The World's Best Poetry, Volume 10: Poetical Quotations
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Title: The World's Best Poetry, Volume 10: Poetical Quotations
Editor: Bliss Carman
Contributor: John R. Howard
Release date: July 17, 2004 [eBook #12925]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY, VOLUME 10: POETICAL QUOTATIONS ***
THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY
[Illustration]
I Home: Friendship
II Love
III Sorrow and Consolation
IV The Higher Life
V Nature
VI Fancy: Sentiment
VII Descriptive: Narrative
VIII National Spirit
IX Tragedy: Humor
X Poetical Quotations
THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY
IN TEN VOLUMES, ILLUSTRATED
Editor-in-Chief
BLISS CARMAN
Associate Editors
John Vance Cheney
Charles G.D. Roberts
Charles F. Richardson
Francis H. Stoddard
Managing Editor
John R. Howard
1904
The World's Best Poetry
Vol. X
POETICAL QUOTATIONS
AFTER ALL, WHAT IS POETRY
By
JOHN R. HOWARD
* * * * *
AFTER ALL, WHAT IS POETRY?
BY JOHN RAYMOND HOWARD.
Considering the immense volume of poetical writing produced, and lost
or accumulated, by all nations through the ages, it is of curious
interest that no generally accepted definition of the word "Poetry"
has ever been made. Of course, all versifiers aim at "poetry"; yet,
what is poetry?
Many definitions have been attempted. Some of these would exclude work
by poets whom the world agrees to call great; others would shut
out elements that are undeniably poetic; still others, while not
excluding, do not positively include much that must be recognized as
within the poetical realm. In brief, all are more or less partial.
Perhaps a few examples may make this clearer, and show, too, the
difficulty of the problem.
"Poetry," says Shelley, "is the record of the best and happiest
moments of the happiest and best minds." But how can this include that
genuine poetic genius, Byron, who gloried in being neither good nor
happy? Lord Jeffrey, one of the keenest of critics, says that the term
may properly be applied to "every metrical composition from which we
derive pleasure without any laborious exercise of the understanding."
In this category, what becomes of Browning, whom Sharp characterizes
"the most profoundly subtle mind that has exercised itself in poetry
since Shakespeare"? Wordsworth, who has influenced all the poets since
his day, declares poetry to be "the breath and finer spirit of all
knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is the countenance
of all science." Matthew Arnold accepts this dictum, and uses it to
further his own idea of the great future of poetry as that to which
mankind will yet turn, "to interpret life for us, to console us, to
sustain us,"--even in place of religion and philosophy. And yet, some
of the highest and finest of known poetic flights have been in the
expression of religious and philosophical truth; while on the other
hand Wordsworth's characterization of poetry turns the cold shoulder
to that which is neither knowledge nor science, the all-powerful
passion of Love--probably the most universal fount and origin of
poetry since the human race began to express its thoughts and feelings
at all. Coleridge enlarges Wordsworth's phrase, and makes poetry "the
blossom and fragrance of all human knowledge, human thought, human
passions, emotions, language." This is fine; yet it is but a figure,
denoting the themes and ignoring the form of poetic production.
Quaint old Thomas Fuller gives a pretty simile when he says that
"Poetry is music in words, and music is poetry in sound"; and, in
so far as melodious form and harmonious thought express and arouse
emotion, he gives a hint of the truth.
The German Jean Paul Richter says an admirable thing: "There are so
many tender and holy emotions flying about in our inward world, which,
like angels, can never assume the body of an outward act; so many
rich and lovely flowers spring up, which bear no seed, that it is
a happiness poetry was invented, which receives into its limbus all
these incorporeal spirits, and the perfume of all these flowers."
True: but the tremendous domain of Tragedy--emotion neither holy nor
tender--has been most fruitful of poetic power, and that finds here no
recognition.
Edmund Burke's rather disparaging remark that poetry is "the art of
substituting shadows, and of lending existence to nothing," has yet a
vital suggestion, reminding one of Shakespeare's graphic touch in "The
Tempest":
"And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings
A local habitation and a name";
and this again recalls in Holy Writ that clarifying description of the
imaginative power of "seeing the invisible" which is called "faith,"
as being "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen."
These varied sayings concern the elements of poetry, and help to an
apprehension of its scope and power; yet they but partially satisfy
the desire to know what is meant by that familiar word,--which we
constantly use, and use understandingly, while yet the very makers of
poetry find difficulty in telling just what is signified by it.
Let us turn to the dictionary, and see how the matter looks to the
cold-minded definer. Webster gives Poetry as "the art of apprehending
and interpreting ideas by the faculty of the imagination; the art
of idealizing in thought and in expression;" and then, specifically,
"imaginative language or composition, whether expressed rhythmically
or in prose." This seems to come nearer the mark; although, by
admitting poetical prose, the popular idea of poetry is expanded to
include all writing that is infused with the imaginative quality. Thus
is found place for Walt Whitman, who defies all metre, and who yet
lays strong hold upon the reader--despite his whimsicalities--by the
very multiplicity and suggestiveness of his imaginings among real
things.
Perhaps as satisfactory a presentation of the matter as can be
found is in a casual phrase of Stedman's in the Introduction to his
"American Anthology." This true poet and master-critic, in pursuit of
another idea, alludes to poetry as "being _a rhythmical expression of
emotion and ideality_." Here at last we have form, spirit, and theme
combined in one terse utterance. In poetry we look for the musical
metre, the recurrent refrain of rhythm; while that which inspires it
arises from the universal motives which Coleridge names as ministers
to Love,--
"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
_Whatever stirs_ this mortal frame."
With this view, then, of the vast range of poetical thinking and
feeling--such as most arouse interest in all possible moods of the
reader, and recalling the fact that the aim of the poet is to set
forth his strains in musical measures that allure the attention and
satisfy the sense of perfect expression, it will be of interest to
note a few passages concerning this art of all arts from notable
thinkers.
In his introduction to Ward's admirable selections from "The English
Poets," Matthew Arnold--critic and poet--to whom allusion has already
been made, says:
"The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is
worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an
ever surer and surer stay....
"We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But
whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several
streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to
know them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should
conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the
custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of
higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in
general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will
discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to
console us, to sustain us....
"But if we conceive thus highly of poetry, we must also set our
standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of fulfilling
such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of excellence.
... The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found
to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing
else can. A clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and of the
strength and joy to be drawn from it, is the most precious benefit
which we can gather from a poetical collection such as the present."
Macaulay in his brilliant essay on Milton, which, published in the
_Edinburgh Review_ in 1825, gave him instant recognition as "a new
literary power," set up an interesting theory. A few extracts will
give it:--
"Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created; he lived
in an enlightened age; he received a finished education; and we must
therefore, if we would form a just estimate of his powers, make large
deductions for these advantages.
"We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark may
appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavorable
circumstances than Milton....
"We think that, as civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily
declines. Therefore, though we admire those great works of imagination
which have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more
because they have appeared in dark ages. On the contrary, we hold
that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem
produced in a civilized age....
"Of all people, children are the most imaginative. They abandon
themselves without reserve to every illusion. Every image which is
strongly presented to their mental eye produces on them the effect
of reality.... In a rude state of society, men are children with a
greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state of society
that we may expect to find the poetical temperament in its highest
perfection. He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires
to be a great poet, must first become a little child. He must take
to pieces the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much of that
knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title
to superiority. His very talents will be a hinderance to him. His
difficulties will be proportioned to his proficiency in the pursuits
which are fashionable among his contemporaries; and that proficiency
will in general be proportioned to the vigor and activity of his
mind....
"If these reasonings be just, no poet has ever triumphed over greater
difficulties than Milton. He received a learned education. He was
a profound and elegant classical scholar; he had studied all the
mysteries of Rabbinical literature; he was intimately acquainted
with every language of modern Europe from which either pleasure or
information was then to be derived. He was perhaps the only great poet
of later times who has been distinguished by the excellence of his
Latin verse."
And yet Macaulay goes on to say:
"The public has long been agreed as to the merit of the most
remarkable passages, the incomparable harmony of the numbers, and the
excellence of that style which no rival has been able to equal, and
no parodist to degrade, which displays in their highest perfection the
idiomatic powers of the English tongue, and to which every ancient and
every modern language has contributed something of grace, of energy,
or of music."
But how would it have been possible for Milton to have enriched his
poetry with all these elements in a primaeval age, when many of them
did not exist? Indeed, Milton's own words show how he regarded the
task of writing the "Paradise Lost," to which he had consecrated his
energies, In a pamphlet issued in 1641 he wrote:
"Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that
for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment
of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the
heat of youth or the vapors of wine, like that which flows at waste
from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher-fury of a riming
parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her
Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can
enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim
with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of
whom he pleases. To this must be added industriously select reading,
steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and
affairs--till which in some measure be compassed at mine own peril and
cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not
loth to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give
them."
The poem was published in 1667, so that for at least twenty-six years
the poet was utilizing all the available resources of civilization and
scholarship to make himself "more fit."
But we may cite against Macaulay's theory also a brief passage in the
essay on Burns by Thomas Carlyle--surely a prose-poet, if ever there
was one. Treating of the achievement of Burns in spite of his
crude surroundings, ignorance, and lack of most that distinguishes
civilization from that childlike simplicity of primaeval life
which Macaulay regards as the more favorable to developing poetical
temperament, Carlyle says of the ploughman-poet:
"Let it not be objected that he did little. He did much, if we
consider where and how. If the work performed was small, we must
remember that he had his very materials to discover; for the metal
he worked in lay hid under the desert moor, where no eye but his had
guessed its existence; and we may almost say, that with his own hand
he had to construct the tools for fashioning it. For he found himself
in deepest obscurity, without help, without instructions, without
model; or with models only of the meanest sort. An educated man
stands, as it were, in the midst of a boundless arsenal and magazine,
filled with all the weapons and engines which man's skill has been
able to devise from the earliest time; and he works, accordingly, with
a strength borrowed from all past ages. How different is _his_ state
who stands on the outside of that storehouse, and feels that its gates
must be stormed, or remain forever shut against him! His means are
the commonest and rudest; the mere work done is no measure of his
strength. A dwarf behind his steam-engine may remove mountains; but no
dwarf will hew them down with a pickaxe; and he must be a Titan that
hurls them abroad with his arms.
"It is in this last shape that Burns presents himself.... Impelled
by the expansive movement of his own irrepressible soul, he struggles
forward into the general view; and with haughty modesty lays down
before us, as the fruit of his labor, a gift, which Time has now
pronounced imperishable."
But why should one read poetry, at all, where there is so much good
prose to be read? Herbert Spencer in his essay on "Style" gives some
reasons for the superiority of poetry to prose. He says:
"Poetry, we shall find, habitually adopts those symbols of thought
and those methods of using them which instinct and analysis agree in
choosing, as most effective, and becomes poetry by virtue of doing
this.
"Thus, poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially
impressive, partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech
and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances
of excitement. While the matter embodied is idealized emotion, the
vehicle is the idealized language of emotion. As the musical composer
catches the cadences in which our feelings of joy and sympathy, grief
and despair, vent themselves, and out of these germs evolves melodies
suggesting higher phases of these feelings; so the poet develops from
the typical expressions in which men utter passion and sentiments
those choice forms of verbal combination in which concentrated passion
and sentiment may be fitly presented."
And the language which Spencer regards as the "most effective" is
tersely set forth by that poetic and spiritual preacher, Frederick
W. Robertson, in his idea of poetry: "The natural language of excited
feeling, and a work of imagination wrought into form by art."
Another point in connection with the language of poetry is that,
compelled by their limitations of rhythm, rhyme, and the compression
of much thought and feeling into brief space, the poets have become
the finest artists in the use of words. The examples of word-use in
the dictionaries are largely drawn from the poets. Joseph Joubert, the
French epigrammatist, says:
"Like the nectar of the bee, which turns to honey the dust of flowers,
or like that liquor which converts lead into gold, the poet has a
breath that fills out words, gives them light and color. He knows
wherein consists their charm, and by what art enchanted structures may
be built with them."
Familiarity with poetry thus becomes to the attentive reader an
insensible training in language, as well as an elevation of mind and
spirit. Superiority of spirit and of form, then, offers good
reasons why the intelligent--whether for stimulation, consolation,
self-culture, or mere amusement in idle hours--should avail of a due
proportion of this finest expression of the sweetest, the highest, and
the deepest emotional experiences of life, in the realms of nature, of
art, and of humanity itself.
A few words from the gifted William Ellery Channing the elder
epitomize some striking thoughts on this subject:
"We believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one of the
great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind
above ordinary life, gives it a respite from depressing cares, and
awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and noble.
In its legitimate and highest efforts it has the same tendency and
aim with Christianity,--that is, to spiritualize our nature.... The
present life, which is the first stage of the immortal mind, abounds
in the materials of poetry, and it is the highest office of the bard,
to detect this divine element among the grosser pleasures and labors
of our earthly being. The present life is not wholly prosaic, precise,
tame, and finite. To the gifted eye it abounds in the poetic....
"It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He
only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence,
arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its
scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys:
and in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not
wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications,
but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments
and delights worthy of a higher being."
In his Introduction to the "Plymouth Collection of Hymns and
Tunes"--the pioneer book of all such aids to church congregational
singing--Henry Ward Beecher gave a noble view of the power of a hymn
arising out of experience:
"No other composition is like an experimental hymn. It is not a mere
poetic impulse. It is not a thought, a fancy, a feeling threaded upon
words. It is the voice of experience speaking from the soul a few
words that condense and often represent a whole life....
"One great hope may come to fruit only at the end of many years, and
as the ripening of a hundred experiences. As there be flowers that
drink the dews of spring and summer, and feed upon all the rains, and
only just before the winter comes burst forth into bloom, so it
is with some of the noblest blossoms of the soul. The bolt that
prostrated Saul gave him the exceeding brightness of Christ; and so
some hymns could never have been written but for a heart-stroke that
well-nigh crushed out the life. It is cleft in two by bereavement, and
out of the rift comes forth, as by resurrection, the form and voice
that shall never die out of the world. Angels sat at the grave's
mouth; and so hymns are the angels that rise up out of our griefs and
darkness and dismay.
"Thus born, a hymn is one of those silent ministers which God sends
to those who are to be heirs of salvation. It enters into the tender
imagination of childhood, and casts down upon the chambers of its
thought a holy radiance which shall never quite depart. It goes with
the Christian, singing to him all the way, as if it were the airy
voice of some guardian spirit. When darkness of trouble, settling
fast, is shutting out every star, a hymn bursts through and brings
light like a torch. It abides by our side in sickness. It goes forth
with us in joy to syllable that joy.
"And thus, after a time, we clothe a hymn with the memories and
associations of our own life. It is garlanded with flowers which grew
in our hearts. Born of the experience of one mind, it becomes the
unconscious record of many minds.... Thus sprung from a wondrous life,
hymns lead a life yet more wonderful. When they first come to us they
are like the single strokes of a bell ringing down to us from above;
but, at length, a single hymn becomes a whole chime of bells, mingling
and discoursing to us the harmonies of a life's Christian experience."
Passing from this very human and sympathetic view of the profoundest
use of poetry, note how the veteran Bryant confirms it. In treating of
the beautiful mythologies of Greece and Rome, so much of which entered
into the warp and woof of ancient poetry, he grants their poetical
quality, but doubts whether, on the whole, the art gained more than
it lost by them, because, having a god for every operation of
nature, they left nothing in obscurity; everything was accounted for;
mystery--a prime element of poetry--existed no longer. Moreover:
"That system gave us the story of a superior and celestial race of
beings, to whom human passions were attributed, and who were, like
ourselves, susceptible of suffering; but it elevated them so far above
the creatures of earth in power, in knowledge, and in security from
the calamities of our condition, that they could be the subjects of
little sympathy. Therefore it is that the mythological poetry of
the ancients is as cold as it is beautiful, as unaffecting as it is
faultless....
"The admirers of poetry, then, may give up the ancient mythology
without a sigh. Its departure has left us what is better than all
it has taken away: it has left us men and women; it has left us the
creatures and things of God's universe, to the simple charm of which
the cold splendor of that system blinded men's eyes, and to the
magnificence of which the rapid progress of science is every day
adding new wonders and glories. It has left us, also, a more sublime
and affecting religion, whose truths are broader, higher, nobler than
any outlook to which its random conjectures ever attained."
Yet, after all, returning from this consideration of poetic themes
to the question of the poetic principle itself; we may find a sturdy
assertion of it in a few words by Edgar Allan Poe--perhaps the most
acute of the many debaters of this apparently simple yet evasive
problem. After discussing the elements of poetry in music, painting,
and other art, Poe writes:
"I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as the Rhythmical
Creation of Beauty! Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the Intellect,
or with the Conscience, it has only collateral relations. Unless
incidentally, it has no concern whatever with Duty or with Truth....
"In the contemplation of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain
that pleasurable elevation, or excitement of the soul, which
we recognize as the Poetic Sentiment, and which is so easily
distinguished from Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason,
or from Passion, which is excitement of the Heart. I make Beauty,
therefore--using the word as inclusive of the sublime--I make Beauty
the province of the poem....
"It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of Passion,
or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be
introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they may subserve
incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the work:--but
the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper
subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the real essence
of the poem."
Lest one should conclude that this is the verdict of an exclusively
artistic spirit, bent upon the development of "art for art's sake"
alone, disregardful of the spiritual essence involved, let him
read the following passage by Dr. William Hayes Ward, scholar,
archæologist, critic, editor of a great religious journal. Treating of
"The Elements of True Poetry," he lays down this:
"What, then, is poetry? It is the verbal expression of thought under
the paramount control of the principle of beauty. The thought must
be as beautiful as possible; the expression must be as beautiful as
possible. Essential beauty and formal beauty must be wedded, and the
union is poetry. Other principles than beauty may govern a literary
production. The purpose may be, first, absolute clearness. That will
not make poetry. It will make good mathematical demonstration; it may
make a good news item; but not poetry. The predominant sentiment may
be ethical. That may give us a sermon, but it will not give a poem. A
poem is first of all beautiful, beautiful in its content of thought,
and beautiful in its expression through words....
"The first and chief element in a poem is beauty of thought, and that
beauty may relate to any department, material, mental, or spiritual,
in which beauty can reside. Such poetry may describe a misty desert,
a flowery mead, a feminine form, a ruddy sky, a rhythmic waterfall, a
blue-bird's flutterings, receding thunder, a violet's scent, the spicy
tang of apples, the thrill of clasped arms and a lover's kiss. Or it
may rise higher, and rest in the relations of things, in similes and
metaphors; it may infuse longing and love and passion; it may descant
fair reason and meditative musing. Or, in highest flight, beauty
may range over the summits of lofty purpose, inspiring patriotism,
devotion, sacrifice, till it becomes one with the love of man and the
love of God, even as the fading outline of a mountain melts into the
blue sky which envelops it....
"Dominant over all beauty is moral beauty. All highest flights of
poetry must range in the empyrean."
Thus, in poetry, all other graces and powers, be they lower or higher,
must come under control of the principle of beauty--the pleasing
harmony that brings delight. And the almost "infinite variety" of
beautiful modes and styles offered in such a gathering of poems as the
present finds argument for its worth in the brief extract with which
our _mélange_ of opinions may well conclude. It is taken from a series
of articles in the New York _Independent_ on "A Theory of Poetry,"
by the Southern poet, Henry Timrod. Making a protest against the
limitation of taste and the poetic vision in certain directions,
instead of cultivating a broader range of taste, he says:
"I have known more than one young lover of poetry who read nothing but
Browning, and there are hundreds who have drowned all the poets of
the past and present in the deep music of Tennyson. But is it not
possible, with the whole wealth of literature at our command, to
attain views broad enough to enable us to do justice to genius of
every class and character? That certainly can be no true poetical
creed that leads directly to the neglect of those masterpieces which,
though wrought hundreds or thousands of years ago, still preserve the
freshness of perennial youth.... The injury [of such neglect] falls
only on such as slight them; and the penalty they pay is a contracted
and a contracting insight, the shutting on them forever of many
glorious vistas of mind, and the loss of thousands of images of grace
and grandeur.
"Oh! rest assured that there are no stereotyped forms of poetry. It
is a vital power, and may assume any guise and take any shape, at
one time towering like an Alp in the darkness and at another sunning
itself in the bell of a tulip or the cup of a lily; and until one
shall have learned to recognize it in all its various developments he
has no right to echo back the benison of Wordsworth:
"'Blessings be on them and eternal praise,
The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight in heavenly lays.'"
* * * * *
By no means, then, to attempt a new definition where so many more
competent have failed, we may nevertheless gather some points of
certainty from the opinions cited above.
Poetry concerns itself with the ideal and the emotional, in nature,
life, and thought. Its language must be choice, for aptness of
expression and for melodious sound. Its form will embody the
recurrence of rhythmic measures, which, however elaborated and varied
in later times, originated in the dim past, when singing and dancing
moved hand in hand for the vivid utterance of feeling--in mirthful joy
and in woe, love and hate, worshipful devotion and mortal defiance,
the fierceness of battle and the serenity of peace. While through all
and over all must breathe the informing spirit of Beauty--whether
of the delicate or the sublime, whether of sweetness or of
power--harmonizing both the interior essence and its outward
expression.
In the ejaculations of delight, fear, or wonder of primitive man at
the phenomena of nature--in his imaginative efforts to explain the
mystery of power behind light, darkness, the seasons, storm, calm--lie
the beginnings of poetry; and religion grows from the same seed--the
desire of the finite to lay hold on the Infinite. Every man is a
potential poet, just so far as he responds to these yearnings after
some expression of the ideal and the ineffable.
Poetry, indeed, finds its inspiration in all things, from the humblest
creation to the Creator himself,--nothing too low or too high for its
interest. In turn, it has inspired humanity's finest deeds; and so
long as humanity's aims and joys and woes persist, will mankind seek
uplift and delight in its charm.
[Signature: JR Howard]
PREFACE
The Poets, by the very necessity of their vocation, are the closest
students of language in any literature. They are the most exacting
in their demands upon the resources of words, and the most careful
of discriminations in their use. "Easy writing's curst hard reading,"
said an English wit; but for the poet there is no such thing as easy
writing. He must "wreak thought upon expression." The veteran Bryant
wrote:
"Thou who wouldst wear the name
Of Poet midst thy brethren of mankind,
And clothe in words of flame
Thoughts that shall live within the general mind,
Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
The pastime of a drowsy summer day.
But gather all thy powers," etc.
The prose-writer should, and the great one does, carefully weigh,
select, and place his words; but the Poet must,--if he is to make
any least claim to the title. Therefore poetical quotations are, as
a rule, more skillfully apt to the purpose of expressing shades of
thought than are the more natural and therefore usually less careful
phrases of prose, even when conveying "thoughts that shall live within
the general mind."
A gathering of poetical quotations is valuable in two ways. It may
afford the most vivid and significant representation of a thought or
feeling for some specific occasion, or it will open to the reader
an alluring field for wandering at will--or even aimlessly, yet with
ever-fresh interest. In case one seeks some particular phrase, some
familiar quotation which is vaguely remembered but desired for more
accurate use, it may easily be that the phrase sought is not among the
assemblage of notable fragments in this volume, but in its own place,
embodied in the poem where it had its origin, in some of the other
volumes of this work. In this volume, however, will be found some
2,700 memorable passages from poems not included in the others. They
are alphabetically arranged under more than 300 appropriate
titles, for general topics; and the "Index of Topics" will show
cross-references to other and kindred themes, so that if desired a
subject may be pursued into thoughts of related interest.
It is hoped that this gathering up of admirable fragments that should
not be lost to familiar use, even though their original sources could
find no proper place in the plan of the work at large, will prove to
be helpfully suggestive, whether to the seeker for specific thoughts
and expressions or to the general appreciative reader.
THE EDITORS.
INDEX OF TOPICS.
WITH CROSS-REFERENCES.
VOL. X
INDEX OF TOPICS.
* * * * *
WITH CROSS-REFERENCES.
* * * * *
Absence
Farewell
Parting
Action
Deeds
Labor
Resolution
Success
Admiration
Beauty
Blush
Compliment
Eye
Face
Love
Praise
Woman
Adornment
Beauty
Dress
Fashion
Hair
Jewel
Adventure
Battle
Courage
Heroism
Hunting
War
Adversity
Comfort
Consolation
Cowardice
Grief
Life
Loss
Memory
Patience
Pity
Poverty
Sorrow
Wealth
Advice
Instruction
Wisdom
Age
Death
Life
Time
Air
Cloud
Nature
Night
Season
Wind
Ambition
Fame
Praise
Reputation
State-craft
Angel
Deeds
Spirits
Anger
Hate
Passion
Revenge
Angling
Fish
Animals
Cat
Dog
Horse
Mouse
Ox
Sheep
Deer
Wolf
Anthology
Poet, The
Poetry
Apparition
Angel
Ghost
Imagination
Spirits
Visions
Appearance
Admiration
Adornment
Beauty
Compliment
Dress
Face
Fashion
Hair
Woman
Architecture
Art
Argument
Conversation
Oratory
Reasons
Speech
Aristocracy
Courtesy
Gentleman
Labor
Man
Manners
Nobility
Art
Architecture
Fancy
Imagination
Music
Nature
Painting
Poet, The
Poetry
Sculpture
Aspiration
Faith
God
Hope
Prayer
Religion
Authority
Power
Royalty
Authorship
Book
Criticism
Journalism
Learning
Pen
Poet, The
Poetry
Reading
Baby
Childhood
Mother
Battle
Courage
Heroism
Soldier
War
Beauty
Admiration
Blush
Compliment
Bye
Face
Hair
Love
Praise
Woman
Bell
Boating
Sabbath
Bible
God
Jesus Christ
Birds
Blackbird
Bluebird
Bobolink
Bullfinch
Cock
Canary
Crow
Cuckoo
Eagle
Falcon
Goose
Hawk
Humming-bird
Lark
Mocking-bird
Nightingale
Owl
Robin
Summer
Swallow
Swan
Wren
Blessing
God
Gratitude
Blush
Face
Kiss
Boating
Adventure
Fortune
Ship
Waters
Books
Authorship
Criticism
Instruction
Learning
Pen
Philosophy
Poet, The
Poetry
Reading
Borrowing
Care
Gratitude
Boy
Childhood
Mother
Rod, The
School
Youth
Care
Adversity
Contentment
Merriment
Chance
Fate
Fortune
God
Opportunity
Change
Contentment
Discontent
Fate
Fortune
Future
Charity
Duty
Good
Poverty
Childhood
Baby
Boy
Mother
School
Youth
Christmas
Home
Jesus Christ
Church
Clergy
Ecclesiasticism
Preaching
Religion
Sabbath
City
Athens
London
Manhattan
Nature
Rome
Rural Life
Venice
Clergy
Church
Ecclesiasticism
Preaching
Religion
Cloud
Day
Moon
Rain
Seasons
Sky
Star
Spring
Storm
To-morrow
Comfort
Contentment
Rest
Sleep
Compliment
Beauty
Blush
Bye
Face
Love
Praise
Woman
Conceit
Fool
Pride
Vanity
Conscience
Contentment
Duty
Remorse
Retribution
Sin
Consolation
Adversity
Friendship
Heaven
Memory
Mourning
Pity
Resignation
Sorrow
Constancy
Fidelity
Inconstancy
Resolution
Virtue
Contentment
Change
Discontent
Fate
Fortune
Future
Happiness
Peace
Rest
Conversation
Argument
Oratory
Silence
Society
Speech
Coquetry
Woman
Countries
America
England
Italy
Courage
Adventure
Battle
Heroism
Resolution
War
Courtesy
Gentleman
Manners
Temper
Cowardice
Courage
Fear
Fright
Resolution
Creed
Action
Deeds
Ecclesiasticism
Faith
Jesus Christ
Religion
Theology
Truth
Crime
Conscience
Murder
Remorse
Retribution
Revenge
Shame
Stealing
Temptation
Criticism
Authorship
Book
Opinion
Pen
Perfection
Poet, The
Poetry
Reading
Satire
Taste
Custom
Change
Fashion
Day
Cloud
Evening
Morning
Seasons
Sky
Sun
Death
Consolation
Dying
Fate
Grave, The
Illness
Immortality
Memory
Mourning
Deceit
Devil
Falsehood
Hypocrisy
Sincerity
Stealing
Deeds
Action
Labor
Defeat
Adversity
Despair
Disappointment
Resolution
Success
Despair
Disappointment
Fate
Hope
Devil
Deceit
Hell
Temptation
Dew,
Morning,
Spring
Disappointment
Defeat
Discontent
Fate
Hope
Discontent
Contentment
Fate
Fortune
Future
Distance
Mountains
Doubt
Creed
Faith
Resolution
Theology
Truth
Dream
Imagination
Vision
Dress
Adornment
Appearance
Fashion
Jewel
Perfume
Drink
Waters
Wine
Duty
Action
Deeds
Dying
Death
Illness
Life
Easter
Jesus Christ
Ecclesiasticism
Creed
Theology
Religion
Eternity
Immortality
Present, The
Time
Evening
Dew
Moon
Night
Sun
Expectation
Faith
Future
Hope
Eye
Admiration
Face
Face
Admiration
Appearance
Beauty
Eye
Fairy
Moon
Faith
Creed
Fidelity
Hope
Religion
Truth
Theology
Falsehood
Deceit
Devil
Hypocrisy
Sincerity
Fame
Ambition
Glory
Praise
Reputation
Fancy
Dreams
Imagination
Visions
Farewell
Absence
Parting
Farming
Animals
Labor
Seasons: Autumn
Fashion
Adornment
Appearance
Custom
Dress
Fate
Adversity
Death
Faith
Fortune
Future
Life
Fault
Conscience
Sin
Fear
Courage
Cowardice
Doubt
Fright
Feeling
Anger
Love
Oratory
Silence
Sympathy
Fidelity
Faith
Love's Unity
Matrimony
Resolution
Treason
Fish
Angling
Flattery
Compliment
Deceit
Hypocrisy
Sincerity
Flowers
Apple-blossoms
Arbutus
Aster
Bluebell
Buttercup
Carnation
Columbine
Cowslip
Daffodil
Daisy
Dandelion
Eglantine
Foxglove
Gillyflower
Golden-rod
Hawthorn
Heliotrope
Ivy
Jasmine
Lily
Lily of the Valley
Muskrose
Nightshade
Oxlip
Pansy
Primrose
Rose
Rosemary
Sweetbriar
Sweet-pea
Thyme
Tuberose
Violet
Wildrose
Woodbine
Fool
Flattery
Man
Vanity
Wisdom
Forget
Forgive
Grief
Inconstancy
Memory
Forgive
Forget
Nobility
Fortune
Adversity
Contentment
Fate
Future
Wealth
Freedom
Countries
Patriotism
Power
Tyranny
Friendship
Age
Constancy
Help
Hospitality
Jealousy
Jesus Christ
Secret
Sympathy
Table, The
Fright
Fear
Future
Eternity
Immortality
Past, The
Present, The
Time
To-morrow
Gentleman
Aristocracy
Courtesy
Labor
Man
Manners
Nobility
Temper.
Ghost
Apparition
Spirits
Glory
Ambition
Fame
Praise
War
God
Comfort
Faith
Nature
Prayer
Religion
Gods, The
Good
Charity
Creed
Deeds
Virtue
Gratitude
Help
Ingratitude
Grave, The
Death
Mourning
Greatness
Ambition
Fame
Nobility
State-craft
Grief
Adversity
Death
Grave
Mourning
Resignation
Habit
Custom
Fault
Temptation
Hair
Appearance
Compliment
Hand
Beauty
Happiness
Contentment
Heaven
Home
Joy
Merriment
Pleasure
Hate
Anger
Jealousy
Passion
Revenge
Suspicion
Heart
Contentment
Happiness
Heaven
Home
Jesus Christ
Heaven
Eternity
Immortality
Sky
Star
Hell
Defeat
Despair
Devil
Hate
Remorse
Help
Charity
Friendship
Gratitude
Ingratitude
Sympathy
Heroism
Adventure
Battle
Courage
Soldier
War
Home
Baby
Boy
Childhood
Hospitality
Matrimony
Mother
Reading
Wife
Youth
Hope
Expectation
Faith
Future
Heaven
To-morrow
Horsemanship
Animals
Hunting
Hospitality
Friendship
Home
Table
Humility
Contentment
Pride
Hunting
Animals
Horsemanship
Hypocrisy
Deceit
Falsehood
Sincerity
Idleness
Labor
Rest
Illness
Medicine
Pain
Imagination
Dream
Fancy
Poet
Poetry
Visions
Immortality
Consolation
Eternity
Heaven
Soul
Inconstancy
Constancy
Fidelity
Promise
Ingratitude
Gratitude
Help
Inn
Ben Jonson
Innocence
Virtue
Youth
Insects
Bee
Butterfly
Flea
Fly
Glow-worm
Katydid
Moth
Spider
Instruction
Books
Mind
Rod
School
Invention
Mind
Science
Jealousy
Hate
Inconstancy
Passion
Suspicion
Jesus Christ
Friendship
Humility
Virtue
Jewel
Adornment
Dress
Journalism
Criticism
Inn
Learning
Thought
Joy
Happiness
Home
Memory
Merriment
Pleasure
Kiss
Love
Romance
Knowledge
Learning
Science
Wisdom
Labor
Deeds
Farming
Rural Life
Law
Crime
Murder
Order
Stealing
Learning
Instruction
Invention
Knowledge
Science
Wisdom
Letters
Pen
Life
Death
Deeds
Expectation
Hope
Regret
Success
Loss
Adversity
Disappointment
Memory
Opportunity
Regret
Wealth
Love
Admiration
Blush
Constancy
Friendship
Inconstancy
Kiss
Matrimony
Moderation
Sigh
Wife
Woman
Man
Age
Death
Gentleman
Immortality
Life
Mind
Progress
Thought
Time
Virtue
Manners
Aristocracy
Gentleman
Man
Temper
Matrimony
Baby
Childhood
Home
Love's Unity
Mother
Wife
Woman
Medicine
Illness
Pain
Melancholy
Discontent
Regret
Sorrow
Memory
Blessing
Grief
Happiness
Joy
Mourning
Regret
Remorse
Sorrow
Mercy
Merriment
Care
Rural Life
Mind
Instruction
Knowledge
Learning
Reading
Soul
Thought
Wisdom
Missions
Religion
Moderation
Contentment
Humility
Moon
Autumn
Night
Star
Morning
Day
Dew
Star
Sun
Mother
Baby
Childhood
Home
Mountain
Mourning
Death
Grief
Immortality
Memory
Sorrow
Murder
Crime
Hate
Law
Passion
Music
Memory
Name
Aristocracy
Fame
Greatness
Reputation
Scandal
Nature
Animals
Birds
City
Cloud
Evening
Fish
Flowers
Insects
Moon
Morning
Mountains
Night
Rain
Rainbow
Rural Life
Sea
Seasons
Sky
Star
Storm
Sun
Tree
Waters
Night
Evening
Moon
Sky
Star
Nobility
Greatness
Virtue
Opinion
Criticism
Mind
Reasons
Thought
Opportunity
Chance
Defeat
Success
Oratory
Conversation
Reasons
Speech
Order
Aristocracy
God
Law
Pain
Illness
Medicine
Painting
Art
Parting
Absence
Farewell
Passion
Anger
Hate
Jealousy
Revenge
Suspicion
Past, The
Memory
Present, The
Time
Patience
Adversity
Grief
Mourning
Resolution
Sorrow
Patriotism
Countries
Freedom
Power
Treason
Tyranny
Peace
Quarrel
War
Pen, The
Authorship
Letters
Poet, The
People, The
Freedom
Man
Politics
Perfection
Beauty
Criticism
Perfume
Personal
Bacon, Lord
Burke, E.
Carlyle, T.
Chatterton, T.
Chaucer
Cowley, A.
Cromwell
Emerson
Galileo
Garrick
Hawthorne
Hogarth
Holmes
Johnson
King Charles II
Luther
Marlborough
Milton
Poe
Shakespeare
Sheridan
Sidney
Spenser
Thomson
Warwick
Washington
Wellington
Whittier
Wickliffe
Philosophy
Argument
Mind
Science
Thought
Pity
Charity
Good
Mercy
Sympathy
Pleasure
Joy
Pain
Merriment
Youth
Poet, The
Authorship
Criticism
Books
Fancy
Imagination
Pen
Poetry
Reading
Poetry
See under _The Poet_
Politics
Freedom
Man
People, The
State-craft
Possession
Contentment
Discontent
Expectation
Love's Unity
Poverty
Adversity
Charity
Comfort
Fortune
Good
Gratitude
Ingratitude
Wealth
Power
Authority
State-craft
Praise
Compliment
Flattery
People, The
Prayer
Aspiration
God
Preaching
Clergy
Creed
Ecclesiasticism
Instruction
Oratory
Speech
Theology
Present, The
Eternity
Memory
Past
Time
To-morrow
Pride
Conceit
Fool
Vanity
Progress
Ambition
Man
Promise
Fidelity
Sincerity
Quarrel
Anger
Jealousy
Rain
Cloud
Rainbow
Seasons
Storm
Rainbow
Cloud
Rain
Sky
Reading
Authorship
Books
Learning
Philosophy
Poetry
Reasons
Argument
Oratory
Speech
Regret
Doubt
Melancholy
Memory
Past, The
Remorse
Religion
Creed
Doubt
Faith
God
Hope
Truth
Theology
Remorse
Conscience
Memory
Regret
Sin
Temptation
Reputation
Fame
Name
Praise
Scandal
Resignation
Adversity
Comfort
Grief
Sorrow
Resolution
Adventure
Constancy
Courage
Fidelity
Success
Rest
Heaven
Labor
Night
Sleep
Retribution
Conscience
Crime
Passion
Revenge
Anger
Hate
Passion
Rod, The
Boy
School
Romance
Imagination
Poet, The
Poetry
Reading
Royalty
Authority
People, The
Power
War
Rural Life
See under _Nature_
Sabbath
Bell
Church
Rest
Satire
Scandal
Fame
Name
Reputation
School
Boy
Instruction
Rod, The
Youth
Science
Mind
Philosophy
Thought
Scold
Anger
Quarrel
Temper
Sculpture
Art
Sea
Adventure
Ship
Storm
Wind
Seasons
Flowers
Nature
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter
Secret
Conversation
Friendship
Silence
Shame
Fame
Name
Reputation
Scandal
Ship
Sea
Storm
Wind
Sigh
Love's Pains
Melancholy
Speech
Silence
Conversation
Evening
Night
Summer
Sin
Conscience
Crime
Remorse
Retribution
Temptation
Sincerity
Fidelity
Innocence
Truth
Sky
Cloud
Day
Moon
Night
Seasons
Star
Storm
Sleep
Death
Night
Rest
Smile
Merriment
Sigh
Society
Conversation
Friendship
Home
Hospitality
Scandal
Speech
Soldier
Battle
Courage
Heroism
Resolution
War
Solitude
Night
Society
Sorrow
Adversity
Comfort
Consolation
Grief
Loss
Patience
Soul
Duty
Fault
Immortality
Life
Thought
Speech
Argument
Conversation
Oratory
Silence
Society
Spirits
Apparition
Ghosts
Vision
Stage, The
Oratory
Speech
Star
Evening
Night
Sky
State-craft
Greatness
Power
Royalty
Tyranny
Stealing
Law
Sin
Temptation
Storm
Cloud
Rain
Ship
Wind
Success
Deeds
Fortune
Loss
Resolution
Wealth
Suicide
Adversity
Courage
Cowardice
Sun
Cloud
Day
Summer
Sky
Suspicion
Jealousy
Sympathy
Friendship
Love's Arts
Mercy
Pity
Table, The
Conversation
Home
Hospitality
Taste
Art
Criticism
Perfection
Tear
Grief
Pity
Sorrow
Temper
Anger
Quarrel
Scold
Temptation
Conscience
Sin
Theology
Church
Clergy
Ecclesiasticism
Preaching
Religion
Thought
Argument
Mind
Philosophy
Reading
Science
Time
Death
Eternity
Fame
Life
Past, The
Present, The
Tobacco
Taste
To-morrow
Eternity
Past, The
Present, The
Time
Treason
Deceit
Royalty
State-craft
Tree
Nature
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter
Trifle
Deeds
Habit
Life
Quarrel
Truth
Constancy
Faith
Fidelity
Sincerity
Tyranny
Authority
Politics
Power
Vanity
Conceit
Dress
Flattery
Pride
Variety
Order
Taste
Virtue
Constancy
Courage
Fidelity
Good
Humility
Innocence
Nobility
Patience
Soul
Truth
Visions
Angel
Apparition
Ghost
Imagination
Spirits
War
Adventure
Battle
Courage
Heroism
Resolution
Soldier
Waters
Angling
Fish
Sea
Brook
Falls
Lake
River
Wealth
Adversity
Loss
Opportunity
Poverty
Success
Wife
Fidelity
Love's Unity
Woman
Wind
Air
Rain
Sea
Seasons
Ship
Storm
Wine
Adversity
Drink
Table, The
Wisdom
Knowledge
Learning
Mind
Nature
Reading
Thought
Woman
Beauty
Blush
Constancy
Fidelity
Inconstancy
Love
Matrimony
Wife
Youth
Advice
Boy
Childhood
Hope
Pleasure
School
Success
Time
Zeal
Action
Deeds
Resolution
LIST OF AUTHORS QUOTED.
AUTHORS QUOTED.
* * * * *
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY America, 1767-1848
ADDISON, JOSEPH England, 1672-1719
AKENSIDE, MARK England, 1721-1770
AKERS, ELIZABETH (ALLEN, ELIZABETH AKERS) America, 1832-
ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY America, 1836-
ALGER, REV. WILLIAM R. America, 1823-
ALLEN, ELIZABETH AKERS (See AKERS, ELIZABETH)
ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM Ireland, about 1828-1889
ANGELO BUONAROTTI, MICHAEL Italy, 1474-1563
ARMSTRONG, JOHN, M.D. England, 1709-1779
ARNOLD, SIR EDWIN England, 1832-1903
ARNOLD, GEORGE America, 1834-1865
ARNOLD, MATTHEW England, 1822-1888
BAILEY, PHILIP JAMES England, 1816-
BAILLIE, JOANNA Scotland, 1764-1851
BALL, REV. JOHN England, d. 1381
BARBAULD, ANNA LETITIA England, 1743-1825
BARON, ROBERT England, about 1630-1680
BARRETT, EATON STANNARD Ireland, 1785-1820
BASSE, WILLIAM England,
BATES, LEWIS J. America, 1832-
BAXTER, REV. RICHARD England, 1615-1691
BAYLEY, THOMAS HAYNES England, 1797-1839
BEATTIE, JAMES Scotland, 1735-1803
BEAUMONT, FRANCIS England, 1585-1615
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER (See BEAUMONT, FRANCIS,
and FLETCHER, JOHN)
BEDDOME, BENJAMIN England, published 1787
BELLINGHAUSEN, VON MÜNCH Germany,
BERKELEY, BISHOP GEORGE Ireland, 1684-1753
BERRY, DOROTHY
BICKERSTAFF, ISAAC Ireland, about 1735-1805
BLACKER, COLONEL WILLIAM Ireland, 1777-1855
BLACKIE, JOHN STUART Scotland, 1809-1895
BLACKMORE, SIR RICHARD England, 1650-1729
BLAIR, REV. ROBERT Scotland, 1699-1746
BLANCHARD, LAMAN England, 1803-1845
BLOOMFIELD, ROBERT England, 1766-1823
BONAR, HORATIUS, D.D. Scotland, 1808-1890
BOOTH, BERNARD England, 1681-1733
BOWRING, EDGAR ALFRED England, 1826-
BOWRING, SIR JOHN England, 1792-1872
BRADLEY, MARY E America, 1835--
BRADSTREET, ANNE England, 1613-1672
BRADY, REV. NICHOLAS Ireland, 1659-1728
BRAINARD, JOHN GARDINER CALKINS America, 1796-1828
BRETON, NICHOLAS England, 1535-1624
BRIDGES, ROBERT SEYMOUR, M.D. England, 1844-
BROOKS, HENRY Ireland, 1706-1783
BROOKS, BISHOP PHILLIPS America, 1835-1896
BROWN, REV. JOHN England, 1715-1756
BROWN, TOM England, 1650-1704
BROWNE, SIR THOMAS England, 1605-1682
BROWNE, WILLIAM England, 1590-1645
BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT England, 1805-1861
BROWNING, ROBERT England, 1812-1889
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN America, 1794-1878
BRYDGES, SIR SAMUEL England, 1762-1837
BUCHANAN, ROBERT England, 1841-
BULWER-LYTTON, EDWARD, LORD England, 1805-1873
BURNS, ROBERT Scotland,1759-1796
BUNYAN, JOHN England, 1628-1688
BURTON, JOHN England, 1773-1822
BURTON, ROBERT England, 1576-1640
BUTLER, SAMUEL England, 1612-1680
BYROM, JOHN England, 1691-1763
BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD England, 1788-1824
CAMPBELL, THOMAS England, 1777-1844
CANNING, GEORGE England, 1770-1827
CAREW, THOMAS England, 1589-1639
CAREY, HENRY England, 1700-1743
CARLETON, WILL America, 1845-
CARNEY, JULIA A America,
CARPENTER, JOSEPH E. America, 1813-
CASWELL, EDWARD England, 1814-
CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY America, 1818-1901
CHAPMAN, GEORGE England, 1557-1634
CHAUCER, GEOFFREY England. 1328-1400
CHESTERFIELD, EARL OF England, 1694-1773
CHURCHILL, CHARLES England, 1731-1764
CIBBER, COLLEY England, 1671-1757
CLARE, JOHN England, 1793-1864
COLERIDGE, HARTLEY England, 1796-1849
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR England, 1722-1834
COLES, ABRAHAM, M.D. America, 1813-1881
COLLINS, WILLIAM England, 1720-1756
COOKE, ROSE TERRY America, 1827-1892
CONGREVE, WILLIAM England, 1670-1729
COOK, ELIZA England, 1817-1889
COWLEY, ABRAHAM England, 1618-1667
COWPER, WILLIAM England, 1731-1800
CRABBE, GEORGE England, 1754-1832
CRAIK, DINA M. MULOCK England, 1826-1887
CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER PEARSE America, 1813-1892
CROLY, GEORGE England, 1785-1804
CROSS, MARIAN EVANS LEWES (_George Eliot_) England, 1819-1880
DABORNE, ROBERT England, 1590-1660
DANIEL, SAMUEL England, 1562-1619
DANTE ALIGHIERI Italy, 1265-1321
DARWIN, ERASMUS England, 1731-1802
DAVENANT, SIR WILLIAM England, 1605-1668
DAVIES, SIR JOHN England, 1570-1626
DEFOE, DANIEL England, 1661-1731
DEKKER, THOMAS England, about 1580-1639
DELAUNE, HENRY England, XVII. Century
DENHAM, SIR JOHN England, 1615-1668
DE STAËL, MADAME ANNE L.G. NECKAR,
France, 1766-1817
DE VESE, SIR AUBREY Ireland, 1788-1846
DICKINSON, EMILY America, 1830-1886
DICKINSON, JOHN America, 1732-1808
DILLON, WENTWORTH Ireland, 1633-1684
DISRAELI, ISAAC England, 1766-1848
DOANE, BISHOP GEORGE WASHINGTON America, 1794-1851
DOBBIN, REV. ORLANDO THOMAS Ireland,
DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, D.D. England, 1702-1751
DONNE, DR. JOHN England, 1573-1631
DORR, JULIA C.R. America, 1825-
DOW, LORENZO America, 1777-1834
DOWDNEY, SARAH England,
DRAYTON, MICHAEL England, 1563-1631
DRYDEN, JOHN England, 1631-1700
DWIGHT, TIMOTHY America, 1752-1817
DYER, JOHN England, 1700-1758
EASTMAN, ELAINE GOODALE America, 1863-
EDWIN, JOHN England, 1749-1794
ELIOT, GEORGE (See CROSS, MARIAN EVANS LEWES)
ELIZABETH, QUEEN England, 1533-1603
ELLIOTT, EBENEZER England, 1781-1849
ELLIOTT. JANE England, 1727-1805
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO America, 1803-1882
ENGLISH, THOMAS DUNN America, 1819-1902
EVERETT, DAVID America, 1769-1813
GRIMOALD, NICHOLAS England, d. about 1563
GUINEY, LOUISE IMOGEN America, 1861-
HABINGTON, WILLIAM England, 1605-1645
HAFIZ, MOHAMMED SHEMS-ED-DIN Persia, about 1300-1388
HALLECK, FITZ-GREENE America, 1790-1867
HALPINE, CHARLES GRAHAM (_Miles O'Reilly_) Ireland, 1829-1869
HARRINGTON, SIR JOHN England, 1561-1612
HARNEY, WILLIAM WALKER America, 1881-
HARVEY, GABRIEL England, about 1545-1630
HATHAWAY, BENJAMIN America, XIX. Century
HAWKER, REV. ROBERT STEPHEN England, 1753-1827
HAYNE, PAUL HAMILTON America, 1831-1886
HEBER, BISHOP REGINALD England, 1783-1826
HEGGE, ROBERT England,
HEINE, HEINRICH Germany, 1800-1856
HEMANS, MRS. FELICIA DOROTHEA England, 1794-1835
HERBERT, REV. GEORGE England, 1593-1632
HERRICK, REV. ROBERT England, 1591-1674
HERVEY, THOMAS KIBBLE England, 1804-1859
HEYWOOD, JOHN England, about 1500-1565
HEYWOOD, THOMAS England, d. 1649
HIGGONS, BEVIL England, 1670-1735
HILL, AARON England, 1685-1750
HOGG, JAMES Scotland, 1772-1835
HOLIDAY, REV. BARTEN England, 1593-1661
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL America, 1809-1894
HOME, JOHN England, 1722-1808
HOMER Greece, uncertain, between 1000 and 700 B.C.
HOOD, THOMAS England, 1798-1845
HOPKINSON, JOSEPH America, 1770-1842
HORACE (QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS), Italy, 65-8 B.C.
HORNE, RICHARD HENRY HENGIST England, 1807-1884
HOUGHTON, LORD. (See MILNES, R.M.)
HOVEY, RICHARD America, 1864-1900
HOW, WILLIAM WALSHAM England, 1832-
HOWARD, SIR ROBERT England, 1626-1698
HOWIIT, MARY England, 1800-1888
HUDSON, MRS. M. CLEMMER AMES America, 1839-1884
HUGO, VICTOR MARIE France, 1802-1885
HUNT, SIR A. England,
HUNT, [JAMES HENRY] LEIGH England, 1784-1859
HURDIS, JAMES England, 1763-1801
INGELOW, JEAN England, 1830-1897
JEFFREYS, CHARLES England, 1807-1865
JEFFREYS, GEORGE England, 1678-1755
JOHNSON, CHARLES England, 1679-1748
JOHNSON, DR. SAMUEL England, 1709-1784
JONES, SIR WILLIAM England, 1746-1794
JONSON, BEN England, 1574-1637
JUVENAL (DECIMUS JUNTOS JUVENALIS) Italy, 40-125
KEATS, JOHN England, 1796-1821
KEBLE, JOHN England, 1789-1866
KELLY, REV. THOMAS Ireland, 1769-1855
KENNY, JAMES Ireland, 1780-1849
KING, WILLIAM England, 1663-1712
KINGSLEY, REV. CHARLES England, 1819-1875
KNOLLES, RICHARD England, about 1545-1610
KÖRNER, KARL THEODOR Germany, 1791-1813
KRUMMACHER, FRIEDRICH ADOLPH Germany, 1767-1845
LAMB, CHARLES England, 1775-1834
LANSDOWNE, LORD (See GRANVILLE, GEORGE)
LANDON, LETITIA E. England, 1802-1839
LANIER, SIDNEY America, 1842-1881
LAROOM, LUCY America, 1826-1893
LEE, NATHANIEL England, 1658-1691
LEIGH, HENRY S. England, 1837-1883
LEMON, MARK England, 1809-1870
LILLY, J. (See LYLY, JOHN.)
LINLEY, GEORGE England, 1798-1865
LLOYD, ROBERT England, 1733-1764
LOCKER-LAMPSON, FREDERICK England, 1821-
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH America, 1807-1882
LONGFELLOW, REV. SAMUEL America, 1819-1892
LOVELACE, COLONEL RICHARD England, 1618-1658
LOVELL, MARIA England,
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL America, 1819-1891
LYLY, JOHN England, 1553-1606
LYTTELTON, GEORGE, LORD England, 1709-1773
LYTTON, E. ROBERT BULWER, LORD
(_Owen Meredith_) England, 1831-1891
MACKAY, CHARLES Scotland, 1814-1889
MADDEN, REV. SAMUEL Ireland, 1687-1765
MALLET. DAVID England, 1700-1765
MANNERS, LORD JOHN England, 1721-1770
MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER England, 1564-1593
MARVELL, ANDREW England, 1620-1678
MASSEY, GERALD England, 1828-1894
MASSINGER, PHILIP England, 1584-1640
MATURIN, CHARLES ROBERT Ireland, 1782-1824
MAY, THOMAS England, 1595-1650
MELEAGER, Gadara, Palestine (Greek) I. Century B.C.
MEREDITH, LOUISE A England, 1812-
MEREDITH, OWEN (See LYTTON, LORD)
MERRICK, REV. JAMES England, 1720-1769
MILES, REV. JAMES WARLEY America, 1818-1875
MILLER, CINCINNATUS HEINE
(_Joaquin Miller_) America, 1841-
MILMAN, REV. HENRY HART England, 1791-1868
MILNES, RICHARD MONCKTON (LORD HOUGHTON) England. 1809-1885
MILTON, JOHN England. 1608-1674
MONTAGU, LADY MARY WORTLEY England, 1690-1762
MONTGOMERY, JAMES Scotland, 1771-1854
MONTGOMERY, REV. ROBERT England, 1807-1855
MOORE, EDWARD England, 1712-1757
MOORE, THOMAS Ireland, 1779-1852
MORE, HANNAH England, 1745-1833
MORELL, REV. THOMAS England, 1703-1784
MORSE, JAMES HERBERT America, 1841-
NABBES, THOMAS England, 1600-1641
NEW ENGLAND PRIMER America. 1691-
NEWTON, JOHN England, 1725-1807
NORRIS. JOHN England, 1657-1711
NORTON. CAROLINE E.S. (LADY STIRLING-MAXWELL) England, 1808-1877
OBERHOLTZER, SARAH L. America,
O'DONOGHUE, NANNIE L., MRS. POWER, Ireland, began writing 1881
OLD BALLADS Ireland,
OLDMIXON, JOHN England, 1673-1742
O'REILLY, JOHN BOYLE Ireland, 1844--America, 1890
ORRERY, ROGER BOYLE, EARL OF Ireland, 1621-1679
OSGOOD, FRANCES SARGENT America, 1811-1850
OTWAY, THOMAS England, 1651-1685
OVERBURY, SIR THOMAS England, 1581-1613
OVID (PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO) Italy, 43 B.C.-18 A.D.
OWEN, DR. JOHN England, 1616-1683
PARDOE, JULIA England, 1806-1862
PARNELL, THOMAS Ireland, 1679-1717
PEACOCK, THOMAS LOVE England, 1785-1866
PEELE, GEORGE England, about 1558-1598
PERCIVAL, JAMES GATES America, 1795-1856
PERCY, BISHOP THOMAS England, 1729-1811
PETRARCH (FRANCISCO PETRARCA) Italy, 1304-1374
PHILLIPS, CATHARINE England, 1631-1664
PLAYFORD, JOHN England, 1613-1693
POLLOK, ROBERT Scotland, 1798-1827
POMFRET, JOHN England, 1667-1703
POOR ROBIN'S ALMANACK England, 1695
POPE, ALEXANDER England, 1688-1744
PORTEUS, BISHOP BEILBY England, 1731-1808
PRAED, WINTHROP MACKWORTH England, 1802-1839
PRESTON, MARGARET JUNKIN America, 1838-1897
PRIOR, MATTHEW England, 1664-1721
PROCTER, ADELAIDE ANNE England, 1825-1864
PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER (_Barry Cornwall_) England, 1787-1874
QUARLES, FRANCIS England, 1592-1644
RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS France, about 1495-1553
RADCLIFFE, MRS., ANN WARD England, 1764-1823
RALEIGH, SIR WALTER England, 1552-1618
RANDOLPH, THOMAS England, 1605-1635
RAYMOND, ROBERT RAIKES America, 1814-1889
RAYMOND, ROSSITER WORTHINGTON America, 1840-
READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN America, 1822-1872
RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB America, 1852-
ROBERTS, CHARLES GEORGE DOUGLAS Canada, 1860-
ROCHE, JAMES JEFFREY Ireland, 1847-
ROCHESTER, JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF England, 1647-1680
ROGERS, SAMUEL England, 1762-1855
ROSCOE, MRS. HENRY England,
ROSCOMMON, EARL OF England, 1633-1684
ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA G England, 1830-1894
ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL England, 1828-1882
ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES Switzerland, 1712-1778
ROWE, NICHOLAS England, 1673-1718
RUTTER, JOHN England,
SAVAGE, RICHARD England, 1698-1743
SAXE, JOHN GODFREY America, 1816-1887
SCHILLER, JOHANN C. FRIEDRICH VON Germany, 1759-1805
SCOTT, SIR WALTER Scotland, 1771-1832
SEDLEY, SIR CHARLES England, 1639-1701
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM England, 1551-1616
SHEFFIELD, JOHN, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE England, 1646-1721
SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE England, 1792-1822
SHENSTONE, WILLIAM England, 1714-1763
SHERIDAN, RICHARD BRINSLEY England, 1751-1810
SHILLABER, BENJAMIN PENHALLOW America, 1814-1890
SHIRLEY, JAMES England, 1596-1666
SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP England, 1554-1586
SIMONIDES Island of Ceos, Greece, 556-468 B.C.
SMITH, ALEXANDER Scotland, 1830-1867
SMITH, ELIZABETH OAKES America, 1806-
SMITH, HORACE England, 1780-1849
SMITH, JAMES England, 1775-1889
SOMERVILLE, WILLIAM C England, 1692-1742
SOUTHERNE, THOMAS England, 1660-1746
SOUTHEY, ROBERT England, 1774-1843
SPENSER, EDMUND England, 1553-1599
SPRAGUE, CHARLES America, 1791-1875
SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT America, 1835-
SPROAT, ELIZA L. America,
STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE America, 1833-
STERNHOLD, THOMAS England, about 1549
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS England, 1850-1895
STILLINGFLEET, BENJAMIN England, 1700-1771
STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY America, 1825-1903
STORY, JOSEPH America, 1779-1845
STORY, WILLIAM WETMORE America, 1819-1895
STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER America, 1812-1890
SUCKLING, SIR JOHN England, 1609-1641
SWIFT, JONATHAN England, 1667-1745
TAPPAN, REV. WILLIAM BINGHAM America, 1794-1844
TATE, NAHUM Ireland, 1652-1715
TATE AND BRADY. (See TATE, NAHUM,
and BRADY, NICHOLAS.)
TAYLOR, BAYARD America, 1825-1878
TAYLOR, SIR HENRY England, 1800-1886
TAYLOR, JANE England, 1783-1824
TENNYSON, ALFRED, LORD England, 1809-1892
THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE England, 1811-1863
THAXTER, CELIA LAIGHTON America, 1835-1894
THOMAS, FREDERICK WILLIAM America, 1808-1866
THOMPSON, FRANCIS England, about 1861-
THOMSON, JAMES England, 1700-1748
TICKELL, THOMAS England, 1686-1740
TIGHE, MRS. MARY Ireland, 1773-1810
TOBIN, JOHN England, 1770-1804
TOURNEUR, CYRIL England, about 1600
TRUMBULL, JOHN America, 1750-1831
TUCKERMAN, HENRY THEODORE America, 1813-1871
TURNER, CHARLES TENNYSON England, 1808-1879
TUPPER, MARTIN FARQUHAR England, 1810-1889
TUSSER, THOMAS England, about 1515-1580
VAUGHAN, HENRY, M.D. Wales, 1621-1695
WADE, J.A. England, 1800-1875
WALLACE, JOHN AIKMAN.
WALLACE, WILLIAM ROSS America, 1819-1881
WALLER, EDMUND England, 1605-1687
WARNER, ANNA B. America, XIX. Century
WARTON, THOMAS England, 1728-1790
WATSON, WILLIAM England, 1858-
WATTS, ALARIC ATTILA England, 1797-1864
WATTS, ISAAC, D.D. England, 1674-1748
WEBB, CHARLES HENRY America, 1834-
WEBSTER, DANIEL America, 1782-1852
WEBSTER, JOHN England, about 1580-1662
WELSH, CHARLES England, 1850-
WESLEY, REV. CHARLES England, 1708-1788
WESTMACOTT, CHARLES M. England, 1788-1868
WHITE, HENRY KIRKE England, 1785-1806
WHITEHEAD, PAUL England, 1710-1774
WHITMAN, SARAH HELEN POWER America, 1803-1878
WHITMAN, WALT America, 1819-1892
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF America, 1807-1892
WILDE, RICHARD HENRY Ireland, 1789-1847
WILLIS, NATHANIEL PARKER America, 1806-1867
WINTER, WILLIAM America, 1836-
WITHER, GEORGE England, 1588-1667
WOLCOTT, DR. JOHN (_Peter Pindar_) England, 1738-1819
WOLFE, REV. CHARLES Ireland, 1791-1823
WOOLSEY, SARAH CHAUNCEY (_Susan Coolidge_) America, about 1845-
WOOLSON, CONSTANCE FENIMORE America, 1848-1894
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM England, 1770-1850
WOTTON, SIR HENRY England, 1568-1639
WROTHER, MISS England,
YALDEN, REV. THOMAS England, 1671-1736
YOUNG. DR. EDWARD England, 1684-1765
YOUNG, SIR JOHN England,
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY:
"AFTER ALL, WHAT IS POETRY?"
By _John Raymond Howard_
PREFACE.
INDEX OF TOPICS, WITH CROSS-REFERENCES
LIST OF AUTHORS QUOTED
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
POETICAL QUOTATIONS
GENERAL INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES
GENERAL INDEX OF FIRST LINES AND TITLES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
ALEXANDER POPE _Frontispiece_
_After photograph from a portrait_.
JOHN GODFREY SAXE
_After a photograph from life_.
JOHN DRYDEN
_From an engraving after a painting by Hudson,
in Trinity College, Cambridge, England_.
SAMUEL, BUTLER
_After an engraving from contemporary portrait_.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
_From an etching after a life-photograph_.
VICTOR MARIE HUGO
_After a life-photograph of Waléry, Paris_,
POETICAL QUOTATIONS
"_Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of
it.... We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects
as by what he originates_."--R.W. EMERSON.
From "QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY."
ABSENCE.
'T is said that absence conquers love;
But oh! believe it not.
I've tried, alas! its power to prove,
But thou art not forgot.
_Absence Conquers Love_. F.W. THOMAS.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder;
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!
_Isle of Beauty_. T.H. BAYLY.
Though absent, present in desires they be;
Our souls much further than our eyes can see.
_Sonnet_. M. DRAYTON.
There's not a wind but whispers of thy name.
_Mirandola_. B.W. PROCTER.
Short absence hurt him more,
And made his wound far greater than before;
Absence not long enough to root out quite
All love, increases love at second sight.
_Henry II_. T. MAY.
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere.
_Sonnet XCVII_. SHAKESPEARE.
Days of absence, sad and dreary,
Clothed in sorrow's dark array,--
Days of absence, I am weary;
She I love is far away.
_Days of Absence_, J.J. ROUSSEAU.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years;
And every little absence is an age.
_Amphictrion_. J. DRYDEN.
What! keep a week away? Seven days and nights?
Eightscore eight hours? And lovers' absent hours
More tedious than the dial eightscore times?
O, weary reckoning!
_Othello. Act_ iii. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Long did his wife,
Suckling her babe, her only one, look out
The way he went at parting,--but he came not!
_Italy_. S. ROGERS.
With what a deep devotedness of woe
I wept thy absence--o'er and o'er again
Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain,
And memory, like a drop that, night and day
Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!
_Lalla Rookh: Veiled Prophet of Khorassan_. T. MOORE.
Condemned whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more.
_Eloise to Abélard_. A. POPE.
ACTION.
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it.
_Macbeth, Act_. iv. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
If our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched,
But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence.
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor--
Both thanks and use.
_Measure for Measure, Act_ i. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
We must not stint
Our necessary actions, in the fear
To cope malicious censurers.
_King Henry VIII., Act_ i. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
_Merchant of Venice, Act_ v. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill.
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
_An Honest Man's Fortune_. J. FLETCHER.
ADMIRATION.
She is pretty to walk with,
And witty to talk with,
And pleasant, too, to think on.
_Brennoralt, Act_ ii. SIR J. SUCKLING.
But from the hoop's bewitching round,
Her very shoe has power to wound.
_Fables: The Spider and the Bee_. E. MOORE.
That eagle's fate and mine are one.
Which, on the shaft that made him die,
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.
_To a Lady singing a Song of his Composing_. E. WALLER.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
_Romeo and Juliet, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
The light that lies
In woman's eyes.
_The time I've lost in Wooing_. T. MOORE.
Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?
_The Fair Penitent, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. N. ROWE.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
_Faustus_. C. MARLOWE.
The dimple that thy chin contains has beauty in its round
That never has been fathomed yet by myriad thoughts profound.
_Odes, CXLIII_. HAFIZ.
Beauty stands
In the admiration only of weak minds
Led captive. Cease to admire, and all her plumes
Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy,
At every sudden slighting quite abashed.
_Paradise Regained, Bk. II_. MILTON.
ADORNMENT.
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
_Sonnet LXX_. SHAKESPEARE.
A native grace
Sat fair-proportioned in her polished limbs,
Veiled in a simple robe their best attire.
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorned, adorned the most.
_The Seasons: Autumn_. J. THOMSON.
She's adorned
Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovely,--
The truest mirror that an honest wife
Can see her beauty in.
_The Honeymoon, Act iii. Sc. 4_. J. TOBIN.
Terrible he rode alone,
With his Yemen sword for aid;
Ornament it carried none,
But the notches on the blade.
_The Death Feud. An Arab War Song.
Anonymous Translation_.
ADVENTURE.
Naught venture, naught have.
_Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. October's
Abstract_. T. TUSSER.
We must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
_Julius Cæsar, Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Fierce warres, and faithful loves shall moralize my song.
_Faërie Queene, Bk. I. Proem_. E. SPENSER.
Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honor cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple: O! the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
* * * * *
By Heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honor by the locks.
_K. Henry IV., Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
A wild dedication of yourselves
To unpathed waters, undreamed shores.
_Winter's Tale, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
ADVERSITY.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
_As You Like It, Act_ i. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Calamity is man's true touchstone.
_Four Plays in One: The Triumph of Honor, Sc_. 1.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VII_. MILTON.
Tho' losses and crosses
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae otherwhere.
_Epistle to Davie_. R. BURNS.
By adversity are wrought
The greatest work of admiration,
And all the fair examples of renown
Out of distress and misery are grown.
_On the Earl of Southampton_. S. DANIEL.
Aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crushed or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
_The Captivity, Act_ i. O. GOLDSMITH.
The Good are better made by Ill,
As odors crushed are sweeter still.
_Jacqueline_. S. ROGERS.
Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast.
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
_Hymn to Adversity_. T. GRAY.
'T is better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content.
Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
_King Henry VIII., Act_ ii. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
As if Misfortune made the throne her seat,
And none could be unhappy but the great.
_The Fair Penitent: Prologue_. N. ROWE.
None think the great unhappy, but the great.
_Love of Fame, Satire I_. DR. E. YOUNG.
My pride fell with my fortunes.
_As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
We have seen better days.
_Timon of Athens, Act iv. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
If ever you have looked on better days;
If ever been where bells have knolled to church.
_As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic Summer's heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
_King Richard II., Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.
_King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Eating the bitter bread of banishment.
_King Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
_Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 8_. SHAKESPEARE.
Lord of himself,--that heritage of woe!
_Lara, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
Lord of thy presence, and no land beside.
_King John, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Heaven is not always angry when he strikes,
But most chastises those whom most he likes.
_Verses to his Friend under Affliction_. J. POMFRET.
As sunshine, broken in the rill,
Though turned astray, is sunshine still.
_Fire Worshippers_. T. MOORE.
On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Cheered up himself with ends of verse,
And sayings of philosophers.
_Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto III_. S. BUTLER.
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
_Despondency_. R. BURNS.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity.
_Comedy of Errors, Act ii. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!
_A Winter Night_. R. BURNS.
Henceforth I'll bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself,
Enough, enough, and die.
_King Lear, Act iv. Sc_. 6. SHAKESPEARE.
On me, on me
Time and change can heap no more!
The painful past with blighting grief
Hath left my heart a withered leaf.
Time and change can do no more.
_Dirge_. R.H. HORNE.
I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend,
For when at worst, they say, things always mend.
_To a Friend in Distress_. DR. J. OWEN.
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
_Macbeth, Act ii. Sc_. 8. SHAKESPEARE.
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before.
_Macbeth, Act iv. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
I am not now in fortune's power;
He that is down can fall no lower.
_Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto III_. S. BUTLER.
The worst is not
So long as we can say, _This is the worst.
King Lear, Act iv. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
ADVICE.
The worst men often give the best advice.
Our deeds are sometimes better than our thoughts,
_Festus: Sc. A Village Feast_. P.J. BAILEY.
I pray thee cease thy counsel.
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve.
_Much Ado About Nothing, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
O Life! how pleasant in thy morning.
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning!
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like schoolboys at th' expected warning,
To joy and play.
_Epistle to James Smith_. B. BURNS.
Know when to speake; for many times it brings
Danger to give the best advice to kings.
_Hesperides' Caution in Councell._ R. HEBRICK.
AGE.
I'm growing fonder of my staff;
I'm growing dimmer in the eyes;
I'm growing fainter in my laugh;
I'm growing deeper in my sighs;
I'm growing careless of my dress;
I'm growing frugal of my gold;
I'm growing wise; I'm growing,--yes,--
I'm growing old.
_I'm Growing Old_. J.G. SAXE.
And his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
_As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
_The Golden Legend, IV_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Years steal
Fire from the mind, as vigor from the limb;
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
_Childe Harold, Canto III_. LORD BYRON.
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
Steals ere we can effect them.
_All's Well that Ends Well, Act v. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Strange! that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long.
_Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Bk. II_. DR. I. WATTS.
Thus aged men, full loth and slow,
The vanities of life forego,
And count their youthful follies o'er,
Till Memory lends her light no more.
_Rokeby, Canto V_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.
_As You Like, It. Act_ ii. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
But grant, the virtues of a temp'rate prime
Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime;
An age that melts with unperceived decay,
And glides in modest innocence away.
_Vanity of Human Wishes_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
Who soweth good seed shall surely reap;
The year grows rich as it groweth old,
And life's latest sands are its sands of gold!
_To the "Bouquet Club."_ J.C.R. DORR.
The spring, like youth, fresh blossoms doth produce,
But autumn makes them ripe and fit for use:
So Age a mature mellowness doth set
On the green promises of youthful heat.
_Cato Major, Pt. IV_. SIR J. DENHAM.
My May of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
_Macbeth, Act_ v. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now.
_Childe Harold, Canto II_. LORD BYRON.
His silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,
And buy men's voices to commend our deeds;
It shall be said--his judgment ruled our hands.
_Julius Cæsar, Act_ ii. _Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
_King Lear, Act i. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease
Gathered, not harshly plucked for death mature.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. XI_. MILTON.
AIR.
DUNCAN. This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
BANQUO.... The heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate.
_Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 6_. SHAKESPEARE.
Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs
Whispered it to the woods, and from their wings
Flung rose, flung odors from the spicy shrub.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII_. MILTON.
HAMLET. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO. It is a nipping and an 'eager air.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
The parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer's noontide air.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. IX_, MILTON.
Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.
_Gotham, Bk. II_. C. CHURCHILL.
AMBITION.
Ambition is our idol, on whose wings
Great minds are carried only to extreme;
To be sublimely great, or to be nothing.
_The Loyal Brother, Act i. Sc. 1_. T. SOUTHERNE.
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. I_. MILTON.
Rather than be less
Cared not to be at all.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
_Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent; but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.
_Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
_Absalom and Achitophel, Pt. I_. J. DRYDEN.
Ambition's monstrous stomach does increase
By eating, and it fears to starve unless
It still may feed, and all it sees devour.
_Playhouse to Let_. SIR W. DAVENANT.
But see how oft ambition's aims are crossed,
And chiefs contend 'til all the prize is lost!
_Rape of the Lock, Canto V_. A. POPE.
O, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains piled on mountains to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
_Essay on Man, Epistle IV_. A. POPE.
The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow
of a dream.
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Why then doth flesh, a bubble-glass of breath,
Hunt after honour and advancement vain,
And rear a trophy for devouring death?
_Ruins of Time_. E. SPENSER.
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise
By mountains piled on mountains to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
_Essay on Man_. A. POPE.
ANGEL.
In this dim world of clouding cares,
We rarely know, till 'wildered eyes
See white wings lessening up the skies,
The Angels with us unawares.
_Ballad of Babe Christabel_. G. MASSEY.
Around our pillows golden ladders rise,
And up and down the skies,
With wingèd sandals shod,
The angels come, and go, the Messengers of God!
Nor, though they fade from us, do they depart--
It is the childly heart:
We walk as heretofore,
Adown their shining ranks, but see them nevermore.
_Hymn to the Beautiful_. R.H. STODDARD.
For God will deign
To visit oft the dwellings of just men
Delighted, and with frequent intercourse
Thither will send his wingèd messengers
On errands of supernal grace.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VII_. MILTON.
But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.
_The Pleasures of Hope, Pt. II_. T. CAMPBELL.
What though my wingèd hours of bliss have been,
Like angel-visits, few and far between.
_The Pleasures of Hope, Pt. II_. T. CAMPBELL.
ANGER.
Anger is like
A full-hot horse; who being allowed his way,
Self-mettle tires him.
_King Henry VIII., Act i. Sc 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Being once chased, he cannot
Be reined again to temperance; then he speaks
What's in his heart.
_Coriolanus, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself,
* * * * *
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.
_Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Senseless, and deformed,
Convulsive Anger storms at large; or, pale
And silent, settles into fell revenge.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
Be advised;
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself: we may outrun.
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running.
_King Henry VIII., Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Never anger made good guard for itself.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
ANGLING.
All's fish they get
That cometh to net.
_Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_. T. TUSSER.
In genial spring, beneath the quivering shade,
Where cooling vapors breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand,
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand;
With looks unmoved, he hopes the scaly breed,
And eyes the dancing cork, and bending reed.
_Windsor Forest_. A. POPE.
Now is the time,
While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile,
To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly,
The rod fine tapering with elastic spring,
Snatched from the hoary steed the floating line,
And all thy slender wat'ry stores prepare.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
Just in the dubious point, where with the pool
Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from the hollowed bank
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
There throw, nice judging, the delusive fly;
And as you lead it round in artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the springing game.
Straight as above the surface of the flood
They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap,
Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook:
Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank,
And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some,
With various hand proportioned to their force.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
Give me mine angle, we'll to the river; there,
My music playing far off, I will betray
Tawny-finned fishes; my bended hook shall pierce
Their shiny jaws.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
His angle-rod made of a sturdy oak;
His line a cable which in storms ne'er broke;
His hook he baited with a dragon's tail,
And sat upon a rock, and bobbed for whale.
_Upon a Giant's Angling_. W. KING.
ANIMALS.
A harmless necessary cat.
_Merchant of Venice, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Confound the cats! All cats--alway--
Cats of all colors, black, white, gray;
By night a nuisance and by day--
Confound the cats!
_A Dithyramb on Cats_. O.T. DOBBIN.
I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
_On the Collar of a Dog_. A. POPE.
The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.
_King Lear, Act_ iii _Sc_. 6. SHAKESPEARE.
How, in his mid-career, the spaniel struck,
Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose,
Outstretched and finely sensible, draws full,
Fearful and cautious, on the latent prey.
_The Seasons: Autumn_. J. THOMSON.
A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
_King Richard III., Act_ v. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
The courser pawed the ground with restless feet,
And snorting foamed, and champed the golden bit.
_Palamon and Arcite, Pt. III_. J. DRYDEN.
Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
Look, what a horse should have he did not lack.
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
_Venus and Adonis_. SHAKESPEARE.
Oft in this season too the horse, provoked
While his big sinews full of spirits swell,
Trembling with vigor, in the heat of blood,
Springs the high fence.... his nervous chest,
Luxuriant and erect, the seat of strength!
_The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.
Champing his foam, and bounding o'er the plain,
Arch his high neck, and graceful spread his mane.
_The Courser_. SIR R. BLACKMORE.
Is it the wind those branches stirs?
No, no! from out the forest prance
A trampling troop; I see them come!
In one vast squadron they advance!
I strove to cry,--my lips were dumb.
The steeds rush on in plunging pride;
But where are they the reins to guide!
A thousand horse,--and none to ride!
With flowing tail, and flying mane,
Wide nostrils, never stretched by pain,
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,
And feet that iron never shod,
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod,
A thousand horse, the wild, the free,
Like waves that follow o'er the sea,
Came thickly thundering on.
_Mazeppa_. LORD BYRON.
I holde a mouses herte nat worth a leek.
That hath but oon hole for to sterte to.
_Preamble, Wyves Tale of Bath_. CHAUCER.
When now, unsparing as the scourge of war,
Blast follow blasts and groves dismantled roar;
Around their home the storm-pinched cattle lows,
No nourishment in frozen pasture grows.
_The Farmer's Boy: Winter_. R. BLOOMFIELD.
Rural confusion! on the grassy bank
Some ruminating lie; while others stand
Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip
The circling surface. In the middle droops
The strong laborious ox, of honest front,
Which incomposed he shakes; and from his sides
The troublous insects lashes with his tail,
Returning still.
_The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.
Tossed from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed,
Head above head: and ranged in lusty rows,
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.
_The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
_Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets, hail!...
Delicious is your shelter to the soul,
As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,
Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he floats along the herbaged brink.
_The Seasons: Autumn_. J. THOMSON.
A poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish;...
... and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase.
_As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Cruel as Death, and hungry as the Grave!
Burning for blood! bony, and gaunt, and grim!
Assembling wolves in raging troops descend;
And, pouring o'er the country, bear along,
Keen as the north wind sweeps the glossy snows.
All is their prize.
_The Seasons: Winter_. J. THOMSON.
ANTHOLOGY.
Infinite riches in a little room.
_The Jew of Malta, Act i_. C. MARLOWE.
APPARITION.
Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts.
_Odyssey_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.
My people too were scared with eerie sounds,
A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls,
A noise of falling weights that never fell,
Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand,
Door-handles turned when none was at the door,
And bolted doors that opened of themselves;
And one betwixt the dark and light had seen
_Her_, bending by the cradle of her babe.
_The Ring_. A. TENNYSON.
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!
_Cato, Act ii. Sc_. 1. J. ADDISON.
Now it is the time of night,
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
_Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, iii, 2. SHAKESPEARE.
APPEARANCE.
Such was Zuleika! such around her shone
The nameless charms unmarked by her alone;
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,
And oh! that eye was in itself a Soul.
_Bride of Abydos, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple;
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
_The Tempest, Act i. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Exceeding fair she was not; and yet fair
In that she never studied to be fairer
Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing,
Her virtues were so rare.
_All Fools, Act i. Sc_. 1. G. CHAPMAN.
Her glossy hair was clustered o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aërial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning.
_Don Juan, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers!
_Hamlet, Act_ iii _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living-dead man.
_Comedy of Errors, Act v. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along;
Were't not for laughing, I should pity him.
_K. Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
_Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Seemed washing his hands with invisible soap
In imperceptible water.
_Miss Kilmansegg_. T. HOOD.
Her pretty feet
Like snailes did creep
A little out, and then,
As if they played at bo-peep,
Did soon draw in agen.
_Upon her Feet_. R. HERRICK.
Who the silent man can prize,
If a fool he be or wise?
Yet, though lonely seem the wood,
Therein may lurk the beast of blood;
Often bashful looks conceal
Tongue of fire and heart of steel;
And deem not thou in forest gray,
Every dappled skin thy prey,
Lest thou rouse, with luckless spear,
The tiger for the fallow-deer!
_The Gulistan_. BISHOP HEBER.
HORATIO. I saw him once: he was a goodly king.
HAMLET. He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
_Hamlet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly pressed his signet sage,
Yet had not quenched the open truth,
And fiery vehemence of youth;
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare,
The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire
Of hasty love or headlong ire.
_The Lady of the Lake, Canto I_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadowed livery of the burnished sun,
To whom I am a neighbor, and near bred.
Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,
And let us make incision for your love,
To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.
_Merchant of Venice, Act_ ii. _Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Incensed with indignation Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
_Hamlet, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Ay, every inch a king.
_King Lear, Act_ iv. Sc. 6. SHAKESPEARE.
ARCHITECTURE.
When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection.
_Henry IV., Pt. II. Act_ i. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
The hasty multitude
Admiring entered, and the work some praise,
And some the architect: his hand was known
In heaven by many a towered structure high,
Where sceptred angels held their residence,
And sat as princes.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. I_. MILTON.
Old houses mended,
Cost little less than new, before they're ended.
_Prologue to the Double Gallant_. . C. GIBBER.
The architect
Built his great heart into these sculptured stones,
And with him toiled his children, and their lives
Were builded, with his own, into the walls,
As offerings unto God.
_The Golden Legend, Pt. III. In the Cathedral_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
ARGUMENT.
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse.
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a Lord may be an owl,
A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice,
And rooks, Committee-men or Trustees.
_Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto I_. S. BUTLER.
Reproachful speech from either side
The want of argument supplied:
They rail, reviled; as often ends
The contests of disputing friends.
_Fables: Sexton and Earth Worm_. J. GAY.
Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
_The Temple: The Church Porch_. C. HERBERT.
In argument
Similes are like songs in love;
They must describe; they nothing prove.
_Alma, Canto III_. M. PRIOR.
One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.
_Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd_. M. PRIOR.
Who shall decide, when doctors disagree,
And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
_Moral Essays, Epistle III_. A. POPE.
ARISTOCRACY.
How vain are all hereditary honors,
Those poor possessions from another's deeds.
_Parricide_. J. SHIRLEY.
He lives to build, not boast, a generous race;
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.
_The Bastard_. R. SAVAGE.
Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
But leave us still our old nobility.
_England's Trust, Pt. III_. LORD J. MANNERS.
Whoe'er amidst the sons
Of reason, valor, liberty, and virtue,
Displays distinguished merit, is a noble
Of Nature's own creating.
_Coriolanus, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 3. J. THOMSON.
Fond man! though all the heroes of your line
Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine
In proud display; yet take this truth from me--
_Virtue alone is true nobility!
Satire VIII_. JUVENAL. _Trans. of_ GIFFORD.
Boast not the titles of your ancestors, brave youth!
They're their possessions, none of yours.
_Catiline_. B. JONSON.
Nobler is a limited command
Given by the love of all your native land,
Than a successive title, long and dark,
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.
_Absalom and Achitophel, I_. J. DRYDEN.
As though there were a tie,
And obligation to posterity!
We get them, bear them, breed and nurse.
What has posterity done for us,
That we, lest they their rights should lose,
Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?
_McFingal, Canto II_ J. TRUMBULL.
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge,
Produce their debt, instead of their discharge.
_Love of Fame, Satire I_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Few sons attain the praise of their great sires, and most
their sires disgrace.
_Odyssey, Bk. II_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.
He stands for fame on his forefather's feet,
By heraldry, proved valiant or discreet I
_Love of Fame, Satire I_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.
_The True-Born Englishman, Pt. I_. D. DEFOE.
ART.
For Art is Nature made by Man
To Man the interpreter of God.
_The Artist_. LORD LYTTON (_Owen Meredith_).
In the elder days of Art.
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the gods see everywhere.
_The Builders_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize,
And to be swift is less than to be wise.
'Tis more by art, than force of numerous strokes.
_Iliad, Bk. XXIII_. HOMER. _Trans_. of POPE.
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland;
Still born to improve us in every part,
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart.
_Retaliation (Sir Joshua Reynolds)_. O. GOLDSMITH.
Around the mighty master came
The marvels which his pencil wrought,
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.
_Raphael_. J.G. WHITTIER.
ASPIRATION.
Oh! could I throw aside these earthly bands
That tie me down where wretched mortals sigh--
To join blest spirits in celestial lands!
_To Laura in Death_. PETRARCH.
Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,
And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,
Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power,--
Thoughts that ascend, like angels beautiful,
A shining Jacob's ladder of the mind!
_Sonnet IX_. P.H. HAYNE.
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
_To ----: One word is too often profaned_. P.B. SHELLEY.
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
_In Memoriam, I_. A. TENNYSON.
AUTHORITY.
The rule
Of the many is not well. One must be chief
In war and one the king.
_Iliad, Bk. II_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ BRYANT.
Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain.
_Miscellaneous Thoughts_. S. BUTLER.
Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar,
And the creature run from the cur: There,
There, thou might'st behold the great image of authority;
A dog's obeyed in office.
_King Lear, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 6. SHAKESPEARE.
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
AUTHORSHIP.
But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
_Don Juan, Canto III_. LORD BYRON.
Habits of close attention, thinking heads,
Become more rare as dissipation spreads,
Till authors hear at length one general cry
Tickle and entertain us, or we die!
_Retirement_. W. COWPER.
The unhappy man, who once has trailed a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
_Prologue to Lee's Cæsar Borgia_. J. DRYDEN.
Lest men suspect your tale untrue
Keep probability in view.
The traveller leaping o'er those bounds,
The credit of his book confounds.
_The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody_. J. GAY.
Immodest words admit of no defence.
For want of decency is want of sense.
* * * * *
But foul descriptions are offensive still,
Either for being like or being ill.
_Essay on Translated Verse_. EARL OF BOSCOMMON.
Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The Dog-star rages! nay, 't is past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: Prologue to the Satires_. A. POPE.
Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
Dipped me in ink,--my parents', or my own!
_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: Prologue to the Satires_. A. POPE.
And so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be.
For length and breadth, the highness which you see.
_Pilgrim's Progress: Apology for his Book_. J. BUNYAN.
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
_The Progress of Error_. W. COWPER.
Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it,
If folly grow romantic. I must paint it.
_Moral Essays, Epistle II_. A. POPE.
"You write with ease, to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading."
_Olio's Protest_. R.B. SHERIDAN.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'T is not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore.
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
* * * * *
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song.
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
_Essay on Criticism, Part II_. A. POPE.
Abstruse and mystic thought you must express
With painful care, but seeming easiness;
For truth shines brightest thro' the plainest dress.
_Essay on Translated Verse_. W. DILLON.
It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century.
_Incident in a Railroad Car_. J.R. LOWELL.
E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art--the art to blot.
_Horace, Bk. II. Epistle I_. A. POPE.
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again;
The unwritten only still belongs to thee:
Take heed, and ponder well, what that shall be.
_Morituri Salutamus_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
BABY.
A sweet, new blossom of Humanity,
Fresh fallen from God's own home to flower on earth.
_Wooed and Won_. G. MASSEY.
The hair she means to have is gold,
Her eyes are blue, she's twelve weeks old,
Plump are her fists and pinky.
She fluttered down in lucky hour
From some blue deep in yon sky bower--
I call her "Little Dinky."
_Little Dinky_. F. LOCKER-LAMPSON.
As living jewels dropped unstained from heaven.
_Course of Time, Bk. V_. R. POLLOK.
God mark thee to his grace!
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act_ i. _So_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving:
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting!
_The Gypsy's Malison_. C. LAMB.
BATTLE.
Now the storm begins to lower,
(Haste, the loom of hell prepare,)
Iron sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darkened air.
Glittering lances are the loom,
Where the dusky warp we strain,
Weaving many a soldier's doom,
Orkney's woe, and Randoer's bane.
_The Fatal Sisters_. T. GRAY.
Wheel the wild dance,
While lightnings glance,
And thunders rattle loud;
And call the brave
To bloody grave,
To sleep without a shroud.
_The Dance of Death_. SIR W. SCOTT.
He made me mad
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,
And that it was great pity, so it was,
That villanous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed.
_K. Henry IV., Pt. I. Act i. Sc.3_ SHAKESPEARE.
By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see
(For one who hath no friend, no brother there)
Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery.
Their various arms that glitter in the air!
What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair,
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey!
All join the chase, but few the triumph share;
The grave shall bear the chiefest prize away,
And havoc scarce for joy can number their array.
_Childe Harold, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
From the glittering staff unfurled
Th' imperial ensign, which, full high advanced,
Shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind,
With gems and golden lustre rich imblazed,
Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:
At which the universal host upsent
A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. I_. MILTON.
When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war.
_Alexander the Great, Act iv. Sc. 2_. N. LEE.
That voice ... heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it raged.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. 1_. MILTON.
Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen!
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!
_King Richard III., Act v. Sc. 8_. SHAKESPEARE.
We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns,
And pass them current too. God's me, my horse!
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Never be it said
That Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.
Hence, babbling dreams; you threaten here in vain;
Conscience, avaunt, Richard's himself again!
Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds. To horse! away!
My soul's in arms, and eager for the fray.
_Shakespeare's Richard III. (Altered), Act. v. Sc. 3_. C. GIBBER.
BEAUTY.
Is she not passing fair?
_Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iv. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
And she is fair, and fairer than that word.
_Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
_As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.
_Cymon and Iphigenia_. J. DRYDEN.
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns.
And sweet as English air could make her, she.
_The Princess_. A. TENNYSON.
Thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty.
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor soar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
_Othello, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
No longer shall thy bodice, aptly laced.
From thy full bosom to thy slender waist,
That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.
_Henry and Emma_. M. PRIOR.
The beautiful are never desolate;
But some one always loves them--God or man.
If man abandons, God himself takes them.
_Festus: Sc. Water and Wood_. P.J. BAILEY.
There's nothing that allays an angry mind
So soon as a sweet beauty.
_The Elder Brother, Act iii. Sc. 5_. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
The beautiful seems right
By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong
Because of weakness.
_Aurora Leigh_. E.B. BROWNING.
How near to good is what is fair,
Which we no sooner see,
But with the lines and outward air
Our senses taken be.
We wish to see it still, and prove
What ways we may deserve;
We court, we praise, we more than love,
We are not grieved to serve.
_Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly_. B. JONSON.
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with't.
_Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall.
And most divinely fair.
_A Dream of Fair Women_. A. TENNYSON.
Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded.
But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss.
Unsavory in th' enjoyment of itself:
If you let slip time, like a neglected rose,
It withers on the stalk with languished head.
_Comus_. MILTON.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self.
_The Seasons: Autumn_. J. THOMSON.
In beauty, faults conspicuous grow;
The smallest speck is seen on snow.
_Fables: Peacock, Turkey, and Goose_. J. GAY.
The maid who modestly conceals
Her beauties, while she hides, reveals:
Gives but a glimpse, and fancy draws
Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.
_The Spider and the Bee_. E. MOORE.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;
A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass that 's broken presently;
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.
_The Passionate Pilgrim_. SHAKESPEARE.
BELL.
Tuned be its metal mouth alone
To things eternal and sublime.
And as the swift-winged hours speed on
May it record the flight of time!
_Song of the Bell_. F. SCHILLER.
_Trans_. E.A. BOWRING.
The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learnèd teachers,
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the Law,
Now a sermon and now a prayer.
_Christus: The Golden Legend, Pt. III_.
H.W. LONGFELLOW.
And the Sabbath bell,
That over wood and wild and mountain dell
Wanders so far, chasing all thoughts unholy
With sounds most musical, most melancholy.
_Human Life_. S. ROGERS.
Sweet Sunday bells! your measured sound
Enhances the repose profound
Of all these golden fields around,
And range of mountain, sunshine-drowned.
_Sunday Bells_. W. ALLINGHAM.
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
_Hamlet, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Seize the loud, vociferous bells, and
Clashing, clanging to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!
_Christus: The Golden Legend. Prologue_.
H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remembered tolling a departing friend.
_K. Henry IV., Pt. II. Act_ i. _Sc_. 1.
SHAKESPEARE.
BIBLE.
My Book and Heart
Must never part.
_New England Primer_.
Within that awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
* * * * *
And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
_The Monastery_. SIR W. SCOTT.
God, in the gospel of his Son,
Makes his eternal counsels known;
'Tis here his richest mercy shines,
And truth is drawn in fairest lines.
_The Glory of the Scriptures_. B. BEDDOME.
Holy Bible, book divine,
Precious treasure, thou art mine;
Mine to tell me whence I came,
Mine to teach me what I am.
Mine to chide me when I rove,
Mine to show a Saviour's love;
Mine art thou to guide my feet,
Mine to judge, condemn, acquit.
_Holy Bible, Book Divine_. J. BURTON.
The heavens declare thy glory, Lord;
In every star thy wisdom shines;
But when our eyes behold thy word,
We read thy name in fairer lines.
_God's Word and Works_. DR. I. WATTS.
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true.
_Truth_. W. COWPER.
A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun,
It gives a light to every age,
It gives, but borrows none.
_Olney Hymns_. W. COWPER.
Starres are poore books, and oftentimes do misse;
This book starres lights to eternal blisse.
_The Church: The Holy Scriptures, Pt. II_.
G. HERBERT.
BIRDS.
Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!
_Tales of a Wayside Inn: The Poet's Tale_.
H.W. LONGFELLOW.
I shall not ask Jean Jaques Rousseau
If birds confabulate or no.
'T is clear that they were always able
To hold discourse--at least in fable.
_Pairing Time Anticipated_. W. COWPER.
The black-bird whistles from the thorny brake;
The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove:
Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze
Poured out profusely, silent. Joined to these,
Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade
Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix
Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw,
And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone,
Aid the full concert: while the stock-dove breathes
A melancholy murmur through the whole.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
Whither away, Bluebird,
Whither away?
The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky
Thou still canst find the color of thy wing,
The hue of May.
Warbler, why speed thy southern flight? ah, why,
Thou too, whose song first told us of the Spring?
Whither away?
_Flight of Birds_. E.C. STEDMAN.
The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate,
Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight.
_Spring_. O.W. HOLMES.
One day in the bluest of summer weather,
Sketching under a whispering oak,
I heard five bobolinks laughing together,
Over some ornithological joke.
_Bird Language_. C.P. CRANCH.
Sing away, ay, sing away,
Merry little bird.
Always gayest of the gay,
Though a woodland roundelay
You ne'er sung nor heard;
Though your life from youth to age
Passes in a narrow cage.
_The Canary in his Cage_. D.M. MULOCK CRAIK.
The cook, that is the trumpet to the morn.
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
A wake the god of day.
_Hamlet. Act_ i. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Bird of the broad and sweeping wing,
Thy home is high in heaven,
Where wide the storms their banners fling.
And the tempest clouds are driven.
_To the Eagle_. J.G. PERCIVAL.
Where, the hawk,
High in the beetling cliff, his aery builds.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
And the, humming-bird that hung
Like a jewel up among
The tilted honeysuckle horns
They mesmerized and swung
In the palpitating air,
Drowsed with odors strange and rare,
And, with whispered laughter, slipped away
And left him hanging there.
_The South Wind and the Sun_. J.W. RILEY.
"Most musical, most melancholy" bird!
A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
_The Nightingale_. S.T. COLERIDGE.
Then from the neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water,
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music,
That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.
_Evangeline, Pt. II_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed.
_The Village Curate_. J. HURDIS.
The merry lark he soars on high,
No worldly thought o'ertakes him.
He sings aloud to the clear blue sky,
And the daylight that awakes him.
_Song_. H. COLERIDGE.
What bird so sings, yet so does wail?
O, 'tis the ravished nightingale--
Jug, jug, jug, jug--tereu--she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.
Brave prick-song! who is't now we hear?
None but the lark so shrill and clear,
Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings,
The morn not waking till she sings.
Hark, hark! but what a pretty note,
Poor Robin-redbreast tunes his throat;
Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing
"Cuckoo!" to welcome in the spring.
_Alexander and Campaspe, Act v. Sc. 1_. JOHN LYLY.
O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still;
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes, that close the eye of day,
* * * * *
Portend success in love.
_To the Nightingale_. MILTON.
O honey-throated warbler of the grove!
That in the glooming woodland art so proud
Of answering thy sweet mates in soft or loud,
Thou dost not own a note we do not love.
_To the Nightingale_. C.T. TURNER.
Lend me your song, ye Nightingales! O, pour
The mazy-running soul of melody
Into my varied verse.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection.
_Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.
_Macbeth, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
_The White Devil, Act_ v. _Sc. 2_. J. WEBSTER.
Now when the primrose makes a splendid show,
And lilies face the March-winds in full blow,
And humbler growths as moved with one desire
Put on, to welcome spring, their best attire,
Poor Robin is yet flowerless; but how gay
With his red stalks upon this sunny day!
_Poor Robin_. W. WORDSWORTH.
The swallow twitters about the eaves;
Blithely she sings, and sweet and clear;
Around her climb the woodbine leaves
In a golden atmosphere.
_The Swallow_ C. THAXTER.
The stately-sailing swan
Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet
Rears forward fierce, and guards his osier isle,
Protective of his young.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
BLESSING.
Blessings star forth forever; but a curse
Is like a cloud--it passes.
_Festus: Sc. Hades_. P.J. BAILEY.
To heal divisions, to relieve the oppressed,
In virtue rich; in blessing others, blessed.
_Odyssey, Bk. VII_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.
Like birds, whose beauties languish half concealed,
Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes
Expanded, shine with azure, green, and gold;
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
_Night Thoughts, Night II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
In the nine heavens are eight Paradises;
Where is the ninth one? In the human breast.
Only the blessèd dwell in the Paradises,
But blessedness dwells in the human breast.
_Oriental Poetry: The Ninth Paradise_. W.R. ALGER.
BLUSH.
Who has not seen that feeling born of flame
Crimson the cheek at mention of a name?
The rapturous touch of some divine surprise
Flash deep suffusion of celestial dyes:
When hands clasped hands, and lips to lips were pressed
And the heart's secret was at once confessed?
_The Microcosm: Man_. A. COLES.
By noting of the lady I have marked
A thousand blushing apparitions start
Into her face; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes.
_Much Ado About Nothing, Act iv. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
From every blush that kindles in thy cheeks,
Ten thousand little loves and graces spring
To revel in the roses.
_Tamerlane, Act_ i. _Sc_. 1. N. ROWE.
While mantling on the maiden's cheek,
Young roses kindled into thought.
_Evenings in Greece: Evening II. Song_. T. MOORE.
The rising blushes, which her cheek o'erspread,
Are opening roses in the lily's bed.
_Dione, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 3. J. GAY.
Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,
And flare up bodily, wings and all.
_Aurora Leigh_. E.B. BROWNING.
The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
_Night Thoughts, Night VII_. DR. E. YOUNG.
BOATING.
Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time,
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at Saint Ann's our parting hymn;
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near and the daylight's past!
_A Canadian Boat Song_. T. MOORE.
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.
_Bermudas_. A. MARVELL.
Oh, swiftly glides the bonnie boat,
Just parted from the shore,
And to the fisher's chorus-note,
Soft moves the dipping oar!
_Oh, Swiftly glides the Bonnie Boat_. J. BAILLIE.
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
_Essay on Man, Epistle III_. A. POPE.
On the great streams the ships may go
About men's business to and fro.
But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep
On crystal waters ankle-deep:
I, whose diminutive design,
Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine,
Is fashioned on so frail a mould,
A hand may launch, a hand withhold:
I, rather, with the leaping trout
Wind, among lilies, in and out;
I, the unnamed, inviolate.
Green, rustic rivers navigate.
_The Canoe Speaks_. R.L. STEVENSON.
Row us forth! Unfurl thy sail!
What care we for tempest blowing?
Let us kiss the blustering gale!
Let us breast the waters flowing!
Though the North rush cold and loud,
Love shall warm and make us merry;
Though the waves all weave a shroud,
We will dare the Humber ferry!
_The Humber Ferry_. B.W. PROCTER (_Barry Cornwall_).
BOOKS.
Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good;
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
_Personal Talk_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Silent companions of the lonely hour,
Friends, who can alter or forsake.
Who for inconstant roving have no power,
And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take.
_To My Books_. MRS. C. NORTON.
Some books are drenched sands,
On which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy.
_A Life Drama_. ALEX. SMITH.
Worthy books
Are not companions--they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.
_Festus: Sc. A Village Feast. Evening_. P.J. BAILEY.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. LORD BYRON.
Golden volumes! richest treasures,
Objects of delicious pleasures!
You my eyes rejoicing please,
You my hands in rapture seize!
Brilliant wits and musing sages,
Lights who beamed through many ages!
Left to your conscious leaves their story,
And dared to trust you with their glory;
And now their hope of fame achieved,
Dear volumes! you have not deceived!
_Curiosities of Literature. Libraries_. I. DISRAELI.
That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers.
_The Elder Brother, Act_ i. _Sc_. 2.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
BORROWING.
Who goeth a-borrowing,
Goeth a-sorrowing.
_Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. June's Abstract_. T. TUSSER.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
_Hamlet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
It is a very good world to live in,
To lend, or to spend, or to give in;
But to beg or to borrow, or to get a man's own,
It is the very worst world that ever was known.
_Attributed to_ EARL OF ROCHESTER.
BOY.
O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure!
_King John, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,
And mischief-making monkey from his birth.
_Don Juan, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo.
_The Schoolmistress_. W. SHENSTONE.
Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face;
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his:
This little abstract doth contain that large
Which died in Geffrey: and the hand of time
Shall draw this brief unto as large a volume.
_King John, Act ii. Sc 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, 'tis a parlous boy;
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable;
He is all the mother's from the top to toe.
_Richard III., Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Thou wilt scarce be a man before thy mother.
_Love's Cure, Act ii. Sc. 2_. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
But strive still to be a man before your mother.
_Motto of No. III. Connoisseur_. W. COWPER.
CARE.
When one is past, another care we have;
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.
_Sorrows Succeed_. R. HERRICK.
Old Care has a mortgage on every estate,
And that's what you pay for the wealth that you get.
_Gifts of the Gods_. J.G. SAXE.
O polished perturbation! golden care!
That keepest the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night!
_K. Henry IV., Pt. II. Act iv. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
Let one unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light,--for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One half the human race.
_The Goblet of Life_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Let the world slide, let the world go:
A fig for care, and a fig for woe!
If I can't pay, why I can owe,
And death makes equal the high and low.
_Be Merry Friends_. J. HEYWOOD.
Begone, dull Care, I prithee begone from me;
Begone, dull Care, thou and I shall never agree.
_Begone, Old Care_. PLAYFORD'S _Musical Companion_.
CHANCE.
That power
Which erring men call Chance.
_Comus_. MILTON.
Chance will not do the work--Chance sends the breeze;
But if the pilot slumber at the helm,
The very wind that wafts us towards the port
May dash us on the shelves.--The steersman's part is vigilance,
Blow it or rough or smooth.
_Fortunes of Nigel_. SIR w. SCOTT.
I shall show the cinders of my spirits
Through the ashes of my chance.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act_ v. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
And grasps the skirts of happy chance.
And breasts the blows of circumstance.
_In Memoriam, LXIII_. A. TENNYSON.
You'll see that, since our fate is ruled by chance,
Each man, unknowing, great,
Should frame life so that at some future hour
Fact and his dreamings meet.
_To His Orphan Grandchildren_. V. HUGO.
CHANGE.
Weep not that the world changes--did it keep
A stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.
_Mutation_. W.C. BRYANT.
Manners with fortunes, humors turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.
_Moral Essays, Epistle I. Pt. II_. A. POPE.
As hope and fear alternate chase
Our course through life's uncertain race.
_Rokeby, Canto VI_. SIR W. SCOTT.
This world is not for aye, nor 't is not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change.
_Hamlet, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Man's wretched state,
That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late.
_Faërie Queene, Bk. III. Canto IX_. E. SPENSER.
Imperious Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!
_Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.
_To Men of England_. P.B. SHELLEY.
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies:
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.
_Mutability_. P.B. SHELLEY.
Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather
Strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams;
Somewhere above us, in elusive ether,
Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.
_Ad Amicos_. B. TAYLOR.
CHARITY.
The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;
The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers.
_The Excursion, Bk. IX_. W. WORDSWORTH.
'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
Of Faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.
_Sonnet XXXV_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Who will not mercie unto others show,
How can he mercie ever hope to have?
_Faërie Queene, Bk. VI_. E. SPENSER.
Whene'er I take my walks abroad,
How many poor I see!
What shall I render to my God
For all his gifts to me?
_Divine Songs_. DR. T. WATTS.
In Faith and Hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity.
_Essays on Man, Epistle III_. A. POPE.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
_Epilogue to Satires, Dial. I_. A. POPE.
True charity makes others' wants their own.
_Poor Man's Comfort_. R. DABORNE.
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity.
_King Henry IV., Pt. II. Act_ iv. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
O chime of sweet Saint Charity,
Peal soon that Easter morn
When Christ for all shall risen be,
And in all hearts new-born!
That Pentecost when utterance clear
To all men shall be given.
When all shall say _My Brother_ here,
And hear _My Son_ in heaven!
_Godminster Chimes_. J.R. LOWELL.
Charity itself fulfils the law,
And who can sever love from charity?
_Love's Labor's Lost_. SHAKESPEARE.
That man may last, but never lives,
Who much receives but nothing gives;
Whom none can love, whom none can thank,
Creation's blot, creation's blank.
_When Jesus Dwelt_. T. GIBBONS.
CHILDHOOD.
A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure.
_Of Education_. M.F. TUPPER.
Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
_Essay on Man, Epistle II_. A. POPE.
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candlelight,
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
_Bed in Summer_. R.L. STEVENSON.
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.
_To a Butterfly_. W. WORDSWORTH.
When they are young, they
Are like bells rung backwards, nothing but noise
And giddiness.
_Wit without Money_. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
A truthful page is childhood's lovely face,
Whereon sweet Innocence has record made,--
An outward semblance of the young heart's grace,
Where truth, and love, and trust are all portrayed.
_On a Picture of Lillie_. B.P. SHILLABER.
And the King with his golden sceptre,
The Pope with Saint Peter's key,
Can never unlock the one little heart
That is opened only to me.
For I am the Lord of a Realm,
And I am Pope of a See;
Indeed I'm supreme in the kingdom
That is sitting, just now, on my knee.
_The King and The Pope_. C.H. WEBB.
Now I lay me down to take my sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep:
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
_New England Primer_.
And children know,
Instinctive taught, the friend and foe.
_Lady of the Lake, Canto II_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.
_To a Butterfly_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Oh, Mirth and Innocence! Oh, Milk and Water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!
_Beppo_. LORD BYRON.
They are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet.
_Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Men are but children of a larger growth.
_All for Love, Act iv. Sc. 1_. J. DRYDEN.
The childhood shows the man
As morning shows the day.
_Paradise Regained, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
CHRISTMAS.
O most illustrious of the days of time!
Day full of joy and benison to earth
When Thou wast born, sweet Babe of Bethlehem!
With dazzling pomp descending angels sung
Good-will and peace to men, to God due praise.
_The Microcosm and Other Poems_. A. COLES.
Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace;
East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease;
Sing the song of great joy that the angels began,
Sing of glory to God and of good-will to man!
_A Christmas Carmen_. J.G. WHITTIER.
Oh, come, all ye faithful!
Triumphantly sing!
Come, see in the manger
The angels' dread King!
To Bethlehem hasten
With joyful accord;
Oh, hasten, oh, hasten,
To worship the Lord!
_Christmas Day. Unknown Latin Author_.
_Trans. of_ E. CASWELL.
God rest ye, merry gentlemen; let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was born on Christmas-day.
The dawn rose red o'er Bethlehem, the stars shone through the gray,
When Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was born on Christmas-day.
_A Christmas Carol_. D.M. MULOCK CRAIK.
Now thrice-welcome Christmas, which brings us good cheer.
Minced pies and plum porridge, good ale and strong beer,
With pig, goose, and capon, the best that may be,--
So well doth the weather and our stomachs agree....
But those on whose tables no victuals appear,
O, may they keep Lent all the rest of the year!
_Poor Robin's Almanack_, 1695.
CHURCH.
Lord of the worlds above,
How pleasant and how fair
The dwellings of thy love.
Thine earthly temples, are!
To thine abode
My heart aspires,
With warm desires
To see my God.
_The House of God_. W. COWPER.
"What is a church?" Let Truth and Reason speak,
They would reply, "The faithful, pure and meek,
From Christian folds, the one selected race,
Of all professions, and in every place."
_The Borough, Letter II_. G. CRABBE.
Spires whose "silent fingers point to heaven."
_The Excursion, Bk. VI_, W. Wordsworth.
I love thy church, O God:
Her walls before thee stand,
Dear as the apple of thine eye,
And graven on thy hand.
* * * * *
For her my tears shall fall,
For her my prayers ascend;
To her my cares and toils be given,
Till toils and cares shall end.
_Love to the Church_. T. Dwight.
As some to Church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
_Essay on Criticism_. A. Pope.
Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.
_Moral Essays, Epistle III_. A. Pope.
CITY.
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
_The Garden, Essay V_. A. Cowley.
I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture.
_Childe Harold, Canto III_. Lord Byron.
The people are the city.
_Coriolanus, Act iii. Sc. 1_. Shakespeare.
Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me
than mast-hemmed Manhattan?
River and sunset and scallop-edged waves of flood-tide?
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the
twilight, and the belated lighter?
_Crossing Brooklyn Ferry_. W. Whitman.
A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head--and there is London Town,
_Don Juan, Canto X_. Lord Byron.
On the Ægean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits,
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades;
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.
_Paradise Regained, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand;
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion's marble piles.
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more.
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear.
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
O Rome! my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires!
* * * * *
The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago.
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
CLERGY.
He 'stablishes the strong, restores the weak,
Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart.
_The Timepiece: The Task, Bk. II_. W. COWPER.
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to Heaven,
Whilst, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Wel ought a prest ensample for to yive,
By his clennesse, how that his sheep shulde lyve.
* * * * *
To draw folk to heven by fairnesse
By good ensample, this was his busynesse.
_Canterbury Tales: Prologue_. CHAUCER.
Of right and wrong he taught
Truths as refined as ever Athens heard;
And (strange to tell!) he practised what he preached.
_Art of Preserving Health_ J. ARMSTRONG.
CLOUD.
By unseen hands uplifted in the light
Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud
Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad,
And wafted up to heaven.
_Michael Angelo, Pt. II_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Yonder cloud
That rises upward always higher,
And onward drags a laboring breast.
And topples round the dreary west,
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
_In Memoriam, XV_. A. TENNYSON.
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.
A step,
A single step, that freed me from the skirts
Of the blind vapor, opened to my view
Glory beyond all glory ever seen
By waking sense or by the dreaming soul!
The appearance, instantaneously disclosed
Was of a mighty city,--boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth,
Far sinking into splendor,--without end!
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright,
In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt
With battlements that on their restless fronts
Bore stars,--illumination of all gems!
_The Excursion, Bk. II_. W. WORDSWORTH.
See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft
So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away
Over the snowy peaks!
_Christus: The Golden Legend_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
COMFORT.
Dear little head, that lies in calm content
Within the gracious hollow that God made
In every human shoulder, where He meant
Some tired head for comfort should be laid.
_Song_. C. THAXTER.
Men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel.
_Much Ado About Nothing, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my tale;
And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring
When Prayer is of no avail?
_Force of Prayer_. W. WORDSWORTH.
And He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age!
_As You, Like It, Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing,
Hope, and comfort from above;
Let us each, thy peace possessing,
Triumph in redeeming love.
_Benediction_. R.S. HAWKER.
COMPLIMENT.
Current among men,
Like coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.
_The Princess, Pt. II_. A. TENNYSON.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
_Faustus_. C. MARLOWE.
The sweetest garland to the sweetest maid.
_To a Lady; with a Present of Flowers_. T. TICKELL.
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.
_Sonnet XVIII_. SHAKESPEARE.
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!
The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,
And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
_The Bride of Abydos, Canto II_. LORD BYRON.
Those curious locks so aptly twined
Whose every hair a soul doth bind.
_Think not 'cause men flattering say_. T. CAREW.
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
_Rape of the Lock, Canto II_. A. POPE.
When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
_Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Some asked me where the Rubies grew,
And nothing I did say,
But with my finger pointed to
The lips of Julia.
_The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls_. R. HERRICK.
Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones,--Come and buy;
If so be you ask me where
They do grow, I answer, there,
Where my Julia's lips do smile,
There's the land, or cherry-isle.
_Cherry Ripe_. R. HERRICK.
Where none admire, 'tis useless to excel;
Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle.
_Soliloquy on a Beauty in the Country_. LORD LYTTLETON.
Banish all compliments but single truth.
_Faithful Shepherdess_. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
What honor that,
But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear
So many hollow compliments and lies.
_Paradise Regained_. MILTON.
'Twas never merry world
Since lowly feigning was called compliment.
_Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
CONCEIT.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. I_. A. POPE.
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for the observer's sake.
_Moral Essays, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
In men this blunder still you find,
All think their little set mankind.
_Florio, Pt. I_. HANNAH MORE.
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
_Hamlet, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
CONSCIENCE.
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God.
_The Island, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
Oh, Conscience! Conscience! man's most faithful friend,
Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend;
But if he will thy friendly checks forego,
Thou art, oh! woe for me, his deadliest foe!
_Struggles of Conscience_. G. CRABBE.
Conscience is harder than our enemies,
Knows more, accuses with more nicety.
_Spanish Gypsy_. GEORGE ELIOT.
Of a' the ills that flesh can fear,
The loss o' frien's, the lack o' gear,
A yowlin' tyke, a glandered mear,
A lassie's nonsense--
There's just ae thing I cannae bear,
An' that's my conscience.
_My Conscience_. R.L. STEVENSON.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
_K. Richard III., Act v. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Why should not Conscience have vacation
As well as other courts o' th' nation?
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance and return?
_Hudibras, Pt. II. Canto II_. S. BUTLER.
Soft, I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
_K. Richard III., Act v. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Let his tormentor conscience find him out.
_Paradise Regained, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
Speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
_K. Richard II., Act v. Sc. 6_. SHAKESPEARE.
Leave her to Heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipped the offending Adam out of him.
_K. Henry V., Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
True, conscious Honor is to feel no sin,
He's armed without that's innocent within;
Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of Brass.
_First Book of Horace, Epistle I_. A. POPE.
I know myself now; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities;
A still and quiet conscience.
_K. Henry VIII., Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
_Don Juan, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my Great Task-Master's eye.
_On being arrived at his Three-and-Twentieth Year_. MILTON.
And sure the eternal Master found
His single talent well employed.
_Verses on Robert Levet_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
CONSOLATION.
With silence only as their benediction,
God's angels come
Where in the shadow of a great affliction,
The soul sits dumb!
_To my Friend on the Death of his Sister_.
J.G. WHITTIER.
And, as she looked around, she saw how Death the consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
_Evangeline_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Sprinkled along the waste of years
Full many a soft green isle appears:
Pause where we may upon the desert road,
Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode.
_The Christian Year. The First Sunday in Advent_.
J. KEBLE.
O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again.
_Endymion_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Love is indestructible:
Its holy flame forever burneth:
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
* * * * *
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.
_Curse of Kehama, Canto X_. R. SOUTHEY.
CONSTANCY.
O heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect. That one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins:
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act v. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
They sin who tell us Love can die:
With Life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
_Curse of Kehama, Canto X_. R. SOUTHEY.
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar.
But never doubt I love.
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforcèd ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.
_Julius Cæsar, Act iv. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
You say to me-wards your affection's strong;
Pray love me little, so you love me long.
_Love me little, love me long_. R. HERRICK.
When change itself can give no more,
'Tis easy to be true.
_Reasons for Constancy_. SIR C. SEDLEY.
If ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are,
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else.
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is beloved.
_Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
I could be well moved if I were as you;
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me;
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
_Julius Cæsar, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
CONTENTMENT.
Happy the man, of mortals happiest he,
Whose quiet mind from vain desires is free;
Whom neither hopes deceive, nor fears torment,
But lives at peace, within himself content;
In thought, or act, accountable to none
But to himself, and to the gods alone.
_Epistle to Mrs. Higgons_. LORD LANSDOWNE.
Yes! in the poor man's garden grow,
Far more than herbs and flowers,
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
And joy for weary hours.
_The Poor Man's Garden_. M. HOWITT.
Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbor with himself.
_Essay on Man, Epistle II_. A. POPE.
Poor and content is rich and rich enough,
But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
_Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
From labor health, from health contentment spring;
Contentment opes the source of every joy.
_The Minstrel, Bk. I_. J. BEATTIE.
What happiness the rural maid attends,
In cheerful labor while each day she spends!
She gratefully receives what Heaven has sent,
And, rich in poverty, enjoys content.
_Rural Sports, Canto II_. J. GAY.
My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen: my crown is called content;
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
_K. Henry VI., Pt. III. Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Shut up
In measureless content.
_Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
CONVERSATION.
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind.
_The Odyssey, Bk. XV_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.
With good and gentle-humored hearts
I choose to chat where'er I come,
Whate'er the subject be that starts.
But if I get among the glum
I hold my tongue to tell the truth
And keep my breath to cool my broth.
_Careless Content_. LORD BYRON.
But conversation, choose what theme we may,
And chiefly when religion leads the way,
Should flow, like waters after summer show'rs,
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.
_Conversation_. W. COWPER.
In general those who nothing have to say
Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.
_An Oriental Apologue_. J.R. LOWELL.
There's nothing in this world can make me joy.
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
_King John, Act iii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Think all you speak; but speak not all you think:
Thoughts are your own; your words are so no more.
_Epigram_. H. DELAUNE.
Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse,
Not more distinct from harmony divine
The constant creaking of a country sign.
_Conversation_. W. COWPER.
Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
_Marmion, Canto II_. SIR W. SCOTT.
They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.
_Upon a Passage in the Scaligerana_. M. PRIOR.
And, when you stick on conversation's burrs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_.
_Urania_. O.W. HOLMES.
KING RICHARD. Be eloquent in my behalf to her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.
_King Richard III., Act iv. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, many a shaft, at random sent,
Finds mark the archer little meant!
And many a word, at random spoken,
May soothe, or wound, a heart that's broken!
_Lord of the Isles, Canto V_. SIR W. SCOTT.
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
In his brain--
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
After a voyage--he hath strange places crammed
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms.
_As You Like it, Act ii. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
_Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
And I oft have heard defended,
Little said is soonest mended.
_The Shepherd's Hunting_. G. WITHER.
Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
_Venus and Adonis_. SHAKESPEARE.
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
COQUETRY.
Or light or dark, or short or tall,
She sets a springe to snare them all:
All's one to her--above her fan
She'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.
_Quatrains. Coquette_. T.B. ALDRICH.
Such is your cold coquette, who can't say "No."
And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing
On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow,
Then sees your heart wrecked, with an inward scoffing.
_Don Juan, Canto XII_. LORD BYRON.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
_Lilith_. D.G. ROSSETTI.
How happy could I be with either,
Were t' other dear charmer away!
But while ye thus tease me together,
To neither a word will I say.
_Beggar's Opera, Act ii. Sc. 2_. J. GAY.
Ye belles, and ye flirts, and ye pert little things,
Who trip in this frolicsome round,
Pray tell me from whence this impertinence springs,
The sexes at once to confound?
_Song for Ranelagh_. P. WHITEHEAD.
COUNTRIES.
AMERICA.
America! half brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every laud.
_Festus: Sc. The Surface_. P.J. BAILEY.
Hail Columbia! happy land!
Hail ye heroes, heaven-born band!
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone,
Enjoyed the peace your valor won!
Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies.
Firm--united--let us be,
Rallying round our liberty:
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.
_Hail Columbia_. J. HOPKINSON.
Around I see
The powers that be;
I stand by Empire's primal springs;
And princes meet
In every street,
And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!
* * * * *
Not lightly fall
Beyond recall
The written scrolls a breath can float;
The crowning fact
The kingliest act
Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!
_The Eve of Election_. J.G. WHITTIER.
Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a doorstep
Into a world unknown,--the corner-stone of a nation!
_Courtship of Miles Standish_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
They love their land because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his majesty.
_Connecticut_. F-G. HALLECK.
How has New England's romance fled,
Even as a vision of the morning!
Its right foredone,--its guardians dead,--
Its priestesses, bereft of dread,
Waking the veriest urchin's scorning!
* * * * *
And now our modern Yankee sees
Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries;
And naught above, below, around,
Of life or death, of sight or sound,
Whate'er its nature, form, or look,
Excites his terror or surprise,--
All seeming to his knowing eyes
Familiar as his "catechize,"
Or "Webster's Spelling-Book."
_A New England Legend_. J.G. WHITTIER.
Long as thine Art shall love true love,
Long as thy Science truth shall know,
Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove,
Long as thy Law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,--
So long, dear Land of all my love,
Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow!
_Centennial Meditation of Columbia_: 1876. S. LANIER.
His home!--the Western giant smiles,
And turns the spotty globe to find it;--
This little speck the British Isles?
'Tis but a freckle,--never mind it.
_A Good Time Going_. O.W. HOLMES.
ENGLAND.
O England! model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart.
_King Henry V., Act ii. Chorus_. SHAKESPEARE.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war:
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea.
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
_King Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
England! my country, great and free!
Heart of the world, I leap to thee!
_Festus: Sc. The Surface_. P.J. BAILEY.
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung
Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold.
_National Independence, Sonnet XVI_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Heaven (that hath placed this island to give law
To balance Europe, and her states to awe,)
In this conjunction doth on Britain smile,
The greatest leader, and the greatest isle!
Whether this portion of the world were rent,
By the rude ocean, from the continent,
Or thus created; it was sure designed
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.
_To My Lord Protector_. E. WALLER.
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.
_King John, Act v. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where freedom broadens slowly down,
From precedent to precedent:
Where faction seldom gathers head:
But, by degrees to fulness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.
_The Land of Lands_. A. TENNYSON.
Broad-based upon her people's will,
And compassed by the inviolate sea.
_To the Queen_. A. TENNYSON.
SCOTLAND.
O Caledonia! stern and wild.
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood.
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band,
That knits me to thy rugged strand!
_Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto VI_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Hear, Land o' Cakes and brither Scots
Frae Maiden Kirk to Johnny Groat's.
_On Capt. Grose's Peregrinations Thro' Scotland_. R. BURNS.
HOLLAND.
As when the sea breaks o'er its bounds,
And overflows the level grounds,
Those banks and dams that, like a screen
Did keep it out, now keep it in.
_Hudibras_. S. BUTLER.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad Ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow,
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.
While the pent Ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.
_The Traveller_. O. GOLDSMITH.
ITALY.
Italia! O Italia! thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary's saying serves for me
(When fortune's malice
Lost her Calais):
Open my heart, and you will see
Graved inside of it, "Italy."
_De Gustibus_. R. BROWNING.
COURAGE.
Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend
To mean devices for a sordid end.
Courage--an independent spark from Heaven's bright throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone.
Great in itself, not praises of the crowd,
Above all vice, it stoops not to be proud.
Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above,
By which those great in war, are great in love.
The spring of all brave acts is seated here,
As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.
_Love and a Bottle: Dedication_. G. FARQUHAR.
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere--"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die.
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
_Morituri Salutamus_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
MACBETH. If we should fail,--
LADY MACBETH. We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we'll not fail.
_Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
"Brave boys," he said, "be not dismayed,
For the loss of one commander,
For God will be our king this day,
And I'll be general under."
_From the Battle of the Boyne. Old Ballad_.
By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endeavor for defence,
For courage mounteth with occasion.
_King John, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.
Danger knows full well
That Cæsar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions littered in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible.
_Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys,
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
_Prologue to Mr. Addison's Cato_. A. POPE.
Dar'st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?--Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
And fade him follow.
_Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
"You fool! I tell you no one means you harm."
"So much the better," Juan said, "for them."
_Don Juan_. LORD BYRON.
The intent and not the deed
Is in our power; and therefore who dares greatly
Does greatly.
_Barbarossa_. J. BROWN.
False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan,
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
_Lochiel's Warning_. T. CAMPBELL.
COURTESY.
How sweet and gracious, even in common speech,
Is that fine sense which men call Courtesy!
Wholesome as air and genial as the light,
Welcome in every clime as breath of flowers,
It transmutes aliens into trusting friends,
And gives its owner passport round the globe.
_Courtesy_. J.T. FIELDS.
In thy discourse, if thou desire to please;
All such is courteous, useful, new, or wittie:
Usefulness comes by labor, wit by ease;
Courtesie grows in court; news in the citie.
_The Church Porch_. G. HERBERT.
I am the very pink of courtesy.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
The kindest man,
The best-conditioned and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies.
_Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Would you both please and be instructed too,
Watch well the rage of shining, to subdue;
Hear every man upon his favorite theme,
And ever be more knowing than you seem.
B. STILLINGFLEET.
COWARDICE.
What is danger
More than the weakness of our apprehensions?
A poor cold part o' th' blood. Who takes it hold of?
Cowards and wicked livers: valiant minds
Were made the masters of it.
_Chances_. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even fools, by flatteries besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.
_Satires: Prologue_. A. POPE.
Cowards are cruel, but the brave
Love mercy, and delight to save.
_Fables, Pt. I. Fable I_. J. GAY.
When desp'rate ills demand a speedy cure,
Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
_Irene, Act iv. Sc. 1_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
He
That kills himself to avoid misery, fears it,
And, at the best, shows but a bastard valor.
This life's a fort committed to my trust,
Which I must not yield up, till it be forced:
Nor will I. He's not valiant that dares die,
But he that boldly bears calamity.
_Maid of Honor, Act iv. Sc. 1_. P. MASSINGER.
Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
Thou little valiant, great in villany!
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
Thou Fortune's champion, that dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by
To teach thee safety!
_King John, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is in battle slain
Can never rise and fight again.
_The Art of Poetry on a New Plan_. O. GOLDSMITH.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
_Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
CREED.
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.
_Childe Harold, Canto III_. LORD BYRON.
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
_Lalla Rookh: Veiled Prophet of Khorassan_. T. MOORE.
For fools are stubborn in their way,
As coins are hardened by th' allay;
And obstinacy's ne'er so stiff
As when 'tis in a wrong belief.
_Hudibras, Pt. III. Canto II_. S. BUTLER.
You can and you can't,
You will and you won't;
You'll be damned if you do,
You'll be damned if you don't.
_Chain (Definition of Calvinism)_. L. DOW.
They believed--faith, I'm puzzled--I think I may call
Their belief a believing in nothing at all,
Or something of that sort; I know they all went
For a general union of total dissent.
_A Fable for Critics_. J.R. LOWELL.
We are our own fates. Our own deeds
Are our doomsmen. Man's life was made
Not for men's creeds,
But men's actions.
_Lucile, Pt. II. Canto V_. LORD LYTTON (_Owen Meredith_).
Go put your creed into your deed.
Nor speak with double tongue.
_Ode: Concord, July 4, 1857_. R.W. EMERSON.
CRIME.
There is a method in man's wickedness,
It grows up by degrees.
_A King and no King, Act v. Sc. 4_. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Tremble, thou wretch,
That has within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipped of justice.
_King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
But many a crime deemed innocent on earth
Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt
Have each their record, with a curse annexed.
_The Task, Bk. VI_. W. COWPER.
CRITICISM.
And finds, with keen, discriminating sight,
Black's not so black;--nor white so _very_ white.
_New Morality_. A. CANNING.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold,
Alike fantastic if too new or old:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. II_. A. POPE.
Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.
_Upon Roscommon's Translation of Horace's De Arte Poetica_.
E. WALLER.
Vex not thou the poet's mind
With thy shallow wit:
Vex not thou the poet's mind:
For thou canst not fathom it.
_The Poet's Mind_. A. TENNYSON.
CUSTOM.
Man yields to custom, as he bows to fate,
In all things ruled--mind, body, and estate.
_Tale III., Gentleman Farmer_. G. CRABBE.
The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.
_Tirocinium_. W. COWPER.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
Custom calls me to 't;
What custom wills, in all things should we do 't,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heapt
For truth to o'erpeer.
_Coriolanus, Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.
_The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I_. SIR W. SCOTT.
The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.
_Othello, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
But to my mind,--though I am native here,
And to the manner born,--it is a custom
More honored in the breach, than the observance.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
DAY.
Day!
Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last;
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.
_Pippa Passes: Introduction_. R. BROWNING.
How troublesome is day!
It calls us from our sleep away;
It bids us from our pleasant dreams awake,
And sends us forth to keep or break
Our promises to pay.
How troublesome is day!
_Fly-By-Night_. T.L. PEACOCK.
Blest power of sunshine!--genial day,
What balm, what life is in thy ray!
To feel there is such real bliss,
That had the world no joy but this,
To sit in sunshine calm and sweet,--
It were a world too exquisite
For man to leave it for the gloom,
The deep, cold shadow, of the tomb.
_Lalla Rookh: The Fire Worshippers_. T. MOORE.
DEATH.
Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.
_Cupid and Death_. J. SHIRLEY.
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.
_Stanza subjoined to a Bill of Mortality_. W. COWPER.
The tall, the wise, the reverend head
Must lie as low as ours.
_A Funeral Thought, Bk. II. Hymn 63_. DR. I. WATTS.
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and--farewell king!
_K. Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.
_Old Fortunatus_. T. DEKKER.
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.
_King Lear, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
This fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest.
_Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.
_King John, Act iv. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
That we shall die we know: 't is but the time
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.
_Julius Cæsar, Act iii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Our days begin with trouble here,
Our life is but a span,
And cruel death is always near,
So frail a thing is man.
_New England Primer_.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
_Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
The hour concealed, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
_Essay on Man, Epistle III_. A. POPE.
The tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony:
When words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain;
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
_K. Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
A death-bed's a detector of the heart:
Here tired dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace that mistress of the scene;
Here real and apparent are the same.
_Night Thoughts, Night II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
_Night Thoughts. Night II_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died,
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 't were a careless trifle.
_Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
The bad man's death is horror; but the just,
Keeps something of his glory in the dust.
_Castara_. W. HABINGTON.
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
With mortal crisis doth portend
My days to appropinque an end.
_Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto III_. S. BUTLER.
Sure, 't is a serious thing to die!...
Nature runs back and shudders at the sight,
And every life-string bleeds at thought of parting;
For part they must: body and soul must part;
Fond couple! linked more close than wedded pair.
_The Grave_. B. BLAIR.
While man is growing, life is in decrease;
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun.
_Night Thoughts, Night V_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Put out the light, and then--put out the light.
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,
Thou cunningest pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat,
That can thy light relume. When I have plucked thy rose
I cannot give it vital growth again,
It needs must wither.
_Othello, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.
_Night Thoughts, Night V_. DR. E. YOUNG.
Death aims with fouler spite
At fairer marks.
_Divine Poems_. F. QUARLES.
The ripest fruit first falls.
_Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
The good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket.
_The Excursion, Bk. I_ W. WORDSWORTH.
Happy they!
Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould,
The precious porcelain of human clay,
Break with the first fall.
_Don Juan, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
Loveliest of lovely things are they,
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
_A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson_. W.C. BRYANT.
"Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore.
_Don Juan, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to Heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.
_Epitaph on an Infant_. S.T. COLERIDGE.
Thank God for Death! bright thing with dreary name.
_Benedicam Dominos_. SARAH C. WOOLSEY _(Susan Coolidge)_.
But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.
_To a Young Lady_. W. WORDSWORTH.
Death is the privilege of human nature,
And life without it were not worth our taking:
Thither the poor, the pris'ner, and the mourner
Fly for relief, and lay their burthens down.
_The Fair Penitent, Act v. Sc 1_. N. ROWE.
Death! to the happy thou art terrible,
But how the wretched love to think of thee,
O thou true comforter, the friend of all
Who have no friend beside.
_Joan of Arc_. R. SOUTHEY.
I would that I were low laid in my grave;
I am not worth this coil that's made for me.
_King John, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
He gave his honors to the world again,
His blessèd part to heaven, and slept in peace.
_Henry VIII., Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.
* * * * *
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
Think not of the rising sun,
For, at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveille.
_Lady of the Lake, Canto I_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further!
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Here may the storme-bett vessell safely ryde;
This is the port of rest from troublous toyle,
The worlde's sweet inn from paine and wearisome turmoyle.
_Faërie Queene_. E. SPENSER.
To die is landing on some silent shore,
Where billows never break, nor tempests roar;
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 't is o'er.
_The Dispensary, Canto III_. SIR S. GARTH.
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damnèd grudges; here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.
_Titus Andronicus, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Let guilt, or fear,
Disturb man's rest, Cato knows neither of them;
Indifferent in his choice, to sleep or die.
_Cato_. J. ADDISON.
Sleep is a death; O make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed.
_Religio Medici, Pt. II. Sec_. 12. SIR T. BROWNE.
Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
_Aurengzebe, Act iv. Sc. 1_. J. DRYDEN.
Death, so called, is a thing that makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.
_Don Juan, Canto XIV_. LORD BYRON.
Let no man fear to die; we love to sleep all,
And death is but the sounder sleep.
_Humorous Lieutenant_. F. BEAUMONT.
I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay,
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.
_Colin and Lucy_. T. TICKELL.
DECEIT.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
_Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
A man I knew who lived upon a smile,
And well it fed him; he looked plump and fair.
While rankest venom foamed through every vein.
_Night Thoughts, Night VIII_. DR. E. YOUNG.
The world is still deceived with ornament,
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damnèd error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
_Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Think'st thou there are no serpents in the world
But those who slide along the grassy sod.
And sting the luckless foot that presses them?
There are who in the path of social life
Do bask their spotted skins in Fortune's sun,
And sting the soul.
_De Montford, Act i. Sc. 2_. J. BAILLIE.
Hateful to me as are the gates of hell,
Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart,
Utters another.
_The Iliad, Bk. IX_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ BRYANT.
Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!
_K. Richard III., Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Our better part remains
To work in close design, by fraud or guile,
What force effected not; that he no less
At length from us may find, who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. I_. MILTON.
Appearances to save, his only care;
So things seem right, no matter what they are.
_Rosciad_. C. CHURCHILL.
Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made,
To turn a penny in the way of trade.
_Table Talk_. W. COWPER.
DEEDS.
From this moment,
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done.
_Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Count that day lost whose low descending sun
Views from thy hand no worthy action done.
_Staniford's Art of Reading. Author Unknown_.
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it;
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
_A Grammarian's Funeral_. R. BROWNING.
'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man
Would do.
_Saul, XVIII_. R. BROWNING.
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed.
_All's Well that Ends Well, Act ii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Little deeds of kindness, little words of love.
Make our earth an Eden like the heaven above.
_Little Things_. J.A. CARNEY.
I profess not talking: only this,
Let each man do his best.
_Henry IV., Pt. I. Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Things done well.
And with a care, exempt themselves from fear;
Things done without example, in their issue
Are to be feared.
_Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.
_Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland_. A. MARVELL.
DEFEAT.
Yes, this is life; and everywhere we meet,
Not victor crowns, but wailings of defeat.
_The Unattained_. E.O. SMITH.
At a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior, famousèd for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the books of honor razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled
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