The World's Best Poetry -- Volume 10
by
Various
Part 6 out of 10
The hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats;
Chambers of the great are jails,
And head-winds right for royal sails.
_Essays: Heroism_. R.W. EMERSON.
Unbounded courage and compassion joined,
Tempering each other in the victor's mind,
Alternately proclaim him good and great,
And make the hero and the man complete.
_The Campaign_. J. Addison.
See the conquering hero comes,
Sound the trumpet, beat the drums.
_Orations of Joshua_. T. MORELL.
The man that is not moved at what he reads,
That takes not fire at their heroic deeds,
Unworthy of the blessings of the brave,
Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
_Table Talk_. W. COWPER.
HOME.
Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of paradise that has survived the fall!
_The Task, Bk. III_. W. COWPER.
The first sure symptom of a mind in health
Is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.
_Night Thoughts, Night VIII_. DR. E. YOUNG.
To make a happy fireside clime
To weans and wife,
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life.
_Epistle to Dr. Blacklock_. R. BURNS.
For the whole world, without a native home,
Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
_To the Bishop of Lincoln_. A. COWLEY.
His native home deep imaged in his soul.
_Odyssey, Bk. XIII_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.
Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
To stay at home is best.
_Song_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
His home, the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
_West Indies, Pt. III_. J. MONTGOMERY.
At Christmas play, and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.
_The Farmer's Daily Diet_. T. TUSSER.
He kept no Christmas-house for once a year:
Each day his boards were filled with lordly fare.
_A Maiden's Dream_. R. GREENE.
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore.
_The Traveller_. O. GOLDSMITH.
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.
_The Task: Winter Evening, Bk, IV_. W. COWPER.
HOPE.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
_King Richard III., Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
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 lifeblood of the soul.
_Art of Preserving Health, Bk. IV_. J. ARMSTRONG.
O welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!
_Comus_. MILTON.
Hope! of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure!
* * * * *
Hope! thou first-fruits of happiness!
Thou gentle dawning of a bright success!
* * * * *
Brother of Faith! 'twixt whom and thee
The joys of Heaven and Earth divided be!
_For Hope_. A. COWLEY.
Hope! thou nurse of young desire.
_Love in a Village, Act i. Sc. 1_. L. BICKERSTAFF.
Hope, like a cordial, innocent though strong,
Man's heart at once inspirits and serenes;
Nor makes him pay his wisdom for his joys.
_Night Thoughts, Night VII_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Hope, like the glimm'ring taper's light,
Adorns and cheers the way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
_The Captivity, Act_ ii. O. GOLDSMITH.
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
_King Henry IV., Pt. II. Act iv Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave--oh! leave the light of Hope behind!
_The Pleasures of Hope, Pt. II_. T. CAMPBELL.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be, blest:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
The wretch condemned with life to part,
Still, still on hope relies;
And every pang that rends the heart
Bids expectation rise.
_The Captivity, Act ii_. O. GOLDSMITH.
The miserable have no other medicine,
But only hope.
_Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
To hope till hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates.
_Prometheus. Act iv_. P.B. SHELLEY.
HORSEMANSHIP.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed,
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropped down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
"Stand, Bayard, stand!" The steed obeyed,
With arching neck and bended head,
And glancing eye, and quivering ear,
As if he loved his lord to hear.
No foot Fitz-James in stirrup staid.
No grasp upon the saddle laid,
But wreathed his left hand in the mane,
And lightly bounded from the plain,
Turned on the horse his armed heel,
And stirred his courage with the steel.
Bounded the fiery steed in air,
The rider sate erect and fair,
Then, like a bolt from steel cross-bow,
Forth launched, along the plain they go.
_The Lady of the Lake, Canto V_. SIR W. SCOTT.
After many strains and heaves,
He got up to the saddle eaves,
From whence he vaulted into the seat
With so much vigor, 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 used instead of rein.
_Hudibras_. S. BUTLER.
HOSPITALITY.
You must come home with me and be my guest;
You will give joy to me, and I will do
All that is in my power to honor you.
_Hymn to Mercury_, P.B. SHELLEY.
Sir, you are very welcome to our house:
It must appear in other ways than words,
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.
_Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
So saying, with despatchful looks in haste
She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. V_. MILTON.
This night I hold an old accustomed feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love; and you among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
The atmosphere
Breathes rest and comfort and the many chambers
Seem full of welcomes.
_Masque of Pandora_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
_Comedy of Errors, Act iii. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Oh, better no doubt is a dinner of herbs,
When seasoned by love, which no rancor disturbs
And sweetened by all that is sweetest in life
Than turbot, bisque, ortolans, eaten in strife!
_Lucile_. LORD LYTTON (_Owen Meredith_).
Now good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
I've often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end.
_Imitation of Horace, Bk. II. Sat_. 6. J. SWIFT.
True friendship's laws are by this rule exprest,
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
_Odyssey, Bk. XV_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.
HUMILITY.
Humility, that low, sweet root,
From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
_Loves of the Angels: The Third Angel's Story_. T. MOORE.
Content thyself to be obscurely good.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honor is a private station.
_Cato, Act iv. Sc_. 4. J. ADDISON.
In a bondman's key,
With 'bated breath, and whisp'ring humbleness.
_Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
It is the witness still of excellency
To put a strange face on his own perfection.
_Much Ado About Nothing, Act ii. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
God hath sworn to lift on high
Who sinks himself by true humility.
_Miscellaneous Poems: At Hooker's Tomb_. J. KEBLE.
HUNTING.
Soon as Aurora drives away the night,
And edges eastern clouds with rosy light,
The healthy huntsman, with the cheerful horn,
Summons the dogs, and greets the dappled morn.
_Rural Sports, Canto II_. J. GAY.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield.
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
My hoarse-sounding horn
Invites thee to the chase, the sport of kings;
Image of war without its guilt.
_The Chase_. W.C. SOMERVILLE.
Contusion hazarding of neck or spine,
Which rural gentlemen call sport divine.
_Needless Alarm_. W. COWPER.
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!
_The Lady of the Lake: Lay of the Imprisoned Huntsman,
Canto VI_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Oh! what delight can a mortal lack,
When he once is firm on his horse's back,
With his stirrups short, and his snaffle strong,
And the blast of the horn for his morning song!
_The Hunter's Song_. B.W. PROCTER _(Barry Cornwall)_.
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.
_Windsor Forest_. A. POPE.
But as some muskets so contrive it,
As oft to miss the mark they drive at,
And though well aimed at duck or plover,
Bear wide, and kick their owners over.
_McFingal, Canto I_. J. TRUMBULL.
HYPOCRISY.
Oh, for _a forty-parson power_ to chant
Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh, for a hymn
Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt,
Not practise!
_Don Juan, Canto X_. LORD BYRON.
For neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone,
By his permissive will, through heaven and earth.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. III_. MILTON.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
_Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?
_Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant
Can tickle where she wounds!
_Cymbeline, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
She that asks
Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all,
And hates their coming.
_The Task, Bk. II_. W. COWPER.
He seemed
For dignity composed and high exploit:
But all was false and hollow.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
He was a man
Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven
To serve the Devil in.
_Course of Time, Bk. VIII_ R. POLLOK.
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!
_Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
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 odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
_King Richard III., Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!
My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
That practised falsehood under saintly shew,
Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
Built God a church, and laughed his word to scorn.
_Retirement_. W. COWPER.
And the devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is pride that apes humility.
_The Devil's Thoughts_. S.T. COLERIDGE.
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
_Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
_Hamlet, Act iii, Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing:
But, och! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling.
_Epistle to a Young Friend_. R. BURNS.
IDLENESS.
'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain,
"You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again."
_The Sluggard_. DR. I. WATTS.
Sloth views the towers of fame with envious eyes,
Desirous still, still impotent to rise.
_The Judgment of Hercules_. W. SHENSTONE.
Their only labor was to kill the time
(And labor 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 on hours they sighing lie reclined,
And court the vapory god, soft breathing in the wind.
_The Castle of Indolence, Canto I_. J. THOMSON.
Leisure is pain; take off our chariot wheels,
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain,
It makes us wander, wander earth around
To fly that tyrant, thought.
_Night Thoughts, Night II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
To sigh, yet feel no pain,
To weep, yet scarce know why;
To sport an hour with Beauty's chain,
Then throw it idly by.
_The Blue Stocking_. T. MOORE.
The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of the mind,
The waste of feelings unemployed.
_The Giaour_. LORD BYRON.
A lazy lolling sort,
Unseen at church, at senate, or at court,
Of ever-listless idlers, that attend
No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend.
There too, my Paridell! she marked thee there,
Stretched on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness.
_The Dunciad, Bk. IV_. A. POPE.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands;
As useless if it goes as if it stands.
_Retirement_. W. COWPER.
There is no remedy for time misspent;
No healing for the waste of idleness,
Whose very languor is a punishment
Heavier than active souls can feel or guess.
_Sonnet_. SIR A. DE VERE.
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
_Song XX_. DR. I. WATTS.
ILLNESS.
As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death,
The young disease, that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.
_Essay on Man, Epistle II_. A. POPE.
Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.
_Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
So when a raging fever burns,
We shift from side to side by turns,
And 'tis a poor relief we gain
To change the place, but keep the pain.
_Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Bk. II. Hymn 146_. DR. I. WATTS.
Long pains are light ones,
Cruel ones are brief!
_Compensation_. J.G. SAXE.
Then with no throbs of fiery pain,
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.
_Verses on Robert Levet_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
IMAGINATION.
Within the soul a faculty abides,
That with interpositions, which would hide
And darken, so can deal that they become
Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt
Her native brightness. As the ample moon,
In the deep stillness of a summer even
Rising behind a thick and lofty grove,
Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light,
In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides
Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil
Into a substance glorious as her own.
_The Excursion, Bk. IV_. W. WORDSWORTH.
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
_King Henry V., Chorus_. SHAKESPEARE.
Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.
_Progress of Poesy_. T. GRAY.
One of those passing rainbow dreams
Half light, half shade, which Fancy's beams
Paint on the fleeting mists that roll,
In trance or slumber, round the soul.
_Lalla Rookh_. T. MOORE.
Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,
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 unreached Paradise of our despair,
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen,
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
We figure to ourselves
The thing we like, and then we build it up
As chance will have it, on the rock or sand;
For thought is tired of wandering o'er the world,
And home-bound Fancy runs her bark ashore.
_Philip Van Artevelde, Pt. I, Act i. Sc. 5_. SIR H. TAYLOR.
HAMLET. My father,--methinks I see my father.
HORATIO. Oh! where, my lord?
HAMLET. In my mind's eye, Horatio.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.
_Poems_. E. DICKINSON.
IMMORTALITY.
To be no more--sad cure; for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion?
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Death is delightful. Death is dawn,
The waking from a weary night
Of fevers unto truth and light.
_Even So_. J. MILLER.
No, no! The energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagged not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing--only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
_Immortality_. M. ARNOLD.
God keeps a niche
In Heaven, to hold our idols; and albeit
He brake them to our faces, and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,--
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty, glorified,
New Memnons singing in the great God-light.
_Futurity with the Departed_. E.B. BROWNING.
The wisest men are glad to die; no fear
Of death can touch a true philosopher.
Death sets the soul at liberty to fly.
_Continuation of Lucan_. T. MAY.
Alas! for love, if thou art all,
And naught beyond, O Earth!
_The Graves of a Household_. MRS. F. HEMANS.
'Tis not the whole of life to live:
Nor all of death to die.
_The Issues of Life and Death_. J. MONTGOMERY.
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
_Elegy on Mrs. Killegrew_. J. DRYDEN.
INCONSTANCY.
Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
And as the air blows it to me again,
Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
And yielding to another when it blows,
Commanded always by the greater gust;
Such is the lightness of you common men.
_King Henry VI., Pt. III. Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea and one on shore;
To one thing constant never.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
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.
_Shepherd's Holiday_. J. RUTTER.
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Love ne'er should die;...
One object lost, another should succeed;
And all our life be love.
_Pastorals_. T. BROWN.
There are three things a wise man will not trust:
The wind, the sunshine of an April day,
And woman's plighted faith.
_Madoc_. R. SOUTHEY.
Who trusts himself to woman or to waves
Should never hazard what he fears to lose.
_Governor of Cyprus_. J. OLDMIXON.
Away, away--you're all the same,
A flattering, smiling, jilting throng!
O, by my soul, I burn with shame,
To think I've been your slave so long!
_Song_. T. MOORE.
Frailty, thy name is woman!
_Hamlet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
HAMLET.--Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA.--'Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET.--As woman's love.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Framed to make women false.
_Othello, Act i. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
To beguile many, and be beguiled by one.
_Othello, Act iv. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEAKE.
Or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;--why she, even she
(O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer) married with my uncle,
My father's brother.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
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'll certainly deceive thee.
_The Orphan_. T. OTWAY.
Nay, women are frail too;
Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;
Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
_Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
In part to blame is she,
Which hath without consent bin only tride:
He comes too neere that comes to be denide.
_A Wife_. SIR T. OVERBURY.
The heart!--Yes, I wore it
As sign and as token
Of a love that once gave it,
A vow that was spoken;
But a love, and a vow, and a heart,
Can be broken.
_Hearts_. A.A. PROCTER.
A love that took an early root,
And had an early doom.
_The Devil's Progress_. T.K. HERVEY.
Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act ii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
All love may be expelled by other love,
As poisons are by poisons.
_All for Love_. J. DRYDEN.
At lovers' perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Fool, not to know that love endures no tie,
And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.
_Palamon and Arcite, Bk. II_. J. DRYDEN.
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!
_The Arraignment of Paris: Cupid's Curse_. G. PEELE.
O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
To be once in doubt,
Is once to be resolved.
_Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
INGRATITUDE.
I hate ingratitude more in a man,
Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
Or any taint of vice.
_Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
He that's ungrateful, has no guilt but one;
All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
_Busiris_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
_Night Thoughts, Night II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
_King Lear, Act i. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
INN.
Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?
_Henry IV., Pt. I. Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Now musing o'er the changing scene
Farmers behind the tavern screen
Collect; with elbows idly pressed
On hob, reclines the corner's guest,
Reading the news to mark again
The bankrupt lists or price of grain.
Puffing the while his red-tipt pipe
He dreams o'er troubles nearly ripe,
Yet, winter's leisure to regale,
Hopes better times, and sips his ale.
_The Shepherd's Calendar_. J. CLARE.
Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
_Lines on the Mermaid Tavern_. J. KEATS.
Now spurs the lated traveller apace
To gain the timely inn.
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Whoe'er has travelled 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.
_Written on a Window of an Inn_. W. SHENSTONE.
INNOCENCE.
Hence, bashful cunning!
And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!
_Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, white innocence,
That thou shouldst wear the mask of guilt to hide
Thine awful and serenest countenance
From those who know thee not!
_The Cenci, Act v. Sc. 3_. P.B. SHELLEY.
I never tempted her with word too large;
But, as a brother to his sister, showed
Bashful sincerity, and comely love.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
And dallies with the innocence of love.
_Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;
Patient of toil; serene amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith; invincible in arms.
_The Minstrel, Bk. I_. J. BEATTIE.
True, conscious honor is to feel no sin;
He's armed without that's innocent within.
_Imitation of Horace, Epistle 1. Bk. I_. A. POPE.
INSECTS.
My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep.
_A Pastoral Ballad, Pt. II_. W. SHENSTONE.
Here their delicious task the fervent bees
In swarming millions tend: around, athwart,
Through the soft air, the busy nations fly,
Cling to the bud, and with inserted tube,
Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul;
And oft, with bolder wing, they soaring dare
The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows,
And yellow load them with the luscious spoil.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
_Poems_. E. DICKINSON.
O'er folded blooms
On swirls of musk,
The beetle booms adown the glooms
And bumps along the dusk.
_The Beetle_. J.W. RILEY.
I'd be a butterfly, born in a bower,
Where roses and lilies and violets meet.
_I'd be a Butterfly_. T.H. BAYLY.
Rose suddenly a swarm of butterflies,
On wings of white and gold and azure fire;
And one said: "These are flowers that seek the skies,
Loosed by the spell of their supreme desire."
_Butterflies_. C.G.D. ROBERTS.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em;
And so proceed _ad infinitum_.
_Poetry: a Rhapsody_. J. SWIFT.
I saw a flie within a beade
Of amber cleanly buried.
_On a Fly buried in Amber_. R. HERRICK.
Oh! that the memories which survive us here
Were half so lovely as these wings of thine!
Pure relics of a blameless life, that shine
Now thou art gone.
_On Finding a Fly Crushed in a Book_. C.T. TURNER.
When evening closes Nature's eye,
The glow-worm lights her little spark
To captivate her favorite fly
And tempt the rover through the dark.
_The Glow-worm_. J. MONTGOMERY.
Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late;
And studying all the summer night,
Her matchless songs does meditate.
_The Mower to the Glow-worm_. A. MARVEL.
Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree
over the well.
_Leaves of Grass, Pt. XXXVIII_. W. WHITMAN.
What gained we, little moth? Thy ashes,
Thy one brief parting pang may show:
And withering thoughts for soul that dashes,
From deep to deep, are but a death more slow.
_Tragedy of the Night-Moth_. T. CARLYLE.
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
Much like a subtle spider, which doth sit
In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide:
If aught do touch the utmost thread of it,
She feels it instantly on every side.
_Immortality of the Soul: Feeling_. SIR J. DAVIES.
INSTRUCTION.
'Tis education forms the common mind:
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
_Moral Essays, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.
_Essay on Criticism_. A. POPE.
Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
_Julian and Maddalo_. P.B. SHELLEY.
INVENTION.
Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the field of air.
_The Botanic Garden, Pt. 1. Ch. I_. [1781]. E. DARWIN.
Electric telegraphs, printing, gas,
Tobacco, balloons, and steam,
Are little events that have come to pass
Since the days of the old _regime_.
And, spite of Lempriere's dazzling page,
I'd give--though it might seem bold--
A hundred years of the Golden Age
For a year of the Age of Gold.
_The Two Ages_. H.S. LEIGH.
What cannot art and industry perform,
When science plans the progress of their toil!
_The Minstrel_. J. BEATTIE.
For out of the old fieldes, as men saithe,
Cometh al this new corne fro yere to yere,
And out of old bookes, in good faithe,
Cometh al this new science that men lere.
_The Assembly of Foules_. CHAUCER.
JEALOUSY.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on....
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
_Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Trifle, light as air,
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
_Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
With groundless fear he thus his soul deceives:
What phrenzy dictates, jealousy believes.
_Diome_. J. GAY.
Nor jealousy
Was understood, the injured lover's hell.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. V_. MILTON.
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
From jealousy!
_Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
O jealousy,
Thou ugliest fiend of hell! thy deadly venom
Preys on my vitals, turns the healthful hue
Of my fresh cheek to haggard sallowness,
And drinks my spirit up!
_David and Goliath_. H. MORE.
If I shall be condemned
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you,
'Tis rigor, and not law.
_Winter's Tale, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,
As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not.
_Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
But through the heart
Should Jealousy its venom once diffuse,
'Tis then delightful misery no more,
But agony unmixed, incessant gall,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
JESUS CHRIST.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning!
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.
_Epiphany_. BISHOP R. HEBER.
He was the Word, that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it.
_Divine Poems: On the Sacrament_. DR. J. DONNE.
And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought.
_In Memoriam, XXXVI_. A. TENNYSON.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time,
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
In those holy fields,
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
_Henry IV., Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Lovely was the death
Of Him whose life was Love! Holy with power,
He on the thought-benighted Skeptic beamed
Manifest Godhead.
_Religious Musings_. S.T. COLERIDGE.
But chiefly Thou
Whom soft-eyed Pity once led down from Heaven
To bleed for man, to teach him how to live,
And, oh! still harder lesson! how to die.
_Death_. B. PORTEUS.
One there is above all others,
Well deserves the name of Friend!
His is love beyond a brother's,
Costly, free, and knows no end:
They who once his kindness prove,
Find it everlasting love!
_A Friend that Sticketh Closer than a Brother_. J. NEWTON.
'Tis done, the great transaction's done;
I am my Lord's, and he is mine;
He drew me, and I followed on,
Charmed to confess the voice divine.
Now rest, my long-divided heart!
Fixed on this blissful centre, rest;
Oh, who with earth would grudge to part,
When called with angels to be blest?
_Happy Day_. P. DODDRIDGE.
Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord,
What may thy service be?--
Nor name, nor town, nor ritual word,
But simply following thee.
We bring no ghastly holocaust,
We pile no graven stone;
He serves thee best who loveth most
His brothers and thy own.
_Our Master_. J.G. WHITTIER.
JEWEL.
These gems have life in them: their colors speak,
Say what words fail of.
_The Spanish Gypsy_. GEORGE ELIOT.
If that a pearl may in a toad's head dwell,
And may be found too in an oyster shell.
_Apology for his Book_. J. BUNYAN.
Some asked how pearls did grow, and where,
Then spoke I to my girle,
To part her lips, and showed them there
The quarelets of pearl.
_The Rock of Rubies and the Quarrie of Pearl_. R. HERRICK.
The lively Diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light, compact.
_The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.
Like stones of worth, they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
_Sonnet III_. SHAKESPEARE.
Than all Bocara's vaunted gold,
Than all the gems of Samarcand.
_A Persian Song of Hafiz_. SIR W. JONES.
Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.
_Song: Rich and Rare_. T. MOORE.
I see the jewel best enamelled
Will lose his beauty; and the gold 'bides still,
That others touch, and often touching will
Wear gold.
_Comedy of Errors, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
JOURNALISM.
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
_The Task, Bk. IV_. W. COWPER.
Trade hardly deems the busy day begun
Till his keen eye along the sheet has run;
The blooming daughter throws her needle by,
And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh;
While the grave mother puts her glasses on,
And gives a tear to some old crony gone.
The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down,
To know what last new folly fills the town;
Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things,
The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings.
_Curiosity_. C. SPRAGUE.
For evil news rides fast, while good news baits.
_Samson Agonistes_. MILTON.
If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede ye tent it:
A chiel's amang ye takin' notes,
And, faith, he'll prent it.
_On Capt. Grose's Peregrinations Through Scotland_.
R. BURNS.
A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon.
Condemned to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine.
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. LORD BYRON.
To serve thy generation, this thy fate:
"Written in water," swiftly fades thy name;
But he who loves his kind does, first and late,
A work too great for fame.
_The Journalist_. MRS. M. CLEMMER A. HUDSON.
This folio of four pages, happy work!
Which not e'en critics criticise; that holds
Inquisitive attention while I read,
* * * * *
What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations and its vast concerns?
'Tis pleasant, through the loop-holes of retreat,
To peep at such a world,--to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
* * * * *
While fancy, like the finger of a clock.
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
_Winter Evening: The Task, Bk. IV_. W. COWPER.
Here shall the Press the People's right maintain,
Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain;
Here Patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw,
Pledged to Religion, Liberty, and Law.
_Motto of Salem (Mass.) Register_. J. STORY.
JOY.
What though my winged hours of bliss have been,
Like angel-visits, few and far between.
_Pleasures of Hope, Pt. II_. T. CAMBPELL
How fading are the joys we dote upon!
Like apparitions seen and gone;
But those which soonest take their flight
Are the most exquisite and strong;
Like angels' visits, short and bright,
Mortality's too weak to bear them long.
_The Parting_. J. NORRIS.
And these are joys, like beauty, but skin deep.
_Festus, Sc. A Village Feast_. P.J. BAILEY.
Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past.
_The Little Cloud_. J. MONTGOMERY.
The joy late coming late departs.
_Some Sweet Day_. L.J. BATES.
There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
_Song: There's Not a Joy_. LORD BYRON.
Base Envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown;
Within whose circuit is Elysium
And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.
_King Henry VI., Pt. III. Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Sorrows remembered sweeten present joy.
_The Course of Time, Bk. I_. R. POLLOK.
O stay!--O stay!--
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that, oh! 'tis pain
To break its links so soon.
_Fly Not Yet_. T. MOORE.
KISS.
What is a kiss? Alacke! at worst,
A single Dropp to quenche a Thirst,
Tho' oft it prooves, in happie Hour,
The first swete Dropp of our long Showre.
_In the Old Time_. C.G. LELAND.
I was betrothed that day;
I wore a troth kiss on my lips I could not give away.
_The Lay of the Brown Rosary, Pt. II_. E.B. BROWNING.
The kiss you take is paid by that you give:
The joy is mutual, and I'm still in debt.
_Heroic Love, Act v. Sc_. 1.
LORD LANDSDOWNE.
Give me a kisse, and to that kisse a score;
Then to that twenty adde a hundred more;
A thousand to that hundred; so kisse on,
To make that thousand up a million;
Treble that million, and when that is done,
Let's kisse afresh, as when we first begun.
_Hesperides to Anthea_. R. HERRICK.
Blush, happy maiden, when you feel
The lips which press love's glowing seal;
But as the slow years darklier roll,
Grown wiser, the experienced soul
Will own as dearer far than they
The lips which kiss the tears away.
_Kisses_. E. AKERS.
Teach not thy lips such scorn: for they were made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt,
_Richard III., Act i. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
My lips till then had only known
The kiss of mother and of sister,
But somehow, full upon her own
Sweet, rosy, darling mouth,--I kissed her.
_The Door-Step_. E.C. STEDMAN.
As in the soft and sweet eclipse.
When soul meets soul on lover's lips.
_Prometheus Unbound, Act_ iv. P.B. SHELLEY.
O Love! O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
_Fatima_. A. TENNYSON.
A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love.
_Don Juan, Canto II_. LORD BYRON.
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--
Her lips suck forth my soul; see, where it flies!--
_Faustus_. C. MARLOWE.
I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse
The tyrant's wish, "that mankind only had
One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce;"
My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad,
And much more tender on the whole than fierce;
It being (not _now_, but only while a lad)
That womankind had but one rosy mouth,
To kiss them all at once, from North to South.
_Don Juan, Canto VI_. LORD BYRON.
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.
_Cymbeline, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Eyes, look your last:
Arms, take your last embrace; and lips,
O! you,
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
KNOWLEDGE.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
_The Task, Bk. VI_. W. COWPER.
All things I thought I knew; but now confess
The more I know I know, I know the less.
_Works, Bk. VI_. J. OWEN.
In vain sedate reflections we would make
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
_Moral Essays, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
LABOR.
No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him.
_A Glance Behind the Curtain_. J.R. LOWELL.
If little labor, little are our gaines:
Man's fortunes are according to his paines.
_Hesperides: No Paines, No Gaines_. R. HERRICK.
Who first invented work, and bound the free
And holiday-rejoicing spirit down
* * * * *
To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood?
* * * * *
Sabbathless Satan!
_Work_. C. LAMB.
It was not by vile loitering in ease
That Greece obtained the brighter palm of art,
That soft yet ardent Athens learnt to please,
To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart,
In all supreme! complete in every part!
It was not thence majestic Rome arose,
And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart:
For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows;
Renown is not the child of indolent repose.
* * * * *
Toil, and be glad! let Industry inspire
Into your quickened limbs her buoyant breath!
Who does not act is dead; absorpt entire
In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath:
O leaden-hearted men to be in love with death!
_The Castle of Indolence, Canto II_. J. THOMSON.
My nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
_Sonnet CXI_. SHAKESPEARE.
Mechanic slaves
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
How many a rustic Milton has passed by,
Stifling the speechless longings of his heart,
In unremitting drudgery and care!
How many a vulgar Cato has compelled
His energies, no longer tameless then,
To mould a pin, or fabricate a nail!
_Queen Mab, Pt. V_. P.B. SHELLEY.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work.
_King Henry, Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
MACDUFF. I know this is a joyful trouble to you,
But yet, 'tis one.
MACBETH. The labor we delight in physics pain.
_Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Cheered with the view, man went to till the ground
From, whence he rose; sentenced indeed to toil,
As to a punishment, yet (even 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.
_Death_. B. PORTEUS.
Like a lackey, from the rise to set,
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labor to his grave.
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Hath the forehand and vantage of a king.
_King Henry V., Act iv. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
When Adam dolve, and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman? [A]
J. BALL.
[Footnote A: Lines used by John Ball, to encourage the rebels in Wat
Tyler's rebellion. Hume's _History of England_, Vol. i.]
Joy to the Toiler!--him that tills
The fields with Plenty crowned;
Him with the woodman's axe that thrills
The wilderness profound.
_Songs of the Toiler_. B. HATHAWAY.
LAW.
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Press not a falling man too far! 'tis virtue:
His faults lie open to the laws; let them,
Not you, correct him.
_Henry VIII., Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Still you keep o' the windy side of the law.
_Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two horses, which doth bear him best.
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment;
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
_King Henry VI., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Mastering the lawless science of our law,
That codeless myriad of precedent,
That wilderness of single instances.
_Aylmer's Field_. A. TENNYSON.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine.
_Rape of the Lock, Canto III_. A. POPE.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?
_Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
So wise, so grave, of so perplexed a tongue
And loud withal, that could not wag, nor scarce
Lie still, without a fee.
_Valpone_. B. JONSON.
While lawyers have more sober sense
Than t' argue at their own expense,
But make their best advantages
Of others' quarrels, like the Swiss.
_Hudibras_. BUTLER.
All, all look up with reverential awe,
At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law.
_Epilogue to Satire, Dialogue I_. A. POPE.
Once (says an Author; where, I need not say)
Two Trav'lers found an Oyster in their way:
Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong,
While Scale in hand Dame Justice passed along.
Before her each with clamor pleads the Laws.
Explained 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 removed so rarely well,
"There take" (says Justice), "take ye each a shell.
We thrive at Westminster on Fools like you:
'Twas a fat oyster--live in peace--Adieu."
_Verbatim from Boileau_. A. POPE.
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.
_Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
No man e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law.
_McFingal, Canto III_. J. TRUMBULL.
Who to himself is law, no law doth need,
Offends no law, and is a king indeed.
_Bussy D'Ambois, Act ii. Sc 1_. G. CHAPMAN.
LEARNING.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. II_. A. POPE.
When night hath set her silver lamp on high,
Then is the time for study.
_Festus, Sc. A Village Feast_. P.J. BAILEY.
BIRON.--What is the end of Study? let me know.
KING.--Why, that to know, which else we should not know.
BIRON.--Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense?
KING.--Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en;
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
_Taming of the Shrew, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
_Love of Fame, Satire I_. DR. E. YOUNG.
With just enough of learning to misquote.
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. LORD BYRON.
Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil
O'er books consumed the midnight oil?
_Fables: The Shepherd and the Philosopher_. J. GAY.
And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower.
_In Memoriam: Conclusion_. A. TENNYSON.
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk, and wot not what they are.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.
_The Wife of Bath: Her Prologue._ A. POPE.
Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And learning wiser grow without his books.
_The Task, Bk. VI. Winter Walk at Noon_. W. COWPER.
Learning by study must be won;
'Twas ne'er entailed from son to son.
_The Pack Horse and Carrier_. J. GAY.
Much learning shows how little mortals know;
Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy.
_Night Thoughts, Night VI_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Were man to live coeval with the sun.
The patriarch-pupil would be learning still.
_Night Thoughts, Night VII_. DR. E. YOUNG.
LETTERS.
Kind messages, that pass from land to land;
Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history,
In which we feel the pressure of a hand,--
One touch of fire,--and all the rest is mystery!
_The Seaside and the Fireside: Dedication_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Every day brings a ship,
Every ship brings a word:
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear.
_Letters_. R.W. EMERSON.
And oft the pangs of absence to remove
By letters, soft interpreters of love.
_Henry and Emma_. M. PRIOR.
Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
That ever blotted paper!
_Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
I will touch
My mouth unto the leaves, caressingly;
And so wilt thou. Thus from these lips of mine
My message will go kissingly to thine.
With more than Fancy's load of luxury,
And prove a true love-letter.
_Sonnet (With a Letter)_. J.G. SAXE.
Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a postscript.
_Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Go, little letter, apace, apace,
Fly;
Fly to the light in the valley below--
Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye.
_The Letter_. A. TENNYSON.
LIFE.
Let observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life.
_The Vanity of Human Wishes_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
It matters not how long we live, but how.
_Festus, Sc. Wood and Water_. P.J. BAILEY.
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st
Live well; how long or short permit to heaven.
_Paradise Lost, Bk, XI_. MILTON.
All is concentred in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being.
_Childe Harold, Canto III_. LORD BYRON.
Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
None ever yet made haste enough to live.
_Martial, Liber II_. A. COWLEY.
Learn to live well, that thou may'st die so too;
To live and die is all we have to do.
_Of Prudence_. SIR J. DENHAM.
"Live, while you live," the epicure would say,
"And seize the pleasures of the present day;"
"Live while you live," the sacred preacher cries,
"And give to God each moment as it flies."
"Lord, in my views let both united be;
I live in _pleasure_, when I live to _Thee_."
_"Dum vivimus vivamus." (Motto of his Family Arms.)_
P. DODDRIDGE.
A man's ingress into the world is naked and bare,
His progress through the world is trouble and care;
And lastly, his egress out of the world, is nobody knows where.
If we do well here, we shall do well there;
I can tell you no more if I preach a whole year.
_Eccentricities, Vol. I_. J. EDWIN.
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.
_Grongar Hill_. J. DYER.
So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy mother's lap
_Paradise Lost, Bk. XI_. MILTON.
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
_Old Mortality: Chapter Head_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
The world's a theatre, the earth a stage
Which God and nature do with actors fill.
_Apology for Actors_. T. HEYWOOD.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life is 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.
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5_ SHAKESPEARE.
The web of our life is of a mingled
Yarn, good and ill together.
_All's Well that Ends Well, Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
And what's a life?--a weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age.
_What is Life_? P. QUARLES.
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labor, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.
_Essay on Man, Epistle II_. A. POPE.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
_Julius Caesar, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
"Life is not lost," said she, "for which is bought
Endlesse renowne."
_Faerie Queene, Bk. III. Canto XI_. E. SPENSER.
Our life is scarce the twinkle of a star
In God's eternal day.
_Autumnal Vespers_. B. TAYLOR.
There taught us how to live; and (oh, too high
The price for knowledge!) taught us how to die.
_On the Death of Addison_. T. TICKELL.
Our life contains a thousand springs,
And dies if one be gone.
Strange! that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long.
_Hymns and Spiritual Songs_. DR. I. WATTS.
LOSS.
For it so falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth,
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.
_In Memoriam, LXXVIII_. A. TENNYSON.
Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
_All's Well that Ends Well, Act v. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Though lost to sight, to memory dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,
The hope to meet again.
_Song: Though Lost to Sight_. G. LINLEY.
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.
_Merchant of Venice, Act iv. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
The loss of wealth is loss of dirt,
As sages in all times assert;
The happy man's without a shirt.
_Be Merry, Friends_. J. HEYWOOD.
For 'tis a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost.
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.
_The Retired Cat_. W. COWPER.
Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss.
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
_King Henry VI., Pt. III. Act v. Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
LOVE.
What thing is love?--for (well I wot) love is a thing
It is a prick, it is a sting,
It is a pretty, pretty thing;
It is a fire, it is a coal,
Whose flame creeps in at every hole!
_The Hunting of Cupid_. G. PEELE.
O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!
_Love is Like a Dizziness_. J. HOGG.
With a smile that glowed
Celestial rosy red; love's proper hue.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII_. MILTON.
Love, like death,
Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook
Beside the sceptre.
_Lady of Lyons_. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow,
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act ii. Sc_. 7. SHAKESPEARE.
There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two, that are linked in one heavenly tie.
With heart never changing, and brow never cold.
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die!
One hour of a passion so sacred is worth
Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
And O, if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.
_Lalla Rookh: Light of the Harem_. T. MOORE.
Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to counsel
It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.
_The Lover's Melancholy, Act iii. Sc_. 3. J. FORD.
Ask not of me. Love, what is love?
Ask what is good of God above;
Ask of the great sun what is light;
Ask what is darkness of the night;
Ask sin of what may be forgiven;
Ask what is happiness of heaven;
Ask what is folly of the crowd;
Ask what is fashion of the shroud;
Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss;
Ask of thyself what beauty is.
_Festus, Sc. Party and Entertainment_. P.J. BAILEY.
All love is sweet,
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
_Prometheus Unbound, Act ii. Sc_. 5. P.B. SHELLEY.
Love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts.
_Hymn in Honor of Beauty_. E. SPENSER.
There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act i. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought.
_Endymion_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
It is not virtue, wisdom, valor, wit,
Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit
That woman's love can win, or long inherit.
But what it is, hard is to say,
Harder to hit.
_Samson Agonistes_. MILTON.
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
_Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
_Rape of the Lock, Canto V_. A. POPE.
Why did she love him? Curious fool!--be still--
Is human love the growth of human will?
_Lara, Canto II_. LORD BYRON.
I know not why
I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
Love's reason's without reason.
_Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Love goes toward love as school-boys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Divine is Love and scorneth worldly pelf,
And can be bought with nothing but with self.
_Love the Only Price of Love_. SIR W. RALEIGH.
Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.
_Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death.
Wish himself the heaven's breath.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act iv. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Affection is a coal that must be cooled;
Else, suffered, it will set the heart on fire.
_Venus and Adonis_. SHAKESPEARE.
In all amours a lover burns.
With frowns, as well as smiles, by turns;
And hearts have been as oft with sullen,
As charming looks, surprised and stolen.
_Hudibras, Pt. III. Canto I_. S. BUTLER.
Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure!
* * * * *
Endless torments dwell about thee:
Yet who would live, and live without thee!
_Rosamond, Act iii. Sc_. 2. J. ADDISON.
If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see
The heart, which others bleed-for, bleed for me.
_Way of the World, Act iii Sc_. 3. W. CONGREVE.
Give, you gods,
Give to your boy, your Caesar,
The rattle of a globe to play withal,
This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off;
I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.
_All for Love, Act ii. Sc_. 1. J. DRYDEN.
Much ado there was, God wot;
He woold love, and she woold not,
She sayd, "Never man was trewe;"
He sayes, "None was false to you."
_Phillida and Corydon_. N. BRETON.
Forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.
_Hamlet, Act v. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Love, then, hath every bliss in store;
'Tis friendship, and 'tis something more.
Each other every wish they give;
Not to know love is not to live.
_Plutus, Cupid, and Time_. J. GAY.
LOVE'S ARTS.
Sweet to entrance
The raptured soul by intermingling glance.
_Psyche_. MRS. M. TIGHE.
Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own web from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,
That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.
_Marriage a la Mode, Act ii. Sc_. 1. J. DRYDEN.
Of all the paths [that] lead to a woman's love
Pity's the straightest.
_Knight of Malta, Act i. Sc_. 1. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
So mourned the dame of Ephesus her love;
And thus the soldier, armed with resolution,
Told his soft tale, and was a thriving wooer.
_Shakespeare's King Richard III. (Altered), Act ii. Sc. 1_. C. CIBBER.
The Devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice,
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.
_Don Juan, Canto XV_. LORD BYRON.
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;
Or, if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but, else, not for the world.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Read it, sweet maid, though it be done but slightly:
Who can show all his love doth love but lightly.
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