPROCITY.
Mutual love, the crown of all our bliss,
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Each other's pillow to repose divine.
Young.
Be thine the more refin'd delights
Of love that banishes control,
When the fond heart with heart unites,
And souls in unison with soul.
Cartwright.
The all-absorbing flame,
Which kindled by another, grows the same,
Wrapt in one blaze.
Byron's Childe Harold.
And many hours we talk'd in joy,
Yet too much blcss'd for laughter ;
I was a happy man that day,
And happy ever after.
Mrs. Howitt.
Oft, in my fancy's wanderings,
I 've wish'd that little isle had wings,
And we, within its fairy boweiS,
Were wafted off to seao unknown,
Where not a pulse should beat but ours,
And we might live, love, die alone.
Moore's Lalla Rookli.
Let us love now in this our fairest youth,
When love can find a full and fond return.
Percival's Poems.
And canst thou not accord thy heart
In unison with mine —
Whose language thou alone hast heard,
Thou only canst divine ?
Rufus Dawes.
RECONCILIATION.— (See Repent
ANCE.)
REFINEMENT. — (See Puiutv.)
REFLECTION.— (See Contemplation.
REFORMATION.
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes ;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I '11 so offend, to make offence a skill ;
Redeeming time, when men 'think least I will.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I
Formless themselves, reforming do pretend ;
As if confusion could disorder mend.
Daniel's Civil War
Faults are easier look'd in, than redress'd :
Men running with eager violence,
At the first view of errors, fresh in quest ;
As they, to rid an inconvenience,
Stick not to raise a mischief in the stead,
Which after mocks their weak improvidence ;
And therefore do not make your own sides bleed,
To pick at others.
Daniel's Musopldlus.
Wise experience
Gives us to know, that in th' lopping of trees,
The skilful hand prunes but the lower branches,
And leaves the top still growing, to extract
Sap from the root, as meaning to reform,
Not to destroy.
Tatham's Distracted Stale.
REGICIDE.
To do this deed,
Promotion follows : if I could find example
Of thousands, that bad struck anointed kings,
And flourish'd after, I 'd not do 't : but since „
Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
Let villany itself forswear 't.
Sliaks. Winter's Tale.
He 's here in double trust :
First as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed ; then, as his host,
Who should against the murderer shut the door,
Nor bear the knife myself.
Shaks. Macbeth.
RELIGION.
443
Confusion now hath made his master-piece !
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building.
Shaks. Macbeth.
0, what a fall was there, my countrymen !
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason nourished over us.
Shales. Julius Casar.
RELIGION.
Religion is a branch, first set and blest
By heav'n's high finger in the hearts of kings :
Which whilome grew into a goodly tree,
Bright angels sat and sung upon the twigs,
And royal branches for the heads of kings
Were twisted of them.
Chapman's Byron's Conspiracy. Part II.
Sacred religion ! mother of form and fear !
How gorgeously sometimes dost thou sit deck'd ?
What pompous vestures do we make thee wear?
What*' stately piles we prodigal erect ?
How sweet perfum'd art thou, how shining clear ?
How solemnly observ'd ; with what respect ?
Another time all plain, all quite thread-bare :
Thou must have all within, and nought without;
Sit poorly without light, disrob'd : no care
Of outward grace t' amuse the poor devout :
Poorless, unfollow'd : scarcely men can spare
The necessary rites to set thee out.
Daniel's Musophilus.
He whom God chooseth, out of doubt doth well :
What they that choose their God do, who can tell ?
Lord Brooke's Mustapha.
Divinity, wrested by some factious blood,
Draws swords, swells battles, and o'erthrows all
good. Webster's White Devil.
He wears his faith but as the fashion of
His hat ; it ever changes with the next block.
Shaks. Much ado.
Could not that wisdom which first broached the
wine,
Have thicken'd it with definitions ?
And jagg'd his seamless coat, had that been fine,
With curious questions and divisions ?
But all the doctrine which he taught and gave
Was clear as heav'n, from whence it came :
At least those beams of truth, which only save,
Surpas3 in brightness any flame,
Love God, and love your neighbour ; watch and
pray;
Do as you would be done unto :
dark instructions, ev'n dark as day !
Who can these gordian knots undo ?
Herbert.
Zeal against policy maintains debate ;
Heav'n gets the better now, and now the state :
The learned do by turns the learn'd confute,
Yet all depart unalter'd by dispute.
The priestly office cannot be deny'd ;
It wears heav'n's liv'ry, and is made our guido :
But why should we be punish'd if we stray ;
When all our guides dispute which is the way ?
Earl of Orrery's Mustapha.
Great piety consists in pride ;
To rule is to be sanctified;
To domineer, and to control,
Both o'er the body and the soul,
Is the most perfect discipline,
Of church rule, and by right divine.
Butler's Hudibrat
Hence 'tis, hypocrisy as well
Will serve t' improve a church as zeal;
As persecution or promotion
Do equally advance devotion.
Butler's Hudibrat
For his religion it was fit
To match his learning and his wit;
'T was Presbyterian true blue ;
For he Was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun :
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly, thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done ;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
Butler's Hudibrus.
But whither went his soul, let such relate,
Who search the secrets of the future state :
Divines can say but what themselves believe ;
Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative
For, were all plain, then all sides must agree,
And faith itself be lost in certainty.
To live uprightly then is sure the best,
To save ourselves, and not to damn the :est.
Dryden's Palamoi. and Arcne
Devotion in disbess
Is born, but vanishes in happiness.
Dryden's Tyrannic Lovt.
Yet crowds will still believe, and prhsis will teaci/
As wand'ring fancy, and as int'rest leads.
Rowe's Rw/al C/onvm
144
RELIGION.
Religious lustre is, by native innocence,
Divinely pure, and simple from all arts
You daub and dress her like a common mistress,
The harlot of your fancies ; and by adding
False beauties, which she wants not, make the
world
Suspect her angel's face is foul beneath,
And will not bear all lights.
Rome's Tamerlane,
Know,
Without or star, or angel, for their guide,
Who worship God, shall find him. Humble love,
And not proud reason, keeps the door of heaven:
Love finds admission, where proud science fails.
Young's Night Thoughts.
True religion
Is always mild, propitious, and humble,
Plays not the tyrant, plants no faith in blood ;
Nor bears destruction on her chariot-wheels ;
But stoops to polish, succour, and redress,
And builds her grandeur on the public good.
Miller's Mahomet.
What a reasonless machine
Can superstition make the reas'ner man !
Miller's Mahomet.
Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light,
Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right;
To virtue in the paths of pleasure trod,
And own'd a father when he own'd a God.
Love all the faith, and all th' allegiance then :
For nature knew no right divine in men,
No ill could fear in God ; and understood
A sovereign being, but a sovereign good.
True faith, true policy, united ran;
That was but love of God, and this of man.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Say, first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know ?
Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer ?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be
known,
'T is ours to trace him only in our own.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through nature up to nature's God.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Kor virtue'? stlf may too much zeal be had;
'I he worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
As some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there
Pope.
Pope.
Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.
Pope.
Milton's strong pinion now not heaven can rpund,
Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground,
In quibbles angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school divine.
Pope.
Oh, come, oh, teach me nature to subdue,
Renounce m}' love, my life, myself — and you !
Fill my fond heart with God alone, for He
Alone can rival, and succeed to thee.
Pope's Eloisa.
Thou ! dark, awful, vast, mysterious power,
Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend :
If ignorant of thy new laws I stray,
Shed from thy distant heav'n, where'er it shines,
One ray of guardian light, to clear my way :
And teach me first to find, then act thy will.
Hill's Alzira
To give religion her unbridled scope,
Nor judge by statute a believer's hope.
Cowper's Table Talk.
Priests have invented, and the world admir'd
What knavish priests promulgate as inspird ;
Till reason, now no longer overaw'd,
Resumes her pow'rs, and spurns the clumsy fraud.
Cowper's Tirocinium.
Whether from principle, or jail dismay,
Springs thy morality, we dare not say.
Dr. Wolcott's Peter Pindar
Methinks it is not strange then, that I fled
The house of prayer, and made the lonely grove
My temple, at the foot of some old oak,
Watching the little tribes that had their world
Within its mossy bark ; or laid me down
Beside the rivulet whose murmuring
Was silence to my soul, and mark'd the swarm
Whose light-edged shadows on the bedded sand
Mirror'd their many sports ; the insect hum,
The flow of waters, and the song of birds,
Making a holy music to mine ear :
Oh ! was it strange, if for such scenes as these,
Such deep devoutness, such intense delight
Of quiet adoration, I forsook
The house of worship?
Southey's Joan of Are.
In short, what will not mortal man do ?
And now that — strife and bloodshed past —
We 've done on earth what harm we can do,
We gravely take to heaven at last ;
And think its favouring smile to purchase.
O Lord ! good Lord ! by building churches !
Moore's Memorial to Congress.
REMEMBRANCE.
445
Upon my conduct as a whole decide,
Such trifling errors let my virtues hide ;
Fail I at meeting- ? am I sleepy there ?
My purse refuse I with the priest to share ?
Do I deny the poor a helping hand ?
Or stop the wicked women in the strand ?
Or drink at club beyond a certain pitch ?
Which are your charges? conscience, tell me
which ? Crabbe.
And they believe him i oh ! the lover may
Distrust that look which steals his soul away; —
The babe may cease to think that it can play
With heaven's rainbow : — alchymists may doubt
The shining gold their crucible gives out ;
But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
But thus it is, all sects, we see,
Have watchwords of morality ;
Some cry out Venus, others Jove,
Here 't is religion, there 't is love !
I find the doctors and the sages
Have difFer'd in all climes and ages,
And two in fifty scarce agree
On what is pure morality.
Moore.
Moore.
My altars are the mountains and the ocean,
Earth, air, stars , — all that springs from the great
whole,
Who hath produc'd, and will receive the soul.
Byron.
Thou didst not leave me, oh my God !
Thou wert with those who bore the truth of old
Into the deserts from the oppressor's rod,
And made the caverns of the rock their fold ;
A.nd in the hidden chambers of the dead,
Our guiding lamp, with fire immortal fed.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems,
Love never fails ; though knowledge cease,
Though prophecies decay,
Love — Christian love, shall still increase,
Shall still extend her sway.
William Peter.
Cling to thy faith — 't is higher than the thought
That questions of thy faith.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
Man, by nature proud,
Was taught the scriptures by the love of praise,
And grew religious, as he grew in fame.
Pollock's Course of Time.
The absolutely true religion is
In heaven only; yea, in Deity.
Bailey's Festus.
REMEMBRANCE.
Remember thee ?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I '11 wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there ;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter.
Shahs. Hamlet.
O, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all.
Shaks. Othello.
Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,
And left thee but a very prey to time ;
Having no more but thought of what thou
wert,
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
Shaks. Richard III.
Malcolm. — Dispute it like a man.
Macduff. — I shall do so :
But I must also feel it as a man :
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
She sent him rosemary, to the intent that he should
hold her in rememberance.
Drayton.
She plac'd it sad, with needless fear,
Lest time should shake my wavering soul —
Unconscious that her image there
Held every sense in fast control.
Byroik.
Oh ! only those
Whose souls have felt this one idolatry,
Can tell how precious is the slightest thing
Affection gives and hallows ! A dead flower
Will long be kept, remembrancer of looks
That made each leaf a treasure.
Miss London
Man hath a weary pilgrimage,
As through the world he wends ;
On every stage, from youth to age,
Still discontent attends ;
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,
And still remembers with a sigh,
The days that are no more
Robert Scrutkey
38
440
REPENTANCE.
There 's not an hour
Of day, or dreaming night, but I am with thee !
There's not a wind but whispers of thy name ;
And not a flower that sleeps beneath the moon,
But in its fragrance tells a tale
Of thee.
There 's not a look, a word of thine,
My soul hath e'er forgot;
Thou ne'er hast bid a ringlet shine,
Nor given thy locks one graceful twine,
Which I remember not.
Proctor.
Moore,
Thy imag'd form I shall survey,
And, pausing at the view,
Recall thy gentle smile, and say,
" Oh, such a maid I knew !"
William Lisle Bowles.-
When shall we come to that delightful day,
When each can say to each, " Dost thou remem-
ber?"
Let us fill urns with rose-leaves in our May,
And hive the thrifty sweetness for December !
Bulwer's Poems.
Oh ! these are the words that eternally utter
The spell that is seldom cast o'er us in vain ;
With the wings and the wand of a fairy they
flutter,
And draw a charm'd. circle about us again.
We return to the spot where our infancy gam-
boll'd ;
We linger once more in the haunts of our youth ;
We re-tread where young Passion first stealthily
rambled,
And whispers are heard full of Nature and
Truth,
Saying, " Don't you remember ?"
Eliza Cook.
Remember me, I pray — but not
In Flora's gay and blooming hour,
When every brake hath found its note,
And sunshine smiles in every flower ;
But when the falling leaf is sere,
And withers sadly from the tree,
And o'er the ruins of the year
Cold autumn weeps, — remember me.
Edward Everett.
Remember me — not, I entreat,
In scenes of festal week-day joy;
JF.>r then it were not kind or meet
Thy thoughts thy pleasures should alloy ;
But on the sacred Sabbath day,
Anii, dearest, on thy bended knee,
When thou for those thou lov'st dost pray,
Sweet sister, then remember me.
Edward Everett.
I think of thee when morning springs
From sleep, with plumage bath'd in dew,
And, like a young bird, lifts its wings
Of gladness on the welkin blue ;
And when, at noon, the breath of love
O'er flower and stream is wandering free,
And sent in music from the grove,
I think of thee — I think of thee.
George D. Prentice
I think of thee, when, soft and wide,
The evening spreads her robes of light,
And, like a young and timid bride,
Sits blushing in the arms of night :
And when the moon's sweet crescent springs
In light o'er heaven's wide waveless sea,
And stars are forth, like blessed things,
I think of thee — I think of thee.
George D. Prentice.
REPENTANCE.
In ashes and sackcloth he did array
His dainty course, proud humours to abate ;
And dieted with fasting every day,
The swellings of his wounds to mitigate ;
And made him pray both early and eke late :
And ever as superfluous flesh did rot,
Amendment ready still at hand did wait
To pluck it out with pincers fiery hot, ■
That soon in him was left no one corrupted spot
Spenser's Fairy Queen
Who by repentance is not satisfied,
Is nor of heaven, nor earth.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona
If hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
I tender it here ; I do as truly suffer,
As e'er I did commit.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona
They say best men are moulded out of faults ;
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad : — so may my husband.
Shaks. Measure for Measure
Never came reformation in a flood,
With sucli a heady current, scow'ring faults,
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and fall at once,
As in this king.
Shaks. Henry V
I survive,
To mock the expectation of the world ;
To frustrate prophecies ; and to raze out
Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
After my seeming.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II
REPENTANCE.
447
Let me tell the world,
If he out-live the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
Yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banish' d honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again.
Sliaks. Henry IV. Part I.
I do not shame
To tell you what I was, since my conversion
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
Shaks. As you like it.
Like gross terms,
The prince will, in the perfectness of time,
Cast off his followers : and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
By which his grace must mete the life of others ;
Turning past evils to advantage.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots, —
Till then I banish thee.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ;
Presume not, that I am the thing I was :
For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath.no foil to set it off.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
What is done cannot be now amended :
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after hours give leisure to repent.
Shaks. Richard III.
The drunkard, after all his lavish cups,
Is dry, and then is sober ; so at length, ~
When you awake from this lascivious dream,
Repentance then will follow, like the sting
Plac'd in the adder's tail.
Webster's White Devil.
Heaven and angels
Take great delight in a converted sinner :
Why should you then, a servant and professor,
Differ so much from them ? if every woman,
That commits evil, should be therefore kept
Back in desires of goodness, how should virtue
Be known and honour'd?
Middleton's Women beware Women.
Man should do nothing that he should repent;
But if he have, and say that he is sorry ;
It is a worse fault, if he be not truly.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
Before
We end our pilgrimage, 'tis fit that we
Should leave corruption, and foul sin, behind us.
But with wash'd feet and hands, the heathens dar'd
not
Enter their profane temples ; and for me
To hope my passage to eternity
Can be made easy, till I have shook off
The burthen of my sins in free confession,
Aided with sorrow, and repentance for them,
Is against reason.
Massinger's Emperor of the East
Sorrow for past ills, doth restore frail man
To his first innocence.
Nabbs's Microcosmui
'T is not, to cry God mercy, or to sit
And droop, or to confess that thou hast fail'd :
' T is to bewail the sins thou didst commit ;
And not commit those sins thou hast bewail'd.
He that bewails and not forsakes them too ;
Confesses rather what he means to do.
Quarles
'T is not too late to recant all this ;
And there is oft more glory in repenting
Us of some errors, than never to have err'd :
Because we find there are more folks have judg.
ment
Than ingenuity.
Fountain's Rewards of Virtue
As carnal seamen in a storm
Turn pious converts and reform.
Butler's Hudibras
Habitual evils change not on a sudden,
But many days must pass, and many sorrows ;
Conscious remorse, and anguish must be felt,
To curb desire, to break the stubborn will,
And work a second nature in the soul,
Ere virtue can resume the place she lost.
Rowe's Ulysses
Come, fair repentance, daughter of the skies !
Soft harbinger of soon returning virtue !
The weeping messenger of grace from heav'n !
Brown's Athelstan
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt by fire ;
So writhes the mind remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath.
Around it flame, within it death.
Byron
U9
REPROOF - REPUTATION.
A. change in Peter's life ye must not hope :
To try to wash an ass's face,
Is really labour to misplace ;
And really loss of time as well as soap.
Dr. WolcoWs Peter Pindar.
High minds of native pride and force,
Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse !
Fear for their scourge mean villains have ;
Thou art the torturer of the brave.
Scott's Marmion.
Some who offend from a suspicious nature,
Will afterward such fair confession make
As turns e'en the offence into a favour.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
Priest, spare thy words ; I add not to my sins
That of presumption, in pretending now
To offer up to heaven the fore'd repentance
Of some short moments for a life of crimes.
Joanna Baillie's Orra.
Repentance often finds too late,
To wound us is to harden ;
And Love is on the verge of Hate,
Each time it stoops for pardon.
Bulwer's Poems.
I have deeply felt
The mockery of the hollow shrine at which my
spirit knelt.
Mine is the requiem of years in reckless folly
pass'd,
The wail above departed hopes on a frail venture
cast;
Hie vain regret that steals above the wreck of
squander'd hours,
Like the sighing of the autumn wind over the
faded flowers. Whittier's Poems.
REPROOF.
Forbear sharp speeches to her. She's a lady
So tender of rebukes, that words are strokes,
And strokes death to her.
Shales. Cymbeline,
Thou rurn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.
Shaks. Hamlet,
If any here chance to behold himself,
Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong ;
For, if he shame to have his follies known,
First -he should shame to act them. My strict hand
Was made to seize on vice ; and, with a gripe,
?»ol hand to the waiting sea.
Mrs. Sigourney's Connecticut River.
The brook,
.That with its silvery gleam, comes leaping down
From the hill-side, has too, a tale to tell.
Mrs. Ellet's Poems.
And as I view'd the hurrying pace
With which he ran his turbid race,
Rushing, alike untir'd and wild,
Through shades that frown'd and flowers that
smil'd,
Flying by every green recess'
That woo'd him to its calm caress,
Yet sometimes turning with the wind,
As if to leave one look behind !
Oh ! I have thought, and thinking sigh'd —
How like to thee, thou restless tide !
May be the lot, the life of him,
Who roams along thy water's brim !
Through what alternate shades of woe,
And flowers of joy my path may go !
How many an humble, still retreat,
May rise to court my weary feet,
While still pursuing, still unblest,
I wander on, nor dare to rest !
But, urgent as the doom that calls
Thy water to its destin'd falls,
I see the world's bewildering force
Hurry my heart's devoted course
From lapse to lapse, till life be done,
And the last current cease to run !
Moore
The waters in their brilliant path have seen
The desperate strife that won a rescued world —
The deeds of men who live in grateful hearts,
And hymn'd their requiem.
Mrs. Ellet. — The Susquehanna.
Stream of my fathers ! sweetly still
The sunset rays thy valley fill ;
Pour slantwise down the long defile,
Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile.
Whittier. — The Merrimack.
I have stood
Where Hudson roll'd his lordly flood :
Look'd down the Apallachian peak
On Juniata's silver streak ;
Have seen along his valley gleam
The Mohawk's softly winding stream ;
The level light of sunset shine
Through broad Potomac's hem of pine ;
And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner
Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna ;
Yet wheresoe'er his step might be,
Thy wandering child looks back to thee.
Whittier. — The Merrimack.
So blue yon winding river flows,
It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where, waiting till the west wind blows,
The freighted clouds at anchor lie.
Longfellow's Poems.
RUINS.
459
When breezes are soft and skies are fair
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green ;
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink ;
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,
Had nam'd the stream from its own fair hue.
Bryant's Poems.
Ay, gather Europe's royal Rivers all —
The snow-swell'd Neva, with an empire's weight
On her broad breast, she yet may overwhelm ;
Dark Danube, hurrying, as by foe pursu'd,
Through shaggy forests and by palace walls,
To hide its terrors in a sea of gloom ;
The castled Rhine, whose vine-crown'd waters
flow.
The fount of fable and the source of song ;
The rushing Rhone, in whose cerulean depths
The loving sky seems wedded with the wave ;
The yellow Tiber, chok'd with Roman spoils,
A dying miser shrinking 'neath his gold ;
Tne Seine, where Fashion glasses fairest forms ;
And Thames, that bears the riches of the world :
Gather their waters in one ocean mass,
— Our Mississippi, rolling proudly on,
Would sweep them from its path, or swallow up,
Like Aaron's rod, these streams of fame and song !
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
O, river ! gentle as a wayward child
I saw thee 'mid the moonlight hills at rest,
Capricious thing, with thine own beauty wild,
How didst thou still the throbbing of thy breast?
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith. — To the Hudson River.
Where Hudson's wave, o'er silvery sands,
Winds through the hills afar,
Old Cronest like a monarch stands,
Crown' d by a single star.
George P. Monis.
But bid him climb the Catskill to behold
Thy flood, O Hudson ! marching to the deep,
And tell what strain of any bard of old
Might paint thy grace and imitate thy sweep.
Thomas W. Parsons.
River ! O, river ! thou roamest free,
From the mountain height to the fresh blue sea !
Free thyself, but with silver chain,
Linking each charm of land and main.
Hoffman's Poems.
River ! O, river ! upon thy tide
Full many a freighted bark doth ride ;
Would that thou thus couldst bear away
The thoughts that burden my weary day !
Hoffman's Poems.
RUINS.
I do love these ancient ruins:
We never tread upon them, but we set
Our foot upon some rev'rend history ;
And questionless, here in tins open court,
Which now lies naked to the injuries
Of stormy weather, some lie interr'd, who
Lov'd the church so well, and gave so largely to't,
They thought it should have canopy'd their bones
Till doomsday : but all things have their end ;
Churches and cities, which have diseases like to
men,
Must have like death that we have.
Webster's Duchess of Malfy,
All things decay with time ; the forest sees
The growth and downfall of her aged trees :
That timber tall, which threescore lustres stood
The proud dictator of the state-like wood —
I mean the sovereign of all plants, the oak,
Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke.
Herrich.
How rev'rend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof I
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable.
Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe
And terror to my aching sight ! The tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a dullness to my trembling heart.
Congreve's Mourning Eridc.
'T is now the raven's bleak abode ;
'T is now the apartment of the toad ;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, moss and weeds ;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet time has seen, which lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has seen the broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state ;
But transient is the smile of fate !
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
Dyer's G longer Hill
j Ye glorious Gothic scenes ! how much ye strike
All phantasies, not even excepting mine :
A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike,
Make my soul pass the equinoctial line
Between the present and past worlds, and hovei
Upon their airy confine, half-seas over.
Byron
4G0
RUMOUR.
And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,
Or holding dark communion with the cloud.
There was a day when they were young and proud,
Banners on high, and battles pass'd below;
But they who fought are in a bloody shroud,
And those which wav'd are shredless dust ere
now,
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future
blow. Byron's Childe Harold.
There is given
Unto the things of earth, which time hath bent,
A spirit's feeling; and where he hath lent
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
And magic in the ruin'd battlement;
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its
dower. Byron's Childe Harold.
There is a temple in ruin stands,
Fashion'd by long-forgotten hands ;
Two or three columns, and many a stone,
Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown !
Out upon time ! it will leave no more
Of the things to come than the things before !
Out upon time ! who for ever will leave
But enough of the past for the future to grieve
O'er that which hath been, and o'er that which
must be :
What we have seen, our sons shall see ;
Remnants of things that have passed away,
Fragments of stone, rear'd by creatures of clay !
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
Hue, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glar'd in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat !
Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
Wav'd to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle !
Here, where on golden throne the Csesar sate,
On bed of moss lies gloating the foul adder !
Edgar A. Foe.
But hold ! — these dark, these perishing arcades,
These mouldering plinths, these sad and blacken'd
shafts,
These vague entablatures, this broken frieze,
Those shattcr'd cornices, this wreck, this ruin,
These stones — alas ! these grey stones, are they all,
All of the proud and the colossal left
Wy tnc corrosive hours to fate and me?
Edgar A. Poe.
Ilerdc are feeding in the Forum, as in old Evan-
der's time :
Tumble. J from the steep Tarpcian every pile that
sprang sublime,
Thomas W. Parsons.
But alas ! if mightiest empires leave so little
mark behind,
How much less must heroes hope for, in the wreck
of human kind!
Thomas W. Parsons.
RUMOUR.
Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures •
And of so easy and so plain a stop,
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear'd.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
I from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth :
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride ;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
But this from rumour's tongue
I idly heard ; if true, or false, I know not.
Shaks. King John.
I find the people strangely fantasied ;
Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams ;
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.
/ Shaks. King John.
Old men and beldams in the streets
Do prophesy upon it dangerously.
Shaks. King John.
And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear ;
And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist;
Whilst he that hears makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
Shaks. King John.
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly,
That fill his ears with such disscntious rumours.
Shaks. Richard III.
The flying rumours galhcr'd as they roll'd,
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told,
And all who told it added something new,
And all who heard it made enlargement too,
In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew.
Pope's Temple of Fame.
Curse the tongue
Whence slanderous rumour, like the adder's drop,
Distils her venom, withering friendship's faith,
Turning love's favour.
Hillhouse.
SABBATH.
461
SABBATH.
How still the morning of the hallow'd day !
Mute is the voice of rural labour, hush'd
The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers,
That yestermorn bloom'd waving in the breeze :
The faintest sounds attract the ear, — the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating, midway up the hill.
Calmness seems thron'd on yon unmoving hill.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,
The blackbird's note conies mellow from the dale,
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-run'd song ; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen ;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard, at intervals,
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.
With dove-like wings peace o'er yon village broods :
The dizzing mill-wheel rests ; the anvil's din
Has ceased : — all, all, around is quietness.
Grahame.
But, chiefly, man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day :
On other days, the man of toil is doom'd
To eat his joyless bread, lonely, the ground
Both seat and board — screen'd from the winter's
cold
And summer's heat, by neighbouring hedge or
tree;
But on this day, embosom'd in his home,
He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy
Of giving thanks to God, — not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace, but reverently,
With cover'd face and upward earnest eye.
Hail, sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air pure from the city's smoke,
As wandering slowly up the river's bank,
He meditates on Him whose powers he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
And in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around the roots : and while he thus surveys
With elevated joy each rural charm,
He hopes, (yet fears presumption in the hope,)
That heaven mav be one sabbath without end.
Grahame.
Let us escape ! This is our holiday —
God's day, devote to rest ; and through the wood
We '11 wander, and perchance find heavenly food,
So, profitless it shall not pass away.
W. G. Simms's Poems.
Fresh glides the brook and blows the gale,
Yet yonder halts the quiet mill ;
The whirring wheel, the rushing sail,
How motionless and still !
Six days stern Labour shut the poor
From nature's careless banquet-hall ;
The seventh, an Angel opes the door,
And, smiling, welcomes all !
Bulwer's Poems,
Yes, child of suffering, thou may'st well be sure
He who ordain'd the Sabbath loves the poor.
O. W. Holmes.
Oh ! welcome to the wearied Earth
The Sabbath resting comes,
Gathering the sons of toil and care
Back to their peaceful homes ;
And, like a portal to the skies,
Opens the House of God,
Where all who seek may come and learn j
The way the Saviour trod. ,
But holier to the wanderer seems
.The Sabbath on the deep,
When on, and on, in ceaseless course,
The toiling bark must keep,
And not a trace of man appears
Amid the wilderness
Of waters — then it comes like dove
Direct from heaven to bless.
Mrs. HaWs Harry Guy.
Hail, Holy Day ! the blessing from above
Brightens thy presence like a smile of love,
Smoothing, like oil upon a stormy sea,
The roughest waves of human destiny —
Cheering the good, and to the poor oppress'd
Bearing the promise of their heavenly rest.
Mrs. Hale's Rime of Life.
Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! the blessing lingers yet
On the city of the Chosen, where the Sabbath
seal was set;
And though her sons are scatter'd, and her
daughters weep apart, —
While desolation, like a pall, weighs down each
faithful heart, —
As the palm beside the waters, as the cedar on
the hills
She shall rise in strength and beauty, when the
Lord Jehovah wills:
He has promis'd her protection, and the holy
pledge is good, —
'Tis whisper'd through the olive groves, and
murmur'd by the flood,
As in the Sabbath stillness the Jordan's flow in
heard,
And by the Sabbath breezes the heary trees are
stirr'd I Mrs. Hale's Rime of Lii*
462
SAFETY -SAILOR -SATAN.
SAFETY.
But when men think they most in safety stand,
Their greatest peril often is at hand.
Drayton's Baron's Wars.
What though the sea be calm ? trust to the shore ;
Ships have been drown'd, where late the}' dane'd
before. Herrick.
Too happy were men, if they understood :
There is no safety, but in doing good.
Fountain's Rewards of Virtue.
SAILOR.
Hark to the sailors' shouts ! the rocks rebound,
Thundering in echoes to the joyful sound.
Long have they voyaged o'er the distant seas ;
And what a heart-delight they feel at last,
So many toils, so many dangers past,
To view the port desir'd, he only knows
Who on the stormy deep for many a day «
Hath tost, aweary of his ocean way,
And watch'd all anxious every wind that blows.
Souihey.
Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm,
Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form !
Rocks, waves, and winds, the shatter'd bark delay,
Thy heart is sad, thy home is far away.
Campbell.
Hark to the boatswain's call, the cheering cry !
While through the seaman's hand the tackle
glides ;
Or school-boy midshipman that, standing by,
Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides,
And well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides.
Byron's Childe Harold.
O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire and behold our home !
These are our realms, no limits to their sway —
Our flag the sceptre all we meet obey.
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range
From toil to rest, and joy in every change.
Oh, who can tell ? not thou, luxurious slave !
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave;
Nor thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease !
Whom slumber soothes not — pleasure cannot
please —
Ufa, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,
And danocd in triumph o'er the waters wide,
The exulting sense — the pulse's madd'ning play,
Tnat thrills the wanderer of that trackless way ?
Byron's Corsair.
How can I bear to think on all
The dangers thou must brave ?
My fears will deem each gale & storm,
While thou art on the wave.
Miss London.
There 's a cheek that is getting ashy white,
As the tokens of storm come on with night ;
There's a form that's fix'd at the lattice pane,
To mark how the gloom* gathers over the main,
While the yeasty billows lash the shore
With loftier sweep and hoarser roar :
That cheek ! that form ! oh, whose can they be,
But a mother's who hath a child at sea ?
Miss Eliza Cook's Poems.
The dark blue jacket that enfolds the sailor's
manly breast
Bears more of real honour than the star and
ermine vest ;
The tithe of folly in his head may wake the
landsman's mirth,
But nature proudly owns him as her child of
sterling worth. Miss Eliza Cook.
Thou, who in thy hand dost hold
The winds or waves that wake or sleep,
Thy tender arms of mercy fold
Around the seamen on the deep !
And when their voyage of life is o'er,
May they be welcom'd to the shore
Whose peaceful streets with gold are pav'd,
And angels sing, " They 're sav'd ! they 're sav'd !"
Miss H. F. Gould's Poems.
Toss'd on the billows of the main,
And doom'd from zone to zone to roam,
The seaman toil'd for others' gain,
But, for himself, he had no home.
John Pierpont.
1 love the sailor ; his eventful life —
His generous spirit — his contempt of danger —
His firmness in the gale, the wreck, the strife ;
— And though a wild and reckless ocean-ranger,
God grant he make the port, when life is o'er,
Where storms are hush'd, and billows break no
more. Walter Colton.
How cheery are the mariners —
Those lovers of the sea !
Their hearts are like its yeasty waves,
As bounding and as free.
Park Benjamin.
SATAN.
Th' infernal serpent ; he it was, whose guile,
Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceiv'd
The mother of mankind.
Milton's Paradise Lout
SATIETY.
463
Him there they found
Sqnat like a toad close at the ear of Eve,
Assaying by his devilish art to reach
The organs of her fancy, and with them forge
Illusions as he list, phantasms, and dreams :
Or if inspiring venom, he might taint
Th' animal spirits that from pure blood arise
Like gentle breaths from rivers pure, thence raise
At least distemper'd, discontented thoughts,
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires,
Blown up with high conceits, engend'ring pride.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Their dread commander ; he, above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent, .
Stood like a tower ; his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess
Of glory obscur'd ; as when the sun, new-risen,
Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams ; or, from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darken' d so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel : but his face
Deep scars of thunder had entrench'd, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows
Of dauntless courage and considerate pride,
Waiting revenge : cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion to behold
The fellows of his crime, the followers rather.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
But bringing up the rear of this bright host,
A spirit of a different aspect wav'd
His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast
Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is pav'd ;
His brow was like the deep when tempest-tost;
Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engrav'd
Eternal wrath on his immortal face,
And where he gaz'd a gloom pervaded space.
Byron's Vision of Judgment.
SATIETY.
They surfeited with honey ; and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof little
More than a little is by much too much.
Shahs. Henry IV. Part I.
.Who riseth from a feast,
With that keen appetite that he sits down ?
Where is the horse, that doth untread again
His tedious measures with the unabated fire,
That he did pave them first ? all things that are,
Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
j A surfeit is the father of much fast,
! So every scope by the immoderate use
I Turns to restraint ; our natures do pursue
(Like rats that raven down their proper bane)
A thirsty evil ; and when we drink, we die.
Shaks. Mea. for Mca
That what we have we prize not to the worth,
Whiles we enjoy it ; but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we rack the value ; then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
While it was ours.
Shaks. Much Ado
Childe Harold bask'd him in the noontide sun,
Disporting there like any other fly ;
Nor deem'd before his little day was done
One blast might chill him into misery.
But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by,
Worse than adversity the Childe befel ;
He felt the fulness of satiety.
Byron's Childe Harold
With pleasure drugg'd he almost long'd for woe,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades
below. Byron's Childe Harold.
But passion raves herself to rest, or flies ;
And vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb
Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise :
Pleasure's pall'd victim ! life-abhorring gloom
Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting
doom. Byron's Childe Harold.
For ennui is a growth of English root,
Though nameless in our language : — we retort
The fact for words, and let the French translate
That awful yawn which sleep cannot abate.
Byron.
'T was strange — in youth all action and all life,
Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife ;
Woman — the field — the ocean — all that gave
Promise of gladness, peril of a grave,
In turn he tried — he ransack'd all below,
And found his recompense in joy or woe,
No tame trite medium ; for his feelings sought
In that intenseness an escape from thought :
The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed
On that the feebler elements hath rais'd ;
The rapture of his heart had look'd on high,
And ask'd if greater dwelt beyond the sky :
Chain'd to excess, the slave of such extreme,
How woke he from the wildness of that dream. .
Alas ! he told not — but he did awake
To curse the wither'd heart that would not break
Byron's Lara-
The ear is cloy'd
Unto satiety with honied strains,
That daily from the fount of Helicon
Flow murmuring.
William Herbert
464
SATIRE.
I sorrow that all fair things must decay,
While time and accident and miseries last;
That the red rose so soon must fade away,
The white be sullied by the ruthless blast ;
The pure snow turned to mud in half a day ;
Even heaven's own glorious azure be o'ercast ;
Imperial ermine be with dust defiled,
And China's finest crockery cracked and spoiled.
Halleck.
SATIRE.
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say — the city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders ?
Who can come in, and say that I mean her,
When such a one as she, such is her neighbour ?
Or what is he of basest function,
That says, his bravery is not on my cost,
(Thinking that I mean him) but therein suits
His folly to the mettle of my speech ?
There then ; How, what then ? Let me see wherein
My tongue hath wrong'd him : if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself: if he be free,
Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies,
Unclaim'd of any man.
Shahs. As you like it.
I 'm one whose whip of steel can with a lash
Imprint the characters of shame so deep,
Ev'n in the brazen forehead of proud sin,
That not eternity shall wear it out.
Randolph'' s Muse's Looking- Glass.
I have untruss'd the proudest ; greatest tyrants
Have quak'd below my powerful whip, half dead
With expectation of the smarting jerk,
Whose wound no salve can cure. Each blow doth
leave
A lasting sear, that with a poison eats
Into the marrow of their fame, and lives ;
Th' eternal ulcer to their memories.
Randolph's Muse's Looking-Glass.
So dost thou aim thy darts, which ev'n when
They kill the poisons, do but wake the men.
Thy thunders thus but purge ; and we endure
Thy lancings better than another's cure :
And justly too; for th' age grows more unsound
From the fool's balsam, than the wise man's wound.
Cartwright.
Wise legisvators never yet could draw
A fox within the reach of common law :
1 'or posture, dress, grimace, and affectation,
Thougn toes to sense, are harmless to the nation.
Our last redress is dint of verse to try,
And satire i* our court of cnanccry.
Drydcn.
The labouring bee, when his sharp sting is gone,
Forgets his golden work, and turns a drone ;
Such is a satire, when you take away
The rage in which his noble vigour lay.
Drydcn.
Will the learn'd and the judicious know,
That satire scorns to stoop so meanly low,
As any one abstracted fop to show ?
For, as when painters form a matchless face,
They from each fair one catch some different
grace ;
And shining features in one portrait blend,
To which no single beauty.must pretend :
So poets oft do in one piece expose
Whole belles assemblees of coquettes and beaux.
Congreve. Epilogue to the Way of the World.
You must not think that a satiric style
Allows of scandalous and brutish words ;
The better sort abhor scurrility.
Roscommon,
Instructive satire ! true to virtue's cause !
Thou shining supplement of public laws !
When flatter'd crimes of a licentious age
Reproach our silence, and demand our rage ;
When purchas'd follies, from each distant land,
Like arts, improve in Britain's skilful hand ;
When the law shows her teeth, but dares not bite,
And South Sea treasures are not brought to light ;
When churchmen scripture for the classics quit,
Polite apostates from God's grace to wit;
When men grow great from their revenue spent,
And fly from bailiffs into parliament ;
To chase our spleen, when themes like these in-
crease,
Shall panegyric reign, and censure cease ?
, Young.
If satire charms, strike faults, but spare the man;
'T is dull to be as witty as you can.
Satire recoils whenever charg'd too high ;
Round your own fame the fatal splinters fly.
As the soft plume gives swiftness to the dart,
Good-breeding sends the satire to the heart.
Young.
Satire 's my weapon, but I 'm too discreet
To run a-inuck and tilt at all I meet;
I only wear it in a land of Hectors,
Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors.
Pope.
Curs'd be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear.
Pope.
SCHOOL.
465
When satire flies abroad on falsehood's wing,
Short is her life, and impotent her sting ;
But when to truth allied, the wound she gives
Sinks deep, and to remotest ages lives.
Churchill.
Though folly, rob'd in purple, shines,
Though vice exhausts Peruvian mines,
Yet shall they tremble and turn pale
When satire wields her mighty flail.
Churchill.
The man whose hardy spirit shall engage
To lash the vices of a guilty age,
At his first setting forward ought to know,
That every rogue he meets must be his foe ;
That the rude breath of satire will provoke
Many who feel, and more who fear the stroke.
Churchill.
Unless a love of virtue light the flame,
Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame !
He hides behind a magisterial air
His own offences, and strips others bare ;
Affects indeed a most humane concern,
That man, if gently tutor'd, will not learn,
That mulish folly, not to be reclaim'd
By softer methods, must be made asham'd ;
But (I might instance in St. Patrick's dean)
Too often rails to gratify his spleen.
Most sat'rists are indeed a public scourge ;
Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge ;
Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd,
The milk of their good purpose all to curd.
Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse,
By lean despair upon an empty purse,
The wild assassins start into the street,
Prepar'd to poniard whomsoe'er they meet
No skill in swordmanship, however just,
Can be secure against a madman's thrust;
And even virtue, so unfairly match'd,
Although immortal, may be prick'd or scratch'd.
Cowper.
Prepare for rhyme — I '11 publish right or wrong :
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling spear,
The pure, warm hearts that bid me welcome here ?
O. W. Holmes.
SCHOOL.
Whipping, that 's virtue's governess,
Tutoress of arts and sciences ;
That mends the gross mistakes of nature,
And puts new life into dull matter ;
That lays foundation for renown,
And all the honours of the gown.
Butler's Hudibras.
2E
Whoe'er excels in what we prize,
Appears a hero in our eyes :
Each girl, when pleas'd with what is taught,
Will have the teacher in her thought.
A blockhead with melodious voice,
In boarding-schools may have his choice;
And oft the dancing-rnaster's art
Climbs from the toe to touch the heart
In learning let a nymph delight,
The pedant gets a mistress by 't.
Swiffs Cadenus and Vanessa
In every village mark'd with little spire,
Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells in lowly shed, and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we school-mistress name ;
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame,
They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent,
Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame ;
And, oft-times, on vagaries idly bent,
For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely
shent. Shenstone's School-Mislress.
The noises intermix'd, which thence resound,
Do learning's little tenement betray ;
Where sits the dame, disguis'd in looks profound,
And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel
around. Shenstone's School-Mistress.
Yet nurs'd with skill, what dazzling fruits appear !
Ev'n now sagacious foresight points to show
A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo,
Or bard sublime, if bard may e'er be so,
As Milton, Shakspeare, names that ne'er shall die !
Though now he crawl along the ground so low,
Nor weeting how the muse should soar so high,
Wisheth, poor starveling elf! his paper kite may
fly. Shenstone's School-Mistress.
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way
With blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school :
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew ;
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning's face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ;
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he fiown'd
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault ,
The village all declar'd how much he knew
'T was certain he could write and cypher too
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage.
And even the story ran, that he could gauge.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village
460
SCOLD -SCORN.
Oil ye ! who tcacli the ingenious youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany or Spain,
I pray ye flog- them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain.
Byron.
See, toward yon dome where village science
dwells,
Where the church-clock its warning summons
swells,
What tiny feet the well-known path explore,
And gaily gather from each rustic door.
Light-hearted group ! — who carol wild and high,
The daisy cull, or chase the butterfly,
Or by some traveller's wheels arous'd from play,
The stiff salute, with deep demureness, pay,
Bare the curl'd brow, and stretch the sunburnt
hand,
The home-taught homage of an artless land.
The stranger marks, amid their joyous line,
The little baskets, whence they hope to dine,
And larger books, as if their dexterous art
Dealt most nutrition to the noblest part ! —
Long may it be, ere luxury teach the shame
To starve the mind, and bloat the unwieldy frame.
Mrs. Sigourney's Poems.
In a green lane that from the village street
Diverges, stands the schoolhouse; long and low
The frame, and blacken'd with the hues of time.
Street's Poems.
The room displays
Long rows of desk and bench; the former stain'd
And streak'd with blots and trickles of dried ink,
Lumber'd with maps and slates, and well-thumb'd
books,
And carv'd with rude initials.
Street's Poems.
Yet is the schoolhouse rude,
As is the chrysalis to the butterfly, —
To the rich flower the seed. The dusky walls
Hold the fair germ of knowledge, and the tree
Glorious in beauty, golden with its fruits,
To this low schoolhouse traces back its life.
Street's Poems.
SCOLD.
Oh ! rid me of this torture quickly there,
My madam with the everlasting voice :
The bells in time of pestilence ne'er made
Like noise, as were in that perpetual motion !
All my house
Bar now stcam'd like a bath with her thick breath ;
A lawyer could not have been heard, nor scarce
Another woman ' such a hail of words
Mho bus let fa~.
Jonson's Silent Woman.
Then must'ring all her wiles,
With blandish'd parleys, feminine assaults,
Tongue batteries, she surceas'd not day nor night I
To storm me, over-watch'd and wearied out,
At times when men seek most repose and rest,
I yielded, and unlock'd her all my heart.
Milton's Samson Agonistes. J
SCORN.
Know ye not then, said Satan, fill'd with scorn,
Know ye not me ? ye knew me once no mate
For you, there sitting where ye durst not soar :
Not to know me argues yourself unknown,
The lowest of your throng; or if ye know,
Why ask ye, and superfluous begin
Your message, like to end as much in vain.
Milton's Paradise Lost
He hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues,
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Infamous wretch !
So much below my scorn, I dare not kill thee.
Dryden's Duke of Guise.
And what a thing, ye gods, is scorn or pity !
Heap on me, heaven, the hate of all mankind ;
Load me with malice, envy, detestation ;
Let me be horrid to all apprehension,
And the world shun me, so I 'scape but scorn.
Lee.
Think not there is no smile
I can bestow upon thee. There is a smile,
A smile of nature too, which I can spare,
And yet perhaps, thou wilt not thank me for it
Joanna Baillie's De Montford
Fame is the thirst of youth, — but I am not
So young as to regard men's frown or smile,
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot ;
I stood and stand alone, remember'd or forgot.
Byron's Childe Harold
That brow in furrow'd lines had fix'd at last,
That spake of passions, but of passions past;
The pride, but not the fire, of early days,
Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise :
A high demeanour, and a glance, that took
Their thoughts from others by a single look ;
And that sarcastic levity of tongue,
The stinging of a heart the world hath stung,
That darts in seeming playfulness around,
And makes those feel that will not own the
wound : —
All these seem'd his, and something more beneath,
Than glance could well reveal, or accent breathe.
Byron's Lara,
SCOTLAND - SECRESY.
467
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need ;
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree
I planted, — they have torn me, — and I bleed:
I should have known what fruit would spring from
such a seed. Byron's Childe Harold.
There was a laughing devil in his sneer,
That rais'd emotions both of rage and fear ;
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope withering fled — and mercy sigh'd — farewell !
Byron's Corsair.
Derision shall strike the forlorn,
A mockery that never shall die ;
The curses of hate and the hisses of scorn
Shall burthen the winds of the sky ;
And proud o'er thy ruin, for ever be hurl'd
The laughter of triumph, the jeers of the world.
Byron.
I could not tame my nature down ; for he
Must serve who fain would sway — and soothe and
sue —
And watch all time — and pry into all place —
And be a living lie — who would become
A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such
The mass are ; I disdain'd to mingle with
A herd, though to be leader — and of wolves.
The lion is alone, and so am I.
Byron's Manfred.
Pardon is for men,
And not for reptiles — we have none for Steno,
And no resentment ; things like him must sting,
And higher beings suffer : 't is the charter
Of life. The man who dies by the adder's fang
May have the crawler crush'd, but feels no anger :
'T was the worm's nature ; and some men are
worms
In soul, more than the living things of tombs.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
In the flash of her glances were passion and pride,
In the curve of her Up there was haughty con-
tempt,
As she spoke of the power to riches allied,
, Of the evil and pain from which she was exempt.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
But turn the heart's sweet current into gall,
— No earthly power can heal the deadly flow;
'T will poison the affections, till the blood
Grows venomous and fiery, and beneath
Its blasting influence are wither'd up
The springs of love and hope ; and then we taste
No joy, save in the dignify of scorn,
That dares seem what it has been made, and keeps
Its likeness as in mockery of the fate
Injustice had decreed for punishment.
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.
I I said to cold Neglect and Scorn,
Pass on — I heed you not;
Ye may pursue me till my form
And being are forgot ;
Yet still the spirit which you see
Undaunted by your wiles,
Draws from its own nobility
Its high-born smiles.
Mrs. StoddarL
SCOTLAND.
Scotia ! my dear, my native soil !
For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil,
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content !
And O! may heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile !
Then howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd
isle. Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night.
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet muse for a poetic child ;
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires ! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band,
That knits me to thy rugged strand.
Scotfs Lay of the Last Minstrel.
SECRESY.
'T is in my memory lock'd,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
Shaks. Hamlet.
I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still ;
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding but no tongue.
Shales. Hamlet.
Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
Shahs. Hamlet,
I well believe
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know ;
And so far will I trust thee.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I
Nay, speak thy mind ; and let him ne'er speak
more
That speaks thy words again to do thee barm
Shakspeaie.
SEDUCTION.
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Why have I blabb'd ? Who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
A secret in his mouth,
Js like a wild bird put into a cage ;
Whose door no sooner opens, but 't is out.
Jonson's Case is alterea.
When two know it, how can it be a secret ?
And indeed with what justice can you
Expect secresy in me, that cannot
Be private to yourself?
Marston's Fawn.
I 'lr keep this secret from the world,
As warily as those that deal in poison,
Keep poison from their children.
Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
He deserves small trust,
Who is not privy counsellor to himself.
John Forde's Broken Heart.
I am ruin'd in her confession ;
The man that trusts woman with a privacy,
And hopes for silence, he may as well expect it
At the fall of a bridge.
Marmioris Antiquary.
I cannot keep
A secret to myself, but thy prevailing
Rhetoric ravishes and leaves my breast
Like to an empty casket, that once was blest
With keeping of a jewel I durst not trust
The air with, 't was so precious.
Rawlins's Rebellion.
All friendly trust is folly ; ev'ry man
Hath one, to whom he will commit as much
As is to him committed : Our designs,
When once they creep from our own private
breasts,
Do in a moment through the city fly ;
Who tells his secret, sells his liberty.
Freeman's Imperiale.
Search not to find what lies too deeply hid ;
Nor to know things, whose knowledge is forbid.
Denham.
Well, read my check, and watch my eye, —
Too strictly school'd are they,
One secret of my soul to show,
One hidden thought betray.
Miss London.
In that corroding secresy, which gnaws
The heart tr show the effect, but not the cause.
Byron's Lara.
SEDUCTION.
Ay, so you serve us,
Till we serve you : but when you have our roses,
You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,
And mock us with our baseness.
Shaks. All's Well.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs ;
Or lose your heart ; or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dea>- sister ;
And keep you in the rear of yom affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
Shaks. Hamlet
He ended, and his words, replete with guile,
Into her heart too easy entrance won.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Oh, the bewitching tongues of faithless men !
'T is thus the false hyena makes her moan,
To draw the pitying traveller to her den.
Your sex are so, such false dissemblers all ;
With sighs and plaints y' entice poor women's
hearts,
And all that pity you are made your prey.
Otway's Orphan.
My mortal injuries have turn'd my mind,
And I could hate myself for being kind,
If there be any majesty above,
That has revenge in store for perjur'd love ;
Send, heav'n, the swiftest ruin on his head,
Strike the destroyer, lay the victor dead ;
Kill the triumpher, and avenge my wrong,
In height of pomp, when he is warm'd and young :
Bolted with thunder, let him rush along :
And when in the last pangs of life he lies,
Grant I may stand to dart him with my eyes ;
Nay, after death
Pursue his spotted sou], and shoot him as he flies.
Lee's Alexander,
Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shiv'ring female lies :
She, once perhaps, in village plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innocence distrest
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ;
Now lost to all ; her friends, her virtue fled.
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the
show'r,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
L
SELFISHNESS.
469
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away ?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from ev'ry eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom — is to die.
Goldsmith.
Ah then ye fair !
Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts :
Dare not the infectious sigh ; the pleading look,
Down- cast, and low, in meek submission drest,
But full of guile. Let not the serpent tongue,
Prompt to deceive, with adulation smooth,
I Gain on your purpos'd will. Nor in the bower,
[ Where woodbines flaunt, and roses shed a couch,
' While evening draws her crimson curtains round,
" Trust your soft minutes with betraying man.
Thomson's Seasons.
Is there, in human form, that bears a heart —
A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth !
That can with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ?
Curse on his perjur'd arts ! dissembling smooth !
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd ?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,
Points to the parents fondling o'er their child,
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction
wild?
Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night.
By heaven ! I would rather for ever forswear
The elysium that dwells on a beautiful breast,
Than alarm for a moment the peace that is there,
Or banish the dove from so hallow'd a nest.
Moore.
Shall beauty, blighted in an hour,
Find joy within her broken bower ?
No : gayer insects fluttering by
Ne'er droop the wing on those that die,
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own,
And every woe a tear can claim,
Except an erring sister's shame.
Byron's Giaour.
Nought so ill
As the betrayer's sin ! salvationless
Almost.
Bailey's Festus.
Her eyes may grow dim, and her cheek may grow
pale,
But tell they not both the same fond tale ?
Love's lights have fled from her eye and her cheek
To burn and die on the heart which they seek.
Miss London.
What is the tale that I would tell ? not one
Of strange adventure, but a common tale
Of woman's wretchedness ; one to be read
Daily, in many a young and blighted heart.
Miss London.
Accurs'd be he whose guileful tongue
Can wrong a woman's captive heart —
That fount from which has sweetly sprung
The joys it could alone impart —
Can turn that fount to grief and gall,
And poison her existence all !
Accurs'd be he, whose lips can press
A woman's lips of sinless glow,
Yet leave them, 'mid her happiness.
To pour the lonely plaint of woe,
That from the midnight shadows drear,
Is wafted to no human ear !
Anon.
SELFISHNESS.
That smooth-fac'd gentleman, trickling commo-
dity-
Commodity the bias of the world :
The world, who of itself is poised well,
Made to run even, upon even ground ;
Till this advantage, this vile drawing bias,
This sway of motion, this commodity,
Makes it take heed from all indifferency,
From all direction, purpose, course, intent.
Shakspeare.
Self-love never yet could look on truth,
But with blear'd beams ; sleek flattery and she
Are twin-born sisters, and so mix their eyes,
As if you sever one, the other dies.
Ben Jonson.
And though all cry down self, none means
His own self in a literal sense.
Butler's Hudibras.
Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
No one will change his neighbour for himself;
The Iearn'd is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more ;
The rich is happy in the plenty given,
The poor contents him with the care of heaven.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing ;
The sot a hero, lunatic a king ;
The starving chemist, in his golden views
Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.
Pope,
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels ;
More gen'rous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts,
And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.
Young's Night Thouglai
40
470
SENSES - SENSIBILITY.
Self is the medium least refin'd of all,
Through which Opinion's searching beam can
fall ;
And passing there, the clearest, steadiest ray
Will tinge its light and turn its line astray.
Moore.
How cold he hearkens to some bankrupt's woe,
Nods his wise head, and cries — " I told you so !"
Sprague's Poems.
Ye may twine the living flowers
Where the living fountains glide,
And beneath the rosy bowers
Let the selfish man abide ;
And the birds upon the wing,
And the barks upon the wave,
Shall no sense of freedom bring, —
All is slavery to the slave :
Mammon's close-link'd chains have bound him,
Self-impos'd and seldom burst;
Though heaven's waters gush around him,
He would pine with earth's poor thirst.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
The craven's fear is but selfishness,
Like his merriment.
WhiUier , s Poems.
SENSES.
This power's sense, which from abroad doth bring
The colour, taste, and touch, and scent and sound,
The quantity and shape of every thing
Within earth's centre, or heaven's circle found.
Sir John Davis.
And though things sensible be numberless,
But only five the senses' organs be ;
And in those five all things their forms express,
Which we can touch, taste, feel, or hear, or see.
Sir John Davis.
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous e'en to taste — 'tis sense :
Good sense which only is the gift of heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.
Pope.
Of plain sound sense life's current coin is made ;
With that \vc drive the most substantial trade.
Young.
'T is hard, where dulness overrules,
To keep good sense in crowds of fools.
Swift.
SENSIBILITY.
Our sensibilities arc so acute,
The fear of being silent makes us mute.
Compels Conversation.
O why are farmers made so coarse,
Or clergy made so fine ?
A kick, that scarce would move a horse,
May kill a sound divine.
Cowper.
The soul of music slumbers in the shell,
Till wak'd and kindled by the master's spell ;
And feeling hearts — touch them but lightly — pour
A thousand melodies unheard before !
Rogers's Human Life.
Yet what is wit, and what the poet's art ?
Can genius shield the vulnerable heart ?
Ah no! Where bright imagination reigns,
The fine-wrought spirit feels acuter pains ;
Where glow exalted sense and taste refin'd,
There keener anguish rankles in the mind ;
There feeling is diffus'd through every part,
Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart;
And those whose gen'rous souls each tear would
keep
From others' eyes, are born themselves to weep.
Hannah More.
Oh ! life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns ;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers, I
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
Moore.
Sensibility, how charming,
Thou, my friend, canst truly tell ;
But distress, with horrors arming,
Thou hast also known too well !
Dearly bought, the hidden treasure,
Finer feelings can bestow !
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure,
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.
Burns.
Burns.
A delicate, frail tiling, — but made
For spring sunshine, or summer shade.
A slender flower, unmeet to bear
One April shower, — so slight, so fair.
Miss London.
Da}' by day,
The gentle creature died away,
As parts the odour from the rose, —
As fades the sky at twilight's close, —
She past so tender and so fair. y
Miss London,
Like the mimosa, shrinking from
The blight of some familiar finger —
Like flowers which but in secret bloom,
Where aye the shclter'd shadows linger,
And which, beneath the noon's hot ray,
Would fold their leaves and fade away.
Whiltier.
SERVANTS. SERVICE - SEXTON - SHAME.
471
And, dearest, though thine eye alone
May see in me a single grace,
I care not, so thou e'er canst find
A hidden sweetness in my face.
Though time thy bloom is stealing,
There 's still beyond his art,
The wild-flower WTeath of feeling,
The sunbeam of the heart.
Mrs. Neat
Halleck.
'T was then the blush suffus'd her cheek,
Which told what words could never speak ; —
The answer 's written deeply now,
On this warm cheek, and glowing brow.
Lucretia Maria Davidson.
Roses bloom, and then they wither ;
Cheeks are bright, then fade and die ;
Shapes of light, are wafted hither,
Then, like visions, hurry by.
Percival.
I am not of that harsh and morose temper
As some great men are tax'd with ; who imagine
They part from the respect due to their honours,
If they use not such as follow them,
Without distinction of their births, like slaves.
I am not so condition'd : I can make
A fitting difference between my foot-boy,
And a gentleman, by want compell'd to serve me.
Massinger's New Way to pay old Debts.
SERVANTS. SERVICE.
'T is the curse cf service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation ; where each second
Stood heir to the first.
Shales. Othello.
I follow him to serve my turn upon him ;
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd.
Shales. Othello.
As in virtuous actions,
The undertaker finds a full reward,
Although conferr'd upon unthankful men :
So, any service done to so much sweetness,
However dangerous, in your favour ,finds
A wish'd and glorious end.
Massinger's Duke of Milan.
Though I love
My limbs as well as any man, if you had now
A humour to kick me lame into an office,
Where I might sit in state and undo others,
Should I not be bound to kiss the foot that did it ?
Though it seem strange, there have been such
things seen
In the memory of man.
Massinger's Duke of Milan.
Expect not more from servants than is just ;
Reward them well, if they observe their trust,
Nor with them cruelty or pride invade ;
Since God and nature them our brothers made.
Denham.
SEXTON.
See yonder maker of the dead man's bed,
The sexton, hoary-headed chronicle !
Of hard unmeaning face, down which ne'er stole
A gentle tear ; with mattock in his hand,
Digs through whole rows of kindred and acquaint-
ance
By iar his juniors ! scarce a skull 's cast up
But well he knew its owner, and can tell
Some passage of his life. Thus, hand in hand,
The sot haswalk'd with death twice twenty years
And yet ne'er younker on the green laughs louder
Or clubs a smuttier tale ; when drunkards meet,
None sings a merrier catch, or lends a hand
More willing to his cup. Poor wretch ; he minds
not
That soon some trusty brother of the trade
Shall do for him what he has done for thousands
Blair's Grave.
SHAME.
Shame sticks ever close to the ribs of honour,
Great men are never found after it :
It leaves some ache or other in their names still,
Which their posterity feel at ev'ry weather.
Middleton.
For often vice provok'd to shame,
Borrows the colour of a virtuous deed.
Thus libertines are chaste, and misers good,
A coward valiant, and a priest sincere.
SewelVs Sir Walter Raleigh.
I can bear scorpions' stings, tread fields of fire,
In frozen gulfs of cold eternal lie,
Be toss'd aloft through tracts of endless void,
But cannot five in shame.
Joanna Baillie's BasH
That holy shame, which ne'er forgets
What clear renown it us'd to wear ;
Whose blush remains when virtue seta,
To show her sunshine has been there.
Moore's Loves of the Angeu
472
SHEPHERD -SHIP.
When knaves and fools combin'd o'er all prevail
When justice halts, and right begins to fail,
E'en then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of shame — unknown to otliers' fears.
More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,
And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
SHEPHERD.
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home
Hies, merry-heartrd ; and by turns relieves
The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail ;
The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart,
Unknowing what the joy-mixt anguish means,
Sincerely loves, by that best language shown
Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds.
Thomson's Seasons.
And leads me to the mountain-brow,
Where sits the shepherd on the grassy turf,
Inhaling, healthful, the descending sun.
Around him feeds his many bleating flock,
Of various cadence ; and his sportive lambs,
This way and that convolv'd, in friskful glee,
Their frolics play. Thomson's Seasons.
The house-wife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay-dress'd maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthron'd,
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays
Her smiles, sweet beaming, on her shepherd king;
While the glad circle round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
Thomson's Seasons.
Frequent in the sounding hall, they wake
The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round ;
The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart,
Easily pleas'd ; the long loud laugh, sincere ;
The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the sidelong maid,
On purpose guardlcss, or pretending sleep ;
The leap, the slap, the haul ; and, shook to notes
Of native music, the respondent dance.
Thus jocund fleets with them the winter night.
Thomson's Seasons.
The homely villager, the drudge of life,
Who eats but as he toils, is happier far :
No self-division, bosom anarchy,
Disturbs his hours ; thoughtless he labours on,
Nor is at leisure to be wretched.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
SHIP.
Your ships are not well mann'd :
Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people
Ingross'd by swift impress.
S^iks. Antony and Cleopatra.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water : the poop was beaten gold ;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them : the oara
were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty ; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning,
Play with your fancies ; and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, ship-boys climbing :
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus'd : behold the threaden sails,
Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge.
Shaks. Henry V.
Do but think
You stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on th' inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur.
Shaks. Henry V.
So turns the faithful needle to the pole,
Though mountains rise between and oceans roll.
Darwin.
The obedient steel with living instinct moves,
And veers for ever to the pole it loves.
Darwin.
She comes majestic with her swelling sails,
The gallant bark ; along her watery way
Homeward she drives before the favouring gales ;
Now flirting at their length the streamers play,
And now they ripple with the ruffling breeze.
Southey.
On each gay deck they might behold
Lances of steel and crests of gold,
And hauberks with their burnish'd fold,
That shimmcr'd fair and free ;
And each proud galley, as she pass'd,
To the wild cadence of the blast
Gave wilder minstrelsy.
Scott's Lord of the Islet.
Upon the gale she stoop'd her side,
And bounded o'er the swelling tide,
As she were dancing home ;
The merry seamen laugh'd to see
Their gallant ship so lustily
Furrow the green sea-foam.
Scott's Marmum.
SHIPWRECK.
47J
Merrily, merrily goes the bark,
On a breeze from the northward free ;
So shoots through the morning sky the lark,
Or the swan through the summer sea.
Scott's Lord of the Isles.
How gloriously her gallant course she goes !
Her white wings flying — never from her foes ;
She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.
Who would not brave the battle-fire — the wreck —
To move the monarch of her peopled deck ?
Byron's Corsair.
That trembling vassal of the pole,
The feeling compass, navigation's soul.
Byron's Island.
! gloriously upon the deep
The gallant vessel rides ;
And she is mistress of the winds,
And mistress of the tides.
And never but for her tall ships
Had England been so proud ;
Or before the might of the Island Queen
The kings of the earth have bow'd.
But alas ! for the widow and orphan's tear,
When the death-flag sweeps the wave;
Alas ! that the laurel of victory
Must grow but upon the grave !
Miss Landon.
See how yon flaming herald treads
The ridg'd and rolling waves,
As crashing o'er their crested heads,
She bows her surly slaves !
With foam before and fire behind,
She rends the clinging sea,
That flies before the roaring wind,
Beneath her hissing lee.
O. W. Holmes — The Steamboat.
With clashing wheel and lifting keel,
And smoking torch on high,
When winds are loud and billows reel,
She thunders foaming by ;
When seas are silent and serene,
With even beam she glides,
The sunshine glimmering through the green
That skirts her gleaming sides.
O. W. Holmes — The Steamboat.
SHIPWRECK.
All, all, the storm
Devour'd ; and now, o'er his late envy'd fortune,
The dolphins bound, and wat'ry mountains roar,
Triumphant in his ruin.
Young's Revenge.
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast ; the very rats
Instinctively had quit it : there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar'd to us ; to sigh
To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.
Shaks. Tempest.
I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself
(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast, that liv'd upon the sea :
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.
; Shaks. Twelfth Night.
On Scylla or Charybdis (dangerous rocks !)
She strikes rebounding ; whence the shatter'd oak
So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea : in at the gaping side
The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming ; horrors seize
The mariners ; death in their eyes appears,
They stare, they rave, they pump, they swear, they
pray;
(Vain efforts !) still the battering waves rush in,
Implacable, till, delug'd by the foam,
The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.
Philips's Splendid Shilling.
A piteous, fearful sight —
A noble vessel labouring with the storm,
Hath struck upon the rocks beneath our walls,
And by the quivering gleams of livid blue
Her deck is crowded with despairing souls,
And in the hollow pauses of the storm
We heard their piercing cries.
Maturin's Bertiam.
Wave high your torches on each crag and cliff —
Let many lights blaze on our battlements —
Shout to them in the pauses of the storm,
And tell them there is hope —
And let our deep-ton'd bell its loudest peal
Send cheerfully o'er the deep —
'T will be a comfort to the wretched souls
In their extremity — all things are possible;
Fresh hope may give them strength, and strength
deliverance. Maturin's Bertram.
It is too late ;
For many a fathom doth the beetling rock
Rise o'er the breaker's surge that dashes o'er them ;
No help of human hand can reach them there
One hour will hush their cries — and by the mors.
Thou wilt behold the ruin — wreck and corse
Float on the weltering wave.
Maturin's Bertram
40*
474
SHIPWRECK.
Five hundred souls in one instant of dread
Arc hurried o'er the deck ;
And fast the miserable ship
Becomes a lifeless wreck.
Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,
Her planks are torn asunder,
And down comes her mast with a reeling shock,
And a hideous crash like thunder,
Her sails are draggled in the brine
That gladden'd late the skies,
And her pendant that kiss'd the fair moonshine,
Down many a fathom lies.
Wilson.
Oh ! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death ;
And sights of home with sighs disturb'd
The sleepers' long drawn breath.
Instead of the murmur of the sea
The sailor heard the humming-tree
Alive through all its leaves,
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage door,
And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arms enclos'd a blooming boy,
Who listen'd with tears of sorrow and joy
To the dangers his father had pass'd ;
And his wife — by turns she wept and smiled,
As she look'd on the father of her child,
Return'd to her heart at last.
— He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.
Wilson.
'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down
Over the waste of waters, like a veil,
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown
Of one whose hate is mask'd, but to assail.
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown,
And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale,
And hopeless eyes, which o'er the deep alone
Gazed dim and desolate ; twelve days had fear
Been their familiar ; and now death was here.
Byron.
A wreck complete she roll'd
At mercy of the waves : whose mercies are
Like human beings during civil war.
Byron.
Some lash'd them in their hammocks, some put on
Their best clothes, as if going to a fair :
Some cursed the day on which they saw the sun,
And gnash'd their teeth, and howling, tore their
hair. Byron.
And there he lay, full length, where he was flung,
Uetore the entrance of a cliff-worn cave,
With just enough of life to feel its pain,
Arul deem that it was sav'd, perhaps in vain.
Byron.
Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,
Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brare,
Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave ;
And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell,
And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave,
Like one who grapples with his enemy,
And strives to strangle him before he die.
And first one universal shriek there rush'd,
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
Of echoing thunder ; and then all was hush'd,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless clash
Of billows ; hut at intervals there gush'd,
Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.
Byron
The queenly ship ! — brave hearts had striven,
And true ones died with her ! —
We saw her mighty cable riven,
Like floating gossamer.
We saw her proud flag struck that morn
A star once o'er the seas —
Her anchor gone, her deck uptorn —
And sadder things than these !
We saw her treasures cast away, —
The rocks with pearls were sown,
And, strangely sad, the ruby's ray
Flash'd out o'er fretted stone,
And gold was strewn the wet sands o'er,
Like ashes by a breeze ;
And gorgeous robes — but oh ! that shore
Had sadder things than these !
We saw the strong man still and low,
A crush'd reed thrown aside !
Yet, by that rigid lip and brow,
Not without strife he died !
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
The two proud sisters of the sea,
In glory and in doom !
Well may the eternal waters be
Their broad, unsculptur'd tomb !
The wind that rings along the wave,
The clear, unshadow'd sun,
Are torch and trumpet o'er the brave, —
Their last green wreath is won !
No stranger-hand their banners furl'd,
No victor's shout they heard,
Unseen, above them ocean curl'd,
Save by its own pale bird ;
The gnashing billows heav'd and fell ;
Wild shriek'd the midnight gale ;
Far, far beneath the morning swell
Were pennant, spar, and sail 1
O. W. Holmes. — The Wasp and the Hornet.
SHOOTING.
475
I mu3t go o'er the sea to other lands :
It is the call of duty ; but fear not,
I shall return, and then our loves are sure.
Dream not of danger on the sea — one power
Protects us always, and the henest heart
Fears not the tempest
Percival.
SHOOTING.
See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings ;
Short is his joy ; he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah ! what avail his glossy varying dyes,
His purpled crest and scarlet-circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with
gold ? Pope's Windsor Forest.
Thick around
Thunders the sport of those, who with the gun,
And dog impatient bounding at the shot,
Worse than the season, desolate the fields ;
And, adding to the ruins of the year,
Distress the footed or the feather'd game.
Thomson's Seasons.
Here the rude clamour of the sportman's joy,
The gun fast thundering, and the winded horns,
Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game :
How in his mid-career, the spaniel struck
Stiff by the tainted gale, with open nose,
Outstretched, and finally sensible, draws fulL
Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey ;
As in the sun the circling covey bask
Their varied plumes, and watchful every way
Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye.
Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat
Their idle wings, entangled more and more :
Nor on the surges of the boundless air,
Though borne triumphant, are they safe, the gun,
Glanc'd just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye,
O'ertakes their sounding pinions ; and again,
Immediate brings them from the towering wing,
Dead to the ground : or drives them wide dispers'd,
Wounded and wheeling various, down the wind.
Thomson's Seasons.
The East is now dappled with dawning of fight ;
To the woods for the deer, ere the sun is in sight !
The white frost has spread its fresh, silver-like
veil
And if a hoof passes it tells us the tale,
The hound in swift gambols darts hither and yon,
We shoulder our rifles, and rapidly on.
Street's Poems.
Hush ! hark to that sound stealing faint through
the wood !
Heart hammers, breath thickens, swift rushes the
blood 1
It swells from the thicket more loud and more
near,
'T is the hound giving tongue ! he is driving the
deer!
My rifle is level'd — swift tramplings are heard —
A rustle of leaves — then, with flight like a bird,
His antlers thrown back, and his body in motion,
With quick rise and fall like the surge of the
ocean —
His eyeballs wide rolling in phrensied affright —
Out bursts the magnificent creature to sight !
A low cry I utter ; he stops — bends his head,
His nostrils distended, limbs quaking with dread ;
My rifle cracks sharp — he springs wildly on high,
Then pitches down headlong, to quiver and die.
Street's Poems.
A morn in September — the East is yet grey,
Come Carlo ! come Jupe ! we'll try fowling to-day.
The rail-fence is leap'd, and the wood-boughs are
round,
And a moss-couch is spread for my foot on the
ground.
A quick startling whirr now bursts loud on my
ear —
The partridge — the partridge — swift-pinion'd
by fear,
Low onward he whizzes, Jupe yelps as he sees,
And we dash through the brushwood, to note
where he trees!
I see him — his brown-speckled breast is display'd
On the branch of yon maple, that edges the glade !
My fowling-piece rings, Jupe darts forward so fleet,
Ere I load he lays down the dead bird at my feet
Street's Poems.
On a branch the bright oriole dances and sings,
With rich crimson bosom, and black glossy wings ;
And the robin lights warbling, then flutters away,
For I harm not God's creatures, so tiny as they.
Street's Poems.
Near yonder hedge-row where high grass and
ferns
The secret hollow shade, my pointers stand.
How beautiful they look ! with outstretch'a tails,
With heads immovable and eyes fast fix'd,
One fore-leg rais'd and bent, the other firm,
Advancing forward, presses on the ground !
Convolv'd and flutt'ring on the blood-stain'd earn,
The partridge lies : — thus one by one they fail
Save what with happier fate escape untouch'd.
And o'er the open fields with rapid speed
To the close shelt'ring covert wing their way
Vincent
476
SILENCE.
Full of th' expected sport my heart beats high,
And »vith impatient step I haste to reach
The stubbles, where the scatter'd ears afford
A sweet repast to the yet heedless game.
How my brave dogs o'er the broad furrows bound,
Quart'ring their ground exactly. Ala ! that point
Answers my eager hopes, and fills my breast
With joy unspeakable. How close they lie !
Whilst to the spot with steady pace I tend.
Now from the ground with noisy wing they burst,
And dart away. My victim singled out,
In his aerial course falls short, nor skims
Th' adjoining hedge o'er which the rest unhurt
Have pass'd.
Vincent.
Ah, nut-brown partridges ! ah, brilliant pheasants !
And ah, ye poachers ! — 'T is no 6port for pea-
sants. Byron.
SILENCE.
Silence is only commendable
In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
0, my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore are reputed wise,
For saying nothing.
Shales. Merchant of Venice.
The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades, when speaking fails.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Out of this silence, yet I pick'd a welcome :
And in the modesty of fearful duty
I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy :
I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
Shaks. Much Ado about Nothing.
Still-born silence, thou that art
Floodgate of the deeper heart ;
Offspring of a heavenly kind ;
Frost o' th' mouth and thaw c th' mind ;
Secrecy's confidant, and he
That makes religion mystery ;
Admiration's speaking'st tongue —
Leave thy desert shades, among
Reverend hermits' hallow'd cells,
Where retir'd'st devotion dwells ;
With thy enthusiasms come ;
Seize this maid, and make her dumb.
Ricfiard Flecknoe's Love's Dominion.
Silence in woman, is like speech in man ;
Pen 7 't wqo car.
Jonson's Silent Woman.
You know my wishes ever yours did meet:
If I be silent, 't is no more but fear
That I should say too little when I speak.
Lady Carew's Marram.
'T is, alas,
His modest, bashful nature, and pure innocence,
That makes him silent; think you that bright
rose,
That buds within his cheeks, was planted there
By guilt or shame ? no, he has always been
So unacquainted with all arts of sin,
That but to be suspected, strikes him dumb,
With wonder and amazement.
Randolph's Amyntas.
Lo ! silence himself is here ;
Methinks I see the midnight god appear.
In all his downy pomp array'd,
Behold the rev'rend shade ;
An ancient sigh he sits upon,
Whose memory of sound is long since gone,
And purposely annihilated for his throne :
Beneath two soft transparent clouds do meet ;
In which he seems to sink his softer feet,
A melancholy thought, condens'd to air,
Stolen from a lover in despair,
Like a thin mantle, serves to wrap
In fluid folds his visionary shape,
A wreath of darkness round his head he wears,
Whose curling mists supply the want of hairs.
While the still vapours, which from poppies rise,
Bedew his hoary face, and lull his eyes.
Congreve.
Silence ! coeval with eternity ;
Thou wert, ere nature's self began to be ;
'T was one vast nothing all, and all slept fast in
thee. Pope.
The tongue mov'd gently first, and speech was low,
Till wrangling science taught it noise and show,
And wicked wit arose, thy most abusive foe.
But rebel wit deserts thee oft in vain ;
Lost in the maze of woods he turns again,
And seeks a surer state, and courts thy gentle
reign.
Pope.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies,
When a new planet swims into his ken ;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Keats — Sonnet.
By day or night, in weal or woe,
This heart, no longer free,
Must bear the love it cannot show,
And silent ache for thee
Byron.
SIN -SINCERITY.
477
They never felt,
Those summer flies that flit so gayly round thee,
They never felt one moment what I feel,
With such a silent tenderness, and keep
So closely in my heart.
Percival.
The temple of our purest thoughts is — silence !
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.
There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep pro-
found ;
No voice is hush'd, — no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground :
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where man hath been,
Though the dun fox or wild hyena calls,
And owls that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low wind moan,
There the true silence is, self-conscious and alone.
Thomas Hood,
SIN.
From love of grace,
Lay not that flatt'ring unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks :
It will but skin and film the ulc'rous place ;
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen ; confess yourself to heav'n ;
Repent what 's past, avoid what is to come ;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker.
Skaks. Hamlet.
Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's
eyes. Shaks. Hamlet.
He that for love of goodness hateth ill,
Is more crown- worthy still
Than he, which for sin's penalty forbears ;
IFs heart sins, though he fears.
Jonson , s Epigrams.
O the dangerous siege
Sin lays about us ! And the tyranny
He exercises when he hath expung'd,
Like to the horror of a winter's thunder,
Mix'd with a gushing storm ; that suffers nothing
To stir abroad on earth, but their own rages,
Is sin, when it hath gather'd head above us :
No roof, no shelter can secure us so,
But he will drown our cheeks in fear or woe.
Chapman's Bnssey D'Ambois.
'T is fearful building upon any sin ;
One mischief enter'd, brings another in :
The second pulls a thirdj the third draws more,
And they for all the rest set ope the door :
Till custom take away the judging sense,
That to offend we think it no offence.
Smith's Hector of Germany
Our sins, like to our shadows
When our day is in its glory, scarce appear'd :
Towards our evening how great and monstrous
They are !
Suckling's Aglaura.
The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd;
For each seem'd either ; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart ; what seem'd his head,
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand ; and from his seat
The monster, moving onward, came as fast
With horrid strides ; hell trembled as he strode.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Earnest toil and strong endeavour
Of a spirit which within
Wrestles with familiar evil
And besetting sin.
Whittier's Poems.
Know'st thou not all germs of evil
In thy heart await their time ?
Not thyself, but God's restraining,
Stays their growth of crime.
Whittier's Poems
Thou wilt not chronicle our sand-like sins ;
For sin is small, and mean, and barren. Good
Only is great, and generous, and fruitful.
Number the mountains, not the sands, O God !
Bailey's Festus.
O sin, what hast thou done to this fair earth !
•• Dana's Poems
Sin hath broke the world's sweet peace — unstrung
Th' harmonious chords to which the angels sung
Dana's Buccaneei
SINCERITY.
I cannot hide what I am : I must be
Sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's
Jests ; eat when I have stomach, and wait for
No man's leisure ; sleep when I am drowsy,
And tend on no man's business ; laugh when !
Am merry, and claw no man in his humour.
Shaks. Much Ado about Nothing
47S
SINGLE-LIFE.
Men should be what they seem :
Or, those that be not, would they might seem none.
Shaks. Othello.
His nature is too noble for the world :
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for 's power to thunder : his heart 's his
mouth :
What his breast forges that his tongue must vent;
And, being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles :
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate ;
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart ;
His heart as far from fraud, as heav'n from earth.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Because I lie here at thy feet,
The humble booty of thy conqu'ring eyes,
And lay my heart all open in thy sight,
And tell thee I am thine, and tell thee right ;
And do not suit my looks, nor clothe my words
In other colours than my thoughts do wear,
But do thee right in all, thou scornest me
As if thou didst not love sincerity.
Never did crystal more apparently
Present the colour it contain'd within,
Than have these eyes, these tears, this tongue of
mine
Bewray'd my heart, and told how much I 'm thine.
Daniel's Arcadia.
For my own part, I consider
Nature without apparel ; without disguising
Of custom or compliment; I give thoughts
Words, and words truth, and truth boldness. She
Honest freeness makes it her virtue to
Speak what she thinks, will make it her necessity
To think what is good.
Marslon.
I cannot clothe my thoughts, and just defence
In such an abject phrase, but 't will appear
Equal, if not above my low condition.
I need no bombast language, stol'n from such,
As make nobility from prodigious terms
The hearers understand not ; I bring with me
No wealth to boast of; neither can I number
Uncertain fortune's favours with my merits:
1 dare not force affection, or presume
To censure her discretion that looks on me
.As a weak man, and not her fancy'd idol.
Massinger's Bondman.
bud weighs the heart ; whom we can never move
By outward actions, without inward love.
Watkins.
Innocence, below, enjoys
Security, and quiet sleeps ; murder's not heard of,
Treachery is a stranger there ; they enjoy
Their friends and loves without ravishment ;
They are all equal, ev'ry one 's a prince,
And rules himself; they speak not with their eyes,
Or brows, but with the tongue, and that too dwells
In the heart. „. ., , ,, ,
Sicily and JSapUs.
Sincerity's my chief delight,
The darling pleasure of the mind ;
O that I could to her invite,
All the whole race of human kind;
Take her, mortals, she's worth more
Than all your glory, all your fame,
Than all your glittering boasted store,
Than all the things that you can name.
She '11 with her bring a joy divine,
All that 's good, and all that 's fine.
Lady Chudleigh.
Her words are trusty heralds to her mind.
John Ford's Love's Sacrifice.
Sincerity,
Thou first of virtues, let no mortal leave
Thy onward path, although the earth should gape,
And from the gulf of hell destruction rise, —
To take dissimulation's winding way.
Home's Douglass.
You have a natural wise sincerity,
A simple truthfulness ;
And, though yourself not unacquaint with care,
Have in your heart wide room.
James R. Lowell's Poeins.
SINGLE-LIFE.
A wife ! O fetters
To man's bless'd liberty! All this world's prison,
Heav'n the high wall about it, sin the gaoler ;
But th' iron shackles, weighing down our heels,
Are only women.
Decker's Wonder of the Kingdom
Say a man never marry, nor have children ;
What takes that from him ? Only the bare name
Of being a father, or the weak delight
To see the little wanton ride a cock-horse
Upon a painted stick, or hear him chatter
Like a taught starling.
Webster's Duchess of Malfy
A bachelor
May thrive by observation on a little;
A single life's no burthen : but to draw
In yokes is chargeable, and will require
A double maintenance.
John Ford's Fancy's Chaste and Noble
SKULL -SLANDER.
479
O fie upon this single-life ! forego it.
Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
Fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun ;
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the «>ld fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage :
But earlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Her bosom was a soft retreat
For love, and love alone,
And yet her heart had never beat
To love's delicious tone ;
It dwelt within its circle free
From tender thoughts like these,
Waiting the little deity
As the blossom waits the breeze,
Before it throws it leaves apart,
And trembles like a love-touch'd heart.
Mrs. Welby.
SKULL.
Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps ;
Is that a temple where a God may dwell ?
Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd
cell!
Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul :
Yes, this was once ambition's airy hall,
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul :
Behold through each lacklustre, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,
And passion's host, that never brook'd control :
Can all, saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ?
Byron's Childe Harold.
O empty vault of former glory !
Where'er thou wert in time of old,
Thy surface tells thy living story,
Though now so hollow, dead, and cold;
For in thy form is yet descried
The traces left of young desire ;
The painter's art, the statesman's pride,
The muse's song, the poet's fire;
But these, forsooth, now seem to be
Mere lumps on thy periphery.
Dr. Forster.
These various organs show the place
Where friendship lov'd, where passion glowM,
Where veneration grew in grace,
Where justice sway'd, where man was proud—
Whence wit its slippery sallies threw
On vanity, thereby defeated ;
Where hope's imaginary view
Of things to come (fond fool) is seated ;
Where circumspection made us fear,
'Mid gleams of joy some danger near.
Dr. Forster
Old wall of man's most noble part,
While now I trace with trembling hand
Thy sentiments, how oft I start,
Dismay'd at such a jarring band !
Man, with discordant frenzy fraught,
Seems either madman, fool, or knave;
To try to live is all he 's taught —
To 'scape her foot who nought doth save
In life's proud race; — (unknown our goal)
To strive against a kindred soul.
Dr. Forster
And canst thou teach to future man
The way his evils to repair —
Say, O memento, — of the span
Of mortal life ? for if the care
Of truth to science be not given,
(From whom no treachery can sever,)
There 's no dependence under heaven
That error may not reign for ever.
May future heads more learning cull
From thee when my own head 's a skull.
Dr. Forster
SLANDER.
And therein were a thousand tongues empight
Of sundry kinds and sundry quality ;
Some were of dogs, that barked day and night,
And some of cats, that wrawling still did cry,
And some of bears, that groan'd continually,
And some of tigers, that did seem to gren,
And snarl at all that ever passed by ;
But most of them were tongues of mortal men,
Which spake reproachfully, not caring where nor
when.
And them amongst were mingled, here and there,
The tongues of serpents with three-forked stings,
That spat out poison and gore, bloody gere,
At all who came within his ravenings,
And spake licentious words and hateful things
Of good and bad alike, of low and high ;
Nor Kesars spared he a whit nor kings,
But either blotted them with infamy,
Or bit them with his baneful teeth nf injury.
efs Fairy Queen
480
SLANDER.
Her face was ugly, and her mouth distort,
Foaming- with poison round about her gills,
In which her cursed tongue full sharp and short
Appear'd like Asp his sting, that closely kills,
Or cruelly does wound whoinso she wills.
A distaff in her other hand she had,
Upon the which she little spins, but spills ;
And faynes to weave false tales and leasing bad,
To throw amongst the good -which others had dis-
prad. ihe crime '
Dr. Darwin-
484
SLAVERY.
What pale distress afflicts those wretched isles !
There hope ne'er dawns, and pleasure never smiles.
The vassal wretch ohscquious drags his chain,
And hears his famish'd babes lament in vain.
Falconer's Shipwreck.
A land of tyrants and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves
And, calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Goldsmith'' s Traveller.
Canst thou, and honour'd with a Christian name,
Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame ?
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead
Expedience as a warrant for the deed ?
So may the wolf, whom famine has made bold
To quit the forest and invade the fold ;
So may the ruffian, who with ghostly glide,
Dagger in hand, steals close to your bed-side ;
Not he, but his emergence fore'd the door,
He found it inconvenient to be poor.
Cowper's Charity.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own, and having pow'r
T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Cowper's Task.
1 would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
Cowper's Task.
I could endure
Chains nowhere patiently ; and chains at home,
Where I am free by birth-right, not at all.
Cowper's Task.
To know
How salt another's bread is, and how toilsome
The going up and down another's stairs.
Rogers's Italy.
Alas ! no glory smiles
For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles ;
For ever fallen ! no son of nature now,
With freedom chartcr'd on his manly brow !
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart, for ever more
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore.
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Alone upon his rocky height,
The eagle rear'd his unstain'd crest,
And soaring from his cloudy nest,
Tunrd to the sun his daring eye,
And wing'd at will the azure sky,
For he alone was free
Joanna Baillie.
Belie the negro's powers : in headlong will,
Christian ! thy brother thou shalt find him still ;
Belie his virtue ; since his wrongs began,
His follies and his crimes have stampt him man
J. Montgomery
The broken heart which kindness never heals,
The home-sick passion which the negro feels,
When toiling, fainting, in the land of canes,
His spirit wanders to his native plains ;
His little lovely dwelling there he sees,
Beneath the shades of his paternal trees,
The home of comfort : — then before his eyes
The terrors of captivity arise.
J. Montgomery.
The negro, spoil'd of all that nature gave,
The free-born man thus shrunk into a slave,
His passive limbs to measur'd looks confin'd,
Obey'd the impulse of another mind ;
A silent, secret, terrible control,
That ruled his sinews, and repress'd his soul.
Not for himself he waked at morning light,
Toil'd the long day, and sought repose at night ;
His rest, his labour, pastime, strength and health,
Were only portions of a master's wealth;
His love — O name not love, where Britons doom
The fruit of love to slavery from the womb.
J. Montgomery
Lives there a savage ruder than the slave ?
Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave,
False as the winds that round his vessel blow,
Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below ;
Is he who toils upon the wafting flood,
A Christian broker in the trade of blood ;
Boisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold,
He buys, he sells, — he steals, he kills for gold.
Montgomery
He sees no beauty in the heaven serene,
But darkly scowling at the glorious day,
Curses the winds that loiter on their way.
When swoln with hurricanes the billows rise,
To meet the lightning midway from the skies;
When from the unburden'd hold his shrieking
slaves
Are cast, at midnight, to the hungry waves ;
Not for his crimes the harden'd pirate weeps,
But grimly smiling when the storm is o'er,
Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for mort*
Montgomery
The hearts within thy valleys bred,
The fiery souls that might have led
Thy sons to deeds sublime,
Now crawl from cradle to the grave,
Slaves — nay the bondsmen of a slave,
And callous, save to crime.
Byron's Giaour.
SLEEP.
4S5
And thus they plod in sluggish misery,
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,
Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,
Bequeathing their hereditary rage
To the new race of unborn slaves, who wage
War for their chains, and rather than be free,
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage
Within the same arena, where they see
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same
tree. Byrorts Childe Harold.
Oh ! where is the spirit of 3 r ore,
The spirit that breathed in thy dead,
When gallantry's star was the beacon before,
And honour the passion that led ?
Thy storms have awaken'd their sleep,
They groan from the place of their rest,
And wrathfully murmur, and suddenly weep
To see the foul stain on thy breast :
For where is the glory they left thee in trust ?
'T is scatter'd in darkness, 't is trampled in dust.
Byron.
Ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls her
waves. Timothy Dwight.
SLEEP.
Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast !
Shaks. Macbeth.
Do not omit the heavy offer of it :
It seldom visits sorrow ; when it doth,
It is a comforter. Shaks. Tempest.
What, all so soon asleep ! I wish mine eyes
Would with themselves shut up my thoughts.
Shaks. Tempest.
Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
'T is not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The inter-tissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of the- world ;
No, not all these thrice-gorgeous ceremonies,
Not all these laid in bed majestical
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill'd, and vacant mind,
Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread.
Shaks. Henry V,
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
How many thousands of my poorest subjects,
Are at this hour asleep ! O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no mure wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush' d, with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber ,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody ?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds : and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge ;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billow by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging their
With deaf 'ning clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ?
Canst thou, O partial sleep ! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king ? Then, happy low, lie down
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II
Boy ! Lucius ! — Fast asleep ? It is no matter :
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber :
Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men ;
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.
Shaks. Julius Casar
To bed, to bed : sleep kill those pretty eyee,
And give as soft attachment to thy senses,
As infants empty of all thought.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida
She bids you
Upon the wanton rushes lay you down,
And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness ,
Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep
As is the difference 'twixt day and night.
Shaks. Henry IV. Pait i
As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labour,
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones,
Shaks. Mea.for Meo
41*
4=0
SLEEP.
Come sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe ;
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low.
Sir P. Sidney.
How happy is that balm to wretches, sleep !
No cares perplex them for their future state,
And fear of death thus dies in senseless sleep ;
Unruly love is this way lull'd to rest ;
And injur'd honour, when redress is lost,
Is no way solv'd but this.
BeaumonVs Queen of Corinth.
So sleeps the sea-boy on the cloudy mast,
Safe as a drowsy Triton rock'd with storms,
While tossing princes wake in beds of down.
Zee's Mithridates.
His sleep
Was airy, light, from pure digestion bred,
And temperate vapours bland, which th' only sound
Of leaves and running rills (Aurora's fan,)
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song
Of birds on every bough.
Milton.
O, ye immortal powers that guard the just,
Watch round his couch, and soften his repose,
Banish his sorrows, and becalm his soul
With easy dreams ; remember all his virtues,
And show mankind that goodness is your care !
Addison's Cato.
In thee, oppressors soothe their angry brow :
In thee, th' oppress'd forget tyrannic pow'r ;
In thee,
The wretch condemn'd is equal to his judge
And the sad lover to his cruel fair ;
Way, all the shining glories men pursue,
When thou art wanted, are but empty noise.
Sir R. Steel's Lying Lovers.
l'ir'd nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep !
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where fortune smiles ; the wretched he forsakes :
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Alan's rich restorative ; his balmy bath,
That supples, lubricates, and keeps in play
The various movements of this nice machine,
Which asks such frequent periods of repair.
When tir'd with vain rotations of the day,
Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn ;
Fresh we spin on, till sickness clogs our wheels,
l)i deatn ouite breaks the spring, and motion ends.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Sleep's dewy wand
Has strok'd my drooping lids, and promises
My long arrear of rest ; the downy god
(Wont to return with our returning peace)
Will pay, ere long, and bless me with repose.
Young's Night Thouglita.
The noon of night is past, and gentle sleep,
Which friendly waits upon the labour'd hind,
Flies from the embraces of a monarch's arms ;
The mind disturb' d denies the body rest.
Slade's Love and Duty.
Kind sleep affords
The only boon the wretched mind can feel ;
A momentary respite from despair.
Murphy's Alzuma.
The shades descend, and midnight o'er the world
Expands her sable wings. Great nature droops
Through all her works. Now happy he whose toil
Has o'er his languid powerless limbs diffus'd
A pleasing lassitude ; he not in vain
Invokes the gentle deity of dreams.
His powers the most voluptuously dissolve
In soft repose : On him the balmy dews
Of sleep with double nutriment descend.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
The murmuring wind, the moving leaves
Lull'd him at length to sleep,
With mingled lullabies of sight and sound.
Southey'8 Thalaba.
Oh ! thou best comforter of that sad heart,
Whom fortune's spite assails ; come, gentle sleep,
The weary mourner soothe ! For well the art
Thou knowest in soft fbrgetfulness to steep
The eyes which sorrow taught to watch and weep ;
Let blissful visions now her spirit cheer,
Or lull her cares to peace in slumbers deep,
Till, from fatigue refresh'd and anxious fgar,
Hope, like the morning star, once more shall re-
appear. Mrs. Tighe's Psyche
And she bent o'er him, and he lay beneath,
Hush'd as the babe upon its mother's breast,
Droop'd as the willow when no winds can breathe
Lull'd like the deep of ocean when at rest,
Fair as the crowning rose of the whole wreath,
Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest.
Byron.
Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things thus named
Death and existence : sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures and the touch of joy.
SOCIETY.
487
The crowd are gone, the revellers at rest ;
The courteous host, and all approving guest,
Again to that accustom'd couch must creep,
Where joy subsides, and sorrow sighs to sleep,
And man o'erlabour'd with his being's strife,
Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life :
There lie love's feverish hope, and cunning's guile ,
Hate's working brain, and lull'd ambition's wile,
O'er each vain eye oblivion's pinions wave,
And quench'd existence crouches in a grave.
What better name may slumber's bed become?
Night's sepulchre, the universal home,
Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine,
Alike in naked helplessness recline ;
Glad for awhile to heave unconscious breath,
Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of death,
And shun, though day but dawn on ills increased,
That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least.
Byron's Lara.
Strange state of being ! (for 't is still to be)
Senseless to feel, and with- seal' d eyes to see.
Byron.
O magic sleep ! O comfortable bird,
That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hush'd and smooth I O unconfin'd
Restraint ! imprison'd liberty ! great key
To golden palaces — ay, all the world
Of silvery enchantment !
Keats's Poems.
Her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one ;
Loosens her fragrant boddice ; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees :
Half hidden like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees
In fancy fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind or all the charm is fled.
Soon trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon perplex' d she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd
Her smoothed limbs, and soul fatigued away,
Flown, like a thought until the morrow day ;
Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain $
Clasp'd like a missal, where swart Paynims pray ;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.
Keats's Eve of St. Agnes.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seem'd to me
Distemper's worst calamity.
Quoth Christabel, — so let it be !
And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.
Coleridge.
Coleridge.
O sleep it is a gentle thing
Beloved from pole to pole !
Coleridge.
Thou hast jeen call'd O, sleep ! the friend of woe,
But 'tis the happy who have call'd thee so.
Southey.
Sleep ! to the homeless, thou art home
The friendless find in thee a friend ;
And well is, wheresoe'er he roams,
Who meets thee at his journey's end.
Ebenezer Elliott.
Oh ! lightly, lightly tread !
A holy thing is sleep,
On the worn spirit shed
And eyes that wake to weep. Mrs. Hemans.
Sleep, sleep ! be thine the sleep that throws
Elysium o'er the soul's repose,
Without a dream, save such as wind,
Like midnight angels, through the mind.
Robert M. Bird.
Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward unto minds afar,
Along the Psalmist's music deep —
Now tell me if that any is,
For gift or grace surpassing this —
" He giveth His beloved sleep !"
Miss Barrett
The oblivious world of sleep —
That rayless realm where Fancy never beams,
That nothingness beyond the land of dreams.
Mrs. S. A. Lewis's Child of the Sea.
Rest for the weary — freshness, strength and rest
O sleep ! thy balm is to the troubled breast
As time to sorrow. Gently dost thou take
The arrows from the heart about to break,
And with thy stealthy step and quiet eye,
Around thee couch in grateful ministry,
Thy form as noiseless as the foot of love,
Doth like the spirit of an angel move.
Robert Morris.
Life may not be without thee, gentle sleep,
But with thee, — 'mid the desert — on the deep- -
Still to the care-worn heart some joy remains.
Some sunny spot amid thy mystic plains.
Robert Morru
SOCIETY.
But this is worshipful society,
And fits the mounting spirit like myself.
Shaks. King Jon n
I am ill ; but your being by me,
Cannot amend me : society is no comfort
To one not sociable.
Vhaks Cyrribehn*
488
SOCIETY.
Without good company, all dainties
Lose their true relish, and, like painted grapes,
Are only seen, not tasted.
Massinger.
Among unequals what society
Can sort, what harmony or true delight.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Now I feci by proof,
That fellowship in pain divides not smart,
Nor lightens aught each man's peculiar load.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
Hail, social life ! into thy pleasing bounds
Again I come to pay the common stock,
My share of service, and, in glad return,
To taste thy comforts, thy protected joys.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
Meantime the song went round and dance and
sport,
Wisdom and friendly talk successive stole
Their hours away.
I too remember well that cheerful bowl,
Which round his table flow'd. The serious there
Mix'd with the sportive, with the learn'd the plain ;
Mirth soften'd wisdom, candour temper'd mirth ;
And wit its honey lent, without the sting.
Thomson.
Unhappy he ! who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death.
Thomson.
Study with care, politeness, that must teach
The modish forms of gesture and of speech :
In vain formality, with matron mien ;
And pertness apes with her familiar grin :
They against nature for applauses strain,
Distort themselves, and give all others pain.
Stillingjleet.
Man, in society, is like a flow'r
Blown in its native bud. 'T is there alone
His faculties expanded in full bloom
Shine out, there only reach their proper use.
Cowper's Task.
She, who invites
Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all,
And dreads their coming ; they, — what can they
less?
With shrug and grimace hide their hate of her.
Cowper's Task.
Though few the days, the happy evenings few,
So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew,
That my full soul forgot its wish to roam,
\vc rested there, as in a dream at home !
Moore.
Man, like the generous vine, supported lives :
The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives.
On their own axis as the planets run,
Yet make at once their circle round the sun ;
So two consistent motions act the soul ;
And one regards itself, and one the whole.
Thus God and nature link'd the general frame,
And bade self-love and social be the same.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Heaven forming each on other to depend,
A master, or a servant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for assistance call,
Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all.
Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally
The common interest, or endear the tie.
To these we owe true friendship, love sincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Society itself, which should create
Kindness, destroys what little we had got :
To feel for none is the true social art
Of the world's stoics — men without a heart.
Byron.
Society is now one polish'd horde,
Form'd of two mighty tribes, the bores and bor'd.
Byron.
Blessed we sometimes are ! and I am now
Happy in quiet feelings ; for the tones
Of a most pleasant company of friends
Were in my ear but now, and gentle thoughts
From spirits whose high character I know ;
And I retain their influence, as the air
Retains the softness of departed day.
Willi*
How many pleasant faces shed their light on
every side,
How many angels unawares have crossed thy
casual way !
How often, in thy journeyings, hast thou made
thee instant friends,
Found, to be loved a little while, and lost, to meet
no more;
Friends of happy reminiscences, although so
transient in their converse,
Liberal, cheerful, and sincere, a crowd of kindly
traits.
I have sped by land and sea, and mingled with
much people,
But never yet could find a spot unsunned by
human kindness ;
Some more, and some less, — but, truly, all can
claim a little:
And a man may travel through the world, and
sow it thick with friendships.
Tuppefs Proverbial Philosophy
SOLDIER.
489
Nature does
Never wrong : 't is society that sins.
Bailey's Festus.
Then growing- hamlets rear their heads,
And gathering crowds expand,
Far as my fancy's vision spreads,
O'er many a boundless land,
Till what was once a world of savage strife,
Teems with the richest gifts of social life,
James K. Paulding.
SOLDIER.
'T is the soldier's life,
To have their balmy slumbers wak'd with strife.
Shaks. Othello.
Rude am I in speech,
And little bless'd with the set phrase of peace ;
For since these arms of mine had seven years'
pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have us'd
Their dearest action in the tented field ;
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle ;
And therefore little shall I grace my cause,
In speaking for myself.
Shaks. Othello.
Her father lov'd me ; oft invited me ;
Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year ; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have pass'd.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it.
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field ;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' th' imminent deadly
breach ;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,
And sold to slavery ; of my redemption thence,
And portance in my travel's history :
Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch
heaven,
It was my hint to speak, such was the process ;
And of the cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.
Shaks. Othello.
Say to them,
Thou art a soldier, and being bred in broils,
Hast not the soft way, which, thou dost confess,
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,
In asking their good loves.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
Then a soldier
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.
Shaks. As you like it.
'T is much he dares ;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom tha* doth guide his valour
To act in safety.
Shaks. Macbeth.
His sword (death's stamp)
Where it did mark, it took ; from face to foot
He was a thing of block, whose every motion
Was tim'd with dying cries.
Shaks. Coriolanus,
Good Michael, look you to the guard to-night :
Let 's teach ourselves that honourable stop,
Not to outsport discretion.
Shaks. Othello.
His death, whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
Being bruted once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper'd courage in his troops :
For from his metal was his party steel'd ;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II
You say you are a better soldier ;
Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true,
And it shall please me well : For mine own part,
I shall be glad to learn of noble men.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
Hear you me, Jessica :
Lock up my doors ; and when you hear the drum,
And the vile squeaking of the wry-neck'd fife.
Clamber not you up to the casements then,
Nor thrust your head into the public street
To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I hate these potent madmen, who keep all
Mankind awake, while they by their great deeds
Are drumming hard upon this hollow world,
Only to make a sound to last for ages.
Crowne.
The beaten soldier proves most manful,
That, like his sword, endures the anvil,
And justly 's held more formidable,
The more his valour 's malleable :
But he that fears a bastinado,
Will run away from his own shadow.
Butler's Hudiha»
Then did Sir Knight abandoa dwelling,
And out he rode a colonelling.
Butler's Hudibras
490
SOLDIER.
Ho was by birth, some authors write,
A Russian ; some, a Muscovite ;
And 'mong the Cossacks had been bred,
Of whom wc in diuraals read,
That, serve to fill up pages here,
As with their bodies ditches there.
Butler's Hudibras.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great admiral, were but a wand.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The country rings around with loud
And raw in fields the rude militia swarms;
Mouths without hands, maintain'd at vast expense,
In peace a charge, in war a weak defence :
Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
And ever, but in times of need, at hand ;
This was the morn, when issuing on the guard,
Drawn up in rank and file they stood prepar'd
Of seeming arms to make a short essay,
Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the day.
Dryden's Cymon and Jphigenia.
The brave abroad fight for the wise at home :
You are but camp cameleons, fed with air ;
Thin fame is all the bravest hero's share.
Dryden's King Arthur.
No matter what becomes of the poor soldiers,
So they perform the drudgery they 're fit for ;
Why let 'em starve for want of their arrears,
Drop as they go, and lie like dogs in ditches.
Lee.
'T is the sport of statesmen,
When heroes knock their knotty heads together,
And fall by one another.
Rowe's A?nbitious Stepmother.
See, now cornes the captain all daub'd with gold
lace;
O la ! the sweet gentleman ! look in his face ;
And sec how he rides like a lord of the land,
With the fine flaming sword that he holds in his
hand.
And his horse, the dear creter, it prances and
rears,
With ribbons in knots at its tail and its ears.
Swift.
Some for hard masters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread though realms their valour sav'd.
Young's Night Thoughts.
See her generous troops,
Wnose pay was glory, and their best reward,
Free for their country, and for me to die,
Ere mercenary rmirder grew a trade.
Thomson's Liberty.
Dost thou not know the fate of soldiers ?
They're but ambition's tools, to cut away
To her unlawful ends : and when they're worn,
Hack'd, hewn with constant service, thrown aside,
To rust in peace, and rot in hospitals.
Southern's Loyal Brothers
Gallant in strife, and noble in their ire,
The battle is their pastime. They go forth
Gay in the morning, as to the summer's sport :
When evening comes, the glory of the morn,
The youthful warrior is a clod of clay.
Home's Douglass
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away ;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were
won. Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
The guards, mechanically form'd in ranks,
Playing, at beat of drum, their martial pranks ;
Should'ring and standing as if struck to stone,
While condescending majesty looks on.
Cowper's Tale of a Tub
'Tis universal soldiership has stabb'd
The heart of merit in the meaner class.
Cowper's Task
To swear, to game, to drink, to show at home
By lewdness, idleness and sabbath-breach,
The great proficiency he made abroad,
T' astonish and to grieve his gazing friends,
To break some maiden's and his mother's heart,
To be a pest where he was useful once,
Are his sole aim, and all his glory now.
Cowper's Task.
I hate the camp,
I hate its noise and stiff parade, its blank
And empty forms, and stately courtesy,
Where between bows and blows, a smile and stab,
There 's scarce a moment. Soldiers always live
In idleness or peril : both are bad.
Proctor's Mirandola.
I died no felon death —
A warrior's weapon freed a warrior's soul.
Maturin's Bertram.
From early youth war has my mistress been,
And though a rugged one, I '11 constant prove,
And not forsake her now. There may be joys
Which, to the strange o'erwhelming of the soul,
Visit the lover's breast beyond all others :
E'en now, how dearly do I feel there may !
But what of them ? they are not made for me —
The hasty flashes of contending steel
Must serve instead of glances from my love,
And for soft-breathing sighs the cannon's roar.
Joanna Baillie's Basil
SOLDIER.
49]
But such bitter thoughts
Will pass away, how soon ! and those who here
Are following- their dead comrade to the grave,
Ere the night fall, will in their revelry
Quench all remembrance. From the ties of life
Unnaturally rent, a man who knew
No resting-place, no dear delights of home,
Belike who never saw his children's face,
Whose children knew no father ; he is gone,
Dropt from existence, like the wither'd leaf
That from the summer tree is swept away,
Its loss unseen. She hears not of his death
Who bore him, and already for her son
Her tears of bitterness are shed : when first
He had put on the livery of blood,
She wept him dead to her.
A various host — from kindred realms they came,
Brethren in arms, but rivals in renown —
For yon fair bands shall merry England claim,
And with their deeds of valour deck her crown.
Hers their bold port, and hers their martial frown,
And hers their scorn of death in freedom's cause,
Their eyes of azure, and their locks of brown,
And the blunt speech that burst without a pause,
And free-born thoughts, which league the soldier
with the laws.
And oh ! lov'd warriors of the minstrel's land !
Yonder your bonnets nod, your tartans wave !
The rugged form may mark the mountain band,
And harsher features, and a mien more grave ;
But ne'er in battle-field throbb'd heart more brave
Than that which beats beneath the Scottish plaid.
Scott.
Hark ! from yon stately ranks what laughter rings,
Mingling wild mirth with war's stern minstrelsy,
His jest while each blithe comrade round him
flings,
And moves to death with military glee ;
Boast, Erin, boast them ; tameless, frank, and free,
In kindness warm, and fierce in danger known,
Rough nature's children, humorous as she :
And he, yon chieftain — strike the proudest tone
Of thy bold harp, green isle ! — the hero is thine
own. Scott.
Right English all, they rush to blows,
With naught to win, and all to lose.
1 could have laugh'd — but lack'd the time —
To see, in phrenesy sublime,
How the fierce zealots fought and bled,
For king or state as humour led ;
Some for a dream of public good,
Some for church-tippet, gown and hood,
Draining their veins, in death to claim
A patriot's or a martyr's name.
Scott's Rokeby.
How beautiful in death
The warrior's corse appears,
Embalm'd by fond affection's breath,
And bath'd in woman's tears !
Montgomery .
Give me the death of those
Who for their country die ;
And oh ! be mine like their repose,
When cold and low they lie !
Their loveliest mother earth
Enshrines the fallen brave,
In her sweet lap who gave them birth,
They find their tranquil grave.
Montgomery.
A mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind
Of human sword in a fiend's hand : the other
Is master-mover of his warlike puppet.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
Then there were foreigners of much renown,
Of various nations, and all volunteers ;
Not fighting for their country or its crown,
But wishing to be one day Brigadiers :
Also to have the sacking of a town ;
A pleasant thing to young men at their years.
'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith,
Sixteen call'd Thomson, and nineteen nam'd
Smith. Byron.
There shall they rot — ambition's honour'd fools:
Yes, honour decks the turf that wraps their
clay!
Vain sophistry ! in these behold the tools,
The broken tools, that tyrants cast away
By myriads, when they dare to pave their way
With humaD hearts — to what ? — a dream alone.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Enough of battle's minions ! let them play
Their game of lives, and barter breath for fame :
Fame that will scarce re-animate their clay,
Though thousands fall to deck some single name.
In sooth 't were sad to thwart their noble aim
Who strike, blest hirelings ! for their country's
good,
And die, that living might have prov'd her shame.
Byron's Childe Harold
I see them on their winding way,
About their ranks the moonbeams play;
Their lofty deeds and daring high,
Blend with the notes of victory ;
And waving arms and banners bright,
Are glancing in the mellow light.
Hehet s Poems
There were sad hearts in a darken'd home,
When the brave had left their bower :
But the strength of prayer and sacrifice
Was with them in that hour.
Mrs. Hunan*
492
SOLITUDE.
Fame is my mistress, madam, and my sword
The only friend I ever woo'd her with.
Frances Kemhle Butler.
'Mid the din of arms, when the dust and smoke
In clouds are curling o'er thee,
Be firm till the enemy's ranks are broke,
And they fall, or flee before thee !
But I would not have thee towering stand
O'er him who 's for many crying,
But bow to the earth, and with tender hand
Raise up the faint and dying.
Miss Gould's Poems.
At midnight in the forest shades,
Bozzaris rang'd his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drank their blood
On old Platsea's day ;
And now there breath'd that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquer'd there,
With arm to strike and soul to dare,
As quick, as far as they.
Halleck's Bozzaris.
They fought like brave men, long and well ;
They pil'd that ground with Moslem slain,
They conquer'd — but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.
Halleclc's Bozzaris.
The Green-Mountaineer — the Stark of Ben-
nington : —
When on the field his band the Hessians fought,
Briefly he spoke before the fight began :
" Soldiers ! those German gentlemen are bought
For four pounds eight-and-sevenpence per man,
By England's king ; a bargain as is thought.
Are we worth more ? Let 's prove it now we
can;
For we must beat them, boys, ere set of sun,
Or Molly Stark 's a widow." — It was done !
Halleck's Connecticut.
Each soldier's name
Shall shine untarnish'd on the rolls of fame,
And stand the example of each distant age,
A.nd add new lustre to the historic page.
David Humphreys.
i >urs are no hirelings train'd to the fight,
With cyrniial and clarion glittering and bright ;
No ...ranciiig of chargers, i.o martial display
No war-trump is heard from our silent array
O'er the proud heads of free men our star-banner
waves,
Men firm as their mountains and still as their
graves, —
To-morrow shall pour out their life-MW like
rain ; —
We come back in triumph, or come not again.
Tltcmas Grey.
SOLITUDE.
The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade,
The notes unto the voice attemper'd sweet ;
Th' angelical soft trembling voices made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet ;
The silver sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmur of the water's fall.
The water's fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ;
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Now my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp ? are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court ?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The season's difference ; as the icy fang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind ;
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, ■
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,
This is no flattery : these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Shaks. As you like it.
How use doth breed a habit in a man !
The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns :
There can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale's complaining notes
Tune my distresses, and record my woes.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Oh ! solitude ! first state of human kind !
Which bless'd remain'd till man did find
Ev'n his own helper's company :
As soon as two, alas ! together join'd,
The serpent made up three.
Cowley
Sweet solitude ! still mirth ! that fear'st no wrong,
Because thou dost none ; morning all day long !
Truth's sanctuary ! innocency's spring !
Invention's Limbeck! contemplation's wing!
Peace of my soul, which I too late pursu'd ;
That know'st not the world's vain inquietude :
Where friends, the thieves of time, let us alone
Whole days, and a man's hours are all his own.
Sir Richird Fanshaw.
SOLITUDE.
I sat me down to watch upon a bank
With ivy canopied, and interwove
With flaunting honeysuckle, and began,
Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy,
To meditate my rural minstrelsy,
'Till fancy had her fill.
Milton's Comus.
Alone, for other creature in this place,
Living or lifeless, to be found was none.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
In solitude
What happiness, who can enjoy alone,
Or of enjoying what contentment find ?
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Solitude is sometimes best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye can look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep.
Milton's H Penseroso.
Wisdom's self
Oft seek to sweet retired solitude ;
Where, with her best nurse, contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.
Milton.
The silent heart which grief assails,
Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales,
Sees daisies open, rivers run,
And seeks (as I have vainly done)
Amusing thought ; but learns to know
That solitude 's the nurse of woe.
Parnell.
But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves,
Long-sounding aisles, and intermingled graves,
Black melancholy sits, and round her throws
A death-like silence, and a dread repose:
Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene,
Shades every flower, and darkens every green,
Deepens the murmur of the falling floods,
And breathes a browner horror on the woods.
. Pope's Eloisa.
Bear me, some God ! oh, quickly bear me hence
To wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense ;
Where contemplation prunes her ruffled wings,
And the free soul looks down to pity kings.
Pope.
O sacred solitude ! divine retreat !
Choice of the prudent ! envy of the great !
By the pure stream, or in thy waving shade,
We court fair wisdom, that celestial maid :
The genuine offspring of her lov'd embrace,
(Strangers on earth !) are innocence and peace.
Young's Love of Fame.
O ! lost to virtue, -lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble sallies of the soul !
Who think it solitude to be alone.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Then horrid silence follow'd, broke alone
By the low murmurs of the restless deep,
Mixt with the doubtful breeze, that now and then
Sigh'd thro' the mournful woods.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
Majestic woods, of every vigorous green
Stage above stage, high waving o'er the hills ;
Or to the far horizon wide diffus'd
A boundless deep immensity of shade.
Thomson's Seasons,
Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,
Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,
And through the sadden'd grove, where scarce is
heard
One dying strain, to cheer the woodman's toil.
Thomson's Seasons
O bear me then to vast embowering shades,
To twilight groves, and visionary vales ;
To weeping grottoes, and prophetic glooms ;
Where angel forms, athwart the solemn dusk,
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep along ;
And voices more than human, thro' the void
Deep sounding, seize the enthusiastic ear !
Thomson's Seasons.
There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreaths its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that bubbles by.
Gray's Churchyaid
solitude ! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face ?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.
1 am out of humanity's reach,
I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech,
I start at the sound of my own.
Cowpn .
Such a gloom
Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind
The mind contemplative, with some new thenig
Pregnant, or indispos'd alike to all.
Cowper's Task
42
494
SOLITUDE.
For solitude, however some may rave,
Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave,
A sepulchre in which the living lie,
Where all good qualities grow sick and die.
I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude !
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.
Cowpefs Retirement.
But me perhaps
The glowing hearth may satisfy awhile
With faint illumination, that uplifts
The shadows to the ceiling, there by fits
Dancing uncouthly to the quivering flame.
Compels Task.
Me oft as fancy ludicrous and wild
Sooth'd with a waking dream of houses, tow'rs,
Trees, churches, and strange visages express'd
In the red cinders, while with poring eye
I gaz'd, myself creating what I saw,
Nor less amus'd have I quiescent watch'd
The sooty films that play upon the bars
Pendulous, and foreboding in the view
Of superstition, prophesying still,
Though still deceiv'd, some stranger's near
approach.
'T is thus the understanding takes repose
In indolent vacuity of thought,
And sleeps and is refresh'd. Meanwhile the face
Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask
Of deep deliberation, as the man
Were task'd to his full strength, absorb'd and lost.
Cowper's Task.
Oft when the winter storm had ceas'd to rave,
He roam'd the snowy waste at even, to view
The clouds stupendous, from th' Atlantic wave
High-towering, sail along the horizon blue :
Where, 'midst the changeful scenery, ever new,
Fancy a thousand wond'rous forms descries,
More wildly great than ever pencil drew,
Rocks, torrents, gulfs, and shapes of giant size,
Ana glitt'ring cliffs on cliffs, and fiery ramparts rise.
Beanie's Minstrel.
A nd past those settlers' haunts the eye might roam,
Where earth's unliving silence all would seem ;
Save where on rocks the beaver built his dome,
Or buffalo remote low'd far from human home.
Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming.
Lnthusiast of the woods ! when years apace
Had bound thy lovely waist with woman's zone,
i'hc sunrise path at morn, I see thee trace, •
To hil.s with high magnolia overgrown,
And ioy to breathe the groves, romantic and alone.
Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming.
And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb,
When all in mist the world below was lost.
What dreadful pleasure ! there to stand sublime,
Like shipwreck'd mariner on desert coast,
And view the enormous waste of vapour, lost
In billows, lengthening to th' horizon round,
Now scoop'd in gulfs, with mountains now
emboss'd !
And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound :
Flocks, herds, and waterfalls, along the hoar pro
found !
In truth he was a strange and wayward wight.
Fond of each gentle and each dreadful scene.
In darkness and in storm he found delight :
Nor less, than when on ocean-wave serene
The southern sun diffused his dazzling sheen.
Even sad vicissitudes amus'd his soul :
And if a sigh would sometimes intervene,
And down his cheek a tear of pity roll,
A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he wish'd not to control.
Beanie's Minstrel.
The wildest waste but this can show,
Some touch of nature's genial glow ;
But here, — above, around, below,
On mountain or on glen,
Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,
Nor aught of vegetative power,
The weary eye can ken.
Scott's Lord of the Men
Oh ! who can tell the unspeakable misery
Of solitude like this !
No sound hath ever reach'd my ear,
Save of the passing wind.
The fountain's everlasting flow,
The forest in the gale,
The pattering of the shower,
Sounds dead and mournful all.
Soi/tliey's Thalala.
No traces of those joys, alas ! remain !
A desert solitude alone appears.
No verdant shade relieves the sandy plain,
The wide-spread waste no gentle fountain cheers.
One barren face the dreary prospect wears ;
Nought through the vast horizon meets her eye
To calm the tumult of her fears,
No trace of human habitation nigh,
A sandy wild beneath, above a threatening sky.
Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
To view alone
The fairest scenes of land and deep,
With none to listen and reply
To thoughts with which my heart beat high.
Were irksome — for whate'er my mood,
In sooth I love not solitude.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
SOLITUDE.
4,45
Oh ! that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her !
Ye elements in whose ennobling stir
I feel myself exalted — can ye not
Accord me such a being ? do I err
In deeming such inhabit many a spot 1
Though with them to converse can rarely be our
lot. Byron's Childe Harold.
I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me ; and to me,
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture.
Byron's Childe Harold.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar :
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Are not the mountains, waves and skies, a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them ?
Is not the love of these deep in my heart
With a pure passion ? should I not contemn
All objects, if compared with these? and stem
A tide of sufferings, rather than forego
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm
Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below,
Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which
dare not glow?
Byron's Childe Harold.
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen ;
With the wild flock that never heeds a fold ;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ;
This is not solitude ; 't is but to hold
Converse with nature's charms, and see her stores
unroll' d.
But, 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tir'd denizen,
With none to bless us, none whom we can bless ;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress !
*Jpne that with kindred consciousness endued,
/f we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued ;
This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude !
Byron's Childe Harold.
To follow through the night the moving moon,
The stars and their development ; or catch
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim ;
Or to look, list'ning, on the scatter'd leaves,
While autumn winds were at their evening song
These were my pastimes, and to be alone ;
For if the beings, of whom I was one, —
Hating to be so, — cross'd me in my path,
I felt myself degraded back to them,
And was all clay again.
Byron's Manfred
Man, nor brute,
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot,
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil ;
No sign of travel — none of toil ;
The very air was mute ;
And not an insect's shrill small horn,
Nor matin bird's new voice, was borne
From herb nor thicket.
Byron's Mazeppa
And here no more shall human voice
Be beard to rage — regret — rejoice —
The last sad note that swelled the gale
Was woman's wildest funeral will.
Byron's Giaou-
If solitude succeed to grief,
Release from pain is slight relief;
The vacant bosom's wilderness
Might thank the pang that made it less.
We loathe what none are left to share —
Even bliss — 't were woe alone to bear ;
The heart, once left thus desolate,
Must fly at last for ease — to hate.
Byron's Giaom
Perhaps, there 's nothing — I '11 not say appals,
But saddens more by night as well as day,
Than an enormous room without a soul
To break the lifeless splendour of the whole.
Byron
To wander through the festive scene,
With soul but ill at ease ;
To stray where lighter hearts have been,
And mock at thoughts like these ;
To look for one 'mid those around,
Would glad our mournful mood,
Then start at mirth's distracting sound,
This — this is solitude.
Byron,
If from society we learn to live,
'T is solitude should teach us how to die ;
It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give
No hollow aid ; alone — man with hi? God must
strive. Byron
496
SORROW.
No, 't is not here that solitude is known.
Through the wide world he only is alone
Who lives not for another.
Rogers's Human Life.
A- child, 'midst ancient mountains have I stood,
Where the wild falcons make their lordly nest
On high. The spirit of the solitude
Fell solemnly upon my infant breast,
Though there I pray'd not ; but deep thoughts have
press'd
Into my being since I breath'd that air,
Nor could I now one moment live the guest
Of such dread scenes, without the springs of
prayer
O'erflowing all my soul.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
Oh ! to lie down in wilds apart,
Where man is seldom seen or heard,
In still and ancient forests, where
Mows not his scythe, ploughs not his share,
With the shy deer and cooing bird !
To go in dreariness of mood,
O'er a lone heath, that spieads around,
A solitude like a silent sea,
Where rises not a hut or tree,
The wide-embracing sky its bound !
Oh ! beautiful those wastes of heath,
Stretching for miles to lure the bee,
Where the wild bird, on pinions strong,
Wheels round and pours its piping song,
And timid creatures wander free.
Mary Howitt.
Yon gentle hills,
Rob'd in a garment of untrodden snow ;
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend,
So stainless that their white glittering spires
Tinge not the moon's pure beams; yon castled
steep,
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower
So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it
A metaphor of peace ; all form a scene
Where musing solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness.
He goes to the river side, —
Noi hook nor line hath he :
He stands in the meadows wide, — «
Nor gun nor scythe to see ;
With none hag he to d;,
And none to seek him,
Nor men below
Nor spirits dim,
What he knows nobody wants ;
What he knows he hides, not vaunts.
Ralph W. Emerson.
I am alone ; and yet
In the still solitude there is a rush
Around me, as were met
A crowd of viewless wings ; I hear a gush
Of utter'd harmonies.
George W. Bethune.
Leave — if thou would'st be lonely —
Leave Nature for the crowd;
Seek there for one — one only
With kindred mind endow'd !
There — as with Nature erst
Closely thou would'st commune —
The deep soul-music nursed
In either heart, attune !
Heart-wearied thou wilt own,
Vainly that phantom woo'd,
That thou at least hast known
What is true Solitude !
Hoffman's Poems.
These are the gardens of the desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name —
The prairies. I behold them for the first,
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo ! they stretch
In airy undulations, far away,
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,
Stood still, with all his rounded billows, fix'd
And motionless for ever. Did the dust
Of these fair solitudes once stir with life
And burn with passion ?
Bryant's Poem*
Alone ! alone ! how drear it is
Always to be alone !
Willis,
SORROW.
My heart is as an anvil unto sorrow,
Which beats upon it like a Cyclops' hammer,
And with the noise turns up my giddy brain,
And makes me frantic.
Marloe's Edward II
One fire burns out another's burning ;
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ;
Turn giddy, and be help'd by backward turning '
One desp'rate grief cure with another's languish :
Take thou some new infection to the eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast ;
Which thou wik propagate, to have them prest
With more of thine : this love, that thou hast
shown,
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own,
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet
SORROW.
497
fie bears the sentence well, that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears ;
But he bears both the sentence, and the sorrow,
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
Shales. Othello.
Amaz'd he stands, nor voice nor body stirs ;
Words had no passage, tears no issue found ;
For sorrow shut up words, wrath kept in tears ;
Confus'd effects each other do confound :
Oppress'd with grief, his passions had no bound.
Striving to tell his woes, words would not come ;
For light cares speak, when mighty griefs are
dumb. Daniel's Rosamond.
I drink
So deep of grief, that he must only think,
Not dare to speak, that would express my woe :
Small rivers murmur, deep gulfs silent flow.
Map-Stan's Sophonisba.
Oh, be of comfort !
Make patience a noble fortitude,
And think not how unkindly we are us'd :
Man, like a cassia, is prov'd best being bruis'd.
My heart 's turn'd to a heavy lump of lead,
With which I sound my danger.
Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
Fast sorrows, let us mod'rately lament them,
For those to come, seek wisely to prevent them.
' Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
Unkindness do thy office ; poor heart break :
Those are the killing griefs which dare not speak.
Webster's White Devil.
Be of comfort, and your heavy sorrow
Part equally among us ; storms divided,
Abate their force, and with less rage are guided.
Heywood's Woman Kill'd with Kindness.
Great sorrows have no leisure to complain :
Least ills vent forth, great griefs within remain.
Gqffe's Raging Turk.
There 's no way to make sorrow light
But in the noble bearing ; be content ;
Blows g^iven from heaven are our due punishment ;
All shipwrecks are not drownings ; you see build-
nigs
Made fairer from their ruins
W. Rowley's New Wonder.
He, sad heart, being robb'd
Of all hut comfort, having lost the beauty
Whicl gave him life and motion, seeing Claius
Enjoy those lips, whose cherries were the food
Thai aurs'd his soul, spent all his time in sorrow,
In rpelancholy sighs and discontents :
Look'd like a wither'd tree o'ergrown with moss ;
His eyes were ever dropping icicles.
Randolph's Amyntas.
2G
There is no joy
But either past or fleeting ; and poor man
Grows up but to experience of grief;
And then is truly past minority,
When he is past all happiness.
Gomersall's Lodovic Sforza.
How beautiful is sorrow, when 't is drest
By virgin innocence ? it makes
Felicity in others seem deform'd.
Sir W. Davenant's Love and Honour
Grief conceal'd, like hidden fire, consumes ,
Which, flaming out, would call in help to quench
it. Denham's Sophy
A great man vanquishing his destiny,
Is a great spectacle worthy of the gods.
Crown's Darius
Who that hath ever been,
Could bear to be no more ?
Yet who would tread again the scene
He trod through life before ?
James Montgomery,
Sorrow lives with those whose pleasures add unti
their sins.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
Sorrow treads heavily, and leaves behind
A deep impression, e'en when she departs :
While joy trips by with steps light as the wind,
And scarcely leaves a trace upon our hearts
Of her faint foot-falls : only this is sure, x
In this world nought, save misery, can endure.
Mrs. Embury.
When the cold breath of sorrow is sweeping
O'er the chords of the youthful heart,
And the earnest eye, dimm'd with strange weep
ing,
Sees the visions of fancy depart ;
When the bloom of young feeling is dying,
And the heart throbs with passion's fierce strife.
When our sad days are wasted in sighing,
Who then can find sweetness in life ?
Mrs. Embury
Ye wither'd leaves ! Ye wither'd leaves !
To mark your premature decay,
With sympathy my bosom heaves,
For like its hopes, ye pass away !
Like you, they brighten'd in the gleam
Of summer's sweetly genial ray L
But brilliant, transient as a dream,
The autumn found them in decay.
Mrs. Dinnlr*
What bliss is born of sorrow !
'T is never sent in vain —
The heavenly Surgeon maims to save,
He gives no useless pain.
Thomas Wa
42'
498
SOUL.
Wouldst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief
Or is thy heart oppress'd with woes untold ?
Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief;
Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold !
'T is when the rose is wrapp'd in many a fold
Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there
Its life and beauty ; not when, all unroll'd,
Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair,
Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the am-
bient air.
Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
And thou an angel's happiness shalt know.
Carlos Wilcox.
Alas, for my weary and care-haunted bosom !
The spells of the spring-time arouse it no more;
The song in the wild-wood, the sheen in the blos-
som,
The fresh swelling fountain — their magic is
o'er !
When I list to the stream, when I look to the
flowers,
They tell of the Past, with so mournful a tone,
That I call up the throngs of my long-vanish'd
hours,
And sigh that their transports are over and gone.
Willis Gaylord Clark.
SOUL.
Why should we the busy sou] believe,
When boldly she concludes of that and this ;
When of herself she can no judgment give,
Nor how, nor whence, nor where, nor what she is.
Sir John Davis.
Some her chair up to the brain do carry ;
Some sink it down into the stomach's heat ;
Some place it in the root of life, the heart ;
Some in the liver, fountain of the veins ;
Some say, she 's all in all, and all in every part ;
Some say, she 's not contain'd, but all contains.
Thus these great clerks their little wisdom show,
While with their doctrines they at hazard play,
Tossing their light opinions to and fro,
To mock the learn'd, as lcarn'd in this as they.
Sir John Davis.
To the soul time dotli perfection give,
And adds fresh lustre to her beauty still,
And make her in eternal youth to live ;
Like her which nectar to the gods doth fill.
The more she lives, the more she feeds on truth ;
The more sne feeds, the strength doth more in-
Ana wnat is et-cngth but an effect in youth,
Which if time nurse, how can it ever cease.
Sir John Davis.
Doubtless in man there is a nature found,
Beside the senses, and above them far ;
Though most men being in sensual pleasuits
drown'd,
It seems their souls but in their senses are.
Sir John Davis.
That our souls, in reason, are immortal,
Their natural and proper objects prove ;
Which immortality and knowledge are.
For to that object, ever is referr'd
The nature of the soul ; in which the acts
Of her high faculties are still employ'd :
And that true object must her pow'rs obtain,
To which they are in nature's aim directed.
Chapman's Ccesar and Pompey.
How formless is the form of man, the soul !
How various still, how diff'rent from itself!
How falsely call'd queen of this little world !
When she 's a slave, and subject not alone,
Unto the body's temperature, but all
The storms of fortune.
May's Cleopatra
'Tis true that the souls
Of all men are alike ; of the same substance,
By the same maker into all infus'd ;
But yet the sev'ral matters which they work on,
How different they are, I need not tell you ;
And as these outward organs give our souls
Or more or less room as they are contriv'd
To show their lustre ; so again comes fortune
And darkens them to whom the gods have given
A soul divine, and body capable
Of that divinity and excellence.
Rutter's Shepherd's Holiday.
Our souls but like unhappy strangers come
From heav'n, their country, to this world's bad
coast ;
They land, then straight are backward bound for
home,
And many are in storms of passion lost !
They long with danger sail through life's vest seas,
In bodies as in vessels full of leaks ;
Walking in veins, their narrow galleries,
Shorter than walks of seamen on their decks.
Sir W. DavenanVs Philosopher to the Christian.
Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best,
For truth must be thy warrant;
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
William Davison's Rhapsody.
Life is the triumph of our mould'ring clay ;
Death, of the spirit infinite ! divine I
Young's Night Thoughts.
SOUL.
499
Is not the mighty mind, that son of heaven !
By tyrant life dethroned, imprison'd, pain'd ?
By death enlarg'd, ennobled, deify'd ?
Death but entombs the body ; life the soul.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Tell wit how much it wrangles,
In treble points of nieeness,
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in over-wiseness ;
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.
William Davison's Rhapsody.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber never gives ; '
But when the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
George Herbert.
There is, they say, (and I believe there is,)
A spark within us of th' immortal fire,
That animates and moulds the grosser frame ;
And when the body sinks, escapes to heaven ;
Its native seat, and mixes with the gods.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
The soul on earth is an immortal guest,
Compell'd to starve at an unreal feast :
A spark, which upward tends by nature's force :
A stream diverted from its parent source ;
A drop dissever'd from the boundless sea;
A moment, parted from eternity ;
A pilgrim panting for the rest to come ;
An exile, anxious for his native home.
Hannah More.
The soul, of origin divine,
God's glorious image, freed from clay,
In heaven's eternal sphere shall shine
A star of day !
The sun is but a spark of fire,
A transient meteor in the sky ;
The soul, immortal as its sire,
Shall never die.
Montgomery.
We endow
Those whom we love, in our fond, passionate blind-
ness,
With power upon our souls too absolute
To be a mortal's trust.
Mrs. Hemans's Siege of Valencia.
The soul, the mother of deep fears,
Of high hopes infinite,
Of glorious dreams, mysterious tears,
Of sleepless inner sight;
Lovely, but solemn, it arose,
Unfolding what no more might close.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
'T would take an angel from above
To paint th' immortal soul.
Mrs. Welby's Poem9.
The soul once sav'd shall never cease from bliss,
Nor God lose that He buyeth with His blood !
Bailey's Festus.
The soul,
Advancing ever to the source of light
And all perfection, lives, adores, and reigns
In cloudless knowledge, purity, and bliss.
Henry Ware, Jr.
Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are
frail,
Our souls immortal, though our limbs decay ;
Though darken'd in this poor life by a veil
Of suffering, dying matter, we shall play
In truth's eternal sunbeams ; on the way
To Heaven's high capitol our cars shall roll ;
The temple of the Power whom all obey,
That is the mark we tend to, for the soul
Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal.
Percival's Prometheus.
What, my soul, was thy errand here ?
Was it mirth or ease,
Or heaping up dust from year to year ?
" Nay, none of these !"
Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight,
Whose eye looks still
And steadily on thee through the night ;
« To do His will !"
Whittier's Poems.
Oh, laggard soul ! unclose thine eyes —
No more in luxury soft
Of joy ideal waste thyself:
Awake, and soar aloft!
Unfurl this hour those falcon wings
Which thou dost fold too long ;
Raise to the skies thy lightning gaze,
And sing thy loftiest song !
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Inward turn
Each thought and every sense,
For sorrow lingers from without,
Thou canst not charm it thence
But all attun'd the soul may be
Unto a deathless melody.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith.
Oh soul ! I said, " thy boding murmurs cease ;
Though sorrow bind thee as a funeral pall,
Thy Father's hand is guiding thee through aL
His love will bring a true and perfect peace.
Look upward once again; though drear trie
night,
Earth may be darkness, Heave:a will give thr e
light !" Mrs. Neat
500
SPLEEN - SPLENDOUR- SPRING.
Awake in me a truer life !
A soul to labour and aspire ;
Touch thou my mortal lips, O God,
With thine own truth's immortal fire !
Sara J. Clarice.
Oh ! press on !
For the high ones and powerful shall come
To do you reverence ; and the beautiful
Will know the purer language of your soul,
And read it like a talisman of love.
Press on ! for it is godlike to unloose
The spirit, and forget yourself in thought
Bending a pinion for the deeper sky,
And, in the very fetters of your flesh,
Mating with the pure essences of heaven.
Press on ! for in the grave there is no work,
And no device. — Press on ! while yet ye may.
Willis's Poems.
My soul would wind itself in love
Around all human things.
A. H. J. Duganne.
SPLEEN.
Hail, wayward queen
Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen ;
Parent of vapours, and of female wit,
Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit,
On various tempers act by various ways, .
Make some take physic, others scribble plays :
Who cause the proud their visits to delay,
And send the godly in a pet to pray.
Pope's Rape of the Loch
The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns ;
The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown,
And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort,
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears,
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her
own. Cowper.
SPLENDOUR.
What peremptory, eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,
That is not blinded by her majesty ?
Shahs,. Love's Labour Lost.
1 'U go along, no such sight to be shown,
Put to rejoice in splendour of mine own.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
The glorious sun
Stays in his course, and plays the alchymist,
Turning, with splendour of his precious eye,
The meagre, cloddy earth to glittering gold.
Shaks. King John.
To splendour only do we live ?
Must pomp alone our thoughts employ ?
All, all that pomp and splendour give,
Is dearly bought with love and joy.
CartwrigU.
Can wealth give happiness ? look around and see
What gay distress ? what splendid misery !
I envy none their pageantry and show,
I envy none the gilding of their woe.
The splendours of our rank and state
Are shadows, not substantial things.
Young;.
Young.
SPRING.
So forth issu'd the seasons of the year ;
First lusty spring, all dight in leaves of flowers
That freshly budded, and new blossoms did bear,
In which a thousand birds had built their bowers,
That sweetly sung to call forth paramours ;
And in his hand a javelin he did bear,
And on his head (as fit for warlike stores)
A gilt engraven morion he did wear,
That as some did him love, so others did him fear.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, youth, and warm desire :
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Milton's May Morning
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world, the youthful spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods, in rich array,
Welcome the coining of the long'd-for May.
Now all things smile.
Carew.
How Flora decks the fields
With all her tapestry ! and the choristers
Of ev'ry grove chaunt carols ! mirth is come
To visit mortals. Ev'ry thing is blithe,
Jocund, and jovial !
Randolph's Jealous Lovers.
Come, gentle spring, ethereal mildness, come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.
Thomson's Seasons.
See where surly winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts ;
His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale ;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
Thomson's Seasons.
SPRING.
50i
As yet the trembling- year is unconfirm'd,
And winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightless.
Thomson's Seasons.
No more
The expansive atmosphere is cramp'd with cold ;
But, full of life and vivifying soul,
Lifts the bright clouds sublime, and spreads them
thin,
Fleecy and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven.
Thomson's Seasons.
Flush'd by the spirit of the genial year,
Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom
Shoots, less and less, the live commotion round ;
Her lips blush deeper sweets; she breathes of
youth ;
The shining moisture swells into her eyes,
In brighter flow ; her wishing bosom heaves,
With palpitations wild ; kind tumults seize
Her veins, and all her yielding soul is love.
Thomson's Seasons.
From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens ; to the cherish'd eye .
The hawthorn whitens ; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding, by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd,
In full luxuriance to the sighing 1 gales.
Thomson's Seasons.
In these green days,
Reviving sickness lifts her languid head ;
Life flows afresh ; and young-ey'd health exalts
The whole creation round. Contentment walks
The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss
Spring- o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings
To purchase. Thomson^ Seasons.
Wide flush the fields : the softening air is balm ;
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ;
And every sense, and every heart, is joy.
Thomson.
Grateful and salutary spring- the plants
Which crown our numerous gardens, and
Invite to health and temperance, in the simple
meal,
Unpoison'd with rich sauces, to provoke
Th' unwilling appetite to gluttony.
Dodsley.
Sweet is thy coming spring- ! and, as I pass
Thy hedge-rows, where from the half-naked sprays
Peeps the sweet bud, and 'midst the dewy grass
The tufted primrose opens to the day :
My spirits light and pure confess thy pow'r
Of balmiest influence.
Athenaum.
Oh, how delightful to the soul of man,
How like a renovating spirit comes,
Fanning his cheek the breath of infant spring- !
Anon
O'er the moisten'd fields
A tender green is spread ; the bladed grass
Shoots forth exuberant ; th' awaking trees,
Thaw'd by the delicate atmosphere, put forth
Expanding buds ; while, with mellifluous throat,
The warm ebullience of internal joy,
The birds hymn forth a song of gratitude
To him who shelter'd when the storms were deep,
And fed them through the winter's cheerless gloom.
Anon.
O Spring ! of hope, and love, and youth, and
Wind-winged emblem ! brightest, best, and fairest !
Whence comest thou, when, with dark winter's
The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?
Sister of joy, thou art the child that wearest
Thy mother's dying smile tender and sweet ;
Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle
1 feet,
Disturbing not the leaves, which are her winding,
sheet. Shelley.
Lo ! where the rosy-bosom'd hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear;
Disclose the long-expected flowers,
And wake the purple year !
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
Thf untaught harmony of spring ;
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.
Gray
The busy murmur glows !
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon :
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick glaring to the sun.
Soon reviving plants and flowers
Anew shall deck the plain :
The woods shall hear the voice of spring-,
And flourish green again.
'T is a month before the month of May
And the spring comes slowly up this way.
Grat)
Logan.
jblendgt
502
SPORTS - STARS - STATESMAN.
I maik'd the Spring as she pass'd along,
With her eye of light and her lip of song ;
While she stole in peace o'er the green earth's
breast,
While the streams sprang out from their icy rest
The buds bent low to the breeze's sigh,
And their breath went forth in the scented sky ;
When the fields look'd fresh in their sweet repose,
And the young dews slept on the new-born rose.
Willis Gaylord Clark.
There 's perfume upon every wind —
Music in every tree —
Dews for the moisture-loving flowers —
Sweets for the sucking bee ;
The sick come forth for the healing South,
The young are gathering flowers ;
And life is a tale of poetry,
That is told by golden hours.
Willis's Poems.
If 't is not a true philosophy,
That the spirit when set free
Still lingers about its olden home,
In the flower and the tree,
It is very strange that our pulses thrill
At the sight of a voiceless thing,
And our hearts yearn so with tenderness,
In the beautiful time of Spring.
Willis's Poems.
When the warm sun that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has return'd again,
'Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.
Longfellow.
SPORTS. — (See Hunting and Shooting.)
STARS.
Whom their great stars
Throne and set high
Shaks. Lear,
Here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet,
See, at the call of night,
The star of evening sheds her silver light.
Gay's Dione,
There they stand,
Snining in order like a living hymn
Written in light.
Willis's Poems.
They are all up — the innumerable stars
That hold their place in heaven. My eyes have
been
Searching the pearly depths through wnich tliej
spring
Like beautiful creations.
Willis's Poems
Ye stars, that are the poetry of heaven.
Byron's Childe Harold
The sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light
So wildly, spiritually bright.
Who ever gaz'd upon them shining,
And turn'd to earth without repining,
Nor wish'd for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray ?
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
But the stars, the soft stars ! — when they glitter
above us,
I gaze on their beams with a feeling divine ;
For, as true friends in sorrow more tenderly love us,
The darker the heaven, the brighter they shine
Mrs. Welby's Poems.
And infant cherubs piere'd the blue,
Till rays of heaven came shining through.
W. B. O. Peabody.
STATESMAN.
There is
A statesman, that can side with ev'ry faction,
And yet most subtly can untwist himself,
When he hath wrought the business up to danger.
Shirley's Court Secret.
Forbear, you things,
That stand upon the pinnacles of state,
To boast your slipp'ry height ; when you do fall,
You dash yourselves in pieces, ne'er to rise :
And he that lends you pity, is not wise.
Jonson's Sejanus.
Why thus should statesmen do,
That cleave through knots of craggy policies,
Use men like wedges, one strike out another ;
Till by degrees the tough and gnarly trunk
Be riv'd in sunder.
Marston's Antonio and Melida. Part II
I now perceive the great thieves eat the less,
And the huge leviathans of villany
Sup up the merits, nay then men and all
That do them service, and spout them out again
Into the air, as thin and unregarded
As drops of water that are lost i' th' ocean.
Beaumont and Fletcher's False One.
STORM - STUBBORNNESS - STUDY.
503
You have not, as good patriots should do, study'd
The public good, but your particular ends ;
Factious among yourselves ; preferring such
To offices and honours, as ne'er read
The elements of saving policy;
But deeply skill'd in all the principles
• That usher to destruction.
Massinger's Bondman.
To hold a place
In council which was once esteem'd an honour,
And a reward for virtue, hath quite lost
Lustre, and reputation, and is made
A mercenary purchase.
Massinger's Bondman.
Thus the court-wheel goes round like fortune's
ball ;
One statesman rising on another's fall.
Richard Brome's Queen's Exchange.
He was not of that strain of counsellors,
That, like a tuft of rushes in a brook,
Bends every way the current turns itself,
Yielding to every puff of appetite
That comes from majesty, but with true zeal
He faithfully declared all.
Brewer's Love-sick King.
D'ye think that statesmen's kindnesses proceed
From any principles but their own need ?
When they 're afraid, they 're wondrous good and
free;
But when they 're safe, they have no memory.
Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin.
A statesmen all but interest may forget,
And only ought in his own strength to trust :
'T is not a statesman's virtue to be just.
Earl of Orrery's Henry V.
With grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd
A pillar of state ; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care ;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Taming thought to human pridei —
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'T will trickle to his rival's bier ;
O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry, —
" Here let their discord with them die,
Speak not for those a separate doom,
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb,
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like again ?"
Scott. ,
With more than mortal powers endow'd
How high they soar'd above the crowd !
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place ;
Like fabled gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Looked up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of Pitt and Fox alone.
Scott
He that seeks safety in a statesman's pity,
May as well run a ship upon sharp rocks,
And hope a harbour.
Howard's Duke of Lerma.
And minds have there been nurtur'd whose control
Is felt even in their nation's destiny ;
Men who sway'd senates with a statesman's soul.
Halleck.
From germs like these have mighty statesmen
sprung,
Of prudent counsel and persuasive tongue ;
Unblenching minds, who rul'd the willing throng
Their well-brac'd nerves by early labour strung.
Mrs. Sigourney.
STORM. — (See Tempest.)
STUBBORNNESS. — (See Obstinacy.)
STUDY.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks ,
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost
Why, universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries ;
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost
If not to some peculiar end assign'd,
Study's the specious trifling of the mind ;
Or is at best a secondary aim,
A chase for sport alone and not for game.
Youig
I know what study is ; it is to toil
Hard through the hours of the sad midnignt watca
At tasks which seem a systematic curse,
And course of bootless penance.
Bailey's Festva
504
STYLE - SUBMISSION - SUCCESS - SUICIDE.
— All mankind are students. How to live
And how to die forms the great lesson still.
Bailey's Festus.
I am devote to study. Worthy books
Are not companions — they are solitudes ;
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.
Bailey's Festus.
" Much study is a weariness." The sage
Who gave his mind to seek and search until
He knew all Wisdom — found that on the page
Knowledge and grief were vow'd companions
still!
And so the students of a later day
Sit down among the records of old time
To hold high commune with the thoughts
sublime
Of minds long gone : — so they too pass away,
And leave us what? their course, to toil —
reflect —
To feel the thorn pierce through our gather'd
Still 'midst the leaves the earth-worm to detect,
And this is Knowledge.
Mrs. E. J. Eames.
STYLE. — (See Criticism.)
SUBMISSION.
You shall be as a father to my youth
My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear ;
And I will stoop and humble my intents
To your well practis'd, wise directions.
SJiaks. Henry IV. Part II.
My other self, my counsel's consistory,
My oracle, my prophet ! — My dear cousin,
I, as a child, will go by thy direction.
Shales. Richard III.
Do you go back dismay'd ? 't is a lost fear ;
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires.
Shaks. Othello.
It grieves me to the soul
To see how man submits to man's control ;
How overpower'd and shackled minds are led
In vulgar tracks, and to submission bred.
Crabbc's Tales.
And I said it underbreath —
Ah our life is mix'd with death, —
And who knoweth which is best ?
And I smil'd to think God's greatness
Flow'd around our incompleteness, —
Round our restlessness, His rest.
Miss Barrett's Poems.
SUCCESS.
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below,
Fails in the promis'd largeness : checks and dis
asters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd ;
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida
Proud success admits no probe
Of justice to correct or square the fate,
That bears down all as illegitimate ;
For whatsoe'er it lists to overthrow,
It either finds it, or else makes it so.
Cleveland.
In tracing human story, we shall find
The cruel more successful, than the kind.
Sir W. Davenant's Siege of Rhodes.
'T is not in mortals to command success ;
But we '11 do more, Sempronius, we '11 deserve it.
Addison's Cato.
Had I miscarried, I had been a villain ;
For men judge actions always by events :
But when we manage by a just foresight,
Success is prudence, and possession right.
Higgons's Generous Conqueror.
It is success that colours all in life :
Success makes fools admir'd, makes villains
honest,
All the proud virtue of this vaunting world
Fawns on success and power, howe'er acquir'd.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
What though I am a villain, who so bold
To tell me so ? let your poor petty traitors
Feel the vindictive lash and scourge for wrong ;
But who shall tax successful villany,
Or call the rising traitor to account ?
Havard's Scanderbeg.
Applause
Waits on success ; the fickle multitude,
Like the light straw that floats along the stream,
Glide with the current still, and fellow fortune.
Franklin's Earl of Warwick.
SUICIDE.
To be, or not to be, that is the question :
Whether, 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings ana arrows of outrageous fortune ;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them ?
Shaks. Hamlet.
SUICIDE.
505
Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine,
That cravens my weak hand.
Shales. Cymoeline.
I know not how,
But I do find it cowardly and vile,
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent
The time of life ; arming myself with patience,
To Stay the providence of some high pow'rs
That govern us below.
Shaks. Julius Ccssar.
Our enemies have beat us to the pit :
It is more worthy to leap in ourselves,
Than tarry till they push us.
Shaks. Julius Ccesar.
If I know this, know all the world besides,
That part of tyranny, that I do bear,
I can shake off at pleasure.
Shales. Julius Casar.
My desolation does begin to make
A better life : 'T is paltry to be Caesar ;
Not being fortune, he 's but fortune's knave,
A minister of her will; and it is great
To do that thing that ends all other deeds ;
Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
He is dead ;
Not by the public minister of justice,
Nor by a hired knife ; but that self hand
Which writ his honour in the acts it did,
Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
Splitted the heart.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
Death is not free for any man's election,
'Till nature, or the law impose it on him.
Chapman's Casar and Pompey.
He
That kills himself, t' avoid mis'ry, fears it;
And at the best shows but a bastard valour :
This life 's a fort committed to my trust,
Which I must not yield up, till it be fore'd ;
Nor will I : he 's not valiant that dares die ;
But he that boldly bears calamity.
Massinger's Maid of Honour.
'T is not courage, when the darts of chance
Are thrown against our state, to turn our backs,
And basely run to death ; as if the hand
Of heaven and nature had lent nothing else
T' oppose against mishap, but loss of life :
Which is to fly, and not to conquer it.
Jonson's Adrasta.
When affliction thunders o'er our roofs ;
To hide our heads, and run into our graves,
Shows us no men, but makes us fortune's slaves.
Jonson's Adrasta.
Take heed
How you do threaten heav'n, by menacing
Yourself; as we have no authority
To take away the being of another, whom
Our pride contemns ; so we have less t' annihilate
Our own, when it is fall'n in our dislike.
Sir W. Davenanfs Distresses
Self-murder, that infernal crime,
Which all the gods level their thunder at !
Pane's Sacrifice
Let us seek death, or, he not found, supply
With our own hand his office on ourselves :
Why stand we shivering longer under fears,
That show no end but death, and have the power
Of many ways to die, the shortest choosing,
Destruction with destruction to destroy.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
He who, superior to the checks of nature,
Dares make his life the victim of his reason,
Does in some sort that reason deify,
And take a flight at heav'n.
Young's Revenge.
Fear, guilt, despair, and moon-struck frenzy,
rush
On voluntary death : the wise, the brave,
When the fierce storms of fortune round 'em roar
Combat the billows with redoubled force :
Then, if they perish ere the port is gain'd,
They sink with decent pride ; and from the deep
Honour retrieves them bright as rising stars.
Fenton's Maria?nne,
Our time is set and fix'd ; our days are told ;
And no man knows the limit of his life ;
This minute may be mine, the next another's ;
But still all mortals ought to wait the summons,
And not usurp on the decrees of fate,
By hastening their own ends.
Smith's Princess of Parma.
Venture not rashly on an unknown being —
E'en the most perfect shun the brink of death,
And shudder at the prospect of futurity.
Savage's Sir Thomas Overlury
What beck'ning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade ?
'T is she ! — but why that bleeding bosom gor'd '
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword ?
Oh ! ever beauteous, ever friendly ! tell,
Is it in heav'n a crime to love too well ?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's, or a Roman's part ?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky
For those who greatly think, or bravely die t '
Pope
43
506
SUMMER.
Our time is fix'd ; and all our days are number'd :
How long, how short, we know not : this we know,
Duty requires we calmly wait the summons,
Nor dare to stir till heaven shall give permission.
Like sentries that must keep their destin'd stand,
And wait th' appointed hour, till they 're reliev'd.
Those only are the brave who keep their ground,
And keep it to the last. To run away
Is but a coward's trick : to run away
/rom this world's ills, that at the very worst
Will soon blow o'er, thinking to mend ourselves
By boldly venturing on a world unknown,
And plunging headlong in the dark ! 'tis mad :
No frenzy half so desperate as this.
Blair's Grave.
If there be an hereafter,
And that there is, conscience, 'uninfluene'd
And suffer'd to speak out, tells every man,
Then must it be an awful thing to die ;
More horrid yet to die by one's own hand.
Blair's Grave.
Far about they wander from the grave
Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urg'd
Against his own sad breast to lift the hand
Of impious violence.
Thomson.
When all the blandishments of life are gone,
The coward sneaks to death — the brave live on.
Beware of desp'rate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.
Cowper.
He, with delirious laugh, the dagger hurl'd,
And burst the ties that bound him to the world !
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
Then plung'd; the rock below receiv'd like glass
His body crush'd into one gory mass,
With scarce a shred to tell of human form,
Or fragment for the sea-bird or the worm.
Byron's Island.
My spirit shrunk not to sustain
The searching throes of ceaseless pain ;
Nor sought the self-accorded grave
Of ancient fools and modern knaves ;
Yet. death I have not fear'd to meet;
And in the field it had been sweet.
Byron's Giaour.
Fool ! I mean not
.That pcor-soul'd piece of heroism, self-slaughter :
Oh no ! the miscrablest day we live
There 's many a better thing co do than die !
George Darley.
Let it not be said
H« sougflt hia God in the self.slayer's way.
Bailey's Festus.
SUMMER.
Then came the jolly summer, being dight
In a thin silken cassock colour'd green,
That was unlined all, to be more light,
And on his head a garland well beseene
He wore, from which, as he had chaffed been,
The sweat did drop, and in his hand he bore
A bow and shafts, as he in forest green
Had hunted late the libbard or the boar,
And now would bathe his limbs, with labour
heated sore. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Now comes thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat, refulgent.
Thomson.
'Tis raging noon; and vertical the sun
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye
Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns ; and all
From pole to pole is undistinguish'd blaze.
Thomson's Seasons.
From brightening fields of ether fair disclos'd,
Child of the sun, refulgent summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through nature's depth,
He comes attended by the sultry hours,
And ever fanning breezes on his way ;
While, from his ardent look, the turning spring
Averts her bashful face ; and earth, and skies,
All smiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
Thomson's Seasons.
'T was noon ; and every orange-bud
Hung languid o'er the crystal flood,
Faint as the lids of maiden eyes
Beneath a lover's burning sighs !
Moore.
Thou art bearing hence thy roses,
Glad Summer, fare thee well !
Thou art singing thy last melodies
In every wood and dell.
Mrs. Hemans
Brightly, sweet Summer, brightly
Thine hours have floated by,
To the joyous birds of the woodland boughs,
To the rangers of the sky.
Mrs. Hemam.
Unto me, glad summer,
How hast thou flown to me ?
My chainless footsteps nought hath kept
From thy haunts of song and glee
Thou hast flown in wayward visions,
In memories of the dead —
In shadows from a troubled heart,
O'er thy sunny pathway shed.
Mrs. Hemans.
SUN.
50?
[ dread to see the summer sun
Come glowing up the sky,
And early pansies, one by one,
Opening the violet eye :
They speak of one who sleeps in death,
Her race untimely o'er.
Mrs. Whitman.
Nor longer in the lingering light
Of summer eve, shall we,
Lock'd hand in hand, together sit
Beneath the greenwood tree.
Mrs. Whitman.
The Spring's gay promise melted into thee,
Fair Summer ! and thy gentle reign is here ;
Thy emerald robes are on each leafy tree ;
In the blue sky thy voice is rich and clear ;
And the free brooks have songs to bless thy reign —
They leap in music 'midst thy bright domain.
Willis G. Clark.
Thus gazing on thy void and sapphire sky,
O, Summer ! in my inmost soul arise
Uplifted thoughts, to which the woods reply,
And the bland air with its soft melodies ; —
Till basking in some vision's glorious ray,
I long for eagles' plumes to flee away !
Willis G. Clark.
SUN.
Know'st thou not,
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In'murders, and in outrage, bloody here ;
But when, from under this terrestrial ball,
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their
backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves !
Shaks. Richard II.
I marvel not, O sun ! that unto thee,
In adoration, man should bow the knee,
And pour the prayer of mingled awe and love ;
For like a God thou art, and on thy way
Of glory sheddest, with benignant ray,
Beauty and life, and joyance from above.
Souihey.
There was not, on that day, a speck to stain
The azure heaven ; the blessed sun alone,
In unapproachable divinity,
Career'd, rejoicing in his fields of light
Souihey.
Thou tide of glory which no rest doth know,
But ever ebb and ever flow !
Thou golden shower of a true Jove !
Who doth in thee descend, and heaven to earth
make love ! Cowley.
All the world's bravery that delights our eyes,
Is but thy several liveries ;
Thou the rich dye on them bestow'st,
Thy nimble penicil paints this landscape as thou
go'st. Cowley.
Through the soft ways of heaven, and air, and sea,
Which open all their pores to thee,
Like a clear river thou dost glide,
And with thy living stream through the close
channel slide.
Blest power of sunshine ! genial day,
What balm, what life are in thy ray !
To feel thee is such real bliss,
That, had the world no joy but this,
To sit in sunshine calm and sweet,
It were a world too exquisite
For man to leave it for the gloom,
The deep cold shadow of the tomb.
Cowley.
Moore.
And see — the sun himself! on wings
Of glory up the east he springs.
Angel of light ! who from the time
Those heavens began their march sublime,
Hath first of all the starry choir
Trod in his Maker's steps of fire !
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
Most glorious orb ! that wert a worship, ere
The mystery of thy making was reveal'd !
Thou earliest minister of the Almighty,
Which gladden'd, on their mountain-tops, the
hearts
Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour'd
Themselves in orisons ! Thou material God !
And representative of the unknown —
Who chose thee for his shadow ! Thou chief star !
Centre of many stars ! which mak'st our earth
Endurable, and temperest the hues
And hearts of all who walk within thy rays !
Sire of the seasons ! Monarch of the climes,
And those who dwell in them ! for near or far,
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee,
Even as our outward aspects ; — thou dost rise,
And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well ■
I ne'er shall see thee more. As my first g-Iance
Of love and wonder was for thee, tnen take
My latest look : thou wilt not beam on one
To whom the gifts of life and warmth ha«e been
Of a more fatal nature. He is gone :
I follow.
Byron's Manfred
503
SUPERIORITY - SUPERSTITION.
Would that yon orb, whose matin glow
Thy listless eyes so much admire,
Did lend thee something of his fire !
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow,
Ulum'd with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo ! now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colour'd air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad ;
And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wand'ring
High gleaming from afar.
Thomson.
Centre of light and energy ! thy way
Is through the unknown void ; thou hast thy throne,
Morning and evening, and the close of day,
Far in the blue, untended, and alone :
Ere the first waken'd airs of earth had blown,
On thou didst march, triumphant in thy light ;
Then thou didst send thy glance, which still
hath flown
Wide through the never-ending worlds of night,
And yet thy keen orb burns with flash as keen
and bright. Percival's Poems.
The summer day has closed — the sun is set ;
Well have they done their office, those bright hours,
The latest of whose train goes softly out
In the red West.
Bryant's Poems.
Open the casement, and up with the sun !
His gallant journey has now begun,
Over the hills his chariot is roll'd,
Banner'd with glory and burnish'd with gold ;
Over the hills he comes sublime,
Bridegroom of earth, and brother of time !
Martin F. Tupper.
It is no task
For suns to shine.
Bailey's Festus.
The sunshine is a glorious birth, —
And yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth,
Wordsworth's Poems.
Wc invoke the sun's warm ray,
And we bless it all the day;
Looking up as to a friend,
When its beams on us descend ;
And we watch it down the west,
A? il early sinks to rest;
Then, with sorrow at our hearts,
Sigh — " How soon the sun departs !"
Caroline May.
Summer has gone,
And fruitful autumn has advane'd so far
That there is warmth, nor heat, in the broad sun
And you may look with naked eye, upon
The ardours of his car !
Philip P. Cooke
SUPERIORITY. — (See Equality.)
SUPERSTITION.
England a happy land we know,
Where follies naturally grow,
Where without culture they arise,
And tow'r above the common size ;
England a fortune-telling host,
As num'rous as the stars could boast,
Matrons, who toss the cup, and see
The grounds of fate in grounds of tea.
Churchill
Gypsies, who every ill can cure,
Except the ill of being poor,
Who charms 'gainst love and agues sell,
Who can in hen-roost set a spell,
Prepar'd by arts, to them best known,
To catch all feet except their own,
Who as to fortune can unlock it,
As easily as pick a pocket.
Churchill.
'T is a history
Handed from ages down ; a nurse's tale —
Which children, open-ey'd and mouth'd, devour ;
And thus as garrulous ignorance relates,
We learn it and believe.
Southey's Thalaba
We may smile, or coldly sneer,
The while such ghostly tales we hear, —
And wonder why they were believ'd,
And how wise men could be deceiv'd : —
Bathing our renovated sight
In the free Gospel's glorious light,
We marvel it was ever night !
Mrs. Hale's Vigil of Lore
'Tis Christian science makes our day,
And freedom lends her lovely ray ;
And we forget 'ncath our fair skies,
The world that still in shadow lies ; —
That India bows to Juggernaut; —
And China worships gods of clay ;
And healing amulets are bought,
Even where our Saviour's body lay;
And holy miracles are wrought
Beneath St. Peter's cross-crown'd sway;
And over Afric's wide domain
The powers of Death and Darkness reign !
Mrs. Hale's Vigil of Love.
SUSPENSE - SUSPICION - SWAN - SWIMMING - SYMPATHY.
509
SURPRISE. — (See Astonishment.)
SUSPENSE.
But be not long, for in the tedious minutes,
Exquisite interval, I 'm on the rack ;
For sure the greatest evil man can know,
Bears no proportion to the dread suspense.
Frowde's Fall of Saguntum.
Uncertainty !
Fell demon of our fears ! The human soul,
That can support despair, supports not thee.
Mallet's Mustapha.
SUSPICION.
He lour'd on her with dangerous eye-glance,
Showing his nature in his countenance ;
His rolling eyes did never rest in place,
But walk'd each where for fear of hid mischance,
Holding a lattis still before his face,
Through which he still did peep as forward he
did pace. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Suspicion is a heavy armour, and
With its own weight impedes more than it pro-
tects. Byron's Werner.
Suspect ! — that 's a spy's office. Oh ! we lose
Ten thousand precious moments in vain words,
And vainer fears. ^^ Sardanapalu8 .
Better is the mass of men, Suspicion, than thy
fears :
Yea, let the moralist condemn, there be large ex-
tenuations of his verdict,
Let the misanthrope shun men and abjure, the
most are rather loveable than hateful.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
Better confide and be deceiv'd,
A thousand times, by treacherous foes,
Than once accuse the innocent,
Or let suspicion nmr repose.
Mrs. Osgood.
SWAN.
The swan with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
The stately-sailing swan
Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale ,
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet
Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier isle,
Protective of his young.
Thomson's Seasons.
Hark ! hark ! what music ! from the rampart
hiUs,
How like a far-off bugle, sweet and clear,
It searches through the listening wilderness ! —
A swan ! I know it by the trumpet-tone ;
Winging her pathless way in the cool heavens,
Piping her midnight melody, she comes !
L. L. Nolle
There is a panting in the zenith — hush !
The swan ! how strong her great wings time the
silence !
She passes over high and quietly.
Ah ! thou wilt not stoop :
Old Huron haply glistens on thy sky.
L. L. Noble
SWIMMING.
I saw him beat the surges under him,
And ride upon their backs ; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
The surge most swoln that met him.
Shales. Tempest
The torrent roar'd ; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews ; throwing it aside,
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
Shaks. Julius Cesser.
There was one did battle with the storm
With careless, desperate force ; full many times
His life was won and lost, as though he reck'd
not —
No hand did aid him, and he aided none —
Alone he breasted the broad wave, alone
That man was sav'd.
Maturin's Bertram
How many a time have I
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring
The wave all roughen'd ; with a swimmer's stn no
Flung the billows back from my drench'd hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine.
Which kissed it like a wine-cup rising o'er
The waves as they rose, and prouder still
The loftier they uplifted me.
Byron's Two Foscaji.
SYCOPHANT. — (See Flattery.)
SYMPATHY.
Thou hast given me, in this beauteous face,
A world of earthly blessings to my soul,
If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.
Shahs. Henry VI. Part t
43*
510
SYMPATHY.
O, he is even in my mistress' case,
Just in her case — woeful sympathy !
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall
say.
Shaks. Richard II.
Kindness hy secret sympathy is tied,
For noble souls in nature are allied.
Love's soft sympathy imparts
That tender transport of delight
That beats in undivided hearts.
Dry den.
Cartwright.
A knight and a lady once met in a grove,
While each was in quest of a fugitive love :
A river ran mournfully murmuring by,
And they wept in its waters for sympathy.
" Oh, never was knight such a sorrow that bore,
" Oh, never was maid so deserted before."
" From life and its woes let us instantly fly,
And jump in together for sympathy !"
At length spoke the lass, 'twixt a smile and a tear ;
" The weather is cold for a watery bier,
When the summer returns, we may easily die ;
Till then let us sorrow in sympathy."
Reginald Heber.
Oh ! ask not, hope thou not too much
Of sympathy below ;
Few are the hearts whence one same touch
Bids the sweet fountain flow.
Mrs. Hemans.
If there be one that o'er thy dead
Hath in thy grief borne part,
And watch'd through sickness by thy bed, —
Call this a kindred heart !
Mrs. Hemans.
We pine for kindred natures
To mingle with our own ;
For communings more full and high
Than aught by mortals known.
Mrs. Hemans.
Oh ! who the exquisite delights can tell,
The joy which mutual confidence imparts ?
Or who can pairtt the charm unspeakable,
Which links in tender bands two faithful hearts ?
Mrs. Tights' 8 Psyche.
ft is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
m bnay and in soul can bind
Scott.
I know thee not — and yet our spirits seem
Together Iink'd by sympathy and love,
\nd, like the mingling waters of a stream,
Our thoughts and fancies all united rove.
Mrs. Welby's Poems.
I know thee not — I never heard thy voice;
Yet could I choose a friend from all mankind.
Thy spirit high should be my spirit's choice,
Thy heart should guide my heart, thy mind, my
mind. Mrs. Welly's Poems.
Like warp and woof all destinies
Are woven fast,
Link'd in sympathy like the keys
Of an organ vast;
Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar ;
Break but one
Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar
Through all will run.
Whittier's Poems
In the same beaten channel still have run
The blessed streams of human sympathy ;
And though 1 know this ever hath been done,
The why and wherefore I could never see !
Phoebe Carey.
It is not well,
Here in this land of Christian liberty,
That honest worth or hopeless want should dweL
Unaided by our care and sympathy.
Phoebe Carey.
Oh, there is need that on men's hearts should fall
A spirit that can sympathize with all '.
Phoebe Carey
Like the sweet melody which faintly lingers
Upon the wind-harp's strings at close of day,
When gently touch'd by evening's dewy fingers
It breathes a low and melancholy lay,
So the calm voice of sympathy me seemeth ;
And while its magic spell is round me cast,
My spirit in its cloister'd silence dreameth,
And vaguely blends the iiiture with the past.
Mrs. Embury.
He spoke of Burns : men rude and rough
Press'd round to hear the praise of one
Whose heart was made of manly, simpler stufE
As homespun as their own.
And when he read, they forward lean'd,
Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears,
His brook-like songs whose glory never wean'd
From humble smiles and tears :
Slowly there grew a tenderer awe,
Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard,
As if in him who read they felt and saw
Some presence of the bard.
It was a sight for sin and wrong
And slavish tyranny to see,
A sight to make our faith more pure and strong
In high humanity.
James R. Lowell. — An Incident in a Rail-Road
Car.
TALKING.
511
TALKING.
What cracker is this same, that deafs oar ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath ?
Shaks. King John.
He gives the bastinado with his tongue ;
Our ears are cudgel'd ; not a word of his,
But buffets better than a fist of France :
Zounds ! I was never so bethump'd with words,
Since I first call'd my brother's father, dad.
Shaks. King John.
You cram these words into mine ears, against
The stomach of my sense.
Shaks. Tempest.
Why what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman's mood ;
i Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own !
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
These haughty words of hers
Have batter'd me like roaring cannon-shot,
And made me almost yield upon my knees.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
O, he 's as tedious
As is a tired horse, or railing wife ;
Worse than a smoky house : — I had rather five
With cheese and garlic, in a wind-mill, far,
Than feed on cates, and have him talk to me,
In any summer-house in Christendom.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part. I.
When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honied sentences.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
The fbol hath planted in his memory
An army of good words : and I do know
A many fools, that stand in bitter place,
Garnish'd like him, that for a tricky word
Defy the matter.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate,
Talkers are no good doers ; be assur'd,
We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.
Shaks. Richard HI.
I hold my peace, sir ? No ;
No, I will speak as liberal as the air ;
Let heaven, and men, and devils, let them all,
All, all cry shame against me, yet I '11 speak.
Shaks. Othello.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart ;
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break :
And, rather than it shall, I will be free,
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.
Shakspeare.
But words are^words ; I never yet did near,
That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the
ear. Shaks. Othello.
These high wild hills, and rough uneven ways.
Draw out our miles, and make them wearisome :
And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
Shaks. Richard II.
Why, what an ass am I ! this is most brave
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a * * * *, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion 1
Shaks. Hamlet
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears ?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar ?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies ?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue
That gives not half so great a blow to the ear,
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire ?
Shaks. Taming the Shrew
A flourish, trumpets ! — strike alarum, drums !
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the lord's anointed : strike, I say.
Shaks. Richard III
It was the copy of our conferenc
In bed, he slept not for my urging it ;
At board, he fed not for my urging it :
Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
In company, I often glanc'd it ;
Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors
But still his tongue ran on, the less
Of weight it bore, with greater ease ;
And with its everlasting clack,
Set all men's ears upon the rack.
Butler , s Hudioraa
And made the stoutest yield to mercy,
When he engag'd in controversy,
Not by the force of carnal reason,
But indefatigable teasing ;
With volleys of eternal babble,
And clamour more unanswerable.
Butler , s Hudihrai.
In various talk the instructive hours they pass'd,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last ;
One speaks the glory of the British queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes.
At every word a reputation dies.
Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that
Pope
512
TASTE -TAXATION.
A dearth of words a woman need not fear,
But 'tis a task indeed to learn — to hear:
In that the skill of conversation lies ;
That shows or makes you both polite and wise.
Young's Love of Fame.
Wine may indeed excite the meekest dame ;
But keen Zantippc, scorning borrow'd flame,
Cant vent her thunders, and her lightnings play,
O'er cooling gruel, and composing tea.
Young's Love of Fame.
Words leam'd by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse ;
Not more distinct from harmony divine,
The constant creaking of a country sign.
Cowper's Conversation.
But light and airy, stood on the alert,
And shone in the best part of dialogue.
By humouring always what they might assert,
And listening to the topics most in vogue ;
Nov/ grave, now gay, but never dull or pert;
And smiling but in secret — cunning rogue !
He ne'er presumed to make an error clearer —
In short, there never was a better hearer.
Byron.
Nor did we fail to see within ourselves
What need there is to be reserved in speech,
And temper all our thoughts with charity.
Wordsworth.
And we talk'd — oh, how we talk'd ! her voice so
cadenc'd in the talking,
Made another singing — of the soul ! a music with-
out bars —
While the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming
round where we were walking,
Brought interposition worthy — sweet, — as skies
about the stars,
And she spake such good thoughts natural, as if
she always thought them.
Miss Barrett.
Every one within the house
Loves to talk about thee ;
What an alter'd place it were,
Beatrice, without thee.
Mary Howitt.
ft may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century; —
But better far it is to speak
One simple wora, which now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the weak
And friendless sons of men.
James Russell Lowell.
Thy talk is the sweet extract of all speech,
And holds mine ear in blissful slavery.
Bailey's Festut.
She spake,
And his love-wilder'd and idolatrous soul
Clung to the airy music of her words,
Like a bird on a bough, high swaying in the wind.
Bailey's Festus.
I cannot tell thee, hour by hour,
That I adore thee dearly ;
I cannot talk of passion's power —
But oh ! I feel sincerely !
Mrs. Osgood.
Speak gently! 'Tis a little thing
Dropp'd in the heart's deep well ;
The good, the joy which it may bring
Eternity shall tell.
David Bates.
-
TASTE. — (See Criticism.)
TAXATION.
By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash,
By any indirection.
Shaks. Julius C&sar.
Why tribute ? why should we pay tribute ? if
Ctesar can hide the sun from us with a
Blanket, or put the moon in his pocket,
We will pay him tribute for light ; else, sir,
No more tribute.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
A moderation keep ;
Kings ought to shear, not skin their sheep.
Herrick.
The law takes measure of us all for clothes,
Diets us all, and in the sight of all,
To keep us from all private leagues witli wealth.
Crown's Regulus.
What is't to us, if taxes rise or fall,
Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all.
Let muckworms who in dirty acres deal,
Lament those hardships which we cannot feel,
His grace who smarts, may bellow if he please,
But must I bellow too, who sit at ease?
By custom safe, the poets' numbers flow,
Free as the light and air some years ago.
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours, and excise our brains.
Burthens like these will earthly buildings bear,
No tributes laid on castles in the air.
Churchill.
TEACHER — TEARS.
513
TEACHER. — (See School.)
TEARS.
With that adown, out of her crystal eyne,
Few trickling tears she softly forth let fall,
That like two orient pearls did purely shine
Upon her snowy cheek.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
For villany is not without such rheum ;
And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
Like rivers of remorse and innocency.
Shaks. King John.
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That silently doth progress on thy cheeks.
Shaks. King John.
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are ; the want of which vain dew,
Perchance shall dry your pities : but I have
That honourable grief lodg'd here, which burns
Worse than tears drown.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Friends, I owe more tears,
To this dead man, than you shall see me pay.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Thy heart is big ! get thee apart and weep.
Passion, I see, is catching ; for mine eyes,
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,
Began to water.
Shaks. Julius Ceesar.
No, I '11 not weep. Though I have full cause of
weeping,
This heart shall break into a thousand flaws,
Or e'er I weep.
Shaks. King Lear.
Patience and sorrow strove
Which should express her goodliest. You have
seen
Sun-shine and rain at once : those happy smiles
That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
What guests were in her eyes ; whi ch parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropp'd.
Shaks. King Lear.
Touch me with noble anger !
O, let not woman's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks !
Shaks. King Lear.
My manly eyes did scorn an humbler tear ;
And what these sorrows could not thence exna.e,
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with
weeping.
Shaks. Richard III.
Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt
tears,
Stained their aspects with sore childish drops.
Shaks. Richard III
I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries ; but thou hast forc'd me
Out of thy honest truth to play the woman.
Shaks. Henry VIII
What I should say,
My tears gainsay : for every word I speak,
Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
To weep, is to make less the depth of grief:
Tears, then, for babes ; blows, and revenge for me !
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Then fresh tears
Stood on her cheeks ; as doth the honey-dew
Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd.
Shaks. Titus Andronicus.
The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd
Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd ;
But I had not so much of man in me,
But all my mother came into mine eyes,
And gave me up to tears.
Shaks. Henry V.
Command these fretting waters from your eyes,
With a light heart.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea
I am a fool,
To weep at what I am glad of.
Shaks. Tempest.
Yet on she moves, now stands and eyes thee fix'd,
About t' have spoke, but now, with head deelin'd,
Like a fair flow'r surcharg'd with dew, she weeps,
And words suppress'd seem into tears dissolv'd,
Wetting the borders of her silken veil.
Milton's Sampson Agonistes.
Compassion quell'd
His best of man, and gave him up to tears
Apace, till firmer thoughts restrain'd excess.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
These thanks I pay you :
And know that when Sebastian weeps, his tea rs
Come harder than his blood.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
Believe these tears, which from my wounded
heart,
Bleed at my eyes.
Drydev's Spanish Friar.
But these are tears of joy ! to see you thus, has
fill'd
My eyes with more delight than they can hold
Congreve's Mourning Briat
2H
514
TEARS.
By hcav'ns, my love, thou dost distract my soul !
There 's not a tear that falls from those dear eyes,
But makes my heart weep blood.
Lee's Mithri dates.
I found her on the floor
In all the storm of grief; yet beautiful !
Sighing such a breath of sorrow, that her lips,
Which late appcar'd like buds, were now o'er-
blown !
Pouring forth tears, at such a lavish rate,
That were the world on fire, they might have
drown'd
The wrath of heaven, and quench'd the mighty
ruin. Lee's Mithridates.
I could perceive with joy, a silent show'r
Run down his silver beard.
Lee's Junius Brutus.
I weep, 't is true ; but Machiavel, I swear
They 're tears of vengeance ; drops of liquid fire !
So marble weeps, when flames surround the quarry,
And the pil'd oaks spout forth such scalding bub-
bles,
Before the general blaze.
Zee's Caesar Borgia.
Stop, stop those tears, Monima ! for they fall
Like baneful dew from a distemper'd sky !
I feel them chill me to the very heart.
Otway's Orphan.
Thou weep'st : stop that shower of falling
sorrows,
Which melts me to the softness of a woman,
And shakes my best resolves.
Trap's Albramule.
Down her cheeks ffow'd the round drops :
And as we see the sun shine thro' a show'r,
So look'd her beauteous eyes,
Casting forth light and tears together.
Lansdown's Heroic Love.
Devotion's self shall steal a thought from heaven,
One human tear shall drop, and be forgiven.
Pope's Eloisa.
From his big heart o'ercharg'd with generous
sorrow ;
See the tide working upward to his eye,
And stealing from him in large silent drops,
Without his leave.
Young's Busiris.
Our funeral tears from different causes rise :
Of various kinds they flow. From tendei hearts,
By wft contagion call'd, some burst at once,
And stream obscq'uious to the leading eye.
Some ask more time, by curious art distill'd.
Some hearts, in secret hard, unapt to melt,
Struck by the public eye, gush out amain.
Young.
Pier tears, like drops of molten lead,
With torment burn the passage to my heart.
Young's Busiris
Heav'n, that knows
The weakness of our natures, will forgive,
Nay, must applaud love's debt, when decent paid s
Nor can the bravest mortal blame the tear
Which glitters on the bier of fallen worth.
Shirley's Parricide.
Her eye did seem to labour with a tear,
Which suddenly took birth, but overweigh'd
With its own weight, swelling, dropp'd upon her
bosom,
Which, by reflection of her light, appear'd
As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament.
Shirley's Brothers.
Hide not thy tears ; weep boldly — and be proud
To give the flowing virtue manly way :
'T is nature's mark, to know an honest heart by.
Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt,
In soft adoption of another's sorrow.
Hill's Alzira.
The eye that will not weep another's sorrow,
Should boast no gentler brightness than the glare,
That reddens in the eye-ball of the wolf.
Mason's Elfrida.
How, thro' her tears, with pale and trembling
radiance,
The eye of beauty shines, and lights her sorrows !
As rises o'er the storm some silver star,
The seaman's hope, and promise of his safety.
Francis's Eugenia.
No radiant pearl, which crested fortune wears,
No gem, that twinkling hangs from beauty's ears ;
Not the bright stars, which night's blue arch
adorn ;
Nor rising sun that gilds the vernal morn ;
Shine with such lustre as the tear, that flows
Down virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.
Darwin.
The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears ;
The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew,
And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
With haughty laugh his head he turn'd,
And dash'd away the tear he scorn'd.
Scott's Lord of the Isles
A child will weep a bramble's smart, '
A maid to see her sparrow part,
A stripling for a woman's heart,
But woe awaits a country, when
She sees the tears of bearded men.
Scott's Marmion
TEMPER - TEMPEST.
515
He turn'd away — his heart throbb'd high,
The tear was bursting from his eye.
Scoffs Rokeby.
What gem hath dropp'd, and sparkles o'er his
chain ?
The tear most sacred shed for others' pain,
That starts at once — bright, pure — from pity's
mine,
Already polish'd by the hand divine.
Byron's Corsair.
Oh ! too convincing — dangerously dear —
In woman's eye th' unanswerable tear !
That weapon of her weakness she can wield,
To save, subdue — at once her spear and shield ;
Avoid it — virtue ebbs and wisdom errs,
Too fondly gazing on that grief of hers !
What lost a world, and made a hero fly ?
The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye.
Yet be the soft triumvir's fault forgiven,
By this* — how many lose not earth- — but heaven !
Consign their souls to man's eternal foe,
And seal their own to spare a wanton's woe !
Byron's Corsair,
In a gushing stream
The tears rush'd forth from her unclouded brain,
Like mountain mists, at length dissolv'd in rain.
Byron.
I wish'd but for a single tear,
As something welcome, new, and dear,
I wish'd it then, I wish it still,
Despair is stronger than my will.
Byron's Giaour.
Hide thy tears —
I do mot bid thee not to shed them — 't were
Easier to stop Euphrates at its source
Than one tear of a true and tender heart —
But let me not behold them ; they unman me.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
The tear that is shed, though in secret it roll,
Shall long keep his memory green in my soul.
Moore.
Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for.
Miss Barrett.
Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in his
cot,
The mother singing ; at her marriage bell,
The bride weeps ;' and before the oracle
Of high-fam'd hills, the poet hath forgot
The moisture on his cheeks.
Miss Barrett.
Commend the grace,
Mourners who weep.
jkilfiss Barrett.
Oh ! those are tears of bitterness,
Wrung from the breaking heart,
When two, blest in their tenderness,
Must learn to live apart !
Miss London.
Raise it to heaven, when thine eye fills with tears,
For only in a watery sky appears
The bow of light ; and from the invisible skies
Hope's glory shines not, save through weeping
eyes. Mrs. F. A. Butler.
Give our tears to the dead ! For humanity's claim
From its silence and darkness is ever the same ;
The hope of the world whose existence is bliss,
May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this
WMttier.
Yet thou, didst thou but know my fate,
Wouldst melt, my tears to see ;
And I, methinks, would weep the less,
Wouldst thou but weep with me.
Percival
TEMPER. — (See Anger.)
TEMPEST.
Sudden they see from midst of all the main
The surging waters like a mountain rise,
And the great sea, pufF'd up with proud disdain,
To swell above the measure of his guise,
As threat'ning to devour all that his power despise.
Spenser's Fairy Queen
The tyranny of th' open night 's too rough
For nature to endure.
Shakspeare.
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd the knotty oaks ; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds ;
But never till to-night, never till now.
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Shaks. Julius Ccesat
The southern wind
Doth play the trumpet to his purposes ;
And, by his hollow whistling in the leaves,
Foretels a tempest, and a blustering day
Shaks. Henry IV. Part 1.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear wou.il
couch,
The lion, and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will, take all.
Shaks. King Lea'
516
TEMPEST.
Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou
wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipt of justice ! Hide thee, thou bloody hand,
Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue,
That art incestuous ! Caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming,
Hast practis'd on man's life ! Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summ'oners grace.
Shaks. King Lear.
Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks ! rage ! blow !
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the
cocks !
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-oouriers to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,
Singe my white head ! And thou, all-shaking
thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world !
Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ungrateful man.
Shaks. King Lear.
I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness,
I never gave you kingdoms, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription ; why then let fall
Your horrible displeasure; here I stand, your
slave,
A poor, infirm, weak and despis'd old man.
SJiaks. King Lear.
Alas, sir ! are you here ? things that love night,
Love not such nights as these ; the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wand'rers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves : since I was
man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard.
Shaks. King Lear.
For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chiding billows seem to belt the clouds ;
The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous
main,
Seems to cast water on the burning bear,
And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole :
I never did like molestation view
On the enchafed flood.
Shaks. Othello.
I neard the wrack
As earth ana skv would mingle ; but myself
Was distant , ana these flows, though mortals fear
them,
\b dangerous to the pillar'd frame of heaven,
Or to the earth's dark basis underneath,
Are to the main as inconsiderable,
And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze
To man's less universe, and soon are gone.
Milton's Paradise Regained
Call you these peals of thunder but the yawn
Of bellowing clouds ? by Jove, they seem to me
The world's last groans ! and these vast sheets
of flame
Are its last blaze ! the tapers of the gods,
The sun and moon, run down like waxen globes,
And chaos is at hand.
Lee's QZdipus.
The gathering clouds like meeting armies
Come on apace.
Lee's Mithridates.
'T is well, said Jove, and for consent,
Thundering he shook the firmament.
Parnell.
Look, from the turbid south
What floods of flame in red diffusion burst,
Frequent and furious, darted thro' the dark
And broken ridges of a thousand clouds,
Pil'd hill on hill ; and hark, the thunder rous'd,
Groans in long roarings through the distant gloom.
Mallei's Mustuplia.
'T is listening fear and dumb amazement all :
When to the startled eye the sudden glance
Appears far south, eruptive thro' the cloud ;
And following slower, in explosion vast,
The thunder raises his tremendous voice.
Thomson's Seasons.
From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage ;
Till, in the furious elemental war
Dissolv'd, the whole precipitated mass
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pour.
Thomson's Seasons.
A boding silence reigns,
Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull
sound
That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
And shakes the forest leaf without a breath.
Prone, to the L«wcst vale, aerial tribes
Descend : the tempest-loving raven scarce
Dares wing the dubious dusk. In awful gaze
The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens
Cast a deploring eye ; by man forsook,
Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
Oi seeks the shelter of the downward cave.
Thomson's Seasons.
Guilt hears appall'd, with deeply-troubled thought,
And yet not always on the guilty head
Descends the fated flash.
_^ Thomson's Seasons.
TEMPEST.
51"
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And hurls the whole precipitated air,
Down, in a torrent. On the passive main
Descends the ethereal force, and with strong gust
Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep.
Thro' the black night that sits immense around,
Lash'd into foam, the fierce contending brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn.
Thomson's Seasons.
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the sad genius of the coming storm ;
And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,
And fractur'd mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan,
Resounding long in listening fancy's ear.
Thomson's Seasons.
Thro' all the burden'd air,
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds and distant
sighs,
That, utter'd by the demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.
Thomson's Seasons.
In vain for him the officious wife prepares
The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm ;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas !
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly winter seizes ; shuts up sense ;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffcn'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
Thomson's Seasons.
Oh ! when the growling winds contend, and all
The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm ;
To sink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of vulgar sleep.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Peace, peace — thou rash and unadvised man
Oh ! add not to this night of nature's horrors
The darker shadowing of thy wicked fears.
The hand of heaven, not man, is dealing with us,
And thoughts like thine do make it deal thus
sternly. Maturings Bertram.
The strife of fiends is on the battling clouds,
The glare of hell is in these sulphurous lightnings ;
This is no earthly storm.
Maturiri's Bertram.
Of winds and waves, the strangely mingled sounds
Ride heavily ; the night-winds hollow sweep,
Mocking the sounds of human lamentation.
Maturiri's Bertram.
Monk. — Row hast thou fared in this most awful
time?
Prior. — As one whom fear did not make pitiless:
I bow'd me at the cross for those whose heads
Are naked to the visiting blasts of heav'n
In this its hour of wrath. —
For the lone traveller on the hill of storms,
For the toss'd shipman on the perilous deep ;
Till the last peal that thunder' d o'er mine head
Did force a cry of — mercy for myself.
Maturiri's Bertram.
Storms, when I was young,
Would still pass o'er like nature's fitful fevers,
And render'd all more wholesome. Now their
rage,
Sent thus unseasonably and profitless,
Speaks like the threats of heaven.
Maturiri's Bertram.
The night grows wond'rous dark : deep swelling
gusts
And sultry stillness take the rule by turn,
Whilst o'er our heads the black and heavy clouds
Roll slowly on. This surely bodes a storm.
Joanna Baillie's Rayner.
Ev'n o'er my head
The soft and misty-textur'd clouds seem chang'd
To piles of harden' d rocks, which from their base,
Like the upbreaking of a ruin'd world,
Are hurl'd with force tremendous.
Joanna Baillie's Rayner.
He comes ! dread Brama shakes the sunless sky
With murmuring wrath, and thunders from on
high !
Heaven's fiery horse, beneath his warrior form,
Paws the light clouds, and gallops on the storm !
Wide waves his flickering sword, his bright arms
glow
Like summer suns, and light the world below '.
Earth, and her trembling isles in ocean's bed,
Are shook ; and nature rocks beneath his tread !
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope
'T is pleasant by the cheerful hearth to hear
Of tempests, and the dangers of the deep,'
And pause at times and feel that we are safe ;
Then listen to the perilous tale again,
And with an eager and suspended soul
Woo terror to delight us ; but to hear
The roaring of the raging elements,
To know all human skill, all human strength,
Avail not; to look round, and only see
The mountain wave incumbent with its weigln
Of bursting waters o'er the reeling bark, —
O God ! this is indeed a dreadful thing !
Southet
44
518
TEMPERANCE.
The sky is changed ! and such a change ! oh night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman ! far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder ! not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud !
And this is in the night : — Most glorious night !
Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, —
A portion of the tempest and of thee !
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing on the earth !
And now again 'tis black, — and now, the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's
birth. Byron's Childe Harold.
The sky
Is overcast, and musters muttering thunder,
In clouds that seem approaching fast, and show
In forked flashes a commanding tempest.
Byron's Sardanapalvs.
Hark, hark ! deep sounds, and deeper still,
Are howling from the mountain's bosom :
There's not a breath of wind upon the hill,
Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom :
Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
The billows are leaping around it,
The bark is weak and frail,
The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it
Darkly strew the gale. Shelley.
I stood where the deepening tempest pass'd,
The strong trees groan'd in the sounding blast,
The murmuring deep — with its wrecks roll'd on ;
The clouds o'ershadow'd the mighty sun ;
The low reeds bent by the streamlet's side,
And hills to the thunder-peal replied ;
The lightning burst on its fearful way,
While the heavens were lit in its red array.
Willis Gaylord Clark.
The night came down in terror. Through the air
Mountains of clouds, with lurid summits roll'd ;
The lightning kindling with it3 vivid glare
Their outlines, as they rose, heap'd fold on fold,
The wind, in fitful sighs, swept o'er the sea ;
And then a sudden lull, gentle as sleep,
Soft as an infant's breathing, scem'd to be
Lain Wke enchantment, on the throbbing deep,
But false the calm ! for soon the f-trengthen'd gale
burst in one ioud explosion, far and wide,
L/rowmng the thunacr s voice !
Eves Sargent's Poems.
TEMPERANCE.
Tho' I look old, yet I am strong and lusty
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood ;
Nor did I with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility :
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.
Shaks. As you like it
Philosophy, religious solitude
And labour wait on temperance ; in these
Desire is bounded : they instruct the mind's
And body's action.
Nabb's Microcosmus
Health and liberty
Attend on these bare meals ; if all were blest
With such a temperance, what man would fawn,
Or to his belly sell his liberty ?
There would be then no slaves, no sycophants
At great men's tables.
May's Old Couple
With riotous banquets, sicknesses came in,
When death 'gan muster all his dismal band
Of pale diseases.
May's Old Couple
From our tables here, no painful surfeits,
No fed diseases grow, to strangle nature,
And suffocate the active brain ; no fevers,
No apoplexies, palsies or catarrhs
Are here ; where nature, not entie'd at all
With such a dang'rous bait as pleasant cates,
Takes in no more than she can govern well.
May's Old Couple.
He, who the rules of temperance neglects,
From a good cause may produce vile effects.
Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours
If thou well observe
The rule of — not too much, — by temperance
taught
In what thou eat'st and drink'st, seeking from
thence
Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,
'Till many years over thy head return :
So may's thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop,
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease
Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd ; in death mature
Milton.
O madness, to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health ;
When God, with these forbidden, made choice to
rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.
Milton's Samson Agonistes.
TEMPTATION.
519
If men will shun swoln fortune's ruinous blasts,
Let them use temperance : nothing- violent lasts.
W. Strachey.
Fatal effects of luxury and ease !
We drink our poison, and we eat disease,
Indulge our senses at our reason's cost,
Till sense is pain, and reason hurt or lost.
Not so, O temperance bland ! when rul'd by
thee,
The brute 's obedient, and the man is free.
Soft are his slumbers, balmy is his rest,
His veins not boiling- from the midnight feast
Touch'd by Aurora's rosy hand, he wakes
Peaceful and calm, and with the world partakes
The joyful dawnings of returning day,
For which their grateful thanks the whole creation
pay,
All bat the human brute : 't is he alone,
Whose works of darkness fly the rising sun.
'T is to thy rules, O temperance ! that we owe
All pleasures, which from health and strength can
flow;
Vigour of body, purity of mind,
Unclouded reason, sentiments refin'd,
Unmixt, untainted joys, without remorse,
Th' intemperate sinner's never-failing curse.
Mary Chandler.
To mix the food by vicious rules of art,
To kill the stomach and to sink the heart,
To make mankind to social virtue sour,
Cram o'er each dish, and be what they devour ;
For this the kitchen muse first fram'd her book,
Commanding sweat to steam from ev'ry cook ;
Children no more their antic gambols tried,
And friends to physic wonder'd why they died.
Not so the Yanke ; his abundant feast,
With simples furnish'd, and with plainness dress'd,
A numerous offspring gathers round his board,
And cheers alike the servant and the lord ;
Whose well-bought hunger prompts the joyous
taste,
And health attends them from the short repast.
Joel Barlow.
Temperate in every place, — abroad, at home,
Thence will applause, and hence will profit come ;
And health from either he in time prepares
For sickness, age, and their attendant cares.
Crabbe. — The Borough.
Beware the bowl ! though rich and bright
Its rubies flash upon the sight,
An adder coils its depths beneath,
Whose lure is woe, whose sting is death.
Streefs Poems.
TEMPTATION.
But all in vain : no fort can be so strong,
No fleshly breast can armed be so sound,
But will at last be won with battery long,
Or unawares at disadvantage found :
Nothing is sure that grows on earthly ground :
And who most trusts in arm of fleshly might,
And boasts in beauty's chain not to be bound,
Doth soonest fall in disadventurous fight,
And yields his caitiff neck to victor's most despight.
Spenser's Fairy Queen,
What ! do I love her,
That I desire to speak to her again ?
And feast upon her eyes ? what is 't I dream on '
O cunning enemy, that to catch a saint,
With saints dost be.it thy hook ! most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin, in loving virtue.
Shaks. Mea.for Men.
Look upon the very mother of mischief,
Who as her daughters ripen, and do bud
Their youthful spring, straight she instructs them
how
To set a gloss on beauty, add a lustre
To the defect of nature ; how to use
The mystery of painting, curling, powd'ring,
And with strange periwigs, pin-knots, bordering s
To deck them up like a winter's bush,
For men to gaze at on a midsummer night.
Swetnam the Woman-Hatti
And these once learn'd, what wants the tempte;
now,
To snare the stoutest champion of men ?
Swetnam the Woman-Hater.
What a frail thing is man ! it is not worth
Our glory to be chaste, while we deny
Mirth and converse with women : He is good,
That dares the tempter, yet corrects his blood.
Shirley's Lady of Pleasure,
The devil was piqued such saintship to behold,
And long'd to tempt him, like good Job of old ;
But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor
Pope's Moral Essays
But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek
To wear it ? who can curiously behold
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheei,
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ?
Byron's Childe Harold
Could'st thou boast, oh child of weakness ?
O'er the sons of wrong and strife,
Were their strong temptations planted
In thy pat\ of life ?
Whitiier's Poem*
520
THIEVES - THOUGHT.
And while in peace abiding
Within a shelter'd home,
We fee. as sin and evil
Could never, never come ;
But let the strong- temptation rise,
As whirlwinds sweep the sea —
We find no strength to 'scape the wreck,
Save, pitying God, in Thee !
Mrs. Hale's Alice Ray.
THIEVES.
Thieves for their robbery have authority,
When judges steal themselves.
Shahs. Mea.for Mea.
Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that;
You take my house, when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house : you take my life,
When you do take the means whereby I live.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I '11 example you with thievery,
The sun 's a thief, and with his great attraction
Kobs the vast sea : the moon 's an arrant thief,
And her pale face she snatches from the sun ;
The sea 's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears ; the earth 's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief;
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough
power
Have uncheck'd theft.
Shaks. Timon.
Bankrupts, hold fast;
Rather than render back, out with your knives,
And cut your trusters' throats; bound servants,
steal !
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law.
Shaks. Timon.
Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves,
And on thy dial write — " Beware of thieves !"
Felon of minutes, never taught to feel
The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal ; '
Pick my left pocket of its silver dime,
But spare the right, — it holds my golden time !
O. W. Holmes. — A Rhymed Lesson.
THOUGHT.
I'iece out our imperfections with your thoughts.
, Shaks. Henry V.
Love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sunbeams,
Driving back shadows over lowering hills.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Could Ave but keep our spirit to that height,
We might be happy ; but the clay will sink
Its thoughts immortal.
Byron
Return, my thoughts, come home !
Ye wild and wing'd ! what do ye o'er the deep 7
And wherefore thus th' abyss of time o'crsweep
As birds the ocean foam ?
Oh, no ! return ye not !
Still farther, loftier let your soarings be !
Go, bring me strength from journeyings bright
and free-
O'er many a haunted spot.
Go, visit cell and shrine
Where woman has endur'd ! — through wrong,
through scorn,
Unshar'd by fame — yet silently upborne
By promptings more divine !
Mrs. Hemam
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Wordsworth.
Who can mistake great thoughts ?
They seize upon the mind ; arrest, and search,
And shake it ; bow the tall soul as by the wind ;
Rush over it like rivers over reeds,
Which quiver in the current ; turn us cold,
And pale, and voiceless ; leaving in the brain
A rocking and a ringing, — glorious,
But momentary ; madness might it last,
And close the soul with Heaven as with a seal.
Bailey's Festus
Not a single path
Of thought I tread, but that it leads to God.
Bailey's Festus.
Fine thoughts are wealth, for the right use of
which
Men are, and ought to be, accountable.
Bailey's Festus.
All the past of Time reveals
A bridal dawn of thunder-peals,
Whenever Thought hath wedded Fact.
Tennyson.
We met, and we drank from the crystalline well,
That flows from the fountains of science above ;
On the beauties of thought we would silently
dwell,
Till we look'd — though we never were talking
of love. Percival.
All thoughts that mould the age, begin
Deep down within the primitive soul ;
And from the many, slowly upward win
To one who grasps the whole.
James Russell Lowell
THREATENING.
521
.411 thought begins in feeling, — wide
In the great mass its base is hid,
And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,
A moveless pyramid.
James Russell Lowell.
Many are the thoughts that come to me
In my lonely musing;
And they drift so strange and swift,
There 's no time for choosing
Which to follow, for to leave
Any, seems a losing. c p Cfam%
Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye go !
Swift as the eagle's glance of fire,
Or arrows from the archer's bow,
To the far aim of your desire !
Thought after thought, ye thronging rise,
Like spring-doves from the startled wood,
Bearing like them your sacrifice
Of music unto God ! mUtier ^ Poems ,
The car without horses, the car without wings,
Roars onward and flies
On its pale iron edge,
'Neath the heat of a thought sitting still in our
eyes. Miss Barrett's Poems.
As streams the lightning o'er a stormy sky,
Thus Thought amid the tumult flashes forth !
For mighty minds at rest too often lie,
Like clouds in upper air, cold, calm and high,
Till, tempest-toss'd and driven toward the earth,
They meet the uprising mass, — and then is
wrought
The burning thunderbolt of human Thought,
That sends the living light of Truth abroad,
And dashes down the towers of Force and Fraud,
And awes the trembling world like oracle of
God ! Mrs. Hale.
Thoughts flit and flutter through the mind,
As o'er the waves the shifting wind ;
Trackless and traceless is their flight,
As falling stars of yesternight,
Or the old tide-marks on the shore,
Which other tides have rippled o'er.
Dr. Bowring.
Stay, winged Thought ! I fain would question thee !
Though thy bright pinion is less palpable
Than filmy gossamer, more swift in flight
Than fight's transmitted ray.
Mrs. Sigourney.
Human thought,
Oh poet, lightly may take wondrous wings.
Thy careless link binds words to travel far ;
And as thy sway of the world's heart, will be
Thy reckoning with thy Maker.
Willis.
So truly, faithfully, my heart is thine,
Dear Thought, that when I am debarr'd from
thee,
By the vain tumult of vain company ;
And when it seems to be the fix'd design
Of heedless hearts, who never can incline
Themselves to seek thy rich, though hidden
charms,
To keep me daily from thy outstretch'd arms —
My soul sinks faint within me, and I pine
As lover pines when from his love apart ;
For thou 'rt the honour'd mistress of my heart,
Pure, quiet, beautiful, beloved Thought !
Caroline May
THREATENING.
Hence,
Horrible villain ! or I '11 spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me ; I '11 unchain thy head ;
Thou shalt be whipt with wire, and stew'd in brine,
Smarting in ling'ring pickle.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra
Hence, begone : —
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly
What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,
Fill all thy bones with aches ; make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.
Shales. Tempest.
If thou more murm'rest, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
Shaks. Tempest
Unhand me, gentlemen ; —
By heaven, I '11 make a ghost of him that lets me.
Shaks. Hamlet,
Leave wringing of your hands : peace ; sit you
down,
And let me wring your heart : for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom hath not braz'd it so,
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.
Shaks. Hamiet
He that stirs next to carve forth his own rage,
Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.
Shaks. Othelib
Villains, set down the corse ; or, by Saint Pan!.
I '11 make a corse of him that disobeys.
Shaks. Richard II j
44*
522
THIRST - TIME.
I '11 note you in my book of memory,
To scourge you for this reprehension ;
L«ook to it well, and say you are well warn'd.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I.
Fnmanner'd dog ! stand thou when I command :
Advance thy halbert higher than my breast,
Or, by Saint Paul, I '11 strike thee to my foot,
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
Shaks. Richard III.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
T' engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue
Thy ling'ring.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Do me justice,
Or, by the gods, I '11 lay a scene of blood,
Shall make this dwelling horrible to nature.
Otway's Orphan.
Oh ! wert thou young again, I would put off
My majesty to be more terrible ;
That like an angel I might strike this hare,
Trembling on earth! shake thee to dust, and
tear
Thy heart for this bold lie, thou feeble dotard.
Zee's Alexander.
Speak then, or I will tear thee limb from limb :
Thou shalt be safe, if thou confess the truth ;
But if thou hide aught from me, I will rack thee,
Till with thy horrid groans thou wake the dead :
Or I will cut thee to anatomy,
And search through all thy veins to find it out.
Lee's CcBsar Borgia.
Old as I am, and quench' d with scars and sor-
rows,
Yet could I make this wither'd arm do wonders,
And open in an enemy such wounds,
Mercy would weep to look on.
Rochester's Valentinian.
Stand there, damn'd meddling villain, and be
silent ;
For if thou utt'rest but a single word,
A cough or hem, to cross me in my speech
'. '11 uvtit thy cursed spirit from the earth,
"t'o bellow with U,c aarin'd !
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
THIRST.
Till taught by pain,
Men really know not what good water 's worth
If you had been in Turkey or in Spain,
Or with a famish'd boat's-crew had your berth,
Or in the desert heard the camel's bell,
You 'd wish yourself where truth is — in a well.
Byron
The panting thirst, which scorches in the breath
Of those that die the soldier's fiery death,
In vain impels the burning mouth to crave
One drop — one last — to cool it for the grave.
Byron's Lara.
The incessant fever of that arid thirst
Which welcomes as a well the clouds that burst
Above their naked heads, and feels delight
In the cold drenchings of the stormy night.
Byron's Island.
TIME.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes :
Those scraps are good deeds past : which are
devour' d
As fast as they are made, forgotten as soon
As done.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
I bring the truth to light, detect the ill ;
My native greatness scorneth bounded ways ;
Untimely power, a few days ruin will ;
Yea, worth itself falls, till I list to raise.
The earth is mine ; of earthly things the care
I leave to men that, like them, earthly are.
Lord Brooke's Mustapha.
Even such is time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust ;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander'd all our ways.
Shuts up the story of our days !
Sir W. Raleign.
Time is the feather'd thing,
And, whilst I praise
The sparkling of thy locku, and call th^m rays,
Takes wing —
Leaving behind him, as he flies,
An unperceived dimness in thine eyes.
Mayne,
Old time will end our story ;
Bat no time, if we end well, will end our glory.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Sea Voyag*.
TIME.
5'23
Time's minutes, whilst they 're told,
Do make us old ;
And every sand of his fleet glass,
Increasing age as it doth pass,
Insensibly sows wrinkles there,
Where flowers and roses do appear. Mavne
Time flows from instants, and of these, each one
Should be esteem'd, as if it were alone :
The shortest space, which we so highly prize
When it is coming, and before our eyes,
Let it but slide into th' eternal main,
No realms, no worlds can purchase it again :
Remembrance only makes the footsteps last,
When winged time, which fix'd the prints, is past.
Sir John Beaumont.
Time lays his hand
On pyramids of brass, and ruins quite
What all the fond artificers did think
Immortal workmanship; he sends his worms
To books, to old records, and they devour
Th' inscriptions. He loves ingratitude,
For he destroys the memory of man.
Sir W. Dawnant's Cruel Brother.
Our time'consumes like smoke, and posts away;
Nor can we treasure up a month or day.
The sand within the transitory glass
Doth haste, and so our silent minutes pass.
Watkyns.
Desire not to live long, but to live well ;
How long we live, not years, but actions tell.
Watkyns.
Time, the prime minister of death,
There 's nought can bribe his honest will ;
He stops the richest tyrant's breath,
And lays his mischief still.
Marvel.
Time wears all his locks behind ;
Take thou hold upon his forehead ;
When he flies, he turns no more,
And behind his scalp is naked.
Works adjourn'd have many stays :
Long demurs breed new delays.
Robert Southwell.
Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden stepping hours,
Where speed is but the heavy plummet's pace ;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross.
Milton.
The greatest schemes that human wit can forge,
Or bold ambition dares to put in practice,
Depend upon our husbanding a moment.
Rowe.
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time,
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue,
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours ;
Where are they ? With the years beyond the flood.
It is the signal that demands despatch :
How much is to be done !
Young's Night Thoughts.
Youth is not rich in time, it may be poor
Part with it as with money, sparing ; pay
No moment but in purchase of its worth ;
And what it 's worth ask death-beds ; they can
tell. Young's Night Thoughts.
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep decrepit with his age ;
Behold him when past by : what then is seen,
But his broad pinions swifter than, the winds?
And all mankind in contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghast ! cry out on his career.
Young's Night Thoughts.
The day in hand,
Like a bird struggling to get loose, is going,
Scarce now possess'd — so suddenly 't is gone.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Time, which all things else removes,
Still heightens virtue and improves.
Gay.
Time hurries on,
With a resistless, unremitting stream,
Yet treads more soft than e'er did midnight thiel,
That slides his hand under the miser's pillow.
And carries off his prize.
Blair's Gravt.
What does not fade ? the tower, that long had stood
The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer, time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base,
And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass,
Descend ; the Babylonian spires are sunk ;
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires crush by their own weight.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
Unsoil'd and swift, and of a silken sound.
Cowper's Task.
Still on it creeps,
Each little moment at another's heels,
Till hours, days, years, and ages are made up
Of such small parts as these, and men look bach
Worn and bewilder'd, wondering how it is.
Thou trav'llest like a ship in the wide ocean,
Which hath no bounding shore to mark its progress
Joanna Baillie's Ravne*
524
TIME.
Yes, gentle time, thy gradual, healing hand
Hath stolen from sorrow's grasp the envenom'd
dart;
Submitting to thy skill, my passive heart
Feels that no grief can thy soft power withstand ;
And though my aching breast still heaves the sigh,
Though oft the tear swells silent in mine eye ;
Yet the keen pang, the agony is gone ;
Sorrow and I shall part ; and these faint throes
Axe but the remnant of severer woes.
Mrs. Tighe.
The beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter
And only healer when the heart hath bled —
Time ! the corrector when our judgments err,
The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher,
For all beside are sophists.
Byron.
" Where is the world," cries Young, " at eighty ?
Where
The world in which a man was born ?" Alas !
Where is the world of eight years past ? 'T was
there —
I look for it — 'tis gone, a globe of glass !
Crack'd, shiver'd, vanish'd, scarcely gazed on ere
A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.
Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings,
And dandies, all are gone on the wind's wings.
Byron.
On ! on ! our moments hurry by,
Like shadows of a passing cloud,
Till general darkness wraps the sky,
And man sleeps senseless in his shroud.
He sports, he trifles time away,
Till time is his to waste no more :
Heedless he hears the surges play;
And then is dash'd upon the shore
He has no thought of coming days,
Though they alone deserve his thought,
And so the heedless wanderer strays,
And treasmes nought and gathers nought.
Though wisdom speak — his ear is dull;
Though virtue smile — he sees her not ;
His cup of vanity is full ;
And all besides foregone — forgot.
Bowring.
Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore,
Who dane'd our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marvelling boyhood legend's store,
Of their strange ventures happ'd by land or sea,
flow are they blotted from the thing"? that be !
How few, all weak and wither'd of their force,
Wait on the verge of dark eternity,
Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse,
V't sweep them from our sight
Scott.
O time, that ever with resistless wing
Cuts off our joys and shortens all our pain,
Thou great destroyer that doth always bring
Relief to man — all bow beneath thy reign;
Nations before thee fall, and the grim king
Of death and terror follows in thy train !
Anon.
Time past, and time to come, are not —
Time present is our only lot ;
O God, henceforth our hearts incline
To seek no other love than thine !
Montgomery.
Touch us gently, Time !
Let us glide adown thy stream
Gently — as we sometimes glide
Through a quiet dream !
Bryan W. Proctor.
Then haste thee, Time — 't is kindness all
That speeds thy winged feet so fast;
Thy pleasures stay not till they pall,
And all thy pains are quickly past.
Bryant's Poems.
Art is long and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
Longfellow's Psahn of Life,
There is no charm in time as time, nor good :
The long days are no happier than the short ones.
Bailey's Festus,
Time ! Time ! in thy triumphal flight
How all life's phantom's fleet away !
The smile of hope and young delight,
Fame's meteor beam, and fancy's ray;"
They fade ; and on the heaving tide,
Rolling its stormy waves afar, /
Are borne the wreck of human pride,
The broken wreck of Fortune's war.
James G. Brooks.
Remorseless Time !
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe — what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart with pity !
George D. Prentice.
Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion.
George D. Prentice.
The hours are viewless angels,
That still go gliding by,
And bear each minute's record up
To Him who sits on high.
C. P Cranch.
TIMIDITY -TITLES -TOKEN.
525
O Time ! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou !
Thomas W. Parsons.
Oh ! never chide the wing of time,
Or say 't is tardy in its flight ;
You '11 find the days speed quick enough,
If you but husband them aright.
Miss Cook.
Time is indeed a precious boon,
But with the boon a task is given ;
The heart must learn its duty well
To man on earth and God in heaven.
Miss Cook.
Not wholly can the heart unlearn
The lesson of its better hours,
Nor yet has Time's dull footstep worn
To common dust the path of flowers.
Whittier.
Who, looking backward from his manhood's
prime,
Sees not the spectre of his misspent time ?
Whittier's Poems.
Ah, sigh not, love, to mark the trace
Of Time's unsparing wand !
It was not manhood's outward grace,
No charm of faultless form or face,
That won my heart and hand.
William Pitt Palmer.
TIMIDITY. — (See Modesty.)
TITLES.
Titles of honour add not to his worth,
Who is an honour to his title.
Ford's Lady's Trial.
Man — is name of honour for a king ;
Additions take away from each chief thing.
Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois.
All transitory titles I detest,
A virtuous life I mean to boast alone ;
Our birth 's our sires', our virtues be our own.
Drayton's Legend of Matilda,
I look down upon him
With such contempt and scorn, as on my slave ;
He 's a name only, and all good in him
He must derive from his great-grandsire's ashes :
For had not their victorious acts bequeath'd
His titles to him, and wrote on his forehead —
This is a lord — he had liv'd unobserv'd
By any man of mark, and died as one
Amongst the common rout
Beaumont and Fletcher.
Brush off
This honour'd dust that soils your company ;
This thing whom nature carelessly obtruded
Upon the world to teach that pride and folly
Make titular greatness the envy but
Of fools — the wise man's pity.
Habbington's Queen of Arragon.
I learn'd to admire goodness ; that
Gives the distinction to men ; without
This, I behold them but as pictures, which
Are flourish'd with a pencil, to supply
The absence of inward worth, their titles
Like landskips gracing them only far off.
Sir W. Davenant's Siege.
A fool, indeed, has great need of a title,
It teaches men to call him count and duke,
And to forget his proper name of fooL
Croume's Ambitious Statesman.
Titles, the servile courtier's lean reward,
Sometimes the pay of virtue, but more oft
The hire which greatness gives to slaves and
sycophants. Rowe's Jane Shore.
With their authors in oblivion sunk
Vain titles lie, the servile badges oft
Of mean submission, not the meed of worth.
Thomson
The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd, for a' that.
Burns
Our God has said
i That He will reign on earth ! and it is here
; His empire will begin ; and send its light
| Through the dark labyrinths of human pride,
; Showing oppression's hideousness ; — the chains
That bind old Europe to the bigots' car,
Keeping her nobles slaves to sense and sin ;
Till lords shall feel their titles are a scoff,
Blotting man's dignity, and throw them by,
Like gaudes whose tinsel fashion has decay'd,
— And put on the true gold of worthiness,
And learn their duty from the people's voice,
i And yield their homage to the God of heaven !
j This time will come ; — but first the trial comes
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenot
TOKEN.
She so loves the tokeu,
(For he conjur'd her she should ever keep it,)
That she reserves it evermore about her,
To kiss and talk to.
Shaks. Otnetio
This is some token from a newer friend.
Shaks. Othelui
r
52G
TO-MORROW.
Accept of this ; and could I add beside
What wealth the rich Peruvian mountains hide ;
If all the gems in Eastern rocks were mine,
On thee alone their glittering pride should shine.
Lyttleton.
All the token flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well.
Byron,
All my offering must be
Truth, and spotless constancy.
Miss London
I send this flower to one made up
Of loveliness alone ;
A woman of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
would that on the earth there mov'd
Others of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.
Edward C. Pinckney.
O ! what tender thoughts beneath
Those silent flowers are lying,
Hid within the mystic wreath,
My love hath kiss'd in tying !
Moore.
1 form'd for thee a small bouquet,
A keepsake near thy heart to lay,
Because ft is there, I know full well,
That charity and kindness dwell.
Miss Gould.
I look upon the fading flowers
Thou gav'st me, lady, in thy mirth, '
And mourn that with the perishing hours
Such fair things perish from the earth ;
For thus I know the moment's feeling
Its own light web of life unweaves,
The dearest trace from memory stealing,
Like perfume from the dying leaves ; —
The thought that gave it, and the flower,
Alike the creatures of an hour.
Willis.
Thou may'st live to bless the giver,
Who, himself but frail and weak,
Would at least the highest welfare
Of another seek.
And his gift, though poor and lowly
It may seem to other eyes,
Yet may prove an angel holy
In a pilgrim's guise.
Whittier.
. TO-MORROW.
To-morrow yo-u will live, you always cry:
T n what far country does this morrow lie,
That 't is so mighty long ere it arrive 1
Pevond the Indies does this morrow live ?
'T is so far-fetch'd this morrow, that I fear
'T will be both very old and very dear.
To-morrow I will live, the fool does say ;
To-day itself 's too late ; the wise liv'd yesterday.
Martial.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty space from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time ;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Shahs. Macbeth.
Seek not to know to-morrow's doom ;
That is not ours, which is to come.
The present moment 's all our store :
The next, should heaven allow,
Then this will be no more :
So all our life is but one instant now.
Congreve.
Arrest the present moments ;
For be assur'd they are all arrant tell-tales ;
And though their flight be silent, and their path
trackless
As the wing'd couriers of the air,
They post to heaven, and there record their folly —
Because, tho' station'd on the important watch,
Thou, like a sleeping, faithless sentinel,
Didst let them pass unnotie'd, unimprov'd.
And know, for that thou slumber'st on the guard,
Thou shalt be made to answer at the bar
For every fugitive : and when thou thus
Shalt stand impleaded at the high tribunal
Of hood-wink'd justice, who shall tell thy audit? .
Then stay the present instant, dear Horatio,
Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings ;
'Tis of more worth than kingdoms! far more
precious
Than all the crimson treasures of life's fountain.
Oh ! let it not elude thy grasp, but, like
The good old patriarch upon record,
Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.
Cotton.
To-morrow's action ? can that hoary wisdom^
Borne down with years, still doat upon to-morrow t
That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward, and the fool, condemn'd to lose
An useless life in wishing for to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect !
Strange that this general fraud from day to day
Should fill the world with wretches undetected.
The soldier lab'ring through a winter's march,
Still sees to-morrow dress'd in robes of triumph ;
Still to the lover's long-expecting arms,
To-morrow brings the visionary bride ;
But thou, too old to bear another cheat,
Learn, that the present hour alone is man's.
Dr. Johnson's Irene
TORTURE - TRANSPORT - TRAVELLER.
527
To-morrow, didst thou say ?
Methought I heard Horatio say, to-morrow.
Go to — I will not hear of it — to-morrow!
'T is a sharper that stakes his penury
Against thy plenty — who takes thy ready ca sh,
And pays thee naught but wishes, hopes, and
promises,
The currency of idiots. Injurious bankrupt,
That gulls the easy creditor ! to-morrow !
It is a period nowhere to be found
In all the hoary registers of time,
Unless perchance in the fool's calendar.
Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holds society
With those that own it. No, my Horatio,
'Tis fancy's child, and folly is its father :
Wrought on such stuffas dreams are ; and baseless
As the fantastic visions of the evening.
Cotton.
In human hearts what bolder thoughts can rise,
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn ?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain ; the reverse
Is sure to none ; and yet on this "perhaps,"
This " peradventure," infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant we build
Our mountain hopes ; spin out eternal schemes
As we the fatal sisters could out-spin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Abroad in the world, like a shadow
I pass, and am pass'd in my turn ;
We 're civil to-day — does it matter,
To-morrow, who 's civil or stern ?
Miss Jewsbury.
I have friends — and they vow that they love me,
Far better than praise, or than pelf —
I trust them to-day ; and to-morrow
I leave to take care of itself.
Miss Jewsbury.
To-morrow yet would reap to-day,
As we bear blossoms of the dead :
Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed
Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay.
Tennyson.
Thoughts that frown upon our mirth
Will smile upon our sorrow,
And many dark fears of to-day
May be bright hopes to-morrow.
Pinchney,
TORTURE.
Wire-draw his skin, spin all his nerves like hair,
And work his tortur'd flesh as thin as flame.
Zee's Constantine.
Bring forth the rack :
Fetch hither cords, and knives, and sulphurous
flames !
He shall be bound and gash'd, his skin fleec'd oft)
and burnt alive :
He shall be hours, days, years, a-dying.
Lee's CEdipus.
Thou shalt behold him stretch'd in all the agonies
Of a tormenting and shameful death !
His bleeding bowels, and his broken limbs,
Insulted o'er by a vile butchering villain.
Otway's Venice Preserved
To-morrow — yea, to-morrow's evening sun
Will sinking see impalement's pangs begun,
And rising with the wonted blush of morn,
Behold how well or ill those pangs are borne.
Of torments this the longest and the worst,
Which adds all other agony to thirst,
That day by day death still forbears to slake,
While famish'd vultures flit around the stake.
Byron's Corsair
TRANSPORT. — (See Ecstasy.)
TRAVELLER. TRAVELLING.
He did request me to importune you,
To let him spend his time no more at home,
Which would be great impeachment to his age,
In having known no travel in his youth.
Shahs. Two Gentlemen of Verona,
I have consider'd well his loss of time ;
And how he cannot be a perfect man,
Not being try'd, and tutor'd in the world;
Experience is by industry achiev'd,
And perfected by the swift course of time.
Shahs. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
As far as I see, all the good our English
Have got by their late voyage, is but merely
A fit or two o' tli' face.
Shahs. Henry VIII
This is a traveller, sir ; knows men and
Manners, and has plough'd up the sea so far
Till both the poles have knock'd ; has seen the sui
Take coach, and can distinguish the colour
Of his horses, and their kinds.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady
He returns, his travel spent,
Less knowing of himself than when he went
Who knowledge hunt, kept under foreign locks.
May bring home wit to hold a paradox ;
Yet be fools still.
Bishop King
TREASON.
His travel has not stopp'd him
As you suppose, nor alter'd any freedom,
But made him far more clear and excellent :
It drains the grossness of the understanding,
And renders active and industrious spirits :
He that knows men's manners, must of necessity
Best know his own, and mend those by examples :
'T is a dull thing to travel like a mill-horse,
Still in the place he was born in, round and blinded.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Queen of Corinth.
He foreign countries knew, but they were known
Not for themselves, but to advance his own.
Lluellin.
Those travell'd youths, whom tender mothers
wean,
And send abroad to see, and to be seen ;
With whom, lest they should lose their way, or
worse,
A tutor 's sent, by way of a dry-nurse ;
Each of whom just enough of spirit bears
To show our follies, and to bring home theirs,
Have made all Europe's vices so well known,
They seem almost as nat'ral as our own.
Churchill.
Me other cares in other climes engage,
Cares that become my birth, and suit my age :
In various knowledge to instruct my youth,
And conquer prejudice, worst foe to truth ;
By foreign arts, domestic faults to mend,
Enlarge my notions, and my views extend ;
The useful science of the world to know,
Which books can never teach, nor pedants show.
Lord Lyttleton.
Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,
And marvel men should quit their easy chair,
The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace ;
Oh ! there is sweetness in the mountain air,
And life, that bloated ease can never hope to
share. Byron's Childe Harold.
She had resolv'd that he should travel through
All European climes, by land or sea,
To mend his former morals, and get new,
Especially in France and Italy,
(At least this is the thing most people do.)
Byron.
I can't but say it is an awkward sight
To see one's native land receding through
The growing waters ; it unmans one quite
Especially when life is rather new.
Byron.
Returning he proclaims by many a grace,
Ry shrugs and strange contortions of his face,
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam,
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.
Cowper's Progress of Ei tor.
With rev'rend tutor clad in habit lay,
To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day ;
With memorandum-book for ev'ry town,
And ev'ry post, and where the chaise broke down J
His stock, a few French phrases got by heart,
With much to learn, but nothing to impart.
The youth, obedient to his sire's commands,
Sets off a wand'rer into foreign lands.
Surpris'd at all they meet, the gosling pair,
With awkward gait, stretch'd neck, and silly stare,
Discover huge cathedrals built with stone,
And steeples tow'ring high much like our own ;
But show peculiar light, by many a grin
At popish practices observ'd within.
Cowper's Progress of Error.
I travel all the irksome night,
By ways to me unknown ;
I travel, like a bird of flight,
Onward, and all alone.
James Montgomery.
Joy ! the lost one is restor'd !
Sunshine comes to hearth and board.
From the far-off countries old,
Of the diamond and red gold,
From the dusky archer bands,
Roamers of the desert sands,
He hath reach'd his home again.
Mrs. Hemans.
Where'er thou journeyest, or whate er thy care,
My heart shall follow and my spirit share.
Mrs. Sigourney.
TREASON.
Treason is but trusted like the fox ■
Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd, and lock'd up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
Skaks. Henry IV. Part I.
That man, that sits within a monarch's heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse* the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might be set abroach,
In shadow of such greatness !
Shah. Henry IV. Part II.
Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side ?
Been sworn my soldier ? bidding me depend
Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength ?
And dost thou now fall over to my foes ?
Thou wear'st a lion's hide ! doff it for shame,
And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
Shaks. King John.
Thus do all traitors ;
If their purgation did consist in words,
They arc as innocent as grace itself.
Shaks. As you like it
TREASON.
529
He has betray'd your business, and given up,
For certain drops of salt, your city Rome,
(I say, your city,) to his wife and mother :
Breaking- his oath and resolution, like
A twist of rotten silk.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
I protest,
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy victor-sword, and fire -new fortune,
Thy valour, and thy heart, — thou art a traitor :
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father ;
Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince ;
And from th' extremest upward of thy head,
To the descent and dust beneath thy feet,
A most toad-spotted traitor.
Shales. King Lear.
I tell ye all,
I am your better, traitors as ye are ; —
And thou usurp'st my father's rights and mine.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Talk'st thou to me of ifs ? thou art a traitor : —
Off with his head : — now, by Saint Paul, I swear,
I will not dine until I see the same.
Shaks. Richard III.
Thou art a traitor and a miscreant ;
Too good to be so, and too bad to live.
Shaks. Richard II.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose :
Working so grossly in a natural cause,
That admiration did not whoop at them.
But thou 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason, and on murther ;
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was,
That wrought upon thee so prepost'rously,
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence.
Shaks. Henry V.
Smooth runs the water, where the brook is deep,
And in his simple show he harbours' treason.
The fox barks not, when he would steal the lamb.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part II.
Were my breast
Transparent, and my thoughts to be discern'd,
Not one spot should be found to taint the candour
Of my allegiance. And I must be bold
To tell you, sir, for he that knows no guilt
Can know no fear, 't is tyranny t' o'ercharge
An honest man, and such till now I 've liv'd,
And such, my lord, will die.
Massinger's Great Duke of Florence.
The man, who pauses on the paths of treason,
Halts on a quicksand, — the first step engulphs him.
Hill's Henry V.
21
He therefore wisely cast about,
All ways he could, t' ensure his throat,
And hither came, t' observe and smoke
What courses other riskers took ;
And to the utmost do his best
To save himself, and hang the rest.
Butler's Hudibras.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
When none can sin against the people's will
Where crowds can wink and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own.
Dry den.
Is there not some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder in the stores of heav'n
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man,
Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin ?
Addison's Caio.
He who contends for freedom,
Can ne'er be justly deem'd his sovereign's foe :
No, 't is the wretch who tempts him to subvert it,
The soothing slave, the traitor in the bosom,
Who best deserves that name.
Thomson's Edward and Eleanora.
It is the curse of treachery like mine,
To be most hated, where it most has serv'd.
Havard's Regulus
The man who rises on his country's ruin,
Lives in a crowd of foes, himself the chief:
In vain his power, in vain his pomp and pleasure !
His guilty thoughts, those tyrants of the soul,
Steal in unseen, and stab him in his triumph
Martyn's Timolem.
By heav'n, there 's treason in his aspect !
That cheerless gloom, those eyes that pore on
earth,
That bended body, and those folded arms,
Are indications of a tortur'd mind,
And blazon equal villany and shame.
Shirley's Edward the Black Princt..
For know that treason,
And prostituted faith, like strumpets vile,
The slaves of appetite, when lust is sated —
Are turn'd adrift to dwell with infamy,
By those that us'd them.
Brown's Athelstan
Think on th' insulting scorn, the conscious pangs,
The future miseries that await th' apostate.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
Oh for a tongue to curse the slave,
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might !
Moo**
45
530
TRIUMPH -TRUTH.
His country's curse, his children's shame,
Outcast of virtue, peace, and fame.
Moore.
Treason does never prosper ; what 's the reason ?
Why, when it prospers, none dare call it treason.
Anon.
'T is he — 't is he — I know him now,
I know him by his pallid brow ;
I know him by the evil eye
That aids his envious treachery.
Byron's Giaour.
Lies it within
The bounds of possible things, that I should link
My name to that word — traitor 1
Mrs. Hemans.
At last I know thee — and my soul
Fiom all thy arts set free,
Abjures the cold consummate art
Shrin'd as a soul in thee,
Priestess of falsehood — deeply learn'd
In all heart-treachery !
Sara J. Clarice.
TRIUMPH. — (See Victory.)
TRUTH.
The seat of truth, is in our secret hearts,
Not in the tongue, which falsehood oft imparts.
Brandon's Octavia.
This is all true as it is strange :
Nay it is ten times true ; for truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.
Shales. Mea.for Mea.
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.
Shaks. Hamlet.
This above all, to thine own self be true ;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Shaks. Hamlet.
The truth you speak, doth lack some gentleness,
And time to speak it in : you rub the sore,
When you should bring the plaster.
Shaks. Tempest
He is an adorer of chaste truth,
And speaks religiously of ev'ry man :
He will not trust obscure traditions,
Or faith implicit, but concludes of things
Within hip own clear knowledge : what he says
Vou may believe, and pawn your soul upon 't.
Shirley's Example.
The dignity or truth is lost
With much protesting.
Jonsoris Catiline.
Upon her head she wears a crown of stars,
Through which her orient hair waves to her waist,
By which believing mortals hold her fast,
And in those golden cords are carried even
Till with her breath she blows them up to heaven.
She wears a robe enchas'd with eagles' eyes,
To signify her sight in mysteries ;
Upon each shoulder sits a milk-white dove,
And at her feet do wily serpents move :
Her spacious arms do reach from east to west,
And you may see her heart shine through her
breast :
Her right hand holds a sun with burning rays,
Her left a curious bunch of golden keys ;
With which heav'n's gates she locketh, and dis-
plays,
A crystal mirror hanging at her breast,
By which men's consciences are search'd and
drest :
On her coach-wheels hypocrisy lies rack'd,
And squint-ey'd slander, with vain glory back'd ;
Her bright eyes burn to dust ; in which shines fate :
An angel ushers her triumphant gait ;
Whilst with her fingers fans of stars she twists,
And with them beats back error, clad in mists :
Eternal unity behind her shines;
That fire, and water, earth and air combines.
Her voice is like a trumpet, loud and shrill ;
Which bids all sounds in earth, and heav'n be still
Jonson's Masques.
'Twixt truth and error, there is this diff'rencie
known,
Error is fruitful, truth is only one.
Herrick
Vice for a time may shine, and virtue sigh ;
But truth, like heav'n's sun, plainly doth reveal,
And scourge or crown, what darkness did conceal.
Davenport's City Night-Cap.
Oh truth,
Thou art, whilst tenant in a noble breast,
A crown of crystal in an iv'ry chest !
DavenporVs King John and Matilda
Yet all of us hold this for true,
No faith is to the wicked due;
For truth is precious and divine,
Too rich a pearl for sarnal swine.
Butler's Hudibras.
Truth, like a single point, escapes the sight,
And claims attention to perceive it right ;
But what resembles truth is soon descry'd,
Spreads like a surface, and expanded wide.
Pomfret
TWILIGHT.
5:u
What mark does truth, -what bright distinction
bear?
How do we know that what we know is true ?
How shall we falsehood fly, and truth pursue ?
Pomfret.
'T is not enough your counsel shall be true ;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.
Without good breeding, truth is disapprov'd ;
That only makes superior sense belov'd.
Pope.
Truth needs no flowers of speech.
Pope.
When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the He ;
But truth herself, if clouded with a frown,
Must have some solemn proofs to pass her down.
Churchill.
Truth ! why shall ev'ry wretch of letters
Dare to speak truth against his betters !
Let ragged virtue stand aloof,
Nor mutter accents of reproof;
Let ragged wit a mute become,
When wealth and power would have her dumb.
Churchill.
All truth is precious, if not all divine,
And what dilates the pow'rs must needs refine.
Cowper.
The sages say, dame truth delights to dwell,
Strange mansion ! in the bottom of a welL
Questions are, then, the windlass and the rope
That pull the grave old gentlewoman up.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
What is truth ? — a staff rejected.
Wordsworth.
It is a weary and a bitter task
Back from the lip the burning word to keep,
And to shut out heaven's air with falsehood's mask,
And in the dark urn of the soul to heap
Indignant feelings — making e'en of thought
A buried treasure.
Mrs. Hemans.
Verily there is nothing so false, that a sparkle of
truth is not in it.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
When we have hop'd, sought, striven, lost our aim,
Then the truth fronts us, beaming out of darkness,
Iiike a white brow through its o'ershadowing hair.
Bailey's Festus.
Ti uth crush'd to earth shall rise again
The eternal years of God are hers ;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
Bryant's Poems
No soul can soar too loftily whose aim
Is God-given Truth and brother love of man.
J. Bayard Taylor.
— The grave's dark portal
Soon shuts this world of shadows from the view ;
Then shall we grasp realities immortal,
If to the truth within us we are true.
Mrs. Embury.
Ask me not why I should love her ; —
Look upon those soul-full eyes !
Look while mirth or feeling move her,
And see there how sweetly rise
Thoughts gay and gentle from a breast
Which is of innocence the nest —
Which, though each joy were from it shred,
By truth would still be tenanted !
Hoffman's Poems.
TWILIGHT.
I love thee, twilight ! for thy gleams impart
Their dear, their dying influence to my heart,
When o'er the harp of thought thy passing wind
Awakens all the music of the mind,
And joy and sorrow, as the spirit burns,
And hope and memory sweep the chords by turns.
Montgomery's World before the Flood.
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard ;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word ;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
ByrGM,
The lady and her lover, left alone,
The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired : —
Ave Maria ! o'er the earth and sea,
That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee .
Byron.
'T was twilight, for the sunless day went down
Over the waste of waters like a veil
W T hich, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown
Of one who hates us.
Byron
How fine to view the sun's departing ray
Fling back a lingering lovely after-day;
The moon of summer glides serenely by,
And sheds a fight enchantment o'er the sky.
These, sweetly mingling, pour upon the sight
A penciH'd shadowing, and a dewy light —
A softened day, a half-unconscious night
Alas ! too finely pure on earth to stay,
It faintly spots the hill, and dies away.
4w»
532
TYRANNY. TYRANTS.
The tender Twilight with a crimson cheek
Leans on the breast of Evening.
How tenderly the trembling light yet plays
On the far-waving foliage ! day's last blush
Still lingers on the billowy waste of leaves
With a strange beauty — Like the yellow flush
That haunts the ocean when the day goes by.
Isaac McLellan.
And while the rich tranquillity we view,
Hope's sweetest promises again renew,
As if the Twilight Angel hover'd there,
To waft from nature's rest a balm for care.
H. T. Tuckerman.
TYRANNY. TYRANTS.
I know him tyrannous ; and tyrants' fears
Decrease not, but grow faster than their years.
Shaks. Pericles,
For what is he they follow? truly, gentlemen,
A bloody tyrant, and a homicide ;
One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd ;
One that made means to come by what he hath,
And slaughter'd those that Were the means to help
him;
A base foul stone, made precious by the foil
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set ;
One that hath ever been God's enemy.
Shaks. Richard III.
Our brother is imprison'd by your means,
Myself disgrae'd, and the nobility
Held in contempt; while great promotions
Are daily given to ennoble those
That scarce, some two days since, were worth a
noble. Shaks. Richard III.
And many an old man's sigh, and many a
widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye —
Men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate,
And orphans for their parents' timeless death, —
Shall rue. the hour that ever thou wast born.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice ; till now myself, and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wander'd with our travcrs'd arms, and
breath'd
uur sufferance vainly.
Shaks. Timon.
Bom more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
•Vhoee hearts are absent too.
Shaks. Macbeth.
Then live to be the show and gaze o' the time ;
We '11 have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole ; and under-writ
Here may you see the tyrant.
Shaks. Macbeth
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
That has a name.
Shaks. Macbeth.
He would
Have made them mules, silene'd their pleaders, and
Dispropertied their freedoms ; holding them,
In human action and capacity,
Of no more soul, nor fitness for the world,
Than camels in their war ; who have their provant
Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
For sinking under them.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
He hath no friends, but who are friends for fear ;
Which in his dearest need, will fly from him.
Shakspeare.
Why should Csesar be a tyrant then ?
Poor man ! I know, he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep :
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Shaks. Julius Casar.
Tyrants' arts,
Are to give flatterers grace ; accusers, pow'r ;
That those may seem to kill, whom they devour.
Jonson's Sejanus.
Th' aspirer once attain'd unto the top,
Cuts off those means by which himself got up :
And with a harder hand, and straiter rein,
Doth curb that looseness he did find before ;
Doubting th' occasion like might serve again :
His own example makes him fear the more.
Daniel's Civil War.
Tyrants ! why swell you thus against your
makers ?
Is rais'd equality so soon grown wild ?
Dare you deprive your people of succession,
Which thrones, and sceptres, on their freedoms
build ?
Have fear, or love, in greatness no impression?
Since people who did raise you to the crown,
Are ladders standing still to let you down.
Lord Brooke's Mustaplia.
Tyrants seldom die
Of a dry death ; it waitcth at their gate,
Drest in the colour of their robes of state.
Alleyn's Henry VII.
Fear no stain;
A tyrant'.s blood doth wash the hand that spills it.
Cartwrighf s Sitgf
TYRANNY. TYRANTS.
533
'Twixt kings and tyrants there 's this difference
known,
Kings seek their subjects' good, tyrants their own.
Herrick.
All the ambitious for the throne would fight,
For where none has the title, all have right :
Thus whilst we cast a bloody tyrant down
By blood, we raise another to the crown.
Earl of Orrery's Tryplwn.
While glorious murderers
Destroy mankind, to form a tyranny,
We'll destroy tyranny, to form mankind.
Crown's Darius.
Tyranny, that savage, brutal power,
Which not protects, but still devours mankind.
Denham's Sophy.
So spake the fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excus'd his devilish deeds.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
When force invades the gift of nature, life,
The eldest law of nature bids defend :
And if, in that defence, a tyrant fall,
His death's his crime, not ours.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
If I 'm a traitor, think, and blush, thou tyrant,
Whose injuries betray'd me into treason,
Effac'd my loyalty, unhing'd my faith,
And hurry'd me from hopes of heav'n to hell !
All these, and all my yet unfinish'd crimes,
When I shall rise to plead before the skies,
I charge on thee, to make thy damning sure.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
Tyrant ! it irks me so to call my prince-;
But just resentment, and hard usage join'd
Th' unwilling word ; and grating as it is,
Take it, for 't is thy due.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
Yes, a most notorious villain ;
To see the sufferings of my fellow-creatures,
And own myself a man : to see our senators
Cheat the deluded people with a show
Of liberty, which yet they ne'er must taste of.
They say, by them our hands are free from fetters ;
Yet whom they please they lay in basest bonds ;
Bring whom they please to infamy and sorrow ;
Drive us like wrecks down the rough tide of
power,
Whilst no hold 's left to save us from destruction :
All that bear this are villains, and I one,
Not to rouse up at the great call of nature,
And check the growth of these domestic spoilers,
That make us slaves, and tell us 't is our charter.
Otway's Venice Preserved.
| Justice is lame, as well as blind, amongst us :
J The laws, corrupted to their ends that make them,
: Serve but for instruments of some new tyranny,
That every day starts up t' enslave us deeper.
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Unheard, the injur'd orphans now complain ;
The widow's cries address the throne, in vain.
Causes unjudg'd disgrace the loaded file,
And sleeping laws the king's neglect revile.
Prior's Soloman.
That foe to justice, corner of all law ;
That beast, which thinks mankind are born for
one,
And made by heaven to be a monster's prey ;
That heaviest curse of groaning nations, tyranny.
Rome's Lady Jane Grey.
What, alas ! is arbitrary rule ?
He 's far the greater and the happier monarch
Whose power is bounded by coercive laws,
Since, while they limit, they preserve his empire.
Trap's Abramule.
I am told, thou call'st thyself a king.
Know, if thou art one, that the poor have rights :
And power, in all its pride, is less than justice.
Hill's Meropc.
Yet I must tell thee, it would better suit
A fierce despotic chief of barbarous slaves,
Than the calm dignity of one who sits
In the grave senate of a free republic,
To talk so high, and as it were to thrust
Plebeians from the native rights of man.
Thomson's Coriolanus.
It is a vain attempt ,
To bind th' ambitious and unjust by treaties :
These they elude a thousand specious ways ;
Or, if they cannot find a fair pretext,
They blush not in the face of heaven to break them
Thomson's Coriolanus
Oh ! is there not
A time, a righteous time, reserv'd in fate,
When these oppressors of mankind shall feel
The miseries they give ; and blindly fight
For their own fetters too?
Thomson's Sophomsba.
Come ! by whatever sacred name disguis'd,
Oppression, come ! and in thy works rejoice !
See nature's richest plains to putrid fens
Turn'd by thy fury. From their cheerful bounas
See raz'd th' enlivening village, farm, and "-eat.
First rural toil, by thy rapacious hand
Robb'd of his poor reward, resign'd the plougn ,
And now he dares not turn the noxious glebe.
'Tis thine entire.
Thomson's Libern.
45*
534
TYRANNY. TYRANTS.
When those whom heav'n distinguishes o'er mil-
lions,
Profusely gives them honours, riches, power,
Whate'er th' expanded heart can wish ; when they,
Accepting the reward, neglect the duty,
Or, worse, pervert those gifts to deeds of ruin ;
Is there a wretch they rule so mean as they !
Guilty at once, of sacrilege to heaven,
And of perfidious robbery to man.
Mallet and Thomson's Alfred.
Inglorious bondage ! human nature groans,
Beneath a vassalage so vile and cruel,
And its vast body bleeds through every vein.
Blair's Grave.
Power is a curse when in a tyrant's hands,
But in a bigot tyrant's — treble curse.
Miller's Mahomet.
Tho' the structure of a tyrant's throne
Rise on the necks of half the suffering world ;
Fear trembles in the cement : Prayers and tears,
And secret curses sap its mouldering base,
And steal the pillars of allegiance from it ;
Then let a single arm but dare the sway,
Headlong it turns, and drives upon destruction.
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa.
Not claim hereditary, not the trust
Of frank election ;
Not even the high anointing hand of heav'n
Can authorize oppression ; give a law
For lawless power ; wed faith to violation ;
On reason build misrule, or justly bind
Allegiance to injustice. — Tyranny
Absolves all faith ; and who invades our rights,
Howe'er his own commence, can never be
But an usurper.
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa.
To send the injur 1 d unredress'd away,
How great soever the offender, and the wrong'd
Howe'er obscure, is wicked, weak and vile, —
Degrades, defiles, and should dethrone a king.
Smollett's Regicide.
O thou Almighty ! awful and supreme !
Redress, revenge an injur'd nation's wrongs :
Show'r down your curses on the tyrant's head !
Arise the judge, display your vengeance on him,
Blast all his black designs, and let him feel
Ihe anxious pains with which his country groans,
Martyn's Timoleon.
Still monarchs dream
Of universal empire growing up
From universal ruin. Blast the design,
G'-eat God of JFIosts ! nor let thy creatures fall
Unpitied victims at ambition's shrine !
Porteus's Death.
Shall we resign
Our hopes, renounce our rights, forget our wrongs.
Because an impotent lip beneath a crown,
Cries, " Be it so."
Sir A. Hunt's Julian
All laws of God, of nature, and of nations,
Devote such, like the savage beasts of prey,
At any time, by every hand, to perish
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
T was not enough
By subtle fraud to snatch a single life !
Puny impiety ! whole kingdoms fell
To sate the lust of power ; more horrid still,
The foulest stain and scandal of our nature
Became its boast. One murder made a villain ;
Millions a hero. Princes were privileg'd
To kill, and numbers sanctified the Crime.
Porteus's Death.
Tyrants, the comets of their kind,
Whose withering influence ran
Through all the promise of the mind,
And smote and mildew'd man.
J. Montgomery
The tyrant now
Trusts not to men : nightly within his chamber
The watch-dog guards his couch, the only friend
He now dare trust.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald
Now hath his loaded soul gone to its place,
And ne'er a pitying voice from all his kind,
Cries, " God have mercy on him."
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
Goaded by ambition's sting
The hero sunk into the king !
Then he fell — so perish all
Who would men by man enthral !
Byron's Waterloo.
His country's wrongs and his despair to save her
Had stung him from a slave to an enslaver.
Byron.
Oh power that rulest and inspirest ! how
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power
Is likest thine in heaven in outward show,
Least like to thee in attributes divine,
Tread on the universal necks that bow,
And then assure us that their rights are thine ?
Byron's Dante
Oh ! my own beauteous land, so long laid low,
So long the grave of thine own children's hopes.
When there is but required a single blow
To break the chain !
Byron's Dante
UNANIMITY - UNBELIEF - USURPER - VANITY.
535
What
Are a few drops of human blood ? 't is false,
The blood of tyrants is not human ; they,
Like to incarnate Molochs, feed on ours,
Until 'tis time to give them to the tombs
Which they have made so populous. Oh world !
Oh men ! what are ye, and our best designs,
That we must work by crime to punish crime ?
Byron's Doge of Venice.
Thy suing to these men were but the bleating
Of the lamb to the butcher, or the cry
Of seamen to the surge : I would not take
A life eternal, granted at the hands
Of wretches, from whose monstrous villanies
I sought to free the groaning nations.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
The old human fiends,
With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange
To tears, save drops of dotage, with long white
And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and
heads
As palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel,
Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if life
Were no more than the feelings long extinguish'd
In their accursed bosoms.
Byron's Two Foscari.
Tyranny
Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem '
None rebels except subjects? The prince who
Neglects or violates his trust is more
A brigand than the robber chief.
Byron's Two Foscari.
They have gone beyond
Even their exorbitance of power ; and when
This happens in the most contemn'd and abject
States, stung humanity will rise to check it.
Byron's Two Foscari.
The people ! — There's no people, you well know
it,
Else you dare not deal thus by them or me.
There is a populace, perhaps, whose looks
May shame you ; but they dare not groan nor
curse you,
bave with their hearts and eyes.
Byron's Two Foscari.
Think'st tht/a there is no tyranny but that
Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice —
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury —
The negligence — the apathy — the evils
Of sensual sloth — produce ten thousand tyrants,
Whose delegated cruelty surpasses
The worst acts of one energetic master,
However harsh and hard in his own bearing.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
Then was the evil day of tyranny,
Of kingly and of priestly tyranny,
That bruis'd the nations long.
Pollock's Course of Time
Rulers still
Have been of equal mind, except a few,
Cruel, rapacious, tyrannous and vile.
Pollock's Course of Time.
Tyranny himself,
The enemy, although, of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obey'd,
Is later born than Freedom.
Bryant
And what is this splendour that dazzles the sigh':,
Of what are the minions of tyranny proud ?
'Tis a gleam that but deepens the horror of night —
'Tis a lightning that flashes from slavery's cloud.
Anon.
UNANIMITY. — (See Constancy.)
UNBELIEF. — (See Scepticism.)
USURPER.
A sceptre, snatch'd with an unruly hand,
Must be as boist'rously maintain'd as gain'd.
Skaks. King John
Thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,
Cut off the sequence of posterity,
Out-faced infant state, and done a rape
Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.
Shaks. King John,
For though usurpers sway the rule awhile,
Yet heavens are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
A murderer, and a villain;
A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent lord : — a vice of kings :
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule ;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
Shaks. Hamlet
VANITY.
Now 'gan his heart all swell in jollity,
And of himself great hope and help conceiv'a
That, puffed up with smoke of vanity,
And with self-loved personage deceiv'd,
He 'gan to hope, of men to be receiv'd
For such as him thought or fain would be •
536
VARIETY -VICE.
But for in court gay portance he perceiv'd
A gallant show to be in greatest gree,
Eftsoons to court he cast t' advance his first de-
gree.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
Shaks. Richard II.
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air :
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve ;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind : we are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Shaks. Tempest.
Nor knew, fond youth ! it was himself he lov'd.
Addison's Ovid.
Thus felt sir Owen, as a man whose cause
Is very good — it has his own applause.
Cralle.
And he, the light and vain one, for him there
never wakes
That love, for which a woman's heart will beat
until it breaks.
Miss London.
It is the intensest vanity alone,
That makes us bear with life.
Bailey's Festus.
Faroe 's but a hollow echo ; gold, pure clay ;
Honour, the darling of but one short day ;
Beauty, the eye's idol, but a darnask'd skin ;
State, but a golden prison to live in,
And torture free-born minds ; embroider'd trains
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins ;
And blood allied to greatness is alone
Inherited, not purchas'd, not our own.
Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood and
birth,
Arc but the fading blossoms of the earth.
Sir Henry Watton.
The hue of death is cast o'er every thing ;
And canity is mark'd on all I see !
Miss Gould.
Oh, say not, wisest of all the kings,
That have risen on Israel's throne to reign —
Say not, as one of your wisest things,
That grace is false, and beauty vain :
John Pierpont.,
VARIETY.
Wherefore did nature pour her bounties forth
With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,
Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks^
Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable,
But all to please and sate a curious taste ?
Milton's Comus
If all the world
Should in a pet of temperance feed on pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but
frieze,
Th' All-Giver would be unthank'd, would be un-
prais'd. Milton's Comus.
Variety 's the source of joy below,
From which still fresh revolving pleasures flow ;
In books and love the mind one end pursues,
And only change the expiring flame renews.
Gay.
Countless the various species of mankind,
Countless the shades which sep'rate mind from
mind ;
No general object of desire is known,
Each has his will, and each pursues his own.
Gifford's Perseus*
The rapid and the deep — the fall, the gulf,
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness.
Bailey's Festus.
Youth loves and lives on change,
Till the soul sighs for sameness ; which at last
Becomes variety ; and takes its place.
Bailey's Festus.
Play every string in love's sweet lyre —
Set all its music flowing ;
Be air, and dew, and light, and fire,
To keep the soul-flower growing.
Mrs. Osgood.
VICE.
I hate when vice can bolt her arguments,
And virtue has no tongue to check the pride.
Milton's Comus.
No penance can absolve our guilty fame ;
Nor tears, that wash out sin, can wash out shame.
Prior's Henry and Emma.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen ;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Pope's Essay on Man.
VICISSITUDE -VICTORY.
53?
The heart resolves this matter in a trice,
Men only feel the smart, but not the vice 1
Pope.
But when to mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill.
Pope's Rape of ike Loch
Falsehood and fraud grow up in every soil,
The product of all climes.
Addison's Cato.
When men of infamy to grandeur soar,
They light a torch to show their shame the more.
Those governments which curb not evils cause!
And a rich knave 's a libel on our laws.
Young's Love of Fame.
Ah me ! from real happiness we stray,
By vice bewilder'd ; vice, which always leads,
However fair at first, to wilds of wo.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
Ah, vice ! how soft are thy voluptuous ways !
While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape
The fascination of thy magic gaze ?
A cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape,
And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Not all that heralds rak'd from coffin'd clay,
Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme,
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.
Byron's Childe Harold.
There dwelleth in the sinlessness of youth
A sweet rebuke that vice may not endure.
Mrs. Embury.
VICISSITUDE.
Thus doth the ever-changing course of things
Run a perpetual circle, ever turning ;
And that same day, that highest glory brings,
Brings us unto the point of back-returning.
Daniel's Cleopatra.
Is there no constancy in earthly things ?
No happiness in us, but what must alter ?
No life, without the heavy load of fortune?
What miseries we are, and to ourselves ?
Ev'n then when full content seems to sit by us,
What daily sores and sorrows.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas.
Thus run the wheels of state, now up, now down,
And none that lives finds safety in a crown.
Markham and Sampson's Herod and Antipater.
O ! life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns ;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is alwavs the first to be touch' d by the thorn.
Moore.
Oh sad vicissitude
Of earthly things ! to what untimely end
Are all the fading glories that attend
Upon the state of greatest monarchs, brought !
What safety can by policy be wrought,
Or rest be found on fortune's restless wheel !
May's Henry I],
A blossom full of promise is life's joy,
That never comes to fruit. Hope, for a time,
Suns the young floweret in its gladsome light,
And it looks flourishing — a little while —
'T is pass'd, we know not whither, but 't is gone.
Miss London
Roses bloom, and then they wither;
Cheeks are bright, then fade and die ;
Shapes of fight are wafted hither,
Then, like visions, hurry by.
Percival,
Then grieve not that nought mortal
Endures through passing years —
Did life one changeless tenor keep,
'T were cause indeed for tears.
And fill we, ere our parting,
A mantling pledge to sorrow ;
The pang that wrings the heart to-day,
Time's touch will heal to-morrow.
Mrs. Ellet
VICTORY.
O, such a day,
So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won^
Came not till now, to dignify the times,
Since Ceesar's fortunes.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Thus far our fortune keeps an onward course,
And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.
Shahs. Henry IV. Part III
Now the time is come,
That France must veil her lofty-plumed crest,
And let her head fall into England's lap.
Shalcspeart
" It was the English," Kaspar cried,
" Who put the French to rout :
But what they kill'd each other for,
I could not well make out.
But every body said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.
They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won ;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay re tting in the sun ;
But things like that, you know, muvt be
After a famous victory."
Southeti
538
VILLAIN -VIRTUE.
'T is not victory to win the field,
Unless we make our enemies to yield
More to our justice, than our force ; and so
As well instruct, as overcome our foe.
Gomersall.
Plumed victory
Is truly painted with a cheerful look ;
Equally distant from proud insolence
And base dejection.
Massinger.
Crown ye the brave ! crown ye the brave !
As through your streets they ride,
And the sunbeams dance on the polish'd arms
Of the warriors, side by side ;
Shower on them your sweetest flowers,
Let the air ring with their praise.
Mrs. Hemans.
And when thou 'rt told of knighthood's shield,
And English battles won,
Look up, my boy, and breathe one word —
The name of Washington !
Mrs. Gilman.
— Such were Saratoga's victors — such
The Yeomen-Brave, whose deeds and death have
given
A glory to her skies,
A music to her name.
Halleck.
To do is to succeed — our fight
Is wag'd in Heaven's approving sight —
The smile of God is victory !
Whittier.
Ay, nerve thy spirit to the proofj
And blench not at thy chosen lot,
The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown — yet faint thou not.
Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
The hissing, stinging bolt of scorn ;
r or with thy side shall dwell at last,
The victory of endurance born.
Bryant.
Like spectral lamps, that burn before a tomb,
The ancient lights expire ;
I wave a torch, that floods the lessening gloom
With everlasting fire !
Crown'd with my constellated stars I stand
Beside the foaming sea,
And from the Future, with a victor's hand,
Claim empire for the Free !
J. Bayard Taylor. — The Continents.
VILLAIN.
[here s ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark,
But he 's an arrant knave.
Shales. Hamlet.
Which is the villain ? Let me see his eyes :
That when I note another man like him,
I may avoid him.
Shaks. Much Ada
Techy and wayward was thy infancy ;
Thy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and
furious ;
Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold and venturous!
Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, arid bloody.
Shaks. Richard III.
Thy currish spirit
Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,
Infus'd itself in thee : for thy desires
Are wolfish, bloody, starv'd, and ravenous.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice
VIRTUE.
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied ;
And vice sometimes by action 's dignified.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
How far that little candle throws his beams !
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I never did repent for doing good,
Nor shall not now.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do ;
Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike
As if we had them not.
Sliaks. Measure for Measure
I '11 leave my son my virtuous deeds behind ;
And would my father had left me no more !
For all the rest is held at such a rate,
As brings a thousand fold more care to keep,
Than in possession any jot of pleasure.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Forgive me this my virtue :
For, in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg ;
Yea, curb, and woo, for leave to do him gooa.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Virtue 's a solid rock, whereat being aim'd,
The keenest darts of envy, yet unhurt,
Her marble hero stands, built of such basis,
While they recoil and wound the shooter's face.
BeaumonVs Queen of Corinth,
Valour, employ'd in an ill quarrel, turns
To cowardice, and virtue then puts on
Foul vice's vizor.
Massing it.
VIRTUE.
539
Virtue, if not in action, is a vice ;
.\jid, when we move not forward, we go backward.
Massinger.
Walls of brass resist not
A noble undertaking — nor can vice
Raise any bulwark to make good a place
Where virtue seeks to enter.
Fletcher.
Happen what there can, I will be just ;
My fortune may forsake me, not my virtue :
That shall go with me and before me still,
And glad me doing well, though I hear ilL
Jonson's Catiline.
Heroic virtue sinks not under length
Of years, or ages, but is still the same,
While he preserves, as when he got good fame.
Jonson's Masques.
Virtue, those that can behold thy beauties,
Those that seek, from their youth, thy milk of
goodness,
Their minds grow strong against the storms of
fortune ;
And stand, like rocks, in winter gusts unshaken.
Lord Brooke's Mustapha.
Each must, in virtue, strive for to excel ;
That man lives twice, who lives the first life well.
Herrick.
The frowns of heaven are to the virtuous, like
Those thick dark clouds, which wandering sea-
men spy,
And often show the long-expected land
Is near.
Sir W. Davenant's Unfortunate Loners.
Whilst passion holds the helm, reason and honour
Do suffer wrack ; but they sail safe, and clear,
Who constantly by virtue's compass steer.
Davenport's King John and Matilda.
This is true glory and renown, when God
Looking on earth, with approbation marks
The just man, and divulges him through heav'n
To all his angels, who with true applause
Recount his praise.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
Virtue may be assail'd, but never hurt ;
Surpriz'd by unjust force, and not enthrall'd ;
Yea, even that which mischief meant most harm,
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory ;
But evil on itself shall back recoil.
Milton.
How strange a riddle virtue is !
They never miss it, who possess it not ;
And they who have it ever find a want !
Lord Rochester's Valentinian.
A settled virtue,
Makes itself a judge ; and satisfied within,
Smiles at that common enemy, the world.
Dryden's Rival Ladies.
Is virtue then
Given to make us wretched ! ah ! sad portion !
Fatal to all that have thee ! Shunn'd on earth,
Depress'd, and shown but in severest trials :
Condemn'd to solitude : then shining most,
When black obscurity surrounds ! Poor, poor !
But ever beautiful.
Lord Lansdown's Heroic Love.
Then, to be good is to be happy : Angels
Are happier than mankind, because they're better.
Guilt is the source of sorrow : 't is the fiend,
The avenging fiend, that follows us behind
With whips and stings. The blest know none of
this;
But rest in everlasting piece of mind,
And find the height of all their heaven is good,
ness.
Roice's Fair Penitent.
Virtue never is defac'd ! unchang'd
By strokes of fate, she triumphs o'er distress,
And every bleeding wound adorns her beauty.
Cither's Casar in Egypt.
If there 's a power above us,
And that there is, all nature cries aloud
Thro' all her works, he must delight in virtue ;
And that which he delights in must be happy.
Addison's Cato.
The man who consecrates his hours
By vig'rous effort, and an honest aim,
At once he draws the sting of life and death ;
He walks with nature, and her paths are peace.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly ; angels could no more.
Young's Night Thoughts.
His hand the good man fastens on the skies,
And bids earth roll, nor reels her idle whirl.
Young's Night Thoughts.
A good man, and an angel ! these between,
How thin the barrier ? What divides their fate 1
Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year ;
Or, if an age, it is a moment still;
A moment, or eternity 's forgot.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Virtue, not rolling suns, the mind matures,
That life is long, which answers life's greal
end.
The time that bears no fruit, deserves no name ,
The man of wisdom is the man of years.
Young's Night Thoughia
510
VIRTUE.
Virtue, our present peace, our future prize,
Man's unprecarious, natural estate,
.mprovable at will, in virtue lies ;
Its tenure sure ; its income is divine.
Young's Night Thoughts.
High worth is elevated place : 't is more ;
It makes the past stand candidate for thee ;
Makes more than monarchs, makes an honest
man ;
Tho' no exchequer it commands, 't is wealth ;
And tho' it wears no riband, 't is renown ;
Renown that would not quit thee, tho' disgrac'd,
Nor leave thee pendent on a master's smile.
Young's Night Thoughts.
How oft that virtue, which some women boast,
And pride themselves in, is but an empty name,
No real good ; in thought alone possess'd.
Safe in the want of charms, the homely dame,
Secure from the seducing arts of man,
Deceives herself, and thinks she 's passing chaste ;
Wonders how others e'er could fall, yet when
She talks most loud about the noisy nothing,
Look on her face, and there you read her virtue.
Frowde's Philotas.
But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed ?
What then ? is the reward of virtue bread ?
That, vice may merit — 't is the price of toil ;
The knave deserves it, when he tills the soil ;
The knave deserves it, when he tempts the main,
Where folly fights for kings, or dives for gain.
The good man may be weak, be indolent,
Nor is his claim to plenty, but content-
But grant him riches, your demand is o'er ?
No — shall the good want health, the good want
power ?
Add health and power, and ev'ry earthly thing,
Why bounded power ? why private ? why no
king?
Nay, why external for internal given ?
Why is not man a God, and earth a heaven?
Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive
God gives enough, while he has more to give ;
Immense the power, immense were the demand;
Say, at what part of nature will they stand ?
Pope's Essay on Man.
Count all th' advantage prosperous vice attains,
'T is but what virtue flies from a"nd disdains :
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want — which is, to pass for good.
blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue woe !
Who sees and follows that great scheme the best
Host Knows the blessing and will most be blest.
Pope's Essay on Mm.
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt
joy,
Is virtue's prize ; a better would you fix ?
Then give humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown,
Or public spirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak foolish man ! will heaven reward us there
With the same trash mad mortals wish for
here?
The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet sigh'st thou now for apples and for cakes ?
Go, like the Indian, in another life
Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife ;
As well as dream such trifles are assign'd
As toys and empires, for a godlike mind ;
Rewards, that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing.
Pope's Essay on Man.
O virtue ! virtue ! as thy joys excel,
So are thy woes transcendent ; the gross world
Knows not the bliss or misery of either.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
Believe the muse, the wintry blast of death
Kills not the buds of virtue; no, they spread,
Beneath the heavenly beams of brighter suns,
Thro' endless ages, into higher powers.
Thomson's Season*
Unblest by virtue, government a league
Becomes, a circling junto of tne great,
To rob by law ; religion mild a yoke
To tame the stooping soul, a trick of state
To mask their rapine, and to share the prey.
What are without it senates, save a face
Of consultation deep and reason free,
While the determin'd voice and heart are sold ?
What boasted freedom save a sounding name ?
And what election, but a market vile
Of slaves self-barter'd ?
Thomson's Liberty.
Is aught so fair
In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper or the morn,
In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship? as the candid blush
Of him who strives with fortune to be just?
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes ?
Or the mild majesty of private life,
Where peace with ever-blooming olive crowns
The gate ; where honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings
Of innocence and love protect the scene ?
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
VOICE.
Ml
Thou know'st but little, Zaphna,
If thou dost think true virtue is confin'a
To climes or systems ; no, it flows spontaneous,
Like life s warm stream, throughout the whole
creation,
And beats the pulse of every healthful heart.
Miller's Mahomet.
All private virtue is the public fund :
As that abounds, the state decays, or thrives :
Each should contribute to the general stock,
And who lends most, is most his country's friend.
Jephson's Braganza.
Be virtuous ends pursued by virtuous means,
Nor think th' intention sanctifies the deed :
That maxim publish'd in an impious age
Would loose the wild enthusiast to destroy,
And fix the fierce usurper's bloody title.
Then bigotry might send her slaves to war,
And bid success become the test of truth !
Unpitying massacre might waste the world,
And persecution boast the call of heav'n.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
A virtuous deed should never be delay'd,
The impulse comes from heav'n, and he who
strives
A moment to repress it, disobeys
The god within his mind.
Dowe's Sethona.
Virtue in itself commands its happiness,
Of every outward object independent.
Francis's Eugenia.
Virtue, (for mere good nature is a fool,)
Is sense and spirit with humanity :
'T is sometimes angry, and its frown confounds ;
'T is even vindictive, but in vengeance just.
Knaves fain would laugh at it ; some great ones
dare;
But at his heart the most undaunted son
Of fortune dreads its name and awful charms.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,
Is the best gift of heaven : a happiness
That even above the smiles and frowns of fate
Exalts great nature's favourites ; a wealth
That ne'er encumbers, nor can be transferr'd.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
'T is not for mortals always to be blest,
But him the least the dull of painful hours
Of life oppress, whom sober sense conducts,
And virtue, through this labyrinth we tread.
Virtue and sense I mean not to disjoin ;
Virtue and sense are one ; and trust me, still
A faithless heart betrays the head unsound.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health
The only amaranthine flow'r on earth
Is virtue ; th' only lasting treasure, truth.
Cowper's Task.
Virtue
Stands like the sun, and all which rolls around
Drinks life, and light, and glory from her aspect.
Byron.
All true glory rests,
All praise, all safety, and all happiness,
Upon the moral law.
Wordsworth,
How insecure, how baseless in itself
Is that philosophy, whose sway is fram'd
For mere material instruments ! How weak
The arts and high inventions, if unpropp'd
By virtue !
Wordsworth.
Think, — if thou on beauty leanest,
Think how pitiful that stay,
Did not virtue give the meanest
Charms superior to decay.
Wordsworth.
Keep thy spirit pure
From worldly taint, by the repellant power
Of virtue.
Bailey's Fesius.
Morality 's the right rule for the world,
Nor could society cohere without
Virtue ; and there are those whose spirits walk
Abreast of angels and the future here.
Bailey's Festus.
Virtue ! how many as a lowly thing,
Born of weak folly, scorn thee ! but thy name
Alone they know ; upon thy soaring wing
They'll fear to mount, nor could thy sacred
flame
Burn in their baser hearts : the biting thorn,
The flinty crag, flowers hiding, strew thy field ;
Yet blest is he whose daring bides the scorn
Of the frail, easy herd, and buckles on thy
shield.
Who says thy ways are bliss, trolls but a lay
To lure the infant ; if thy paths, to view,
Were always pleasant, crime's worst sons would
lay
Their daggers at thy feet, and, from mere sloth
pursue. Mrs. Maria Brooks.
Nurs'd by the virtues she hath been
From childhood's hour.
Hallecti
VOICE.
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low; an excellent thing in womar
Shaks. hb
46
542
VOLCANO -WAR,
Ilcnv silvery sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears !
SJtaks. Romeo and Juliet.
That voice was wont to come in gentle whispers,
And fill my ears with the soft breath of love.
Otway.
'Twas like the stealing
Of summer wind through some wreathed shell ;
Each secret winding, each inmost feeling
Of all my soul, echoed to its spell ! «*■
ye voices round my own hearth singing !
As the winds of May to memory sweet,
Might I yet return, a worn heart bringing,
Would those vernal tones the wanderer greet ?
Mrs. Hemans.
Oh ! in each wind, each fountain flow,
Each whisper of the shade,
Grant me, my God, thy voice to know,
And not to be afraid !
Mrs. Hemans.
And their voices low with fashion, not with
feeling, softly freighted
All the air about the windows, with elastic
laughters sweet. Miss Barrett
Thy voice is sweet, as if it took
Its music from thy face.
Miss Landon,
1 teach my lip its sweetest smile,
My tongue its softest tone.
Miss Landon,
She spake as with the voice
Of spheral harmony which greets the soul
When at the hour of death the sav'd one knows
His sister angels near.
Bailey's Festus.
And everywhere
Low voices with the ministering hand
Hung round the sick.
Tennyson's Princess.
The voice that won me first !
Oh, what a tide of recollections rush
Upon my drowning soul !
Mrs. Louisa J. Hall.
Strange ! that one lightly- whisper'd tone
Is far, far sweeter unto me,
Than all the sounds that kiss the earth,
Or breathe along the sea ;
Hut, lady, when thy voice I greet,
Not heaven.y music seems so sweet!
O. W. Holmes.
liow vam are all the trials we meet with here,
If we but feel a better worldHis near,
And voices from the lov'd and lost our weary
spirit cheer J. Bayard Taylor.
And ever its chorus scem'd to be
The mingled voices of household glee,
Like the gush of winds in a mountain tree
J. Bayard Taylor's Poem*
Who taught that tiny voice of thine
Its wealth of sweetness, child ?
Who tun'd each tone to love divine,
With melody so wild ?
Ah ! simple is the spell, 1 ween,
That doth that grace impart;
It dwells its own sweet self within —
It is — a loving heart !
Mrs. Osgood.
VOLCANO.
The dread volcano ministers to good :
Its smother'd flames might undermine the world :
Loud iEtnas fulminate in love to man.
Young.
The winds are aw'd, nor dare to breathe aloud,
The air seems never to have borne a cloud,
Save where volcanoes send to heaven their curl'd
And solemn smokes, like altars of the world.
Edward C. Pinckney.
WAR.
But all those pleasant bowers, and palace brave,
Guyon broke down with rigour pitiless ;
Nor aught their goodly workmanship might save
Them from the tempest of his wrathfulness,
But that their bliss be turn'd to balefulness :
Their groves he fell'd, their gardens did deface,
Their arbours spoil, their cabinets suppress,
Their banquet-houses burn, their buildings raze,
And of the fairest late now made the foulest place.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Lastly stood war, in glitt'ring arms yclad,
With visage grim, stern looks, and blackly hued;
In his right hand, a naked sword he had,
That to the hilts was all with blood imbru'd
And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued,)
Famine and fire he held, and therewithal
He razed towns, and threw down tow'rs all — all.
Lord Dorset in the Mirror for Magistrates.
Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies ;
Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man.
Shaks. Henry V.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game 's afoot ;
Follow your spirit ; and, upon this charge,
Cry — God for Harry, England, and saint George !
Shaks. Henry V.
WAR.
543
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger ;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage :
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon, let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully, as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Shaks. Henry V.
In a moment, look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill shrieking daughters ;
Your fathers taken by their silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls ;
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes ;
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
Do break the clouds. Shahs. Henry V.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up ;
And the flesh'd soldier, — rough and hard of
heart, —
In liberty of bloody hand, shall range
With - conscience wide as hell ; mowing like
grass
Your fresh fair virgins and your flow'ring maids.
Shahs. Henry V.
Now on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fetch' d. from fathers of war-proof;
Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders,
Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought,
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
Shahs. Henry V.
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
They shall be fam'd ; for there the sun shall greet
them,
And draw their honours reeking up to heaven ;
Leaving their earthly parts to choak your clime.
Shahs. Henry V.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ;
For he, to-day, that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother ; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition :
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd, they were not
here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks
That fought with us upon St. Crispin's day.
Shahs. Henry V.
O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England,
That do not work to-day.
Shaks. Henry V.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends,
And say — to-morrow is Saint Crispin :
Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,
And say, these wounds I had on Crispin's day.
Shahs. Henry V.
'Tis positive 'gainst all exception, lords,
That our superfluous lacqueys, and our peasants,
Who, in unnecessary action, swarm
About our squares of battle, were enough
To purge this field of such a hilding foe.
Shahs. Henry V.
Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies ; her hedges, ever pleach'd, —
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
Put forth disorder'd twigs : her fallow leas,
The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,
Do root upon; while that the coulter rusts,
That should deracinate such savagery.
Shahs. Henry V.
Tell me, he that knows,
Why are such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart of implements of war ?
Why such impress of ship-wrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week ?
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint labourer with the day ;
Who is 't that can inform me ?
Shahs. Hamlet
Now, for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty,
Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest,
And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace :
Now powers from home, and discontent at home,
Meet in one line ; and vast confusion waits
(As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast)
The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
Shaks. King John.
Know, the gallant monarch is in arms ;
And like an eagle o'er aery towers,
To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.
Shahs. King John,
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath •
And ready mounted are they, to spit forth
Their iron indignation gainst your walls.
Shahs. King John,
To arms ! be champions of our church !
Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse
A mother's curse, on her revolting son.
Shahs. King John,
God forgive the sin of all those souls,
That to their everlasting residence,
Before the dew of evening fall, shall fleet,
In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king.
Shaks. King John.
544
WAR.
O inglorious league !
Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce,
To arms invasive ? Shall a beardless boy,
A cocker'd silken wanton brave our fields,
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colours idly spread,
And find no check ? let us, my liege, to arms.
Shaks. King John.
For the l
564
WOMAN.
What tl>ey ask in aught that touches on
The heart, is dearer to their feelings or
Their fancy, than the whole external world.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
She was like me in lineaments — her eyes,
Her air, her features, all, to the very tone
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine ;
But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty;
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe : nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears — which I had not ;
And tenderness — but that I had for her ;
Humility — and that I never had.
Her faults were mine — her virtues were her own.
Byron's Manfred.
Some waltz ; some draw : some fathom the abyss
Of metaphysics ; others are content
With music ; the most moderate shine as wits,
While others have a genius turn'd for fits.
Byron.
Man to man so oft unjust
Is always so to woman : one sole bond
Awaits them, treachery is all their trust ;
Taught to conceal, their bursting hearts despond
Over their idol.
Byron.
Such was the daughter of the southern seas,
Herself a billow in her energies,
To bear the bark of others' happiness,
Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grow less.
Byron's Island.
Oh ! who young Leila's glance could read,
And keep that portion of his creed
Which saith that woman is but dust,
A soulless toy for tyrants' lust ?
Byron's Giaour.
Her eyes, dark charm 't were vain to tell,
But gaze on that of the gazelle,
It will assist thy fancy well,
As large, as languishingly dark,
But soul beam'd forth in every spark
That darted from beneath the lid,
Bright as the jewel of Giamschid.
Yes, Soul, and should our prophet say
That form was nought but breathing clay,
Bv Alia ! I would answer nay.
Byron's Giaour.
Fair as the first that fell of womankind,
When on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling ;
WL«e image then was stamp d upon her mind —
Bui once beguil'd — and ever more beguiling.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Soft as the memory of buried love ;
Pure as the prayer which childhood wafts above ,
Was she — the daughter of that rude old chief.
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Nought can to peace the busy female charm,
And if she can't do good, she must do harm.
Hon. G. Lamb.
Still woman draws new power, new empire, still
From every blessing and from every ill.
Vice on her bosom lulls remorseful care,
And virtue hopes congenial virtue there.
Still she most hides the strength that most sub-
dues,
To gain each end, its opposite pursues;
Lures by neglect, advances by delay,
And gains command by swearing to obey.
Hon. G. Lamb.
The fair not always view with favouring eyes
The very virtuous or extremely wise,
But, odd it seems, will sometimes rather take
Want with the spendthrift, riot with the rake.
Hon. G. Lamb.
A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,
To warn, to comfort, and command ;
And yet a spirit still, and bright,
With something of an angel light.
Wordsworth.
Women act their parts
When they do make their order'd houses know
them. J. Sheridan Knowles.
Happy — happier far than thou,
With the laurel on thy brow ;
She that makes the humblest hearth
Lovely but to one on earth.
Mrs. Hemans.
Fairest and loveliest of created things,
By our great Author in the Image form'd
Of His celestial glory, and design'd
To be man's solace.
William Herbert.
Man is but half without woman ; and
As do idolaters their heavenly gods,
We deify the things that we adore.
Bailey's Festus.
And I marvel, sir,
At those who do not feel the majesty,
By heaven ! I 'd almost said the holiness, —
That circles round the fair and virtuous woman *
Frances Kemble Butler.
Charming woman can true converts make,
We love the precepts for the teacher's sake ;
Virtue in her appears so bright and gay,
We hear with pleasure, and with pride obey.
Dr. Franklin.
WOMAN.
565
Woman is not ondevelopt man,
But diverse : could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference :
Yet in the long years liker must they grow ;
I The man be more of woman, she of man ;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Xor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care:
More as the double-natur'd poet each ;
Till at the last she set herself to man
Like perfect music unto noble words ;
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To be,
Self-reverent each, and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other, even as those who love.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men :
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and
calm:
Then springs the crowning race of humankind.
May these things be!
Tennyson's Princess.
Earlier than I know
limners' d in rich foreshadowings of the world,
I lov'd the woman : he that doth not, lives
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self,
Or pines in sad experience, worse than death,
Or keeps his wing'a affections clipt with crime.
Tennyson's Princess.
Woman ! blest partner of our joys and woes !
Even in the darkest hour of earthly ill,
Untarnish'd yet thy fond affection glows,
Throbs with each pulse, and beats with every
thrill!
Bright o'er the wasted scene thou hoverest still,
Angel of comfort to the failing soul ;
Undaunted by the tempest, wild and chill,
That pours its restless and disastrous roll
O'er all that blooms below, with sad and hollow
howl. Sand's Yamoyden.
A health to sweet woman ! the days are no more,
When she watch'd for her lord when the revel
was o'er,
And sooth'd the white pillow, and blush'd when
he came,
As she press'd her cold lips on his forehead of
flame.
Alas, for the lov'd one ! too spotless and fair,
The joys of his banquet to chasten and share ;
Her eye lost its light, that his goblet might shine,
And the rose on her cheek was dissolv'd in his
wine. 0. W. Holmes.
She had a mind,
Deep and immortal, and it would not feed
On pageantry. She thirsted for a spring
Of a serener element, and drank
Philosophy, and for a little while
She was allay'd, till presently it turn'd
Bitter within her, and her spirit grew
Faint for undying waters. Then she came
To the pure fount of God — and is athirst
No more — save, when the ' fever of the world '
Falleth upon her, she will go and breathe
A holy aspiration after heaven.
Willis's Poems
In that stillness
Which most becomes a woman — calm and holy—
Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart,
Feeding its flame.
Longfellow
Ah ! woman — in this world of ours,
'What gift can be compar'd to thee ?
How slow would drag life's weary hours,
Though man's proud brow were bound with
flowers,
And his the wealth of land and sea,
If destin'd to exist alone,
And ne'er call woman's heart his own.
George P. Morris
Yes, woman's love is free from guile,
And pure as bright Aurora's ray ;
The heart will melt before its smile,
And earthly objects fade away.
Were I the monarch of the earth,
And master of the swelling sea,
I would not estimate their worth,
Dear woman, half the price of thee.
George P. Mo-ti*.
And well the poet, at her shrine,
May bend and worship while he woos;
To him she is a thing divine,
The inspiration of his line,
His lov'd one, and his muse.
If to his song the echo rings
Of fame — 'tis woman's voice he heais;
If ever from his lyre's proud strings
Flow sounds, like rush of angel wings, —
'T is that she listens while he sings,
With blended smiles and tears.
HalUtk
Through suffering and sorrow thou hast pass d.
To show us what a woman true may be.
J R. Lowell
Maiden, when such a soul as thine is born,
The morning-stars their ancient music make.
J. R. LoweL
48
666
WONDER- WORDS.
WONDER.
They spake not a word ;
But, like dumb statues, or breathless stones,
Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale.
Shahs. Richard III.
Behold, our infancies in tales delight,
That bolt like hedgehog-quills the hair upright.
Dr. WolcoVs Peter Pindar.
The handsome bar-maids stare, as mute as fishes ;
And sallow waiters, frighten'd, drop their dishes !
Dr. Wolcofs Peter Pindar.
" Niagara ! Wonder of this western world,
And half the world beside ! hail beauteous queen
Of cataracts !" — an angel who had been
O'er heaven and earth spoke thus.
Mrs. Maria Brooks.
WORDS.
Some know no joy like what a word can raise,
Ilaul'd through a language's perplexing maze;
Till on a mate that seems t' agree they light,
Like man and wife that still are opposite ;
Not lawyers at the bar play more with sense,
When brought to their last trope of eloquence,
Than they on every subject, great or small,
At clubs or councils, at a church or ball ;
They cry we rob them of their tributes due ;
Alas ! how can we laugh and pity too ?
StillingfleeV s Essay on Conversation.
Words are the soul's embassadors, who go
Abroad upon her errands to and fro ;
They are the sole expounders of the mind,
And correspondence keep 'twixt all mankind.
They are those airy keys that ope (and wrest
Sometimes) the locks and hinges of the breast.
By them the heart makes sallies : wit and sense
Belong to them : they are the quintessence
Of those ideas which the thoughts distil,
And so calcine and melt again, until
They drop forth into accents ; in whom lies
The salt of fancy, and all faculties.
James Howel.
'T is only man can words create,
And cut the air to sounds articulate
By nature's special charter. Nay, speech can
Make a shrewd discrepance 'twixt man and man :
It dotn the gentleman from clown discover ;
And from a fool the grave philosopher ;
As Solon said to one in judgment weak,
* thought tnee wise until I heard thee speak.
James Hoviel.
Words are the life of knowledge ; they set free,
And bring forth truth by way of midwif'ry;
The activ'st creatures of the teeming brain,
The judges who the inward man arraign :
Reason's chief engine and artillery
To batter error, and make falsehood fly ;
The cannons of the mind, who sometimes bounce
Nothing but war, then peace again pronounce.
James Howel.
Words have wings, and, as soon as their cage,
the
Mouth, is open'd, out they fly, and mount beyond
Our reach and past recovery : like lightning,
They can't be stopt, but break their passage
through
The smallest crannies, and penetrate
Sometimes the thickest walls ; their nature 's as
Expansive as the light.
NeviWs Poor Scholar.
What you keep by you, you may change and
mend;
But words once spoke can never be recall'd.
Roscommon
Where do the words of Greece and Rome excel,
That England may not please the ear as well ?
What mighty magic 's in the place or air,
That all perfection needs must centre there ?
In states let strangers thirdly be preferr'd,
In state of letters merit should be heard.
Churchill
— Words are things ; and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions,
think. Byron.
Thy words had such a melting flow,
And spoke of truth so sweetly well,
They dropp'd, like heaven's serenest snow,
And all was brightness where they fell !
Moore.
Surely one thing shall abide, —
'Midst the wreck of ages one, —
Heaven's eternal Word alone !
Mrs. Hemans.
That word — oh ! it doth haunt me now,
In scenes of joy, in scenes of woe;
By night, by day, in sun or shade,
With the half smile that gently play'd .
Reproachfully, and gave the sound
Eternal power, through life to wound ••
There is no voice I ever heard
So deeply fix'd as that one word
Mrs. Norton.
WORLD.
5G7
A word is ringing through my brain,
It was not meant to give me pain ;
It was when first the sound I heard
A lightly utter'd, careless word.
Mrs. Norton.
Oh ! ye who, meeting, sigh to part,
Whose words are treasures to some heart,
Deal gently, ere the dark days come,
When earth hath but for one a home ;
Lest musing o'er the past, like me,
They feel their hearts wrung bitterly,
And, heeding not what else is heard,
Dwell weeping on a careless word.
Mrs. Norton's Poems.
Words are the motes of thought, and nothing
more.
Words are like sea-shells on the shore ; they show
Where the mind ends, and not how far it has been.
Bailey's Festus.
A mist of words,
Like haloes round the moon, though they enlarge
The seeming size of thoughts, make the light less
Doubly. It is the thought writ down we want,
Not its effect — not likenesses of likenesses.
And such descriptions are not, more than gloves
Instead of hands to shake, enough for us.
Bailey's Festus.
Cold words that hide the envious thought !
Willis.
On my ear her language fell
As if each word dissolved a spell.
Willis.
Words lead to things ; a scale is more precise, —
Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking,
vice. Holmes's Urania.
One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt,
One trivial letter ruins all left out ;
A knot can choke a felon into clay ;
A not will save him, spelt without the k ;
The smallest word has some unguarded spot,
And danger lurks in i without a dot.
Holmes' Poems.
WORLD.
All the world 's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players :
They have their exits, and their entrances ;
And one man in his time plays many parts.
Shaks. As you like it.
Thou seest, we are not all alone unhappy :
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
Shales. As you like it.
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano ;
A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice
You have too much respect upon the world :
They lose it, that do buy it with much care.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice
Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time :
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper ;
And others of such vinegar aspect,
That they '11 not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
I am in this earthly world ; where, to do harm,
Is often laudable : to do good, sometimes,
Accounted dangerous folly.
Shaks. Macbeth
O, world, thy slippery turns ! Friends now fast
sworn,
Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,
Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exer-
cise,
Are still together, who twin, as 't were, in love
Unseparable, shall within this hour,
On a dissension of a doit, break out
To bitterest enmity : so fellest foes,
Whose passions and whose plots have broke their
sleep
To take the one the other, by some chance,
Some trick, not worth an egg, shall grow dear
friends,
And interjoin their issues.
Shaks. Coriolanus.
Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years
Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit :
No more can you distinguish of a man
Than of his outward show; which, God he knows,
Seldom, or never, jumpeth with the heart.
Shaks. Richard III
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world !
Fie on 't ! oh fie ! 't is an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed ; iliings rank and gross in
nature,
Possess it merely.
Shaks. Hamlet
The world 's a hive,
From whence thou canst derive
No good but what thy soul's vexation brings
But case thou meet
Some petty-petty sweet,
Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings
Quartet
5G3
WORLD.
Who to the full, thy vileness, world, e'er told !
What is in thee, that's not extremely ill ?
A loathsome shop, where poison's only sold,
Whose very entrance instantly doth kill;
Nothing- in thee but villany doth dwell,
And all thy ways lead headlong unto hell.
Drayton's Legend of Pierce Gaveston.
This world is like a mint, we are no sooner
Cast into the fire, taken out again,
Hammer'd, stamp'd, and made current, but
Presently we are chang'd.
Decker and Webster's Westward Ho.
The world contains
Princes for arms, and counsellors for brains,
Lawyers for tongues, divines for hearts, and more,
The rich for stomachs, and for backs the poor ;
The officers for hands, merchants for feet,
By which remote and distant countries meet.
Dr. Donne.
They say the world is like a bias-bowl,
And it runs on the rich men's sides : others
Say, 't is like a tennis-ball, and fortune
Keeps such a racket with it, as it tosses
It into time's hazard, and that devours all.
Cupid's Whirligig.
Well hath the great Creator of the world
Fram'd it in that exact and perfect form,
That by itself unmoveable might stand,
Supported only by his providence.
Well hath his powerful wisdom ordered
Thee, in nature, disagreeing elements,
That all affecting their peculiar place,
Maintain the conservation of the whole.
Well hath he taught the swelling ocean
To know his bounds, lest in luxurious pride
He should insult upon the conquer'd land :
Well hath he plac'd yiose torches in the heav'ns
To give light to our else darken'd eyes :
The crystal windows through which our soul,
Looking upon the world's most beauteous face,
Is blest with sight and knowledge of his works.
Well hath he all things done : for how, alas !
Could any strength or wit of feeble man
Sustained have that greater universe
Too weak an Atlas for one commonwealth ?
'low i.ould he make the earth, the water, air,
And fire, in peace their duties to observe,
Or bndle up the headstrong ocean,
That cannot rule the wits and tongues of men,
And keep them in. It were impossible
To give light to the world with all his art
And skill, that cannot well illuminate
C»De darken'd understanding.
Sophister.
This world 's the chaos of confusion :
No world at all, but mass of open wrongs,
Wherein a man, as in a map, may see
The high road way from woe to misery.
Willy-Beguiled.
In this grand wheel, the world, we're spokeB
made all ;
But that it may still keep it round,
Some mount while others fall.
Alex. Brome.
Who looks upon this world and not beyond it,
To the abodes it leads to, must believe it
The bloody slaughter-house of some ill pow'r,
Rather than the contrivance of a good one.
Crown's Ambitious Statesman.
Oh cursed troubled world !
Where nothing without sorrow can be had,
And 'tis not easy to be good or bad !
For horror attends evil, — sorrow good,
Vice plagues the mind, and virtue flesh and blood.
Crown's Darius.
The world is a great dance, in which we find
The good and bad have various turns assign'd ;
But when they've ended the great masquerade,
One goes to glory, th' other to a shade.
Crown's Juliana.
The world 's a wood, in which all lose their way,
Though by a different path each goes astray.
Buckingham.
The world 's a lab'rinth, where unguided men
Walk up and down to find their weariness :
No sooner have we measur'd with much toil
One crooked path, in hope to gain our freedom,
But it betrays us to a new affliction.
Beaumont's Night-Walker.
Where solid pains succeed our senseless joys,
And short-liv'd pleasures pass like fleeting dreams.
Rochester's Valentinian.
There was an ancient sage philosopher,
That had read Alexander Ross over,
And swore the world as he could prove,
Was made of fighting and of love.
Butler's Hudibras
Should once the world resolve t' abolish
All that 's ridiculous and foolish,
It would have nothing left to do,
T' apply in jest or earnest to,
No business of importance, play,
Or state, to pass its time away.
Butler
The world 's a stormy sea,
Whose every breath is strew'd with wrecks of
wretches,
That daily perish in it.
Rowe's Ambitious Stepmother
WORLD.
It Is h pride, alas ! to please the world,
Where honest thoughts are a reproach to man,
Where knaves look great, and groaning virtue
starves,
A world of madness, falsehood, and injustice ?
Smith's Princess of Parma.
What is this world ! Thy school, O misery !
Our only lesson is to learn to suffer :
And he who knows not that, was born for nothing.
Young's Revenge.
How was my heart incrusted by the world !
O how self-fetter'd was my grovelling soul !
How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round
In silken thought, which reptile fancy span,
Till darken'd reason lay quite clouded o'er
With soft conceit of endless comfort
Young's Night Thoughts.
The world's a stately bark, on dangerous seas,
With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril.
Young's Night Thoughts.
The world's infectious ; few bring back at eve
Immaculate, the manners of the morn.
Something, we thought, is blotted ; we resolv'd,
Is shaken ; we renounc'd, returns again.
Young's Night Thoughts.
A world where lust of pleasure, grandeur, gold,
Three demons that divide its realms between
them,
With strokes alternate buffet to and fro
Man's restless heart, their sport, their flying ball ;
Till with the giddy circle, sick and tir'd,
It pants for peace, and drops into despair.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Present example gets within our guard,
And acts with double force, by force repell'd.
Ambition fires ambition ; love of gain
Strikes, like a pestilence, from breast to breast;
Riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapours breathe ;
And inhumanity is caught from man,
From smiling man.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Let not the cooing of the world allure thee ;
Which of her lovers ever found her true ?
Young's Night Thoughts.
Thou'st seen by me, and those who now despise
me,
How men of fortune fall, and beggars rise ;
Shun my example ; treasure up my precepts ;
The world 's before thee — be a knave and prosper.
Lilh's Fatal Curiosity.
Pass but a moment, and this busy globe,
Its thrones, its empires, and its bustling millions
Will seem a speck in the great void of space.
Murphy's Grecian Daughter.
There,
Even love itself is bitterness of soul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart
Or, sunk to sordid interest, feels no more
That noble wish, that never cloy'd desire,
Which selfish joys disdaining, seeks alone
To bless the dearer object of its flame.
Thomson's Seasons.
What is the world ? a term which men have got,
To signify not one in ten knows what.
A term which with no more precision passes
To point out herds of men than herds of asses !
In common use no more it means, we find,
Than many fools in same opinion join'd.
ChurchiH
Let the world be told
She boasts a confidence she does not hold ;
That conscious of her crimes, she feels instead
A cold misgiving, and a killing dread :
That while in health the ground of her support
Is madly to forget that life is short ;
That sick she trembles, knowing she must die,
Her hope presumption, and her faith a lie ;
That while she dotes, and dreams that she believes,
She mocks her maker, and herself deceives,
Her utmost reach historical assent,
The doctrines warp'd to what they never meant ;
The truth itself is in her head as dull
And useless as a candle in a scull,
And all her love of God a groundless claim,
A trick upon the canvas, painted flame.
Cowper.
I have not loved the world, nor the world me ;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee, —
Xor coin'd my cheeks to smiles, — nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo ; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such ; I stood
Among them, but not of them ; in a shroud
Of thoughts wliich were not their thoughts, and
still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itseli
subdued.
I have not loved the world, nor the world me, —
But let us part fair foes ; — I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, — hopes wliich will not
deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the failing : I would also deem
O'er other's griefs that some sincerely grieve ■
That two, or one, are almost what they seem, -
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.
Byron's Cldlde Harold
48*
570
YEOMAN.
Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out ;
And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route,
As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
Were there a jot of sense among mankind;
But till that point d'appui is found, alas !
Like Archimedes, I leave earth as 't was.
Byron.
A young unmarried man, with a good name
And fortune, has an awkward part to play ;
For good society is but a game,
" The royal game of goose," as I may say,
Where everybody has some separate aim,
An end to answer or a plan to lay.
Byron.
Beautiful !
How beautiful is all this visible world
How glorious in its action and itself;
But we who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride,
Contending with low wants and lofty will
Till our mortality predominates, '
And men are — what they name not to themselves,
And trust not to each other.
Byron.
'T is a very good world that we live in,
To lend or to spend or to give in,
But to borrow or beg, or get a man's own,
'T is the very worst world, sir, that ever was known.
Old Song.
The world is too much with us.
Wordsworth.
This bitter world,
This cold unanswering world, that hath no voice
To greet the gentle spirit, that drives back
All birds of Eden, which would sojourn here
A little while — how have I turn'd away
From its keen soulless air !
Mrs. Hemans.
'T is a harsh world in which affection knows
No place to treasure up its lov'd and lost
But the lone grave.
Willis.
We know the world is dark and rough,
Hut time betrays that soon enough.
Miss Eliza Cook.
Through the shadow of the world we sweep into
the younger day :
Jtetter fifty yoars of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
Tennyson's Poems.
And worldly is that heart, at best,
That beats beneath a broider'd veil,
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty — still is frail
Moore.
The world is just as hollow as an egg-shell,
It is a surface not a solid, round ;
And all this boasted knowledge of the world
To me seems but to mean acquaintance with
Low things, or evil, or indifferent.
Bailey's Festus.
world ! so few the years we live,
Would that the life which thou dost give
Were life indeed !
Alas ! thy sorrows fall so fast,
Our happiest hour is when at last
The soul is freed.
Longfellow's Translations.
Look on this beautiful world, and read the
truth
In her fair page ; see, every season brings
New change to her, of everlasting youth ;
Still the green soil, with joyous living things,
Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings,
And myriads still are happy in the sleep
Of ocean's azure gulfs.
Bryant — The Ages.
The world for sale ! — Hang out the sign,
Call every traveller here to me ;
Who '11 buy this brave estate of mine,
And set me from earth's bondage free : —
'Tis going! — Yes, I mean to fling
The bauble from my soul away ;
1 '11 sell it, whatsoe'er it bring : —
The world at auction here to-day !
Ralph Hoyt
YEOMAN.
Even therefore grieve I for those gallant yeomen
England's peculiar and appropriate sons,
Known in no other land. Each boasts his hearth
And field as free as the best lord his barony,
Owing subjection to no human vassalage
Save to their king and law. Hence are they
resolute,
Leading the van on every day of battle,
As men who know the blessings they defend.
Hence are they frank and generous in peace,
As men who have their portion in its plenty.
No other kingdom shows such worth and happi-
ness
Veil'd in such low estate.
Walter Scotfs Halidon Hitl.
YES - YEW-TREE - YOUTH.
571
And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture : let us swear
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt
not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
Shaks. Henry V.
YES.
' Yes !' — Oh ! it is a kind reply,
When flowing from the lips of dear
Young beauty — in whose ear we sigh
The one fond wish.
Anon.
" Yes !" I answered you last night ;
" No !" this morning, Sir, I say !
Colours seen by candle-light
Will not look the same by day.
By your truth she shall be true —
Ever true as wives of yore —
And her Yes, once said to you,
Shall be yes for evermore.
Miss Barrett.
Miss Barrett.
YEW-TREE.
Cheerless, unsocial plant ! that loves to dwell
'Midst sculls and coffins, epitaphs and worms
Where light-heel'd ghosts, and visionary
Beneath the wan cold moon (as fame reports)
Embodied thick, perform their mystic rounds.
No other merriment, dull tree ! is thine.
Blair's Grave.
YOUTH.
Youth is a bubble blown up with breath,
Whose wit is weakness, whose wage is death,
Whose way is wilderness, whose inn is penance,
And stoop gallant age, the host of grievance.
Spenser's Shepherd's Calender.
Be affable and courteous in youth, that
You may be honour'd in age. Roses that
Lose their colours, keep their savours, and pluck'd
From the stalk, are put to the still. Cotonea,
Because it boweth when the sun riseth,
Is sweetest when it is oldest : and children,
Which in their tender years sow courtesy,
Shall in their declining states reap pity.
Lilly's Sappho and Phaon.
Let me not live (quoth he)
After my flame lacks oil ; to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new tilings disdain ; whose judgments are
Mere feathers of their garments; whose con-
stancies
Expire before their passions.
Shaks. All's Well
For youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than settled age his fables, and his weeds
Importing health and graveness.
Shaks. Hamlet
I '11 serve his youth, for youth must have his eourse t
For being restrain'd it makes him ten tim&s worse:
His pride, his riot, all that may be nam'd,
Time may recall, and all his madness tam'd.
Shaks. London Prodigal.
Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together;
Youth is full of pleasure,
Age is full of care :
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare ;
Youth is full of sport,
Age's breath is short;
Youth is nimble, age is lame ;
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold ;
Youth is wild and age is tame.
Age I do abhor thee ;
Youth I do adore thee;
O, my love, my love is young:
Age I do defy thee;
O sweet shepherd hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.
Shakspeare.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate :
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
And summer's lease hath all too short a date :
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd :
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course un
trimm'd ;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair t^ou owest,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in hts
shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
Shakspem %
572
YOUTH.
I'll not practise any violent means to stay
Th' unbridled course of youth in him : for that
Rcstrain'd grows more impatient ; and, in kind,
Like to the eager, but the gen'rous grey-hound,
Who, ne'er so little from his game withheld,
Turns head, and leaps up at his holder's throat.
Jonson's Every Man in His Humour.
Gather the rose-buds while ye may,
Old time is still a flying;
And that same flower that blooms to-day,
To morrow shall be dying.
Herrick.
The snake each year fresh skin resumes,
And eagles change their aged plumes ;
The faded rose each spring receives
A fresh red tincture on her leaves :
But if your beauties once decay,
You never know a second May.
O then be wise, and whilst your season
A.ffbrds you days for sport, do reason ;
Spend not in vain your life's short hour,
But crop in time your beauty's flow'r ;
Which will away, and doth together
Both bud and fade, both blow and wither.
Careio.
Youthful blood, if checkt unseasonably,
Becomes more insolent and impetuous,
More vitiated and corrupt, than if
Its natural course had not been hinder'd ;
The age of youth is the strong reign of
Passion, and vice does ride in triumph
Upon the wheels of vehement desire,
Which run with infinite celerity,
When the body drives the chariot,
They can't be stopp'd on a sudden ;
Art and deliberation must be us'd.
Nevile's Poor Scholar.
Something of youth, I in old age approve;
Bat more the marks of age in youth I love.
Who this observes, may in his body find
Decrepit age, but never in his mind.
Denham.
Intemp'rate youth, by sad experience found,
Ends in an age imperfect and unsound.
Denham.
Of gentle blood, his parents' only treasure,
Their lasting sorrow, and their vanish'd pleasure.
Adorn'd with features, virtues, wit, and grace,
A. large provision for so short a race :
More moderate gifts might have prolong'd his
datt,
Too early fitted for a better state :
But, knowmg heaven, his home, to shun delay,
lie leap'd o'er age, and took the shortest way.
Drydcn.
The heat
Of an unsteady youth, a giddy brain
Green indiscretion, flattery of greatness,
Rawness, of judgment, wilfulness in folly,
Thoughts vagrant as the wind, and as uncertain.
John Ford's Broken Heart
Folly may be in youth:
But many time 'tis mixt with grave discretion
That tempers it to use and makes its judgment
Equal, if not exceeding that, which palsies
Have almost shaken into a disease.
Nabb's Covent Garden
I love to see a nimble activeness
In noble youth ; it argues active minds
In well-shap'd bodies, and begets a joy
Dancing within me.
Nabb's Covent Garden.
There was a time in the gay spring of life,
When every note was as the mounting lark's,
Merry and cheerful, to salute the morn ;
When all the day was made of melody.
Southern's Fate of Capua
Youth is ever apt to judge in haste,
And lose the medium in the wild extreme.
Hill's Alzira.
Grief seldom join'd with youthful bloom is seen ;
Can sorrow be where knowledge scarce has been ?
Howard's Indian Queen,
Young men soon give, and soon forget affronts ;
Old age is slow in both.
Addison's Cato.
Lusty youth
Is the very May-morn of delight ;
When boldest floods are full of wilful heat,
And joy to think how long they have to fight
In fancy's field, before their life take flight ;
Since he which latest did the game begin,
Doth longest hope to linger still therein.
Gascoigne
Youth has a sprightliness and fire to boast,
That in the valley of decline are lost,
And virtue with peculiar charms appears,
Crown'd with the garland of life's blooming years
Yet age, by long experience well infbrm'd,
Well read, well temper'd, with religion warm'd,
That fire abated which impels rash youth,
Proud of his speed, to overshoot tne truth,
As time improves the grape's authentic juice,
Mellows and makes the speech more fit for use,
And claims a rev'rence in its short'ning day,
That 't is an honour and a joy to pay.
•. . Courper
YOUTH.
573
What are all thy boasted treasures ?
1'ender sorrows, transient pleasures ?
Anxious hopes, and jealous fears,
Laughing 1 hours, and mourning years?
Deck'd with brightest tints at morn,
At twilight, with'ring on a thorn ;
Like the gentle rose of spring,
Chill'd by ev'ry zephyr's wing :
Ah ! how soon its colour flies,
Blushes, trembles, falls, and dies.
What is youth ? a smiling sorrow,
Blithe to-day, and sad to-morrow;
Never fix'd, for ever ranging,
Laughing, weeping, doating, changing ;
Wild, capricious, giddy, vain,
C^oy'd with pleasure, nurs'd with pain :
Age steals on with wintry face,
Ev'ry rapt'rous hope to chase,
Like a wither'd, sapless tree,
Bow'd to chilling fate's decree ;
Stripp'd of all its foliage gay,
Drooping at the close of day :
What of tedious life remains
Keen regrets and cureless pains;
Till death appears, a welcome friend,
To bid the scene of sorrow end.
Mary Robinson.
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes ;
Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm ;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening
prey. Gray.
Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast :
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue ;
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer of vigour born ;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims p ay !
No sense have they of ills to come,
No care beyond to-day.
Yet see how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,
And black misfortune's baleful train,
Ah ! show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murderous band !
Ah, tell them they are men !
Gray's Eton College.
Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
Ah, fields belov'd in vain,
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain !
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.
Gray's Eton College,
Happy the school-boy ! did he prize his bliss,
'Twere ill exchang'd for all the dazzling gems
That gaily sparkle in ambition's eye ;
His are the joys of nature, his the smile,
The cherub smile of innocence and health,
Sorrow unknown, or if a tear be shed,
He wipes it soon : for hark ! the cheerful voice
Of comrades calls him to the top, or ball,
Away he hies, and clamours as he goes,
With glee, which causes him to tread on air.
Knox.
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd,
The sports of children satisfy the child.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
Oh ! enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchang'd for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own !
Ye tiny elves, that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish !
The losses, the crosses,
That active men engage ;
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim-declining age !
Burns's Despondency.
Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise
We love the play-place of our early days.
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone,
That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.
Cowper's Tirocimmn.
The charms of youth at once are seen and past
And nature says, " They are too sweet to last "
So blooms the rose : and so the blushing maid
Be gay : too soon the flowers of Spring will fade
Sir William Jones
Ah, who, when fading of itself away,
Would cloud the sunshine of his little day !
Now is the May if life. Careering round !
Joy wings his feet, joy lifts him from the ground
Rogers's Human Lift.
574
YOUTH.
Down the smooth stream of life the stripling darts,
Gay as the morn ; bright glows the vernal sky,
Hope swells the sails, and passion steers his
course.
Safe glides his little bark along the shore
Where virtue takes her stand; but if too far
He launches forth beyond discretion's mark,
Sudden the tempest scowls, the surges roar,
Blot his fair day, and plunge him in the deep.
Porteus's Death.
Oh ! the joy
Of young ideas painted on the mind,
In the warm glowing colours fancy spreads
On objects not yet known, when all is new,
And all is lovely.
Hannah Blare's David and Goliah.
I can remember, with unsteady feet,
Tottering from room to room, and finding pleasure
In flowers, and toys, and sweetmeats, things
which long
Have lost their power to please ; which when I
see them,
Raise only now a melancholy wish —
I were the little trifler once again
Who could be pleas'd so lightly.
Southey's Thalaba.
They closed beside the chimney's blaze,
And talk'd and hoped for happier days,
And lent their spirit's rising glow
Awhile to gild impending woe ;
High privilege of youthful time,'
Worth all the pleasures of our prime !
ScotVs Rokeby.
The tear, down childhood's cheek that flows,
Is like the dew-drop on the rose ;
When next the summer breeze comes by,
And waves the bush, the flower is dry.
Scoffs Rokeby.
Here — while I roved, a heedless boy,
Here, while through paths of peace I ran,
My feet were vex'd with puny snares,
My bosom stung with insect-cares :
But ah ! what light and little things
Are childhood's woes ! — they break no rest,
Like dew-drops on the skylark's wings,
While slumbering in his grassy nest,
Gone in a moment, when he springs
To meet the morn with open breast,
As o'er the eastern hills her banners glow,
And veil'd in mist the valley sleeps below.
Montgomery's World before the Flood.
1 took the rabble's shouts for love — the breath
Of friends for truth — the lips of woman for
My only guerdon.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
Her smiles and tears had pass'd, as light winds
pass
O'er lakes, to ruffle, not destroy, their glass.
Byron's Island
A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.
Byron
The love of higher things and better days ;
The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance
Of what is call'd the world, and the world's ways,
The moments when we gather from a glance
More joy than from all future pride or praise,
Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance
The heart in an existence of its own,
Of which another's bosom is the zone.
Byron.
In earlier days, and calmer hours,
When heart with heart delights to blend,
Where bloom my native valley's bowers,
I had — ah ! have I now ? — a friend !
Byron's Giaour.
Blest hour of childhood ! then, and then alone,
Dance we the revels close round pleasure's throne,
Quaff" the bright nectar from her fountain-springs,
And laugh beneath the rainbow of her wings.
Oh ! time of promise, hope, and innocence,
Of trust, and love, and happy ignorance !
Whose every dream is heaven, in whose fair
j°y»
Experience yet has thrown no black alloy ;
Whose pain, when fiercest, lacks the venom'd
pang,
Which to maturer ill doth oft belong,
When, mute and cold, we weep departed bliss,
And hope expires on broken happiness.
Thoughts of a Recluse.
Oh Strangford ! when we parted last,
I little thought the times were past,
For ever past, when brilliant joy,
Was all my vacant heart's employ :
When, fresh from mirth to mirth again,
We thought the rapid hours too few,
Our only use for knowledge then
To turn to rapture all we knew !
Delicious days of whim and soul,
When mingling love and laugh together,
We learn'd the book on pleasure's bowl,
And turn'd the leaf with folly's feather !
Moore.
I thought of the days when to pleasure alone
My heart ever granted a wish or a sigh
When the saddest emotion my bosom had known,
Was pity for those who were wiser than I !
Moore.
YOUTH.
575
Light, winged hopes, that come when bid,
And rainbow joys that end in weeping,
And passions, among pure thoughts nrld,
Like serpents under flow'rets sleeping.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
What is youth ? — a dancing billow,
Winds behind and rocks before !
Wordsworth.
Life went a maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young !
Coleridge.
When I was young ! ah woful when I
Ah, for the change 'twixt now and then !
Coleridge.
Youth with swift feet walks onward in the way,
The Jand of joy bes all before his eyes.
Mrs. Butler.
1 ne'er respeci the ready tongue
That augurs sorrow to the young.
Miss Eliza Cook.
Let tnem exult ! their laugh and song
Are rarely known to last too long ;
Why should we strive, with cynic frown,
To knock their fairy castles down ?
Miss Eliza Cook.
Youth might be wise. We suffer less from pains
Than pleasures.
Bailey's Festus.
Youth hath a strong and strange desire to try
All feelings on the heart : it is very wrongr,
And dangerous, and deadly : strive against A !
Bailey's Festus.
Promise of youth ! fair as the form
Of Heaven's benign and golden bow, *
Thy smiling arch begirds the storm,
And sheds a light on every woe.
James G. Brooks. I
I feel the rush of waves that round me rise —
The tossing of my boat upon the sea ;
Few sunbeams linger in the stormy skies,
And youth's bright shore is lessening ~^ vouth whose bark is guided o'er
..» Djmmer stream by zephyr's breath,
With idle gaze delights to pore
Un imaged skies that glow beneath.
William Leggett
How beautiful who scatters, wide and free,
The gold — bright seeds of lov'd and loving
truth!
By whose perpetual hand each day supplied —
Leaps to new life the empire's heart of youth.
Cornelius Mathews.
How shall I ever go through this rough world !
How find me older every setting sun !
How merge my boyish heart in manliness !
Arthur Cleaveland Coxe
Remember not the follies of my youth,
But in thy mercy think upon me, Lord !
Arthur Cleaveland Cox&
576
ZEAL.
I go from strength to strength, from joy to
joy ;
From being unto being. I will snatch
This germ of comfort from departing youth ;
And when the pictur'd primer 's thrown aside,
I '11 hoard its early lessons in my heart
Arthur Cleaveland Coxe.
ZEAL.
Spread out earth's holiest records here,
Of days and deeds to reverence dear;
A zeal like this what pious legends tell ?
Sprague's Centennial Ode.
His zeal
None seconded, as out of season judg'd,
Or singular and rash.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
\ Zeal and duty are not slow ;
But on occasion's forelock watchful wait.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
Press bravely onward ! — not in vain
Your generous trust in human kind ;
The good which bloodshed could not gain
Your peaceful zeal shall find.
Whttiiefs PoetAS
How beautiful it is for man to die
Upon the walls of Zion ! to be call'd
Like a watch-worn and weary sentinel,
To put his armour off, and rest — in Heaven !
His heart was with Jerusalem ; and strong
As was a mother's love, and the sweet ties
Religion makes so beautiful at home,
He flung them from him in his eager race,
And sought the broken people of hi? God,
To preach to them of Jesus !
Willis's L tred Poems
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