The World's Best Poetry -- Volume 10
by
Various
Part 8 out of 10
Two lives that once part, are as ships that divide
When, moment on moment, there rushes between
The one and the other, a sea;--
Ah, never can fall from the days that have been
A gleam on the years that shall be!
_A Lament_. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.
_Childe Harold, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
We twain have met like the ships upon the sea,
Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;
One little hour! and then, away they speed
On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam,
To meet no more.
_Life Drama, Sc. 4_. A. SMITH.
He did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving as the fits and stirs of his mind
Could best express how slow his soul sailed on.--
How swift his ship.
_Cymbeline, Act i. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
But in vain she did conjure him,
To depart her presence so,
Having a thousand tongues t'allure him
And but one to bid him go.
When lips invite,
And eyes delight,
And cheeks as fresh as rose in June
Persuade delay,
What boots to say
Forego me now, come to me soon?
_Dulcina_. SIR W. RALEIGH.
Good night, good night: parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
JULIET.--O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
ROMEO.--I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
In the hope to meet
Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.
_Underwoods_.. B. JONSON.
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss:
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this!
_When we two parted_. LORD BYRON.
BRUTUS.--Whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take;
For ever, and for ever, farewell. Cassius!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why, then this parting was well made.
CASSIUS.--For ever, and for ever, farewell, Brutus!
_Julius Caesar, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
PASSION.
Take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will
Would not admit.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII_. MILTON.
In men, we various ruling passions find;
In women two almost divide the kind;
Those only fixed, they first or last obey,
The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.
_Moral Essays, Epistle II_. A. POPE.
Passions are likened best to floods and streams,
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.
_The Silent Lover_. SIR W. RALEIGH.
A little fire is quickly trodden out;
Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.
_Henry VI., Pt. III. Act iv. Sc. 8_ SHAKESPEARE.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
* * * * *
Hear then the truth: 'Tis Heav'n each passion sends,
And different men directs to different ends.
Extremes in nature equal good produce;
Extremes in man concur to general use.
_Moral Essays, Epistle III_. A. POPE.
And hence one master passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.
_Essay on Man, Epistle II_. A. POPE.
PAST, THE.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return.
* * * * *
To-day, unhappy day, too late.
_King Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
_Imitation of Horace, Bk, I. Ode XXIX_. J. DRYDEN.
Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done.
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were,
* * * * *
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour!
_Childe Harold, Canto II_. LORD BYRON.
This is the place. Stand still, my steed,
Let me review the scene,
And summon from the shadowy Past
The forms that once have been.
_A Gleam of Sunshine_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Applause
To that blest son of foresight: lord of fate!
That awful independent on to-morrow
Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past;
Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile.
_Night Thoughts, Night II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
For time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
Grasps-in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing.
_Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
PATIENCE.
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
_Columbus_. J.R. LOWELL.
His patient soul endures what Heav'n ordains,
But neither feels nor fears ideal pains.
_The Borough_. G. CRABBE.
'Tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that ring under the load of sorrow.
But no man's virtue nor sufficiency
To be so moral when he shall endure
The like himself.
_Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
And I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe
With an invincible gesture.
_Prometheus Bound_. E.B. BROWNING.
How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
_Othello, Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
I will with patience hear, and find a time
Both meet to hear and answer such high things.
_Julius Caesar, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
I worked with patience, which means almost power.
_Aurora Leigh, Bk. III_. E.B. BROWNING.
Or arm th' obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
_The Vanity of Human Wishes_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
Patience, my lord! why, 't is the soul of peace;
Of all the virtues 'tis nearest kin to heaven;
It makes men look like gods. The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
_The Honest Whore, Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 12_. T. DEKKER.
PATRIOTISM.
They love their land, because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why.
_Connecticut_. F-G. HALLECK.
No factious voice
Called them unto the field of generous fame,
But the pure consecrated love of home;
No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes
In all its greatness.
_The Graves of the Patriots_. J.G. PERCIVAL.
The worst of rebels never arm
To do their king and country harm,
But draw their swords to do them good,
As doctors use, by letting blood.
_Hudibras_. S. BUTLER.
Hail! Independence, hail! Heaven's next best gift,
To that of life and an immortal soul!
_Liberty, Pt. V_.
J. THOMSON.
The inextinguishable spark, which fires
The soul of patriots.
_Leonidas_.
R. GLOVER.
I do love
My country's good with a respect more tender,
More holy and profound, than mine own life.
_Coriolanus, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 3.
SHAKESPEARE.
What pity is it
That we can die but once to save our country!
_Cato, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 4. J. ADDISON.
PEACE.
O Peace! thou source and soul of social life;
Beneath whose calm inspiring influence
Science his views enlarges, Art refines,
And swelling Commerce opens all her ports.
_Britannia_. J. THOMSON.
Ay, but give me worship and quietness;
I like it better than a dangerous honor.
_King Henry VI., Pt. III. Act_ iv. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,
For freedom only deals the deadly blow:
Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,
For gentle peace in freedom's hallowed shade.
_Written in an Album_. J.Q. ADAMS.
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace,
By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
_King Richard III., Act_ v. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Take away the sword;
States can be saved without it.
_Richelieu, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 2. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
A peace is of the nature of a conquest:
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
_King Henry IV., Pt. II. Act_ iv. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lover's sonnets turned to holy psalms;
A man at arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are his age's alms.
_Polyhymnia_. G. PEELE.
Ne'er to meet, or ne'er to part, is peace.
_Night Thoughts, Night V_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Till each man finds his own in all men's good,
And all men work in noble brotherhood,
Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers,
And ruling by obeying Nature's powers,
And gathering all the fruits of peace and crowned with all her flowers.
_Ode, sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition_.
A. TENNYSON.
PEN.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword.
_Richelieu, Act ii. Sc 3_. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an Angel's wing.
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. III., v. Walton's Book of Lives_.
W. WORDSWORTH.
Whose noble praise
Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel's wing.
_Sonnet_. DOROTHY BERRY.
You still shall live--such virtue hath my pen,
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
_Sonnet, LXXXI_. SHAKESPEARE.
Oh! nature's noblest gift--my gray-goose quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent-bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. LORD BYRON.
PEOPLE, THE.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain--
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as Frenzy's fevered blood.
Thou many-headed monster thing,
O, who would wish to be thy king!
_Lady of the Lake, Canto V_. SIR W. SCOTT.
I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people.
_Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
He that depends
Upon your favors swims with fins of lead,
And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?
With every minute you do change a mind;
And call him noble that was now your hate,
Him vile that was your garland.
_Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
The scum
That rises upmost when the nation boils.
_Don Sebastian_. J. DRYDEN.
Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.
_King Henry IV., Pt. II. Act i. Induction_. SHAKESPEARE.
The people's voice is odd,
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
_To Augustus_. A. POPE.
Through all disguise, form, place or name,
Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within.
On man, as man, retaining yet,
Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim,
The crown upon his forehead set--
The immortal gift of God to him.
_Democracy_. J.G. WHITTIER.
PERFECTION.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
_King John, Act iv. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
How many things by season seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!
_Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Those about her
From her shall read the perfect ways of honor.
_King Henry VIII., Act v. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. II_. A. POPE.
PERFUME.
And the ripe harvest of the new-mown hay
Gives it a sweet and wholesome odor.
_Richard III. (Altered), Act v. Sc. 3_. C. CIBBER.
Perfume for a lady's chamber.
_Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Take your paper, too.
And let me have them very well perfumed,
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
To whom they go to.
_Taming of the Shrew, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Sabean odors from the spicy shore
Of Arabie the blest.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
_Rape of the Lock, Canto I_. A. POPE.
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
I cannot talk with civet in the room,
A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.
_Conversation_. W. COWPER.
PERSONAL.
CHAUCER.
As that renowned poet them compyled
With warlike numbers and heroicke sound,
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.
_Faerie Queene, Bk. IV. Canto II_. E. SPENSER.
EARL OF WARWICK.
Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick!
Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings.
_King Henry VI., Part III. Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
GALILEO.
The starry Galileo, with his woes.
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
The admired mirror, glory of our isle,
Thou far, far more than mortal man, whose style
Struck more men dumb to hearken to thy song
Than Orpheus' harp, or Tully's golden tongue.
To him, as right, for wit's deep quintessence,
For honor, valor, virtue, excellence,
Be all the garlands, crown his tomb with bay,
Who spake as much as e'er our tongue can say.
_Britannia's Pastorals, Bk. II. Song 2_. W. BROWNE.
EDMUND SPENSER.
Divinest Spenser, heaven-bred, happy Muse!
Would any power into my brain infuse
Thy worth, or all that poets had before,
I could not praise till thou deserv'st no more.
_Britannia's Pastorals, Bk. II. Song 1_. W. BROWNE.
FRANCIS, LORD BACON.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!
_Essay on Man, Epistle IV_. A. POPE.
BEN JONSON.
O rare Ben Jonson!
_Epitaph_. SIR J. YOUNG.
What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life: then when there hath been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town
For three days past; wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly
Till that were cancelled; and when that was gone,
We left an air behind us, which alone
Was able to make the two next companies
(Right witty, though but downright fools) more wise.
_Letter to Ben Jonson_. F. BEAUMONT.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
_On Shakespeare_. W. BASSE.
ABRAHAM COWLEY.
Old mother-wit and nature gave
Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have;
In Spenser and in Jonson art
Of slower nature got the start;
But both in him so equal are,
None knows which bears the happiest share;
To him no author was unknown,
Yet what he wrote was all his own.
_Elegy on Cowley_. SIR J. DENHAM.
EARL OF MARLBOROUGH.
[Lord President of the Council to King James I. Parliament was
dissolved March 10, and he died March 14, 1628.]
Till the sad breaking of that Parliament
Broke him....
Killed with report that old man eloquent.
_To the Lady Margaret Ley_. MILTON.
JOHN WICKLIFFE.
As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main ocean they, this deed accursed
An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
How the bold Teacher's doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Part II. xvii. To Wickliffe_. W. WORDSWORTH.
[Bartlett quotes, in this connection, the following:]
"Some prophet of that day said:
'The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad,
Wide as the waters be.'"
_From Address before the "Sons of New Hampshire" (1849)_. D. WEBSTER.
JOHN MILTON.
Nor second he, that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy,
The secrets of the abyss to spy.
He passed the flaming bounds of place and time,
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
_Progress of Poesy_. T. GRAY.
OLIVER CROMWELL.
His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone;
For he was great, ere fortune made him so:
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,
Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.
_Oliver Cromwell_. J. DRYDEN.
Or, ravished with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame!
_Essay on Man, Epistle IV_. A. POPE.
KING CHARLES II.
Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relies on;
He never says a foolish thing,
Nor ever does a wise one.
_Written on the Bedchamber Door of Charles II_. EARL OF ROCHESTER.
MARTIN LUTHER.
The solitary monk who shook the world
From pagan slumber, when the gospel trump
Thundered its challenge from his dauntless lips
In peals of truth.
_Luther_. R. MONTGOMERY.
THOMAS CHATTERTON.
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride.
_Resolution and Independence_. W. WORDSWORTH.
JAMES THOMSON.
A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems,
Who, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain,
On virtue still, and Nature's pleasing themes,
Poured forth his unpremeditated strain:
The world forsaking with a calm disdain,
Here laughed he careless in his easy seat;
Here quaffed, encircled with the joyous train,
Oft moralizing sage: his ditty sweet
He lothed much to write, he cared to repeat.
_Stanza introduced into Thomson's "Castle of Indolence,"
Canto I_. LORD LYTTELTON.
In yonder grave a Druid lies.
Where slowly winds the stealing wave;
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise
To deck its poet's sylvan grave.
_Ode on the Death of Thomson_. W. COLLINS.
WILLIAM HOGARTH.
The hand of him here torpid lies
That drew the essential form of grace;
Here closed in death the attentive eyes
That saw the manners in the face.
_Epitaph_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.
_Epitaph_. A. POPE.
DAVID GARRICK.
Here lies David Garrick--describe me, who can.
An abridgement of all that was pleasant in man.
As an actor, confessed without rival to shine;
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line.
_Retaliation_. O. GOLDSMITH.
EDMUND BURKE.
Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it, or blame it, too much;
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind.
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat,
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote:
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining;
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit,
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit;
For a patriot too cool; for a drudge disobedient;
And too fond of the _right_ to pursue the _expedient_.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed, or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.
_Retaliation_. O. GOLDSMITH.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.
Whose humor, as gay as the firefly's light,
Played round every subject, and shone as it played;--
Whose wit, in the combat, as gentle as bright,
Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade;--
Whose eloquence--brightening whatever it tried,
Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave--
Was as rapid, as deep, and as brilliant a tide,
As ever bore freedom aloft on its wave!
_Lines on the Death of Sheridan_. T. MOORE.
Long shall we seek his likeness,--long in vain.
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature formed but one such man.
And broke the die--in moulding Sheridan!
_Monody on the Death of Sheridan_. LORD BYRON.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er
Shall sink while there's an echo left to air.
_Age of Bronze_. LORD BYRON.
DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
O good gray head which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fallen at length that tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew!
Such was he whom we deplore.
The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er.
The great World-victor's victor will be seen no more.
_On the Death of the Duke of Wellington_. A. TENNYSON.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
His nature's a glass of champagne with the foam on 't.
As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont;
So his best things are done in the flash of the moment.
_A Fable for Critics_. J.R. LOWELL.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
There in seclusion and remote from men
The wizard hand lies cold,
Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,
And left the tale half told.
Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,
And the lost clew regain?
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower
Unfinished must remain!
_Hawthorne, May 23, 1864_ H.W. LONGFELLOW.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
A Greek head on right Yankee shoulders, whose range
Has Olympus for one pole, for t'other the Exchange;
He seems, to my thinking (although I'm afraid
The comparison must, long ere this, have been made).
A Plotinus-Montaigne, where the Egyptian's gold mist
And the Gascon's shrewd wit cheek-by-jowl coexist.
_A Fable for Critics_. J.R. LOWELL.
CARLYLE AND EMERSON.
C.'s the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of limb,--
E. the clear-eyed Olympian, rapid and slim;
The one's two thirds Norseman, the other half Greek,
Where the one's most abounding, the other's to seek;
C.'s generals require to be seen in the mass,--
E.'s specialties gain if enlarged by the glass;
C. gives nature and God his own fits of the blues.
And rims common-sense things with mystical hues,--
E. sits in a mystery calm and intense,
And looks coolly around him with sharp common-sense.
_A Fable for Critics_. J.R. LOWELL.
EDGAR ALLAN POE.
There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge,
Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters.
In a way to make people of common sense damn metres,
Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,
But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind.
_A Fable for Critics_. J.R. LOWELL.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart
Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart,
And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect,
Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect;
There was ne'er a man born who had more of the swing
Of the true lyric bard and all that kind of thing;
* * * * *
Our Quaker leads off metaphorical fights
For reform and whatever they call human rights,
Both singing and striking in front of the war,
And hitting his foes with the mallet of Thor.
_A Fable for Critics_. J.R. LOWELL.
PHILOSOPHY.
The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!
_The Excursion, Bk. III_. W. WORDSWORTH.
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
_Comus_. MILTON.
In discourse more sweet,
(For eloquence the soul song charms the sense,)
Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Sublime Philosophy!
Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven,
And bright with beckoning angels;--but alas!
We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams.
By the first step,--dull slumbering on the earth.
_Richelieu, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
Not so the son; he marked this oversight.
And then mistook reverse of wrong for right;
(For What to shun, will no great knowledge need,
But What to follow, is a task indeed!)
_Moral Essays, Epistle III_. A. POPE.
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
_Hudibras, Pt. I_. DR. S. BUTLER.
His cogitative faculties immersed
In cogibundity of cogitation.
_Chronon, Act_ i. _Sc_. 1. H. CAREY.
When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
And proved it--'t was no matter what he said.
_Don Juan, Canto XI_. LORD BYRON.
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought.
And naught is everything and everything is naught.
_Rejected Addresses: Cui Bono_? H. AND J. SMITH.
HORATIO.--O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
HAMLET.--And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
_Hamlet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
PITY.
Pity's akin to love; and every thought
Of that soft kind is welcome to my soul.
_Oroonoko, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 2. T. SOUTHERNE.
My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;
O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
As you would beg, were you in my distress:
A begging prince what beggar pities not?
_King Richard IV., Act_ i. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,
My mildness hath allayed their swelling griefs.
_King Henry VI., Pt. III. Act_ iv. _Sc_. 8. SHAKESPEARE.
Pity is the virtue of the law,
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
_Timon of Athens, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Soft pity never leaves the gentle breast
Where love has been received a welcome guest.
_The Duenna, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 3. R.B. SHERIDAN.
PLEASURE.
Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem;
There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy of silence or of sound,
Some sprite begotten of a summer dream.
_Hidden Joys_. L. BLANCHARD.
Pleasure admitted in undue degree
Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
_Progress of Error_. W. COWPER.
Sure as night follows day,
Death treads in Pleasure's footsteps round the world,
When Pleasure treads the paths which Reason shuns.
_Night Thoughts, Night V_. DR. E. YOUNG.
To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.
_Night Thoughts, Night VIII_. DR. E. YOUNG.
A man of pleasure is a man of pains.
_Night Thoughts, Night V_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Who mixed reason with pleasure and wisdom with mirth.
_Retaliation_. O. GOLDSMITH.
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
_Resolution and Independence_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words--health, peace, and competence.
_Essay on Man, Epistle IV_. A. POPE.
POET, THE.
We call those poets who are first to mark
Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,--
Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark,
While others only note that day is gone.
_Shakespeare_. O.W. HOLMES.
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.
_Epistle to G.F. Mathews_. J. KEATS.
Most joyful let the poet be;
It is through him that all men see.
_The Poet of the Old and New Times_. W.E. CHANNING.
God's prophets of the beautiful.
_Vision of Poets_. E.B. BROWNING.
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
_Of Poets and Poesy: (Christopher Marlowe)_. M. DRAYTON.
But he, the bard of every age and clime,
Of genius fruitful, and of soul sublime,
Who, from the glowing mint of fancy, pours
No spurious metal, fused from common ores,
But gold, to matchless purity refin'd,
And stamp'd with all the godhead in his mind.
_Juvenal_. W. GIFFORD.
Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
_Julian and Maddalo_. P.B. SHELLEY.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
_The Garden (Translated)_. A. MARVELL.
In his own verse the poet still we find.
In his own page his memory lives enshrined.
As in their amber sweets the smothered bees,--
As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze,
Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees.
_Bryant's Seventieth Birthday_. O.W. HOLMES.
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.
_The Timepiece: The Task, Bk. II_. W. COWPER.
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.
_The Dunciad_. A. POPE.
Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
The pastime of a drowsy summer day.
But gather all thy powers,
And wreak them on the verse that thou wouldst weave.
_The Poet_. W.C. BRYANT.
From his chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought.
One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
_Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus_. LORD LYTTELTON.
I can no more believe old Homer blind,
Than those who say the sun hath never shined;
The age wherein he lived was dark, but he
Could not want sight who taught the world to see.
_Progress of Learning_. SIR J. DENHAM.
Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor;
Verse may seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
_Essay on Poetry_. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
_The Poet_. A. TENNYSON.
Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.
_The Art of Poetry_. J. DRYDEN.
But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think 's sufficient at one time.
_Hudibras, Pt. II_. DR. S. BUTLER.
For rhyme the rudder is of verses.
With which, like ships, they steer their courses.
_Hudibras, Pt. I_. DR. S. BUTLER.
And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad.
_Prologue to Satires_. A. POPE.
I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew,
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers;
I had rather hear a brazen can stick turned,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry:
'T is like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover every part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. II_. A. POPE.
Unjustly poets we asperse;
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,
And all the fictions they pursue
Do but insinuate what is true.
_To Stella_. J. SWIFT.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares,--
The Poets! who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
_Personal Talk_. W. WORDSWORTH.
POETRY.
Wisdom married to immortal verse.
_The Excursion, Bk. VII_. w. WORDSWORTH.
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well;
No writing lifts exalted man so high
As sacred and soul-moving poesy.
_Essay on Poetry_. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
Poetry is itself a thing of God;
He made his prophets poets; and the more
We feel of poesie do we become
Like God in love and power.--under-makers.
_Festus: Proem_. P.J. BAILEY.
Go boldly forth, my simple lay,
Whose accents flow with artless ease,
Like orient pearls at random strung.
_A Persian Song of Hafiz_. SIR W. JONES.
One simile that solitary shines
In the dry desert of a thousand lines.
_Imitations of Horace. Epistle I. Bk. II_. A. POPE.
Read, meditate, reflect, grow wise--in vain;
Try every help, force fire from every spark;
Yet shall you ne'er the poet's power attain,
If heaven ne'er stamped you with the muses' mark.
_The Poet_. A. HILL.
Jewels five-words long,
That on the stretched forefinger of all time
Sparkle forever.
_The Princess, Canto II_. A. TENNYSON.
Choice word and measured phrase above the reach
Of ordinary men.
_Resolution and Independence_. W. WORDSWORTH.
The varying verse, the full resounding line.
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
_Imitations of Horace, Bk. II. Epistle I_. A. POPE.
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, or in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the one
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.
_Poems in Summer of_ 1833, _XXXVII_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Or lilies floating in some pond,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.
_Snow-Bound_. J.G. WHITTIER.
Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep,
Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems arise,
Which, by the toil of gathering energies,
Their upward way into clear sunshine keep
Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences,
Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green
Into a pleasant island in the seas,
Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen,
And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour,
Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.
_Sonnet VII_. J.R. LOWELL.
A drainless shower
Of light is poesy: 't is the supreme of power;
'T is might half slumbering on its own right arm.
_Sleep and Poetry_. J. KEATS.
For dear to gods and men is sacred song.
Self-taught I sing: by Heaven and Heaven alone,
The genuine seeds of poesy are sown.
_Odyssey, Bk. XXII_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.
Still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VII_. MILTON.
POLITICS.
The freeman casting, with unpurchased hand,
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
_Poetry_. O.W. HOLMES.
A weapon that comes down as still
As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman's will,
As lightning does the will of God:
And from its force, nor doors nor locks
Can shield you;--'t is the ballot-box.
_A Word from a Petitioner_. J. PIERPONT.
What is a Communist? One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings.
_Epigram_. E. ELLIOTT.
Measures, not men, have always been my mark.
_The Good-natured Man, Act ii_. O. GOLDSMITH.
Coffee, which makes the politician wise,
And see through all things with his half shut eyes.
_Rape of the Lock, Canto III_. A. POPE.
Get thee glass eyes;
And, like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not.
_King Lear, Act iv. Sc_. 6. SHAKESPEARE.
Here and there some stern, high patriot stood,
Who could not get the place for which he sued.
_Don Juan, Canto XIII_. LORD BYRON.
Get place and wealth; if possible, with grace;
If not, by any means get wealth and place.
_Epistles of Horace, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
O, that estates, degrees, and offices
Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honor
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
_Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 9_. SHAKESPEARE.
POSSESSION.
When I behold what pleasure is pursuit,
What life, what glorious eagerness it is,
Then mark how full possession falls from this,
How fairer seem the blossoms than the fruit,--
I am perplext, and often stricken mute,
Wondering which attained the higher bliss,
The winged insect, or the chrysalis
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.
_Pursuit and Possession_. T.B. ALDRICH.
Bliss in possession will not last;
Remembered joys are never past;
At once the fountain, stream, and sea,
They were, they are, they yet shall be.
_The Little Cloud_. J. MONTGOMERY.
But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.
_Childe Harold, Canto II_. LORD BYRON.
I die,--but first I have possessed,
And come what may, I _have been_ blessed.
_The Giaour_. LORD BYRON.
POVERTY.
I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient.
_King Henry IV., Pt. II. Act_ i. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye
Th' unfeeling proud one looks, and passes by,
Condemned on penury's barren path to roam,
Scorned by the world, and left without a home.
_Pleasures of Hope_. T. CAMPBELL.
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all.
_King Lear, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 6. SHAKESPEARE.
Take physic, Pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
_King Lear, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
O world! how apt the poor are to be proud!
_Twelfth Night. Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed,
Slow rises worth by poverty oppressed.
_Vanity of Human Wishes_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
And rustic life and poverty
Grow beautiful beneath his touch.
_Burns_. T. CAMPBELL.
Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor.
_King Richard II., Act_ ii. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
POWER.
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame.
A mechanized automaton.
_Queen Mab, Pt. III_. P.B. SHELLEY.
Because the good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
_Rob Roy's Grave_. W. WORDSWORTH.
For what can power give more than food and drink,
To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
_Medal_. J. DRYDEN.
Patience and gentleness is power.
_On a Lock of Milton's Hair_. L. HUNT.
Some novel power
Sprang up forever at a touch,
And hope could never hope too much,
In watching thee from hour to hour.
_In Memoriam, CXI_. A. TENNYSON.
A power is passing from the earth.
_On the Expected Dissolution of Mr. Fox_. W. WORDSWORTH.
He hath no power that hath not power to use.
_Festus, Sc. A Visit_. P.J. BAILEY.
PRAISE.
The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows in every heart.
_Love of Fame, Satire I_. DR. E. YOUNG.
One good deed dying tongueless
Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages.
_Winter's Tale, Act_ i. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
O Popular Applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
_The Task, Bk. II_. W. COWPER.
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.
_Macbeth, Act_ v. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
To things of sale a seller's praise belongs.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
If matters not how false or forced,
So the best things be said o' the worst.
_Hudibras, Pt. II_. S. BUTLER.
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise.
_Paradise Regained, Bk. III_. MILTON.
Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe,
Are lost on hearers that our merits know.
_Iliad, Bk. X_. HOMER. _Trans. of_. POPE.
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
_The Poets_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
PRAYER.
Prayer moves the Hand which moves the world.
_There is an Eye that Never Sleeps_. J.A. WALLACE.
In prayer the lips ne'er act the winning part
Without the sweet concurrence of the heart.
_Hesperides: The Heart_. R. HERRICK.
As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.
_As Down in the Sunless Retreats_. T. MOORE.
Her eyes are homes of silent prayer.
_In Memoriam, XXXII_. A. TENNYSON.
Be not afraid to pray--to pray is right.
Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray,
Though hope be weak or sick with long delay;
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.
_Prayer_. H. COLERIDGE.
Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;
But if for any wish thou darest not pray,
Then pray to God to cast that wish away.
_Prayer_. H. COLERIDGE.
And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
_Exhortation to Prayer_. W. COWPER.
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.
_The Vanity of Human Wishes_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
You few that loved me
* * * * *
Go with me, like good angels, to my end;
And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me,
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven.
_King Henry VIII., Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
PREACHING.
I venerate the man whose heart is warm,
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life,
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof
That he is honest in the sacred cause.
_The Task, Bk. II_. W. COWPER.
God preaches, a noted clergyman,
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I'm going all along.
_A Service of Song_. E. DICKINSON.
Skilful alike with tongue and pen,
He preached to all men everywhere
The Gospel of the Golden Rule,
The new Commandment given to men,
Thinking the deed, and not the creed,
Would help us in our utmost need.
_Tales of a Wayside Inn: Prelude_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind.
And, while they captivate, inform the mind.
_Hope_. W. COWPER.
The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipped cream of courtly sense.
_Satires: Epilogues, Dialogue I_. A. POPE.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
_Consider the Lilies of the Field_. C.G. ROSSETTI.
Sow in the morn thy seed,
At eve hold not thy hand;
To doubt and fear give thou no heed,
Broadcast it o'er the land.
_The Field of the World_. J. MONTGOMERY.
His preaching much, but more his practice wrought--
A living sermon of the truths he taught.
_Character of a Good Parson_. J. DRYDEN.
I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men.
_Love breathing Thanks and Praise_. R. BAXTER.
PRESENT, THE.
Lo! on a narrow neck of land,
'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand.
_Hymn_. C. WESLEY.
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future, two eternities!
_Lalla Rookh: The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan_.
T. MOORE.
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state.
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day.
_Imitation of Horace, Bk. I. Ode_ 29. J. DRYDEN.
Defer not till to-morrow to be wise,
To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise.
_Letter to Cobham_. W. CONGREVE.
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal Now does always last.
_Davideis, Vol. I. Bk. I_. A. COWLEY.
PRIDE.
Pride like an eagle builds amid the stars.
_Night Thoughts, Night V_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Why, who cries out on pride,
That can therein tax any private party?
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea?
_As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
'T is pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul;
I think the Romans call it stoicism.
_Cato, Act i. Sc. 4_. J. ADDISON.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never failing vice of fools.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. II_. A. POPE.
Where wavering man, betrayed by venturous pride
To chase the dreary paths without a guide.
As treacherous phantoms in the mist delude,
Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good.
_The Vanity of Human Wishes_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
Pride (of all others the most dang'rous fault)
Proceeds from want of sense or want of thought.
_Essay on Translated Verse_. W. DILLON.
Oft has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark.
_The Chameleon_. J. MERRICK.
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk.
_Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Ask for whose use the heavenly bodies shine;
Earth for whose use? Pride answers,
'T is for mine!
_Essay on Man, Pt. I_. A. POPE.
PROGRESS.
From lower to the higher next,
Not to the top, is Nature's text;
And embryo good, to reach full stature,
Absorbs the evil in its nature.
_Festina Lente_. J.R. LOWELL.
Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beast's;
God is, they are,
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.
_A Death in the Desert_. R. BROWNING.
Progress is
The law of life, man is not
Man as yet.
_Paracelsus, Pt. V_. R. BROWNING.
The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man,
And the man said, "Am I your debtor?"
And the Lord--"Not yet: but make it as clean as you can,
And then I will let you a better."
_By an Evolutionist_. A. TENNYSON.
Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit moves.
_In Memoriam, LXXXIII_. A. TENNYSON.
PROMISE.
Promise is most given when the least is said.
_Musoeus of Hero and Leander_. G. CHAPMAN.
He was ever precise in promise-keeping.
_Measure for Measure, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
_King Henry VIII., Act iv. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
There buds the promise of celestial worth.
_The Last Day, Bk. III_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens
That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next.
_King Henry VI., Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 6_. SHAKESPEARE.
QUARREL.
O, shame to men! devil with devil damned
Firm concord holds; men only disagree
Of creatures rational.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
O we fell out, I know not why,
And kissed again with tears.
_The Princess_. A. TENNYSON.
What dire offence from amorous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things.
_Rape of the Lock, Canto I_. A. POPE.
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Those who in quarrels interpose,
Must often wipe a bloody nose.
_Fables: The Mastiffs_.. J. GAY.
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake.
_Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
In a false quarrel there is no true valor.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
I'm armed with more than complete steel,
The justice of my quarrel.
_Lust's Dominion, Act iii. Sc. 4_. C. MARLOWE.
RAIN.
The Clouds consign their treasures to the fields;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshened world.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
Drip, drip, the rain comes falling,
Rain in the woods, rain on the sea;
Even the little waves, beaten, come crawling
As if to find shelter here with me.
_Waiting in the Rain_. J.H. MORSE.
The rain-drops' showery dance and rhythmic beat,
With tinkling of innumerable feet.
_The Microcosm: Hearing_. A. COLES.
And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain.
_Midnight Mass for the Dying Year_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
See where it smokes along the sounding plain,
Blown all aslant, a driving, dashing rain;
Peal upon peal, redoubling all around,
Shakes it again and faster to the ground.
_Truth_. W. COWPER.
The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.
_Anacreontiques_. A. COWLEY.
When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
_Twelfth Night, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
RAINBOW.
Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky!
_Idylls of the King: The Coming of Arthur_. A. TENNYSON.
Mild arch of promise! on the evening sky
Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray,
Each in the other melting.
_The Evening Rainbow_. R. SOUTHEY.
Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky,
When storms prepare to part;
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art.
_To the Rainbow_. T. CAMPBELL.
What skilful limner e'er would choose
To paint the rainbow's varying hues,
Unless to mortal it were given
To dip his brush in dyes of heaven?
_Marmion, Canto VI_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of His eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him
Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne,
And minds the covenant between all and One.
_The Rainbow_. H. VAUGHAN.
READING.
I had found the secret of a garret room
Piled high with cases in my father's name;
Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and out
Among the giant fossils of my past,
Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there
At this or that box, pulling through the gap,
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it beat
Under my pillow, in the morning's dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
_Aurora Leigh, Bk. I_. E.B. BROWNING.
Come, and take choice of all my library,
And so beguile thy sorrow.
_Titus Andronicus, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
He furnished me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
_Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead;
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered,
As gods beneficent, who blest mankind
With arts, with arms, and humanized a world.
_The Seasons: Winter_. J. THOMSON.
POLONIUS.--What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET.--Words, words, words.
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought may bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.
_Simon Lee_. W. WORDSWORTH.
And choose an author as you choose a friend.
_Essay on Translated Verse_. EARL OF ROSCOMMON.
When the last reader reads no more.
_The Last Reader_. O.W. HOLMES.
REASONS.
All was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels; for his thoughts were low;
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful: yet he pleased the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as
plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason
upon compulsion. I.
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Good reasons must, of force, give place to better.
_Julius Caesar, Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore.
_Hudibras, Pt. I_. S. BUTLER.
I was promised on a time
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season,
I received nor rhyme nor reason.
_Lines on his Promised Pension_. E. SPENSER.
REGRET.
For who, alas! has lived,
Nor in the watches of the night recalled
Words he has wished unsaid and deeds undone?
_Reflections_. S. ROGERS.
Thou wilt lament
Hereafter, when the evil shall be done
And shall admit no cure.
_Iliad, Bk. IX_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ BRYANT.
The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,
May hope to achieve it before life be done;
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets.
_Lucile, Pt. 1. Canto II_. LORD LYTTON (_Owen Meredith_).
O lost days of delight, that are wasted in doubting and waiting!
O lost hours and days in which we might have been happy!
_Tales of a Wayside Inn: The Theologian's Tale_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Calmly he looked on either Life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear:
From Nature's temp'rate feast rose satisfied.
Thanked Heaven that he had lived, and that he died.
_Epitaph X_. A. POPE.
RELIGION.
God is not dumb, that he should speak no more;
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness
And find'st not Sinai, 't is thy soul is poor.
_Bibliotres_. J.R. LOWELL.
Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired.
_Expostulation_. W. COWPER.
In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text.
_Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
I think while zealots fast and frown,
And fight for two or seven,
That there are fifty roads to town,
And rather more to Heaven.
_Chant of Brazen Head_. W.M. PRAED.
Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,
Ready to pass to the American strand.
_The Church Militant_. G. HERBERT.
A Christian is the highest type of man.
_Night Thoughts, Night IV_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Remote from man, with God he passed the days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.
_The Hermit_. T. PARNELL.
Religion's all. Descending from the skies
To wretched man, the goddess in her left
Holds out this world, and, in her right, the next.
_Night Thoughts, Night IV_. DR. E. YOUNG.
My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me at my end.
_Translation of Dies Irae_. EARL OF ROSCOMMON.
REMORSE.
What exile from himself can flee?
To zones though more and more remote
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life--the demon Thought.
_Childe Harold, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
Now conscience wakes despair
That slumbered, wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
MACBETH.--Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?
DOCTOR.-- Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't,
A brother's murder.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
How guilt once harbored in the conscious breast,
Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.
_Irene, Act iv. Sc. 8_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
High minds, of native pride and force,
Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse!
Fear for their scourge, mean villains have,
Thou art the torturer of the brave!
_Marmion, Canto III_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Amid the roses, fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest; a quick-returning pang
Shoots through the conscious heart.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
There is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemned
He deals on his own soul.
_Manfred, Act iii. Sc. 1_. LORD BYRON.
REPUTATION.
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse, steals trash; 't is something, nothing;
'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
_Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise,
They best can bear reproof who merit praise.
_Essay on Criticism_. A. POPE.
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
_King Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick.
_King Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Convey a libel in a frown,
And wink a reputation down!
_Journal of a Modern Lady_. J. SWIFT.
After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep mine honor from corruption.
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
_King Henry VIII., Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak
Of one that loved, not wisely, but too well:
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this.
_Othello, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
O God!--Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.
_Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
RESIGNATION.
Behold, how brightly breaks the morning,
Though bleak our lot, our hearts are warm.
_Behold how brightly breaks_. J. KENNEY.
God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness his doing:
In common worldly things, 't is called ungrateful,
With dull unwillingness to repay a debt
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
_King Richard III., Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Thus ready for the way of life or death,
I wait the sharpest blow.
_Pericles, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief.
_Winter's Tale, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things.
_Addressed to Sir G.H.B_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Down, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy element's below!
_King Lear, Act ii. Sc 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
'T is impious in a good man to be sad.
_Night Thoughts, Night IV_. DR. E. YOUNG.
The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
_To an Afflicted Protestant Lady_. W. COWPER.
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced
That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,--
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
Serves but to brighten all our future days.
_Barbarossa, Act v. Sc. 3_. J. BROWN.
RESOLUTION.
Be stirring as the time: be fire with fire:
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviors from the great,
Grow great by your example and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
_King John, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
My resolution 's placed, and I have nothing
Of woman in me: now from head to foot
I am marble--constant.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
When two
Join in the same adventure, one perceives
Before the other how they ought to act;
While one alone, however prompt, resolves
More tardily and with a weaker will.
_Iliad, Bk. X_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ BRYANT.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: "Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane."
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
In life's small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee,
"I find thee worthy; do this deed for me"?
_Epigram_. J.R. LOWELL.
REST.
Take thou of me, sweet pillowes, sweetest bed;
A chamber deafe of noise, and blind of light,
A rosie garland, and a weary hed.
_Astrophel and Stella_. SIR PH. SIDNEY.
And to tired limbs and over-busy thoughts,
Inviting sleep and soft forgetfulness.
_The Excursion, Bk. IV_. W. WORDSWORTH.
The wind breathed soft as lover's sigh,
And, oft renewed, seemed oft to die,
With breathless pause between,
O who, with speech of war and woes,
Would wish to break the soft repose
Of such enchanting scene!
_Lord of the Isles, Canto IV_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Our foster-nurse of Nature is repose,
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.
_King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
These should be hours for necessities,
Not for delights; times to repair our nature
With comforting repose, and not for us
To waste these times.
_King Henry VIII., Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
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