The World's Best Poetry -- Volume 10
by
Various
Part 7 out of 10
_Sonnet_. S. DANIEL.
Love first invented verse, and formed the rhyme,
The motion measured, harmonized the chime.
_Cymon and Iphigenia_. J. DRYDEN.
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
_A Poet's Epitaph_. W. WORDSWORTH.
None without hope e'er loved the brightest fair,
But love can hope where reason would despair.
_Epigram_. GEORGE, LORD LYTTELTON.
LOVE'S BLINDNESS.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
_Midsummer Night's Dream, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
None ever loved but at first sight they loved.
_Blind Beggar of Alexandria_. G. CHAPMAN.
We only love where fate ordains we should,
And, blindly fond, oft slight superior merit.
_Fall of Saguntum_. PH. FROWDE.
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
_Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 6_. SHAKESPEARE.
LOVE'S DANGERS.
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen,
The maiden herself will steal after it soon.
_Ill Omens_. T. MOORE.
And whispering, "I will ne'er consent,"--consented.
_Don Juan, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
_Beggar's Opera, Act ii. Sc. 2_. J. GAY.
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it.
_Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
My only books
Were woman's looks,
And folly's all they've taught me.
_The time I've lost in wooing_. T. MOORE.
Then fly betimes, for only they
Conquer Love that run away.
_Conquest by Flight_. T. CAREW.
LOVE'S CAUTIONS.
The rose that all are praising
Is not the rose for me;
Too many eyes are gazing
Upon the costly tree;
But there's a rose in yonder glen
That shuns the gaze of other men,
For me its blossom raising,--
O, that's the rose for me.
_The rose that all are praising_. T.H. BAYLY.
But the fruit that can fall without shaking,
Indeed is too mellow for me.
_The Answer_. LADY MARY W. MONTAGU.
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is--Lord forgive us!--cinders, ashes, dust.
_Lamia_. J. KEATS.
The cold in clime are cold in blood,
Their love can scarce deserve the name.
_The Giaour_. LORD BYRON.
Love in your hearts as idly burns
As fire in antique Roman urns.
_Hudibras, Pt. II. Canto I_. S. BUTLER.
LOVE'S DELIGHT.
All the heart was full of feeling: love had ripened into speech,
Like the sap that turns to nectar, in the velvet of the peach.
_Adonais_. W.W. HARNEY.
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.
_Progress of Poesy_, L 3. T. GRAY.
Still amorous, and fond, and billing.
Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.
_Hudibras, Pt. III. Canto I_. S. BUTLER.
Then awake!--the heavens look bright, my dear!
'Tis never too late for delight, my dear!
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days,
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!
_Young May Moon_. T. MOORE.
Lovers' hours are long, though seeming short.
_Venus and Adonis_. SHAKESPEARE.
And, touched by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII_. MILTON.
Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Imparadised in one another's arms.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
I give thee all--I can no more.
Though poor the offering be;
My heart and lute are all the store
That I can bring to thee.
_My Heart and Lute_. T. MOORE.
I've lived and loved.
_Wallenstein, Pt. I. Act ii. Sc. 6_. S.T. COLERIDGE.
LOVE'S PAINS.
A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
_Gold_. A. COWLEY.
The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love;
The taint of earth, the odor of the skies
Is in it.
_Festus, Sc. Alcove, and Garden_. P.J. BAILEY.
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.
_On Sensibility_. R. BURNS.
Love is like a landscape which doth stand
Smooth at a distance, rough at hand.
_On Love_. R. HEGGE.
Vows with so much passion, swears with so much grace,
That 't is a kind of heaven to be deluded by him.
_Alexander the Great, Act i. Sc. 3_. N. LEE.
To love you was pleasant enough,
And O, 't is delicious to hate you!
_To_ ---- T. MOORE.
LOVE'S UNITY.
Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one.
_Ingomar the Barbarian, Act ii_.
VON M. BELLINGHAUSEN. LOVELL'S _Trans_.
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;
Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if the 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 the other foot, obliquely run.
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
_A Valediction forbidding Mourning_. DR. J. DONNE.
True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.
_To_ ---- W. WORDSWORTH.
With thee, all toils are sweet; each clime hath charms;
Earth--sea alike--our world within our arms.
_The Bride of Abydos_. LORD BYRON.
What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
_Measure for Measure, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
He was a lover of the good old school,
Who still become more constant as they cool.
_Beppo, Canto XXXIV_, LORD BYRON.
Drink ye to her that each loves best,
And if you nurse a flame
That's told but to her mutual breast,
We will not ask her name.
_Drink ye to her_. T. CAMPBELL.
FERDINAND.--Here's my hand.
MIRANDA.--And mine, with my heart in it.
_Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
MAN.
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
* * * * *
A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorpt!
Though sullied and dishonored, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm! a god!
* * * * *
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.
_Night Thoughts, Night I_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Nature they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating as by rote.
_Commemoration Ode_. J.R. LOWELL.
Man is the nobler growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.
_The Invitation_. MRS. A.L. BARBAULD.
'Tis God gives skill,
But not without men's hands: He could not make
Antonio Stradivari's violins
Without Antonio.
_Stradivarius_. GEORGE ELIOT.
Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise;
Such men as live in these degenerate days.
_Iliad, Bk. V_. HOMER. _Trans. of POPE_.
Be wise with speed:
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
_Love of Fame, Satire II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
What tho' short thy date?
Virtue, not rolling suns, the mind matures.
That life is long which answers life's great end.
The time that bears no fruit deserves no name.
The man of wisdom is the man of years.
In hoary youth Methusalems may die;
O, how misdated on their flatt'ring tombs!
_Night Thoughts, Night V_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Man!
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground:
Another race the following spring supplies;
They fall successive, and successive rise.
_Iliad, Bk. VI_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
* * * * *
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
_Essay on Man, Epistle II_. A. POPE.
MANNERS.
Those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies that daily flow
From all her words and actions.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII_. MILTON.
Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit a man, simplicity a child.
* * * * *
A safe companion and an easy friend
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.
_Epitaph on Gay_. A. POPE.
Her air, her manners, all who saw admired;
Courteous though coy, and gentle though retired:
The joy of youth and health her eyes displayed,
And ease of heart her every look conveyed.
_Parish Register, Pt. II_. G. CRABBE.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
What would you have? your gentleness shall force
More than your force move us to gentleness.
_As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
'Tis not enough your counsel still be true;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. III_. A. POPE.
Fit for the mountains and the barb'rous caves,
Where manners ne'er were preached.
_Twelfth Night, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
He was the mildest mannered man
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.
_Don Juan, Canto III_. LORD BYRON.
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.
_King Henry VIII., Act iv. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Manners with fortunes, humors turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.
_Moral Essays, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
Plain living and high thinking are no more.
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence.
And pure religion breathing household laws.
_Written in London, September, 1802_. W. WORDSWORTH.
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.
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
MATRIMONY.
True Love is but a humble, low-born thing,
And hath its food served up in earthen ware;
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand.
Through the every-dayness of this work-day world,
* * * * *
A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home.
_Love_. J.R. LOWELL.
He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such as she;
And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him;
_King John, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him she obeys him;
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other!
_Hiawatha, Pt. X_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Man is but half without woman; and
As do idolaters their heavenly gods,
We deify the things that we adore.
_Festus_. P.J. BAILEY.
Let still the woman take
An elder than herself: so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband's heart,
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
Than women's are.
* * * * *
Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent.
_Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband.
_Taming of the Shrew, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
And truant husband should return, and say.
"My dear, I was the first who came away."
_Don Juan, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
With thee conversing I forget all time;
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
* * * * *
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
So loving to my mother.
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life;
Dear as these eyes, that weep in fondness o'er thee.
_Venice Preserved, Act v. Sc. 1_. T. OTWAY.
Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare.
And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. LORD BYRON.
So, with decorum all things carry'd;
Miss frowned, and blushed, and then was--married.
_The Double Transformation_. O. GOLDSMITH.
For talk six times with the same single lady,
And you may get the wedding dresses ready.
_Don Juan, Canto XII_. LORD BYRON.
Why don't the men propose, mamma,
Why don't the men propose?
_Why don't the man propose_? T.H. BAYLY.
There swims no goose so gray, but soon or late
She finds some honest gander for her mate.
_Chaucer's Wife of Bath: Prologue_. A. POPE.
Under this window in stormy weather
I marry this mail and woman together;
Let none but Him who rules the thunder
Put this man and woman asunder.
_Marriage Service from his Chamber Window_. J. SWIFT.
This house is to be let for life or years;
Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears;
Cupid, 't has long stood void; her bills make known.
She must be dearly let, or let alone.
_Emblems, Bk. II. 10_ F. QUARLES.
Look ere thou leap, see ere thou go.
_Of Wiving and Thriving_. T. TUSSER.
Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure;
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
_The Old Bachelor, Act v. Sc. 1_. W. CONGREVE.
Men are April when they woo, December when they wed.
_As You Like It, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
And oft the careless find it to their cost,
The lover in the husband may be lost.
_Advice to a Lady_. LORD LYTTELTON.
Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been
To public feasts, where meet a public rout,
Where they that are without would fain go in,
And they that are within would fain go out.
_Contention betwixt a Wife, etc_. SIR J. DAVIES.
O fie upon this single life! forego it.
_Duchess of Malfy_. J. WEBSTER.
1. That man must lead a happy life
2. Who is directed by a wife;
3. Who's free from matrimonial chains
4. Is sure to suffer for his pains.
5. Adam could find no solid peace
6. Till he beheld a woman's face;
7. When Eve was given for a mate,
8. Adam was in a happy state.
_Epigram on Matrimony:
Read alternate lines_,--1, 3; 2, 4; 5, 7; 6, 8.
The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something every day they live
To pity and perhaps forgive.
_Mutual Forbearance_. W. COWPER.
But happy they, the happiest of their kind!
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
_Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
And when with envy Time, transported,
Shall think to rob us of our joys,
You'll in your girls again be courted,
And I'll go wooing in my boys.
_Winifreda_. T. PERCY.
Cling closer, closer, life to life,
Cling closer, heart to heart;
The time will come, my own wed Wife,
When you and I must part!
Let nothing break our band but Death,
For in the world above
'Tis the breaker Death that soldereth
Our ring of Wedded Love.
_On a Wedding Day_. G. MASSEY.
MEDICINE.
You tell your doctor, that y' are ill;
And what does he, but write a bill?
Of which you need not 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.
_Alma, Canto III_. M. PRIOR.
But when ill indeed,
E'en dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.
_Lodgings for Single Gentlemen_. G. COLEMAN, _the Younger_.
"Is there no hope?" the sick man said.
The silent doctor shook his head
And took his leave with signs of sorrow,
Despairing of his fee to-morrow.
_The Sick Man and the Angel_. J. GAY.
I do remember an apothecary.
* * * * *
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuffed, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
With us ther was a Doctour of Phisik,
In al this world ne was ther non him lyk
To speke of phisik and of surgerye.
* * * * *
He knew the cause of every maladye,
Were it of hoot or colde, or moyste or drye,
And wher engendered and of what humour;
He was a verrey parfight practisour.
_Canterbury Tales: Prologue_. CHAUCER.
'T is not amiss, ere ye're giv'n o'er.
To try one desp'rate med'cine more;
For where your case can be no worse,
The desp'rat'st is the wisest course.
_Hudibras to Sidrophel_. S. BUTLER.
Take a little rum,
The less you take the better,
Pour it in the lakes
Of Wener or of Wetter.
Dip a spoonful out
And mind you don't get groggy,
Pour it in the lake
Of Winnipissiogie.
Stir the mixture well
Lest it prove inferior,
Then put half a drop
Into Lake Superior.
Every other day
Take a drop in water,
You'll be better soon--
Or at least you oughter.
_Lines on Homoeopathy_. BISHOP G.W. DOANE.
By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
Will seize the doctor too.
_Cymbeline, Act v. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
MELANCHOLY.
Melancholy
Is not, as you conceive, indisposition
Of body, but the mind's disease.
_The Lover's Melancholy, Act iii. Sc. 1_. J. FORD.
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!
_To_ ---- S. ROGERS.
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.
_Ruins of Rome_. J. DYER.
MEMORY.
And, when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
A consciousness remained that it had left,
Deposited upon the silent shore
Of memory, images and precious thoughts
That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
_The Excursion, Bk. VII_. W. WORDSWORTH.
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
_Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
This memory brightens o'er the past,
As when the sun concealed
Behind some cloud that near us hangs,
Shines on a distant field.
_A Gleam of Sunshine_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;
And, as my fortune ripens with thy love,
It shall be still thy true love's recompense.
_Richard II., Act ii. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
The sweet remembrance of the just
Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust.
_Psalm CXII_. TATE AND BRADY.
When he shall hear she died upon his words,
Th' idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination,
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit,
More moving-delicate, and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
Than when she lived indeed.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act iv. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Thou, thou alone, shall dwell forever.
And still shall recollection trace
In fancy's mirror, ever near,
Each smile, each tear, upon that face--
Though lost to sight, to memory dear.
_Though Lost to Sight, to Memory Dear_. T. MOORE.
Joy's recollection is no longer joy,
While sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.
_Doge of Venice_. LORD BYRON.
Of joys departed,
Not to return, how painful the remembrance!
_The Grave_. R. BLAIR.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Oh, how cruelly sweet are the echoes that start
When Memory plays an old tune on the heart!
_Old Dobbin_. R. COOK.
What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.
_Walking with God_. W. COWPER.
While memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll 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.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
The leaves of memory seem to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
_The Fire of Driftwood_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
My memory now is but the tomb of joys long past.
_The Giaour_. LORD BYRON.
Remembrance and reflection how allied!
What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
And memory, like a drop that night and day
Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!
_Lalla Rookh_. T. MOORE.
Of all affliction taught the lover yet,
'T is sure the hardest science to forget.
_Eloisa to Abelard_. A. POPE.
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.
_Eloisa to Abelard_. A. POPE.
To live with them is far less sweet
Than to remember thee!
_I saw thy form_. T. MOORE.
The heart hath its own memory, like the mind
And in it are enshrined
The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought
The giver's loving thought.
_From my Arm-chair_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
MERCY.
The quality of mercy is not strained,--
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed,--
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings:
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,--
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice....
We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
_Merchant of Venice, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Who will not mercie unto others show,
How can he mercie ever hope to have?
_Faerie Queene, Bk. VI. Canto I_. E. SPENSER.
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.
_Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
_Titus Andronicus, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Yet I shall temper so
Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most
Them fully satisfied, and Thee appease.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. X_. MILTON.
MERRIMENT.
Gold that buys health can never be ill spent,
Nor hours laid out in harmless merriment.
_Westward Ho, Act v. Sc. 3_. J. WEBSTER.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
_Tempest, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
The glad circles round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
_The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.
As merry as the day is long.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
_Taming of the Shrew: Induction, Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
His eye begets occasion for his wit.
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-loving jest.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Jog on, jog, on the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
_The Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
_Expostulatory Odes, XV_. DR. J. WOLCOTT (_Peter Pindar_).
And yet, methinks, the older that one grows,
Inclines us more to laugh than scold, tho' laughter
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after.
_Beppo_. LORD BYRON.
There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.
_Ode to Melancholy_. T. HOOD.
Low gurgling laughter, as sweet
As the swallow's song i' the South,
And a ripple of dimples that, dancing, meet
By the curves of a perfect mouth.
_Ariel_. P.H. HAYNE.
Fight Virtue's cause, stand up in Wit's defence,
Win us from vice and laugh us into sense.
_On the Prospect of Peace_. T. TICKELL.
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.
Why should a man whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish?
_Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
MIND.
We had not walked
But for Tradition; we walk evermore
To higher paths by brightening Reason's lamp.
_Spanish Gypsy, Bk. II_. GEORGE ELIOT.
He that of such a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same;
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey?
* * * * *
Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!
_To the Countess of Cumberland_. S. DANIEL.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. I_. MILTON.
Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason,
To fust in us unused.
_Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice,
Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice.
_The Vanity of Human Wishes_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
_Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts!
_Paracelsus_. R. BROWNING.
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul:
The mind's the standard of the man.
_Horae Lyricae, Bk. II.: False Greatness_. DR. I. WATTS.
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise;
His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.
_Moral Essays, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
While Reason drew the plan, the Heart informed
The moral page and Fancy lent it grace.
_Liberty, Pt. IV_. J. THOMSON.
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.
_Yes! Thou art fair_. WORDSWORTH.
Cried, "'T is resolved, for Nature pleads that he
Should only rule who most resembles me.
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dulness from his tender years;
Shadwell alone of all my sons is he
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray."
_Mac Flecknoe_. J. DRYDEN.
MISSIONS.
Onward, ye men of prayer!
Scatter in rich exuberance the seed,
Whose fruit is living bread, and all your need
Will God supply; his harvest ye shall share.
Seek ye the far-off isle;
The sullied jewel of the deep,
O'er whose remembered beauty angels weep,
Restore its lustre and to God give spoil.
_Missionaries_. W.B. TAPPAN.
When they reach the land of strangers,
And the prospect dark appears,
Nothing seen but toils and dangers,
Nothing felt but doubts and fears;
Be thou with them!
Hear their sighs, and count their tears.
_Departing Missionaries_. T. KELLY.
Shall we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,
Shall we to men benighted
The Lamp of life deny?
Salvation! O Salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till earth's remotest nation
Has learned Messiah's name.
_From Greenland's Icy Mountains_. BISHOP R. HEBER.
Blest river of salvation,
Pursue thy onward way;
Flow thou to every nation,
Nor in thy richness stay:
Stay not till all the lowly
Triumphant reach their home;
Stay not till all the holy
Proclaim, "The Lord is come!"
_Success of the Gospel_. S.F. SMITH.
Nor shall thy spreading gospel rest,
Till through the world thy truth has run:
Till Christ has all the nations blessed
That see the light, or feel the sun.
_God's Word and Works_. DR. I. WATTS.
MODERATION.
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words,--health, peace, and competence.
Rut health consists with temperance alone.
And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thine own.
_Essay on Man, Epistle IV_. A. POPE.
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.
* * * * *
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc_. SHAKESPEARE.
They surfeited with honey; and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act iii. Sc2_. SHAKESPEARE.
And for my means. I'll husband them so well
They shall go far with little.
_Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.
_Translation of Horace, Bk. II. Ode X_. W. COWPER.
Take this at least, this last advice, my son:
Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on:
The coursers of themselves will run too fast,
Your art must be to moderate their haste.
_Metamorphoses: Phaeton, Bk. II_. OVID. _Trans. of_ ADDISON.
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest.
_King Lear, Act i. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
MOON.
The night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.
_The Light of Stars_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
See yonder fire! it is the moon
Slow rising o'er the eastern hill.
It glimmers on the forest tips,
And through the dewy foliage drips
In little rivulets of light,
And makes the heart in love with night.
_Christus: The Golden Legend, Pt. VI_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
How like a queen comes forth the lonely Moon
From the slow opening curtains of the clouds;
Walking in beauty to her midnight throne!
_Diana_. G. CROLY.
The Moon arose: she shone upon the lake,
Which 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.
_Madoc, Pt. II_. R. SOUTHEY.
No rest--no dark.
Hour after hour that passionless bright face
Climbs up the desolate blue.
_Moon-struck_. D.M. MULOCK CRAIK.
Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go
Over those hoary crests, divinely led!
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow
Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread
Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below,
Like the wild chamois from her Alpine snow,
Where hunters never climbed--secure from dread?
_Ode to the Moon_. T. HOOD.
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled 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 of the great of old!--
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.
_Manfred, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 4 _(The Coliseum)_. LORD BYRON.
When the moon shone, we did not see the candle;
So doth the greater glory dim the less.
_Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
The moon looks
On many brooks,
"The brook can see no moon but this."
_While gazing on the moon's light_. T. MOORE.
I see them on their winding way.
Above their ranks the moonbeams play.
* * * * *
And waving arms and banners bright
Are glancing in the mellow light.
_Lines written to a March_. BISHOP R. HEBER.
The devil's in the moon for mischief; they
Who called her chaste, methinks, began too soon
Their nomenclature; there is not a day,
The longest, not the twenty-first of June,
Sees half the business in a wicked way.
On which three single hours of moonshine smile--
And then she looks so modest all the while!
_Don Juan. Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
Faery elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side,
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
Wheels her pale course.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. I_. MILTON.
Day glimmered in the east, and the white Moon
Hung like a vapor in the cloudless sky.
_Italy: Lake of Geneva_. S. ROGERS.
MORNING.
But soft! methinks I scent the morning air.
_Hamlet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
_Hamlet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, roundabout,
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act_ v. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps in amice gray.
_Paradise Regained, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Clothing the palpable and familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
_The Death of Wallenstein, Act_ i. _Sc_. 1. S.T. COLERIDGE.
Night wanes,--the vapors round the mountains curled
Melt into morn, and light awakes the world.
_Lara_. LORD BYRON.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Night's sun was driving
His golden-haired horses up;
Over the eastern firths
High flashed their manes.
_The Longbeard's Saga_. C. KINGSLEY.
Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose
From out night's gray and cloudy sheath;
Softly and still it grows and grows,
Petal by petal, leaf by leaf.
_The Morning Comes Before the Sun_.
S.C. WOOLSEY (_Susan Coolidge_).
The charm dissolves apace,
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.
_Tempest, Act_ v. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
An hour before the worshipped sun
Peered forth the golden window of the east.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
The morn is up again, the dewy 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.
_Childe Harold, Canto III_. LORD BYRON.
Hail, gentle dawn! mild blushing goddess, hail!
Rejoiced I see thy purple mantle spread
O'er half the skies, gems pave thy radiant way,
And orient pearls from ev'ry shrub depend.
_The Chase, Bk. II_. W.C. SOMERVILLE.
Morn in the white wake of the morning star
Came furrowing all the orient into gold.
_The Princess_. A. TENNYSON.
The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews.
_The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet
With charms of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
This morning, like the spirit of a youth
That means to be of note, begins betimes.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act iv. So_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Morn,
Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand
Unbarred the gates of light.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VI_. MILTON.
Now morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl,
When Adam waked, so customed, for his sleep
Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. V_. MILTON.
At last, the golden orientall gate
Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre,
And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate.
Came dauncing forth, shaking his dewie hayre;
And hurls his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.
_Faerie Queene, Bk. I. Canto V_. E. SPENSER.
But yonder comes the powerful King of Day
Rejoicing in the east.
_The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.
'Tis always morning somewhere in the world,
And Eos rises, circling constantly
The varied regions of mankind. No pause
Of renovation and of freshening rays
She knows.
_Orion, Bk. III. Canto III_. R.H. HORNE.
MOTHER.
The only love which, on this teeming earth,
Asks no return for passion's wayward birth.
_The Dream_. HON. MRS. NORTON.
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.
_A Mother's Love_. J. MONTGOMERY.
Hath he set bounds between their love and me?
I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?
_King Richard III., Act iv. Sc_.1. SHAKESPEARE.
The poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
_Macbeth, Act iv. Sc_.2. SHAKESPEARE.
Where yet was ever found a mother
Who'd give her booby for another?
_Fables: The Mother, the Nurse, and the Fairy_, J. GAY.
Women know
The way to rear up children (to be just);
They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words:
Which things are corals to cut life upon,
Although such trifles.
_Aurora Leigh, Bk. I_. E.B. BROWNING.
They say that man is mighty.
He governs land and sea,
He wields a mighty scepter
O'er lesser powers that be;
But a mightier power and stronger
Man from his throne has hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
_What Rules the World_. W.R. WALLACE.
Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.
_My Mother_. JANE TAYLOR.
Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay.
_The Princess, Canto VII_. A. TENNYSON.
A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
_The Three Graces_. S.T. COLERIDGE.
MOUNTAIN.
Two voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice.
_Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland_.
W. WORDSWORTH.
Who first beholds those everlasting clouds,
Seedtime 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!
_Italy_. S. ROGERS.
The avalanche--the thunderbolt of snow!--
All that expands the spirit, yet appalls,
Gather around these summits, as to show
How earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.
_Childe Harold, Canto III_. LORD BYRON.
Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
_The Task, Bk. II_. W. COWPER.
Over the hills and far away.
_The Beggar's Opera, Act i. Sc_. 1. J. GAY.
Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;
They crowned him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.
_Manfred, Act i. Sc. 1_. LORD BYRON.
MOURNING.
They truly mourn, that mourn without a witness.
_Mirza_. R. BARON.
He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.
_Night Thoughts, Night II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Beloved till life can charm no more,
And mourned till Pity's self be dead.
_Dirge in Cymbeline_. W. COLLINS.
Those that he loved so long and sees no more,
Loved and still loves,--not dead, but gone before,--
He gathers round him.
_Human Life_. S. ROGERS.
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
_Macbeth, Act iv. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
_All's Well that Ends Well, Act v. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
We bear it calmly, though a ponderous woe.
And still adore the hand that gives the blow.
_Verses to his Friend under Affliction_. J. POMFRET.
My grief lies all within;
And these external manners of laments
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul.
_King Richard II., Act iv. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
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!
_To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady_. A. POPE.
He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.
_Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife_. SIR H. WOTTON.
Poor Jack, farewell!
I could have better spared a better man.
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act v. Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
So may he rest: his faults lie gently on him!
_King Henry VIII, Act iv. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.
Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure
For life's worst ills to have no time to feel them.
_Philip Van Artevelde, Pt. I. Act i. Sc_. 5. H. TAYLOR.
The very cypress droops to death--
Dark tree, still sad when others' grief is fled,
The only constant mourner o'er the dead.
_The Giaour_. LORD BYRON.
MURDER.
O blissful God, that art so just and trewe!
Lo, howe that thou biwreyest mordre alway!
Mordre wol out, that se we day by day.
_The Nonnes Preestes Tale_. CHAUCER.
Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies.
The gods on murtherers fix revengeful eyes.
_The Widow's Tears_. G. CHAPMAN.
Murder may pass unpunished for a time,
But tardy justice will o'ertake the crime.
_The Cock and the Fox_. J. DRYDEN.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
MUSIC.
God is its author, and not man; he laid
The key-note of all harmonies; he planned
All perfect combinations, and he made
Us so that we could hear and understand.
_Music_. J.A.C. BRAINARD.
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.
_Don Juan, Canto XV_. LORD BYRON.
With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
_The Task, Bk. VI.: Winter Walk at Noon_. W. COWPER.
A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly,
Upon the bosom of that harmony,
And sailed and sailed incessantly,
As if a petal from a wild-rose blown
Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone,
And boatwise dropped o' the convex side
And floated down the glassy tide
And clarified and glorified
The solemn spaces where the shadows bide.
_The Symphony_. S. LANTER.
Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled.
_Comus_. MILTON.
Though music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
_Measure for Measure, Act iv. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.--
That strain again--it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor.
_Twelfth Night, Act i. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on, as loath to die,
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. III_. xliii. W. WORDSWORTH.
Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rooks, or bend a knotted oak.
I've read that things inanimate have moved,
And, as with living souls, have been informed
By magic numbers and persuasive sound.
_The Mourning Bride, Act i. Sc_. 1. W. CONGREVE.
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.
_Art of Preserving Health_. J. ARMSTRONG.
The soul of music slumbers in the shell,
Till waked and kindled by the Master's spell;
And feeling hearts--touch them but lightly--pour
A thousand melodies unheard before!
_Human Life_. S. ROGERS.
Give me some music; music, moody food
Of us that trade in love.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
See to their desks Apollo's sons repair,
Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair!
In unison their various tones to tune.
Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon;
In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute,
Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute,
Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp,
Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp;
Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in,
Attunes to order the chaotic din.
_Rejected Addresses: The Theatre_. H. AND J. SMITH.
'Tis believed that this harp which I wake now for thee
Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.
_The Origin of the Harp_. T. MOORE.
And wheresoever, in his rich creation,
Sweet music breathes--in wave, or bird, or soul--
'Tis but the faint and far reverberation
Of that great tune to which the planets roll!
_Music_. F.S. OSGOOD.
He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced;
As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed,
And opened new fountains in the human heart.
_Course of Time, Bk. IV_. R. POLLOK.
Music resembles poetry: in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master-hand alone can reach.
_Essay on Criticism_. A. POPE.
NAME.
Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?
_Pleasures of Hope, Pt. II_. T. CAMPBELL.
Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
His honor and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations.
_King Henry VIII., Act iv. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out.
_Twelfth Night, Act i. Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain,
Whose constant cares were to increase his store,
And keep his only son, myself, at home.
_Douglas, Act ii. Sc_. 1. J. HOME.
And if his name be George. I'll call him Peter;
For new-made honor doth forget men's names.
_King John, Act i. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
What woful stuff this madrigal would be
If some starved hackney sonneteer, or me,
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines!
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. II_ A. POPE.
'Tis from high life high characters are drawn;
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.
_Moral Essays, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
Oh! Amos Cottle![A] Phoebus! What a name
To fill the speaking trump of future fame!
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. LORD BYRON.
[Footnote A: "Mr. Cottle, Amos or Joseph, I don't know which, but one
or both, once sellers of books they did not write, but now writers of
books that do not sell, have published a pair of epics."--THE AUTHOR.]
NATURE.
The fall of kings,
The rage of nations, and the crush of states,
Move not the man, who, from the world escaped,
In still retreats and flowery solitudes,
To nature's voice attends, from month to month,
And day to day, through the revolving year.
_The Seasons: Autumn_. J. THOMSON.
When that the monthe of May
Is comen, and that I hear the foules synge,
And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,
Farwel my boke, and my devocion.
_Legende of Goode Women: Prologue_. CHAUCER.
To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven,--to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
_Sonnet XIV_. KEATS.
What more felicitie can fall to creature.
Than to enjoy delight with libertie,
And to be lord of all the workes of Nature,
To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie,
To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature!
_The Fate of the Butterfly_. E. SPENSER.
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees.
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
In such green palaces the first kings reigned,
Slept in their shades, and angels entertained;
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.
_On St. James' Park_. E. WALLER
And recognizes ever and anon
The breeze of Nature stirring in his soul.
_The Excursion, Bk. IV_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand
Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year;
How mighty, how majestic are thy works!
_The Seasons: Winter_. J. THOMSON.
Every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
_The Princess, Canto VII_. A. TENNYSON.
I trust in Nature for the stable laws
Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant
And Autumn garner to the end of time.
I trust in God--the right shall he the right
And other than the wrong, while he endures;
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive
The outward and the inward, Nature's good
And God's.
_A Soul Tragedy, Act_ i. R. BROWNING.
I care not, Fortune, what you me deny;
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve.
_The Castle of Indolence, Canto II_. J. THOMSON.
Who can paint
Like Nature? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.
_The Cock and Fox_. J. DRYDEN.
The course of nature is the art of God.
_Night Thoughts, Night IX_. DR. E. YOUNG.
'Tis elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand:
Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.
_Night Thoughts, Night IX_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Nature, the vicar of the almightie Lord.
_Assembly of Foules_. CHAUCER.
To the solid ground
Of nature trusts the Mind that builds for aye.
_Miscellaneous Sonnets_. W. WORDSWORTH.
NIGHT.
Darkness now rose,
As daylight sunk, and brought in low'ring Night,
Her shadowy offspring.
_Paradise Regained, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
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 fair power
Of light, to kindle and create the whole.
_The Seasons: Autumn_. J. THOMSON.
How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:
In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark-blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert-circle spreads.
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!
_Thalaba_. R. SOUTHEY.
This sacred shade and solitude, what is it?
'Tis the felt presence of the Deity.
* * * * *
By night an atheist half believes a God.
_Night Thoughts, Night V_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
_Night Thoughts, Night I_. DR. E. YOUNG.
All is gentle; naught
Stirs rudely; but, congenial with the night,
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit.
_Doge of Venice_. LORD BYRON.
O radiant Dark! O darkly fostered ray!
Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day.
_The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I_. GEORGE ELIOT.
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 learned the language of another world.
_Manfred, Act iii. Sc. 4_. LORD BYRON.
Night is the time for rest;
How sweet, when labors close.
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Down on our own delightful bed!
_Night_. J. MONTGOMERY.
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task foredone.
_Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Quiet night, that brings
Rest to the laborer, is the outlaw's day,
In which he rises early to do wrong,
And when his work is ended dares not sleep.
_The Guardian, Act ii. Sc. 4_. P. MASSINGER.
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
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!
_Lara_. LORD BYRON.
Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour
Friendliest to sleep and silence.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. V_. MILTON.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve;
Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
_Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
In the dead vast and middle of the night.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and Hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be.
And give it some faint glimpses
Of immortality!
_Midnight_. J.R. LOWELL.
NOBILITY.
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
_Sonnet IV_. J.R. LOWELL.
His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for 's power to thunder.
_Coriolanus, Act iii. Sc 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All 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.
_Julius Caesar, Act v. Sc 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
OPINION.
For most men (till by losing rendered sager)
Will back their own opinions by a wager.
_Beppo_. LORD BYRON.
Some praise at morning what they blame at night,
But always think the last opinion right.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. II_. A. POPE.
He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.
_Hudibras, Canto III_. S. BUTLER.
OPPORTUNITY.
Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offered,
Shall never find it more.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
This could but have happened once,
And we missed it, lost it forever.
_Youth and Art_. R. BROWNING.
He that will not when he may,
When he will he shall have nay.
_Quoted in Anatomy of Melancholy_. R. BURTON.
He that would not when he might,
He shall not when he wolda.
_Reliques: The Baffled Knight_. BISHOP T. PERCY.
Urge them while their souls
Are capable of this ambition.
Lest zeal, nor melted by the windy breath
Of soft petitions, pity and remorse,
Cool and congeal again to what it was.
_King John, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold.
_Desultory Stanzas_. W. WORDSWORTH.
ORATORY.
But, spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel--must feel themselves.
_The Rosciad_. C. CHURCHILL.
Words that weep and tears that speak.
_The Prophet_. A. COWLEY.
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon. and Artaxerxes' throne.
_Paradise Regained, Bk, IV_. MILTON.
Where nature's end of language is declined,
And men talk only to conceal the mind.
_Love of Fame, Satire II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
What means this passionate discourse,
This peroration with such circumstance?
_Henry VI., Pt. II. Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Frank, haughty, rash,--the Rupert of debate.
_The New Timon, Pt. I_. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope.
* * * * *
For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools.
_Hudibras, Pt. 1. Canto 1_. S. BUTLER.
"I wonder if Brougham thinks as much as he talks,"
Said a punster, perusing a trial;
"I vow, since his lordship was made Baron Vaux,
He's been _Vaux et proeterea nihil_!"
_A Voice and Nothing More_. ANONYMOUS.
ORDER.
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar
Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined;
Till at his second bidding darkness fled.
Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. III_. MILTON.
For the world was built in order
And the atoms march in tune:
Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder,
The sun obeys them, and the moon.
_Monadnock_. R.W. EMERSON.
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate.
_Essay on Man, Epistle III_. A. POPE.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order.
_Troilus and Cresida, Act . Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
PAIN.
The scourge of life, and death's extreme disgrace,
The smoke of Hell, that monster called Paine.
_Sidera: Paine_. SIR P. SIDNEY.
Nothing begins, and nothing ends,
That is not paid with moan;
For we are born in others' pain,
And perish in our own.
_Daisy_. F. THOMPSON.
Pain is no longer pain when it is past.
_Nature's Lesson_. M.J. PRESTON.
Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain.
_Love's Labor's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can ne'er a transport know
That never feels a pain.
_Song_. LORD LYTTELTON.
PAINTING.
The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring
Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring.
_Monody on the Death of the Rt. Hon. R.B. Sheridan_. LORD BYRON.
Hard features every bungler can command:
To draw true beauty shows a master's hand.
_To Mr. Lee, on his Alexander_. J. DRYDEN.
A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
_Retaliation_. O. GOLDSMITH.
Lely on animated canvas stole
The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul.
_Horace, Bk. II. Epistle I_. A. POPE.
I will say of it,
It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
_Timon of Athens, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
With hue like that when some great painter dips
His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.
_The Revolt of Islam_. P.B. SHELLEY.
PARTING.
To know, to esteem, to love,--and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart.
_On Taking Leave of_ ----. S.T. COLERIDGE.
Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love;
And, when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between and bid us part?
_Song_. J. THOMSON.
Back to Full Books
|