Familiar Quotations
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Title: Familiar Quotations
Compiler: John Bartlett
Release date: September 23, 2005 [eBook #16732]
Most recently updated: December 12, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16732
Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and Pat Saumell
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS ***
Produced by Chuck Greif and Pat Saumell
Familiar Quotations
A COLLECTION OF FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS.
WITH
COMPLETE INDICES OF AUTHORS AND SUBJECTS.
* * * * *
NEW YORK: HURST & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS.
PREFACE.
The object of this work is to show, to some extent, the obligations our
language owes to various authors for numerous phrases and familiar
quotations which have become "household words."
This Collection, originally made without any view of publication, has
been considerably enlarged by additions from an English work on a
similar plan, and is now sent forth with the hope that it may be found a
convenient book of reference.
Though perhaps imperfect in some respects, it is believed to possess the
merit of accuracy, as the quotations have been taken from the original
sources.
Should this be favorably received, endeavors will be made to make it
more worthy of the approbation of the public in a future edition.
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
Addison, Joseph
Akenside, Mark
Aldrich, James
Austin, Mrs. Sarah
Bacon, Francis
Bailey, Philip James
Barbauld, Mrs
Barnfield, Richard
Barrett, Eaton Stannard
Basse, William
Baxter, Richard
Beattie, James
Beaumont, Francis
Berkeley, Bishop
Blair, Robert
Bolingbroke, Lord
Booth, Barton
Brown, Tom
Brown, John
Bryant, William Cullen
Bunyan, John
Burns, Robert
Butler, Samuel
Byrom, John
Byron, Lord
Campbell, Thomas
Canning, George
Carew, Thomas
Carey, Henry
Cervantes, Miguel de
Charles II
Churchill, Charles
Cibber, Colley
Coke, Lord
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Collins, William
Colman, George
Congreve, William
Cotton, Nathaniel
Cowley, Abraham
Cowper, William
Crabbe, George
Cranch, Christopher P.
Crashaw, Richard
Defoe, Daniel
Dekker, Thomas
Denham, Sir John
Doddridge, Philip
Dodsley, Robert
Donne, Dr. John
Drake, Joseph Rodman
Dryden, John
Dyer, John
Everett, David
Franklin, Benjamin
Fletcher, Andrew
Fouché, Joseph
Fuller, Thomas
Garrick, David
Gay, John
Goldsmith, Oliver
Grafton, Richard
Gray, Thomas
Green, Matthew
Greene, Albert G.
Greville, Fulke (Lord Brooke)
Halleck, Fitz-Greene
Herbert, George
Herrick, Robert
Hervey, Thomas K.
Hill, Aaron
Hobbes, Thomas
Holy Scriptures
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
Home, John
Hood, Thomas
Hopkinson, Joseph
Irving, Washington
Johnson, Samuel
Jones, Sir William
Jonson, Ben
Keats, John
Key, F.S.
Kempis, Thomas à
Lamb, Charles
Langhorn, John
Lee, Nathaniel
L'Estrange, Roger
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Lowell, James Russell
Lovelace, Sir Richard
Lyttelton, Lord
Lytton, Edward Bulwer
Macaulay, Thomas Babington
Marlowe, Christopher
Mickle, William Julius
Milnes, Richard Monckton
Milton, John,
Montague, Lady Mary Wortley
Montrose, Marquis of
Moore, Edward
Moore, Thomas
Morris, Charles
Morton, Thomas
Moss, Thomas
Norris, John
Otway, Thomas
Paine, Thomas
Palafox, Don Joseph
Parnell, Thomas
Percy, Thomas
Philips, John
Pollok, Robert
Pope, Alexander
Porteus, Beilby
Prior, Matthew
Proctor, Bryan Walter
Quarles, Francis
Rabelais, Francis
Raleigh, Sir Walter
Randolph, John
Rochefoucauld, Duc de
Rochester, Earl of
Rogers, Samuel
Roscommon, Earl of
Rowe, Nicholas
Savage, Richard
Scott, Sir Walter
Sewall, Jonathan M.
Sewell, Dr. George
Shakespeare, William
Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire
Shenstone, William
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
Shirley, James
Sidney, Sir Philip
Smollett, Tobias
Southern, Thomas
Southey, Robert
Spencer, William R.
Spenser, Edmund
Sprague, Charles
Steers, Miss Fanny
Sterne, Laurence
Suckling, Sir John
Swift, Jonathan
Sylvester, Joshua
Taylor, Henry
Tennyson, Alfred
Tertullian
Theobald, Louis
Thomson, James
Thrale, Mrs
Tickell, Thomas
Trumbull, John
Tuke, Sir Samuel
Tusser, Thomas
Uhland, John Louis
Walcott John (Peter Pindar)
Waller, Edmund
Warburton, Thomas
Watts, Isaac
Wither, George
Wolfe, Charles
Woodsworth, Samuel
Wordsworth, William
Wotton, Sir Henry
Young, Edward
A COLLECTION OF FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS
* * * * *
HOLY SCRIPTURES.
* * * * *
OLD TESTAMENT.
Genesis ii. 18.
It is not good that the man should be alone
Genesis iii. 19.
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Genesis iv. 9.
Am I my brother's keeper?
Genesis iv. 13.
My punishment is greater than I can bear
Genesis ix. 6.
Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
Genesis xvi. 12.
His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.
Genesis xlii. 38.
Bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Genesis xlix. 4.
Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.
Deuteronomy xix. 21.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Deuteronomy xxxii. 10.
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
Judges xvi. 9.
The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.
Ruth i. 16.
For whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge:
thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Samuel xiii. 14.
A man after his own heart.
Samuel i. 20.
Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon
Samuel i. 23.
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their
death they were not divided.
Samuel i. 25.
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
Samuel i. 26.
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.
Samuel xii. 7.
And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.
Kings ix, 7.
A proverb and a by-word among all people,
Kings xviii. 21.
How long halt ye between two opinions?
Kings xviii. 44.
Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand.
Kings xix. 12.
A still, small voice.
Kings xx. 11.
Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth
it off.
Kings iv. 40.
There is death in the pot.
Job i. 21.
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the
Lord.
Job iii. 17.
There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.
Job v. 7.
Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
Job xvi. 2.
Miserable comforters are ye all.
Job xix. 25.
I know that my Redeemer liveth.
Job xxviii. 18.
The price of wisdom is above-rubies.
Job xxix. 15.
I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
Job xxxi. 35.
That mine adversary had written a book.
Job xxxviii. 11.
Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves
be stayed.
Psalm xvi. 6.
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.
Psalm xviii. 10.
Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
Psalm xxiii. 2.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth me beside the
still waters.
Psalm xxiii. 4.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Psalm xxxvii. 25.
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
Psalm xxxvii. 35.
Spreading himself like a green bay tree.
Psalm xxxvii. 37.
Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright.
Psalm xxxix. 3.
While I was musing the fire burned.
Psalm xlv. 1.
My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
Psalm lv. 6.
Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
Psalm lxxii. 9.
His enemies shall lick the dust.
Psalm lxxxv. 10.
Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed
each other.
Psalm xc. 9.
We spend our years as a tale that is told.
Psalm cvii. 27.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their
wit's end.
Psalm cxxvii. 2.
He giveth his beloved sleep.
Psalm cxxxiii. 1.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together
in unity!
Psalm cxxxvii. 5.
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
Psalm cxxxvii. 2.
We hanged our harps on the willows.
Psalm cxxxix. 14.
For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Proverbs iii. 17.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
Proverbs xi. 14.
In the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
Proverbs xiii. 12.
Hope deferred maksth the heart sick.
Proverbs xiv. 9.
Fools make a mock at sin.
Proverbs xiv. 10.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness.
Proverbs xiv. 34.
Righteousness exalteth a nation.
Proverbs xv. 1.
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
Proverbs xv. 17.
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred
therewith.
Proverbs xvi. 18.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs xvi. 31.
The hoary head is a crown of glory.
Proverbs xviii. 14.
A wounded spirit who can bear?
Proverbs xxii. 6.
Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not
depart from it.
Proverbs xxiii. 5.
For riches certainly make themselves wings.
Proverbs xxiv. 33.
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to
sleep.
Proverbs xxv. 22.
For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.
Proverbs xxvi. 13.
There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.
Proverbs xxvii. 1.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may
bring forth.
Proverbs xxviii. 1.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth.
Ecclesiastes i. 9.
There is no new thing under the sun.
Ecclesiastes i. 14.
All is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ecclesiastes v. 12.
The sleep of a laboring man is sweet.
Ecclesiastes vii. 2.
It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of
feasting.
Ecclesiastes vii. 16.
Be not righteous overmuch
Ecclesiastes ix. 4.
For a living dog is better than a dead lion,
Ecclesiastes ix. 10.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.
Ecclesiastes ix. 11.
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
Ecclesiastes xi. 1.
Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.
Ecclesiastes xii. 1.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
Ecclesiastes xii. 5.
And the grasshopper shall be a burden.
Ecclesiastes xii. 5.
Man goeth to his long home.
Ecclesiastes xii. 6.
Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the
pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Ecclesiastes xii. 7.
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes xii. 8.
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity.
Ecclesiastes xii. 12.
Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of
the flesh.
Isaiah xi. 6.
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down
with the kid.
Isaiah xxviii. 10.
Precept upon precept; line upon line: here a little, and there a little.
Isaiah xxxviii. 1.
Set thine house in order.
Isaiah xl. 6.
All flesh is grass.
Isaiah xl. 15.
Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the
small dust of the balance.
Isaiah xlii. 3.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not
quench.
Isaiah liii. 7.
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.
Isaiah lx. 22.
A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation.
Isaiah lxi. 3.
To give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
Isaiah lxiv. 6.
We all do fade as a leaf.
Jeremiah vii. 3.
Amend your ways and your doings.
Jeremiah viii. 22.
Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there?
Jeremiah xiii. 23.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
Ezekiel xviii. 2.
The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on
edge.
Daniel v. 27.
Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
Daniel vi. 12.
The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which
altereth not.
Hosea viii. 7.
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
Micah iv. 3.
And they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears
into pruning-hooks.
Micah iv. 4.
But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree.
Habakkuk ii. 2.
Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that
readeth it.
Malachi iv. 2.
But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with
healing in his wings.
Ecelesiasticus xiii. 1.
He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.
Ecelesiasticus xiii. 7.
He will laugh thee to scorn.
* * * * *
COMMON PRAYER.
Morning Prayer.
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we
have done those things which we ought not to have done.
Psalm cv. 18.
The iron entered into his soul. Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent.
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
The Burial Service.
In the midst of life we are in death. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,
dust to dust.
* * * * *
NEW TESTAMENT.
Matthew ii. 18.
Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because
they are not.
Matthew iv. 4.
Man shall not live by bread alone.
Matthew v. 13.
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor,
wherewith shall it be salted?
Matthew v. 14.
Ye are the light of the world. A city set upon a hill cannot be hid.
Matthew vi. 3.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand
doeth.
Matthew vi. 21.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matthew vi. 24.
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
Matthew vi. 28.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither
do they spin.
Matthew vi. 34.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof.
Matthew vii. 6.
Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.
Matthew vii. 7.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it
shall be opened unto you.
Matthew viii. 20.
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son
of Man hath not where to lay his head.
Matthew ix. 37.
The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.
Matthew x. 16.
Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
Matthew x. 30.
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Matthew xii. 33.
The tree is known by his fruit.
Matthew xii. 34.
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Matthew xiii. 57.
A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own
house.
Matthew xiv. 27.
Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
Matthew xv. 14.
And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Matthew xv. 27.
Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
Matthew xvi. 23.
Get thee behind me, Satan.
Matthew xvi. 26.
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul?
Matthew xvii. 4.
It is good for us to be here.
Matthew xix. 6.
What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder.
Matthew xix. 24.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Matthew xx. 15.
Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?
Matthew xxii. 14.
For many are called, but few are chosen.
Matthew xxiii. 24.
Ye blind guides! which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Matthew xxiii. 27.
For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful
outward, but are within full of dead men's bones.
Matthew xxiv. 28.
For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered
together.
Matthew xxv. 29.
Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance:
but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
Matthew xxvi. 41.
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is
willing, but the flesh is weak.
Mark iv. 9.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Mark v. 9.
My name is Legion.
Mark ix. 44.
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Luke iii. 9.
And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees.
Luke iv. 23.
Physician, heal thyself.
Luke x. 37.
Go, and do thou likewise.
Luke x. 42.
But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which
shall not be taken away from her.
Luke xi. 23.
He that is not with me is against me.
Luke xii. 19.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many
years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Luke xii. 35.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning.
Luke xvi. 8.
For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the
children of light.
Luke xvii. 2.
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
he cast into the sea.
Luke xvii. 32.
Remember Lot's wife.
Luke xix. 22.
Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.
John i. 29.
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!
John i. 46.
Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?
John iii. 3.
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
John iii. 8.
The wind bloweth where it listeth.
John v. 35. He was a burning and a shining light.
John vi. 12.
Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
John vii. 24.
Judge not according to the appearance.
John xii. 8.
For the poor always ye have with you.
John xii, 35.
Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
John xiv. 1.
Let not your heart be troubled.
John xiv. 2.
In my Father's house are many mansions.
John xv. 13.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends.
Acts ix. 5.
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Acts xx. 35.
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Romans ii. 11.
For there is no respect of persons with God.
Romans vi. 23.
For the wages of sin is death.
Romans viii. 28.
And we know that all things work together or good to them that love God.
Romans xii. 16.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
Romans xii. 20.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink:
for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Romans xii. 21.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans xiii. 1.
The powers that be are ordained of God,
Romans xiii. 7.
Render therefore to all their dues.
Romans xiii. 10.
Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Romans xiv. 5.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
1 Corinthians iii. 6.
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
1 Corinthians iii. 13.
Every man's work shall be made manifest,
1 Corinthians v. 3.
Absent in body, but present in spirit.
1 Corinthians v. 6.
Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
1 Corinthians vii. 31.
For the fashion of this world passeth away,
1 Corinthians ix. 22.
I am made all things to all men.
1 Corinthians x. 12.
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
1 Corinthians xiii. 1.
As sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
1 Corinthians xiii. 11.
When I was a child I spake as a child.
1 Corinthians xiii. 12.
For now we see through a glass, darkly.
1 Corinthians xv. 33.
Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
1 Corinthians xv. 47.
The first man is of the earth, earthy.
1 Corinthians xv. 55.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
2 Corinthians v. 7.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
2 Corinthians vi. 2.
Behold, now is the accepted time,
2 Corinthians vi. 8.
By evil report and good report.
Galatians vi. 5.
For every man shall bear his own burden,
Galatians vi. 7.
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Ephesians iv. 26.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
Philippians i. 21.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Colossians ii. 21.
Touch not; taste not; handle not.
1 Thessalonians i. 3.
Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love.
1 Thessalonians v. 21.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
1 Timothy iii. 3,
Not greedy of filthy lucre.
1 Timothy v. 18.
The laborer is worthy of his reward.
1 Timothy v. 23.
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake.
1 Timothy vi. 10.
For the love of money is the root of all evil.
2 Timothy iv. 7.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith.
Titus i. 15.
Unto the pure all things are pure.
Hebrews xi. 1.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped' for, the evidence of things
not seen.
Hebrews xii. 6.
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.
Hebrews xiii. 2.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have
entertained angels unawares.
James i. 12.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation for when he is tried he
shall receive the crown of life.
James iii. P
Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
James iv. 7.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
1 Peter iv. 8.
Charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
1 Peter v. 8.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring
lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
2 Peter iii. 10.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.
1 John iv. 18.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.
Revelation ii. 10.
Be thou faithful unto death.
Revelation ii. 27.
He shall rule them with a rod of iron.
Revelation xxii. 13.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
* * * * *
SHAKESPEARE.
TEMPEST.
Act i. Sc. 2.
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.
Act i. Sc. 2.
I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
A very ancient and fishlike smell.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
Our revels row are ended: these our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like an insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
Act i. Sc. 2.
I have no other but a woman's reason;
I think him so, because I think him so.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
To make a virtue of necessity.
Act iv. Sc. 4.
Is she not passing fair?
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
Act v. Sc. 1.
They say, there is divinity in odd numbers,
either in nativity, chance, or death.
TWELFTH NIGHT.
Act i. Sc. 1.
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.--
That strain again--it had a dying fall;
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor.
Act i. Sc, 3.
I am sure care's an enemy to life.
Act i. Sc. 5.
'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Dost thou think, because them art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?
Act ii. Sc. 4.
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat, like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Love sought is good, but given unsought is
better.
Act iii. Sc, 2.
Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though
thou write with a goose-pen, no matter.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon them.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues.
Act i. Sc. 5.
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
But man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority,
* * * * *
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
As make the angels weep.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
The miserable have no other medicine,
But only hope.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
Take, O take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.[1]
[Note 1: This song; is found in "The Bloody Brother, or Rollo, Duke
of Normandy," by Beaumont and Fletcher, Act 5, Sc. 2, with the following
additional stanza:
"Hide, O hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the fruits that grow
Are of those that April wears;
But first set my poor heart free.
Bound in those icy chains for thee."
There has been much controversy about the authorship, but the more
probable opinion seems to be that the second stanza was added by
Fletcher.]
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Act i. Sc. 1.
He hath indeed better bettered expectation.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love.
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no other agent.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy; I were but little happy, if I
could say how much.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Sits the wind in that corner?
Act ii. Sc. 3.
When I said I should die a bachelor, I did
not think I should live till I were married.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Some, Cupid kills with arrows, some with
traps.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Everyone can master a grief, but he that
Lath it.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Are you good men and true?
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Is most tolerable, and not to be endured.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Comparisons are odorous.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
O that he were here to write me down--an ass!
Act iv. Sc. 2.
A fellow that had losses.
Act v. Sc. 1.
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
Act i. Sc. 1.
But earthly happier is the rose distilled
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Act i. Sc. 2.
A proper man as any one shall see in a summer's day.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
In maiden meditation, fancy free.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted.
Act v. Sc. 1.
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
Act v. Sc. 1.
He draweth the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
Act i. Sc. 1.
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm
within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Act i. Sc. 1.
I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
Act i, Sc. 1.
Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing; more than any man in all
Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of
chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them: and, when you have
them, they are not worth the search.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Even there, where merchants most do congregate.
Act i. Sc. 3.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe,
Act i. Sc. 3.
Many a time, and oft,
the Rialto, have you rated me.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
Act ii, Sc. 6.
All things that are,
Are with more spirits chased than enjoyed.
Act ii. Sc. 7.
All that glisters is not gold.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
I am a Jew: hath not a Jew eyes? hath not
a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions?
Act iii. Sc. 5.
Thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall
into Charybdis, your mother.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting
thee twice?
Act iv. Sc. 1.
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes,
Act iv. Sc. 1.
A Daniel come to judgment.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
Is it so nominated in the bond.
* * * * *
I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond?
Act iv. Sc. 1.
I have thee on the hip
Act iv. Sc. 1.
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word
Act v. Sc. 1.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Act v. Sc. 1.
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
Act v. Sc. 1.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
Act v. Sc. 1.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
* * * * *
AS YOU LIKE IT.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
Act i. Sc. 2.
My pride fell with my fortunes.
Act i. Sc. 3.
_Cel_. Not a word?
_Ros_. Not one to throw at a dog.
Act i. Sc. 3.
O how full of briers is this working-day world!
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
And this our life, exempt from public haunts,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou mak'st a testament,
As wordlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much."
Act ii. Sc. 3.
And He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age!
Act ii. Sc. 3.
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
* * * * *
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.
Act ii. Sc. 7.
And railed on lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms....
And looking on it with lack-luster eye,
"Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the
world wags.
* * * * *
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale."
* * * * *
Motley's the only wear.
Act ii. Sc. 7.
If ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it.
Act ii. Sc. 7.
I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please.
Act ii. Sc. 7.
The why is plain as way to parish church.
Act ii. Sc. 7.
All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts
* * * * *
And then, the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then, the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth And then the justice,
* * * * *
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon.
* * * * *
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange, eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion.
Act ii. Sc. 7.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?
Act iii. Sc. 8.
Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
I had rather have a fool to make me merry, than experience to make me
sad.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for
love.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
Pacing through the forest,
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy.
Act v. Sc. 2.
How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's
eyes!
Act v. Sc. 4.
Your _If_ is the only peacemaker; much
virtue in _If_.
Epilogue.
Good wine needs no bush.
* * * * *
TAMING OF THE SHREW.
Act iv. Sc. 1,
And thereby hangs a tale.
Act v. Sc. 2.
My cake is dough.
WINTER'S TALE.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
* * * * *
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
Act i. Sc. 1.
It were all one,
That I should love a bright, particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
Act v. Sc. 3.
Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
* * * * *
COMEDY OF ERRORS.
Act v. Sc. 1.
They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-faced villain,
A mere anatomy.
MACBETH.
Act i. Sc. 1.
When shall we three meet again,
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Act i. Sc. 1.
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Act i. Sc. 3.
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it.
Act i. Sc. 4.
There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face.
Act i. Sc. 5.
Yet I do fear thy nature;
It is too full of the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.
Act i. Sc. 5.
Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters.
Act i. Sc. 7.
If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
Act i. Sc. 7.
That but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here.
Act i. Sc. 7.
This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips.
Act i. Sc. 7.
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off.
Act i. Sc, 7.
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other--.
Act i. Sc. 7.
I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people.
Act i. Sc. 7.
Letting _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_.
Like the poor cat i' the adage.
Act i. Sc. 7.
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
Act i. Sc. 7.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle towards my hand?
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabout.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
For it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell!
Act ii. Sc. 2.
The attempt, and not the deed,
Confound us.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Infirm of purpose!
Act ii. Sc. 3.
The labor we delight in, physics pain.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at, and killed.
Act iii. Sc, 1.
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren scepter in my gripe,
Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
_Mur_. We are men, my liege.
_Mac_. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
We have scotched the snake, not killed it.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Duncan is in his grave!
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
But now, I am cabined, cribbed, confined bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Now good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Thou canst not say, I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
Act iii. Sc. 4.
What man dare, I dare.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder?
Act iv. Sc. 1.
Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.[2]
[Note 2: These lines occur also in "The Witch" of Thomas
Middleton, Act 5, Sc. 2, and it is uncertain to which the
priority should be ascribed.]
Act iv. Sc. 1.
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
A deed without a name.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
I'll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
Show his eyes, and grieve his heart!
Come like shadows, so depart.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?
Act iv. Sc. 1.
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?
Act iv. Sc. 3.
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue!
Act v. Sc. 3.
My way 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, but dare not.
Act v. Sc. 3.
Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.
Act v. Sc. 3.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Act v. Sc, 3.
Throw physic to the dogs: I'll none of it.
Act v. Sc. 3.
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.
Act v, Sc. 5.
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still, _They come_.
Act v. Sc. 5.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Act v. Sc. 5.
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
Act. v. Sc. 7.
I bear a charmed life.
Act. v. Sc. 7.
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.
Act v. Sc. 7.
Lay on, Macduff;
And damned be him that first cries, Hold, enough!
* * * * *
KING JOHN.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
For courage mounteth with occasion.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
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!
* * * * *
Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,
And hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
Now oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Makes deeds ill done!
* * * * *
KING RICHARD II.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?
Act i. Sc. 3.
The apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
The ripest fruit first falls.
FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV.
Act i. Sc. 2.
'Tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation.
Act i. Sc. 2.
He will give the devil his due.
Act i. Sc. 3.
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
Act i. Sc. 3.
By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
I know a trick worth two of that.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
Call you that backing of your friends? a plague upon such backing!
Act ii. Sc. 4.
A plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as plenty as
blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
I was a coward on instinct.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
No more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
_Glen_. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
_Hot_. Why, so can I, or so can any man: But will they come when you do
call for them?
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Tell truth and shame the devil.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew,
Than one of these same meter ballad-mongers.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?
Act v. Sc. 4.
I could have better spared a better man.
Act v. Sc. 4.
The better part of valor is--discretion.
Act v. Sc. 4.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you, I was down,
and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant, and
fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.
SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless.
So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burned.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remembered knolling a departed friend.
Act i. Sc. 2.
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
He hath eaten me out of house and home.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
He was, indeed, the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Sleep, gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Act iii. Sc. 1.
With all appliances and means to boot.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Act iv. Sc. 4.
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity.
Act iv. Sc. 4.
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
Act v. Sc. 3.
Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die.
* * * * *
KING HENRY V.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Consideration like an angel came,
And whipped the offending Adam out of him.
Act i, Sc. 1.
When he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still.
Act ii Sc. 1.
Base is the slave that pays.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
'A babbled of green fields.
Act iv. Chorus.
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words--
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster--
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
* * * * *
FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI.
Act v. Sc. 3.
She's beautiful; and therefore to be wooed:
She is a woman; therefore to be won.
* * * * *
SECOND PART OF KING HENRY VI.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
He dies and makes no sign.
THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI.
Act v. Sc. 6.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
KING RICHARD III
Act i. Sc. 1.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, Bent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Why I, in this weak, piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time.
Act i. Sc. 2.
To leave this keen encounter of our wits.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Was ever woman in this humor wooed?
Was ever woman in this humor won?
Act i. Sc. 4.
O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.
Act iv. Sc. 4.
Let not the heavens hear these telltale women
Hail on the Lord's anointed.
Act iv. Sc. 4.
An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told
Act v. Sc. 2.
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we marched on without impediment.
Act v. Sc. 2.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings,
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
Act v. Sc. 3.
The king's name is a tower of strength.
Act v. Sc. 4.
I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
Act v. Sc. 4.
A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
KING HENRY VIII.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Verily,
I swear, 'tis 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.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
And then to breakfast with
What appetite you have.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man. To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
O how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.
Act v. Sc. 2.
To dance attendance on their lordship's pleasures.
* * * * *
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin
Act iii. Sc. 3.
And, like a dewdrop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to air.
* * * * *
CORIOLANUS.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Hear you this Triton of the minnows?
* * * * *
JULIUS CAESAR.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Beware the Ides of March!
Act i. Sc. 2.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
Act i. Sc. 2.
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 bade him follow.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world,
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights;
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort,
As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit,
That could be moved to smile at anything.
Act i. Sc. 2.
But, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Yon are my true and honorable wife,
As dear to me as the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Though last, not least, in love.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Cry _Havoc_, and let slip the dogs of war.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me
for my cause; and be silent that you may hear.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved
Rome more.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Who is here so base, that would be a bondman?
If any, speak: for him have I offended.
Act iii. Sc. 2..
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
But yesterday, the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
If you have years, prepare to shed them now.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
See, what a rent the envious Casca made!
Act iii. Sc. 2.
This was the most unkindest cut of all.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Great Caesar fell.
O what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar, that should move
The stones of Borne to rise and mutiny.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats
For I am armed so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
A friend should bear a friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune:
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.
Act v. Sc. 5.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that nature might stand up
And say to all the world, _This was a man_!
* * * * *
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
Act i. Sc. 1.
There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
For her own person,
It beggared all description.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
* * * * *
CYMBELINE.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Some griefs are med'cinable.
Act iii. Sc. 6.
Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.
* * * * *
KING LEAR.
Act i. Sc. 4.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is,
To have a thankless child.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
O, let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks.
Act iil. Sc. 2.
Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipped of justice.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
I am a man
More sinned against than sinning.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?
* * * * *
Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
Act iii. Sc. 6.
The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.
Act iv. Sc. 6.
Ay, every inch a king.
Act. iv. Sc. 6.
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
to sweeten my imagination.
Act iv. Sc. 6.
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all.
Act v. Sc. 3.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
Act. v. Sc. 3.
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman.
* * * * *
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Act i. Sc. 1.
The weakest goes to the wall.
Act i. Sc. 2.
One fire burns out another's burning.
One pain is lessened by another's anguish.
Act i. Sc. 5.
Too early seen unknown, and known too late,
Act ii. Sc. 2.
He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
Act ii. Sc. 2.
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Act ii. Sc. 2.
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye,
Than twenty of their swords.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
At lover's perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
O swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Good-night, good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears
Act ii. Sc. 4.
Stabbed with a white wench's black eye.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
I am the very pink of courtesy.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
My man's as true as steel.
Act ii, Sc. 6.
Here comes the lady;--O, so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.
Act iii. Sc, 1.
A plague o' both the houses!
Act iii. Sc. 1.
_Rom_. Courage, man I the hurt cannot be much.
_Mer_. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door;
but 'tis enough.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy
Act iii. Sc. 5.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
Not stopping o'er the bounds of modesty.
Act v. Sc. I.
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.
Act v. Sc. 1.
A beggarly account of empty boxes.
Act v. Sc. 1.
My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Act v. Sc. 3.
Beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Act v. Sc. 3.
Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace!
* * * * *
HAMLET.
Act i. Sc. 1.
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Act i. Sc. 1.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
Act i. Sc. 1.
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
Act i. Sc. 2.
The head is not more native to the heart.
Act i. Sc. 2.
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
Act i, Sc. 2.
Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems
Act i. Sc. 2.
But I have that within which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Act i. Sc. 2.
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! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
* * * * *
That it should come to this!
Hyperion to a satyr! so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
* * * * *
Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on.
* * * * *
Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month.
* * * * *
Like Niobe, all tears.
* * * * *
My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Act i. Sc. 2.
In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Act i. Sc. 2.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Act i. Sc. 2.
A countenance more
In sorrow than in anger.
Act i. Sc. 3.
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.
* * * * *
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
* * * * *
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Springes to catch woodcocks.
Act i. Sc. 4.
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.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Act i. Sc. 4.
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Let me not burst in ignorance!
Act i. Sc. 4.
I do not set my life at a pin's fee.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Act i. Sc. 5.
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful Porcupine.
Act i. Sc. 5.
O my prophetic soul! my uncle!
Act i. Sc. 5.
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
Act i. Sc. 5.
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
Act i. Sc. 5.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Act i. Sc. 5.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave,
To tell us this.
Act i. Sc. 5.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Act i. Sc. 5.
The time is out of joint.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
This is the very ecstasy of love.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true, 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis, 'tis true.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Doubt thou the stars are tire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
Act ii. Sc. 2,
Still harping on my daughter.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Though this be madness, yet there's method in it.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in
faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action,
how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a God!
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Man delights not me--nor woman neither.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
I know a hawk from a hand-saw.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Come, give us a taste of your quality.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
'Twas caviare to the general.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?
Act ii. Sc. 2.
The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
To be, or not to be? that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?--To die--to sleep--
No more--and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to--'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die--to sleep--
To sleep! perchance, to dream--ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
* * * * *
The spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes;
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin. Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death--
The undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveler returns--puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
* * * * *
Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
thon shalt not escape calumny.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers!
Act iii. Sc. X.
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
It out-herods Herod.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made
them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of hearts,
As I do thee.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Something too much of this.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Here's metal more attractive.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Let the galled jade wince, our withers are un-wrung.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
It will discourse most eloquent music.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Very like a whale.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
They fool me to the top of my bent.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven
Act iii. Sc. 4.
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 combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
A king Of shreds and patches.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard.
Act iv. Sc. 5.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions!
Act iv. Sc. 5.
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would.
Act v. Sc. 1.
How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation
will undo us.
Act v. Sc. 1.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest; of
most excellent fancy.
Act v. Sc. 1.
Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of
merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Act v. Sc. 1.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Act v. Sc. 1.
Imperial Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the
wind away.
Act v. Sc. 1.
Sir, though I am not splenetive and rash, Yet have I in me something
dangerous.
Act v. Sc. 1.
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
Act v. Sc. 2.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.
Act v. Sc. 2.
There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
Act v. Sc. 2.
A hit, a very palpable hit.
* * * * *
OTHELLO.
Act i. Sc. 1.
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors.
Act i. Sc. 3.
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more.
Act i. Sc. 3.
I will a round, unvarnished tale deliver
Of my whole course of love.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents, by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach.
Act i. Sc. 3.
My story being done
She gave me for my pains a world of signs:
She swore, In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing; strange;
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wished she had not heard it; yet she
wished
That Heaven had made her such a man.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Upon this hint I spake.
Act i. Sc. 3.
I do perceive hero a divided duty.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
For I am nothing, if not critical.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
_Iago._ To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.
_Des_. O most lame and impotent conclusion!
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle
From her propriety.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast
no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!
Act ii. Sc. 3.
O that men should put an enemy in their
mouths, to steal away their brains!
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Good name, in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs roe of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth make
The meat it feeds on.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Trifles, light as air,
Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy sirups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow'dst yesterday.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen,
Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
O, now, forever,
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
* * * * *
Othello's occupation's gone!
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Give me the ocular proof.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
But this denoted a foregone conclusion.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
They laugh that win.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
Steeped me in poverty to the very lips.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
But, alas! to make me
A fixed figure, for the time of scorn
To point his slow, unmovin finger at.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
And put in every honest hand a whip,
To lash the rascal naked through the world.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
'Tis neither here nor there.
Act v. Sc. 1.
He hath a daily beauty in his life.
Act v. Sc. 2.
I have done the state some service, and they know it.
Act v. Sc. 2.
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.
Then must you speak.
* * * * *
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well.
* * * * *
Of one, whose hand,
Like the base Júdean, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe.
* * * * *
Albeit unused to the melting mood.
* * * * *
THOMAS TUSSER.
1523-1580.
_Moral Reflections on the Wind_.
Except wind stands as never it stood,
It is an ill wind turns none to good.
FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE.
1554-1624.
_Mustapha_. Act v. Sc. 4.
O wearisome condition of humanity!
* * * * *
Sonnet LVI.
And out of minde as soon as out of sight.
* * * * *
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.
1565-1593.
_Hero and Leander_.
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight.
_The Passionate Shepherd to his Love_.
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, and hills, and folds,
Woods, or steepy mountains, yield.
* * * * *
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
1552-1618.
_The Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd_.
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
_The Silent Lover_.
Silence in love betrays more love
Than words, though ne'er so witty;
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.
* * * * *
JOSHUA SYLVESTER
1563-1618.
_The Soul's Errand_[3]
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand!
Fear not to touch the best:
The truth shall be thy warrant.
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
[Note 3: Sylvester is now generally regarded as the author of
"The Soul's Errand," long attributed to Raleigh.]
* * * * *
RICHARD BARNFIELD.
_Address to the Nightingale_.[4]
As it fell upon a day,
In the merry mouth of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made.
[Note 4: This song, often attributed to Shakespeare, is now confidently
assigned to Barnfield, and it is found in his collection
of Poems, published between 1594 and 1598.]
EDMUND SPENSER.
1553-1597.
_Faerie Queene_.
Book i. Canto i. St. 35.
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
Book 1. Canto iii. St. 4.
Her angels face,
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.
Book i. Canto ix. St. 35.
That darkesome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind.
Book ii. Canto vi. St. 12.
No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd
No arborett with painted blossomes drest
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.
Book iv. Canto ii. St.
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled.
_Lines on his Promised Pension_.
I was promised on a time
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season,
I received nor rhyme nor reason.
* * * * *
_Hymn in Honor of Beauty_. Line 132.
For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the Body make.
* * * * *
MOTHER HUBBERD'S TALE.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide;
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
* * * * *
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
SIR HENRY WOTTON.
1568-1639.
_The Character of a Happy Life_.
How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
* * * * *
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
* * * * *
_To his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia_.
You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light!
* * * * *
DR. JOHN DONNE.
1573-1631.
FUNERAL ELEGIES, ON THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL.
_The Second Anniversary_. Line 245.
We understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say her body thought.
* * * * *
_Elegy_ 8. _The Comparison_.
She and comparisons are odious.
BEN JONSON.
1571-1637.
_To Celia_.
(From "The Forest.")
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
* * * * *
_The Sweet Neglect_. (From the "Silent Woman." Act i. Sc. 5.)
Still to be neat, still to be drest
As you were going to a feast.
* * * * *
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace.
* * * * *
_Good Life_, _Long Life_.
In small proportion we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on Elizabeth_.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.
_Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke_.
Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
* * * * *
_To the Memory of Shakespeare_.
Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare rise.
Small Latin, and less Greek.
He was not of an age, but for all time.
* * * * *
Sweet swan of Avon!
* * * * *
_Every Man in his Humor_. Act. ii. Sc. 3.
Get money; still get money, boy;
No matter by what means.
FRANCIS BEAUMONT.
1585-1616.
_Letter to Ben Jonson_.
What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.
* * * * *
GEORGE WITHER.
1588-1667.
_The Shepherd's Resolution_.
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Dye because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care,
'Cause another's rosie are?
If she be not so to me,
What care I how faire she be?
* * * * *
FRANCIS QUARLES.
1592-1644.
_Emblems_. Book ii. 2.
Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.
Book ii. Epigram 10.
This house is to be let for life or years;
Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears,
Cupid 't has long stood void; her bills make known,
She must be dearly let, or let alone.
* * * * *
GEORGE HERBERT.
1593-1632.
_Virtue_.
Sweet day, so cool, so cairn, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skies.
* * * * *
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives.
* * * * *
SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
1608-1644.
_On a Wedding_.
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.
* * * * *
Her lips were red, and one was thin,
Compared with that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly.
_Song_.
Why so pale and wan, fond lover,
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
* * * * *
ROBERT HERRICK.
1591-1660.
_The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls_.
Some asked me where the Rubies grew,
And nothing I did say;
But with my finger pointed to
The lips of Julia.
Some asked how Pearls did grow, and where?
Then spoke I to my Girl,
To part her lips, and showed them there
The quarelets of Pearl.
* * * * *
_On her Feet_.
Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep
A little out, and then,
As if they played at Bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.
_To the Virgins to make much of Time_.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower, that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
* * * * *
_Night Piece to Julia_.
Her eyes the glowworm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
* * * * *
SIR RICHARD LOVELACE.
1618-1658.
_Orpheus to Beasts_.
Oh! could you view the melody
Of every grace,
And music of her face,
You'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye,
Than now you hear.
* * * * *
_To Lucasta on Going to the Wars_.
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.
_To Althea from Prison_.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron barres a cage;
Mindes innocent, and quiet, take
That for an hermitage.
* * * * *
JAMES SHIRLEY.
1596-1666.
_Contention of Ajax and Ulysses_.
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
* * * * *
RICHARD CRASHAW.
--1650.
The conscious water saw its God and blushed.[5]
[Note 5: Lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit.--_Latin Poems_]
* * * * *
_In Praise of Lessius' Rule of Health_.
A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven hath a summer's day.
* * * * *
THOMAS DEKKER.
--1638.
_Old Fortunatus_.
And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.
* * * * *
_Honest Whore_. P. ii. Act i. Sc. 2.
We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
* * * * *
ABRAHAM COWLEY.
1618-1667.
_The Waiting-Maid_.
Th' adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barb'rous skill;
'Tis like the poisoning of a dart,
Too apt before to kill.
* * * * *
_The Motto_.
What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?
* * * * *
_On the Death of Crashaw_.
His _faith_, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his _life_, I'm sure, was in the right.
* * * * *
_The Garden_. Essay V.
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
* * * * *
SIR JOHN DENHAM.
1615-1679.
_Cooper's Hill_.
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.
* * * * *
_The Sophy_. _A Tragedy_.
Actions of the last age are like Almanacs of the last year.
* * * * *
THOMAS CAREW.
1589-1639.
_Disdain Returned_.
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
* * * * *
_Conquest by Flight_.
Then fly betimes, for only they
Conquer love, that run away.
* * * * *
EDMUND WALLER.
1605-1687.
_Verses upon his Divine Poesy_.
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
* * * * *
_On a Girdle_.
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair;
Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.
* * * * *
_Go, Lovely Rose_.
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
* * * * *
_To a Lady, Singing a Song of his Composing_.
The 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.
* * * * *
MILTON.
1608-1674.
PARADISE LOST.
Book i. Line 10.
Or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God.
Book i. Line 22.
What in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
Book i. Line 62.
Yet from those flames
No light; but only darkness visible.
Book i. Line 65.
Where peace
And rest can never dwell: hope never comes,
That comes to all.
Book i. Line 105.
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost.
Book i. Line 254.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Book i. Line 261.
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Book i. Line 275.
Heard so oft
In worst extremes and on the perilous edge
Of battle.
Book i. Line 303.
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High over-arched imbower.
Book i. Line 330.
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!
Book i. Line 540.
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds.
Book i. Line 550.
In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft recorders.
Book i. Line 619.
Thrice he essayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn,
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.
Book i. Line 742.
From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day.
Book ii. Line 113.
But all was false and hollow, though his tongue
Dropped manna; and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
Book ii. Line 300.
With grave
Aspéct he rose, and in his rising seemed
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care.
Book ii. Line 306.
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies: his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer's noontide air.
Book ii. Line 560.
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute.
Book ii. Line 666.
The other shape,
If shape it might be called that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb.
Book ii. Line 681.
Whence and what art them, execrable shape?
Book ii. Line 846.
And Death
Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be filled.
Book ii. Line 996.
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded.
Book iii. Line 1.
Hail, holy light! offspring of Heaven first-born.
Book iii. Line 44.
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.
Book iii. Line 495.
Since called
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown.
Book iv. Line 34.
At whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads.
Book iv. Line 76.
And in the lowest deep, a lower deep,
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
Book iv. Line 108.
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost:
Evil, be thou my good.
Book iv. Line 297.
For contemplation he, and valor, formed,
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace.
Book iv. Line 300.
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Bound from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
Book iv. Line 506.
Imparadised in one another's arms.
Book iv, Line 598.
Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad.
Book iv. Line 639.
With thee conversing, I forget all time,
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Book iv. Line 677.
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep,
Book iv. Line 750.
Hail, wedded love, mysterious law; true source
Of human happiness.
Book iv. Line 830,
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng.
Book v. Line 1.
Now morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl.
Book v. Line 71.
Good, the more
Communicated, more abundant grows.
Book v. Line 153.
These are thy glorious works, Parent of good
Book v. Line 331,
So saying, with dispatchful look, in haste
She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent.
Book v. Line 601.
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.
Book v. Line 637.
They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet
Quaff immortality and joy.
Book vi. Line 211.
Dire was the noise
Of conflict.
Book vii. Line 30.
Still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
Book viii. Line 84.
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.
Book viii. Line 488.
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
Book viii. Line 502.
Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,
That would be wooed and not unsought be won.
Book viii. Line 548.
So well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best!
Book viii. Line 600.
Those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies, that daily flow
From all her words and actions.
Book viii. Line 618.
To whom the angel, with a smile that glowed
Celestial rosy red (love's proper Hue)
Book ix. Line 249.
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
Book x. Line 77.
Yet I shall temper so
Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most
Them fully satisfied, and thee appease.
Book xii. Line 646.
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
* * * * *
PARADISE REGAINED.
Book iv Line 240.
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence.
Book iv. Line 267.
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democraty,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne.
Book iv. Line 330.
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
* * * * *
SAMSON AGONISTES.
Line 293.
Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to men.
Line 1350.
He's gone, and who knows how he may report
Thy words, by adding fuel to the flame?
* * * * *
COMUS.
Line 205.
A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues, that syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
Line 221.
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
Line 244.
Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?
Line 256.
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul
And lap it in Elysium.
Line 381.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' th' center and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun,
Line 476.
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose;
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Line 560.
I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the rib of Death.
* * * * *
LYCIDAS.
Line 10.
He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
Line 14.
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Line 70.
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble minds)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.
Line 101.
Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark.
Line 109.
The pilot of the Galilean lake.
Line 168.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, with new spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
Line 198.
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.
* * * * *
L'ALLEGRO.
Line 27.
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles.
Line 33.
Come, and trip it as you go,
On the light, fantastic toe.
Line 67.
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Line 79.
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighboring eyes.
Line 117.
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men.
Line 133.
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
Line 136.
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.
* * * * *
IL PENSEROSO.
Line 39.
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.
Line 61.
Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Line 106.
Such notes, as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.
Line 120.
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Line 159.
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim, religious light.
* * * * *
_Sonnet to the Lady Margaret Ley_.
That old man eloquent.
* * * * *
_Sonnet on his Blindness_.
They also serve who only stand and wait.
* * * * *
_Second Sonnet to Cyriac Skinner_.
Yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.
* * * * *
_Sonnet on his Deceased Wife_.
But oh! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked; she fled; and day brought back my night.
SAMUEL BUTLER.
1612-1680.
_Hudibras_.
Part i. Canto i. Line 51
Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak.
Part i. Canto i. Line 67
He could distinguish, and divide
A hair, 'twixt south and southwest side.
Part i. Canto i. Line 81
For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope.
Part i. Canto i. Line 131.
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore.
Part i. Canto i. Line 149
He knew whit's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
Part i. Canto i. Line 199
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By Apostolic blows and knocks.
Part i. Canto i. Line 215
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to.
Part i. Canto i. Line 463
For rhyme the rudder is of verses,
With which, like ships, they steer their
courses.
Part i. Canto i. Line 489
He ne'er considered it, as loth
To look a gift-horse in the mouth.
Part i. Canto i. Line 821
Quoth Hudibras, "I smell a rat;
Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate."
Part i. Canto i. Line 852
Or shear swine, all cry and no wool.
Part i. Canto ii. Line 633
And bid the devil take the hin'most,
Which at this race is like to win most.
Part i. Canto ii. Line 831
With many a stiff thwack, many a bang,
Hard crab-tree and old iron rang.
Part i. Canto iii. Line 1
Ay me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron.
Part i. Canto iii. Line 263
Nor do I know what is become
Of him, more than the Pope of Rome.
Part i. Canto iii. Line 309
H' had got a hurt
O' th' inside of a deadlier sort.
Part i. Canto iii. Line 877
I am not now in fortune's power;
He that is down can fall no lower.
Part i. Canto iii. Line 1367
Thou hast
Outrun the Constable at last.
Part ii. Canto i. Line 29
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think's sufficient at one time.
Part ii. Canto i. Line 465
For what is worth in anything,
But so much money as 'twill bring.
Part ii. Canto n. Line 29
The sun had long since in the lap
Of Thetis taken out his nap,
And, like a lobster boiled, the morn
From black to red began to turn.
Part ii. Canto ii. Line 79
Have always been at daggers-drawing.
And one another clapper-clawing.
Part ii. Canto ii Line 503
And look before you ere you leap;
For as you sow, y' are like to reap.
Part ii. Canto iii. Line 1.
Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated, as to cheat.
Part ii. Canto iii. Line 261.
He made an instrument to know
If the moon shine at full or no....
And prove that she's not made of green cheese.[6]
[Note 6: "The moon is made of a green cheese"
_Jack Jugler_, p. 46.]
Part ii. Canto iii. Line 580
You have a wrong sow by the ear.
Part ii. Canto iii. Line 923
To swallow gudgeons ere they're catched,
And count their chickens ere they're hatched.
Part ii. Canto iii. Line 1067
As quick as lightning, in the breach
Just in the place where honor 's lodged,
As wise philosophers have judged,
Because a kick in that place more
Hurts honor than deep wounds before,
Part iii. Canto i. Line 3
As he that has two strings t' his bow.
Part iii. Canto ii. Line 175.
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not sinned upon.
Part iii. Canto iii. Line 243
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.
* * * * *
Part iii. Canto iii. Line 547
He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.
* * * * *
MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.
1612-1650.
_Song_, "_My Dear and only Love_."
I'll make thee famous by my pen,
And glorious by my sword.
* * * * *
DRYDEN.
1631-1700.
_Alexander's feast_.
Line 15.
None but the brave deserves the fair.
Line 60.
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
Line 66.
Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice
he slew the slain.
Line 78,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
Line 96.
For pity melts the mind to love.
Line 99.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor, but an empty bubble.
Line 106.
Take the good the gods provide thee.
Line 120
Sighed and looked, and sighed again.
Line 154.
And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.
Line 160.
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
Line 169.
He raided a mortal to the skies
She drew an angel down.
* * * * *
_Cymon and Iphigenia_.
Line 84.
He trudged along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went, for want of thought.
_Absalom and Achitophet_.
A fiery soul, which, working out its way
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er informed the tenement of clay.
Part i. Line 363
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
Part i. Line 174
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.
Part i. Line 534
Who think too little, and who talk too much
Part i. Line 545
A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long.
Part i. Line 1005
Beware the fury of a patient man.
Part ii. Line 463
For every inch, that is not fool, is rogue.
* * * * *
_All for Love_. Prologue.
Errors like straws upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
Men are but children of a larger growth.
_Conquest of Grenada_. Part i. Sc. 1.
I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
* * * * *
_Spanish Friar_. Act ii. Sc. 1.
There is a pleasure
In being mad which none but madmen know.
_Don Sebastian_. Act i. Sc. 1.
This is the porcelain clay of human kind.
* * * * *
_Translation of Juvenal's 10th Satire_.
Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.
* * * * *
_Prologue to Lee's Sophonisba_.
Thespis, the first professor of our art,
At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
* * * * *
_Imitation of the 29th of Horace_.
Book i. Line 65.
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day.
* * * * *
_On Milton_.
Three Poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third she joined the other two.
* * * * *
JOHN BUNYAN.
1628-1688.
_Apology for his Book_.
And so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.
* * * * *
Some said, "John, print it," others said,
"Not so."
Some said, "It might do good," others said,
"No."
* * * * *
_Pilgrim's Progress_.
The Slough of Despond.
* * * * *
EARL OF ROSCOMMON.
1633-1684.
_Essay on Translated Verse_.
Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense.
* * * * *
EARL OF ROCHESTER.
_Written on the Bedchamber Door of Charles II_.
Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relies on;
He never says a foolish thing,
Nor ever does a wise one.
* * * * *
KING CHARLES II.
_Written in Parliament attending the Discussion of Lord Boss' Divorce
Bill_.
As good as a play.
* * * * *
SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
1649-1721.
_Essay on Poetry_.
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
There's no such thing in nature, and you'll draw
A faultless monster, which the world ne'er saw.
* * * * *
Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor;
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
* * * * *
THOMAS OTWAY.
1651-1685.
_Venice Preserved_.
Act i. Sc. 1.
O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man; we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair to look like you.
* * * * *
JOHN NORRIS.
1657-1711.
_The Parting_.
How fading are the joys we dote upon!
Like apparitions seen and gone;
But those which soonest take their flight
Are the most exquisite and strong;
Like angel's visits, short and bright,
Mortality's too weak to bear them long.
* * * * *
NATHANIEL LEE.
1655-1692.
_Alexander the Great_.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Then he will talk--ye gods, how he will talk!
Act iv. Sc. 2.
When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war.
* * * * *
TOM BROWN.
--1704.
_Dialogues of the Dead_.
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.[7]
[Note 7: "Non amo te, Sabidi, nee possum dicere quare;
Hoc tautum possum dicere, non amo te."
_Martial_, Ep. I. xxxiii.]
* * * * *
THOMAS SOUTHERN.
1659-1746.
_Oroonoka_.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Pity's akin to love.
DANIEL DEFOE.
1661-1731.
_The True-Born Englishman_.
Part i. Line 1
Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.
* * * * *
LOUIS THEOBALD.
1688-1744.
_The Double Falsehood_.
None but himself can be his parallel.
* * * * *
MATTHEW PRIOR.
1664-1721.
_English Padlock_.
Be to her virtues very kind;
Be to her faults a little blind.
* * * * *
_Henry and Emma_.
That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.
* * * * *
_The Thief and the Cordelier_.
Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave; but was loth to depart.
_Epilogue to Lucius_.
And the gray mare will prove the better horse.[8]
[Note 8: See Hudibras, Part ii. Canto ii. line 698. Mr. Macaulay
thinks that this proverb originated in the preference generally given to
the gray mares of Flanders over the finest coach-horses of
England.--History of England, Vol. I. Ch. 3.]
* * * * *
_Imitations of Horace_.
Of two evils I have chose the least.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on Himself_.
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;
The son of Adam and of Eve:
Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?
* * * * *
_Ode in Imitation of Horace_. B. iii. Od. 2.
And virtue is her own reward.
* * * * *
COLLEY CIBBER.
1671-1757.
_Richard III_.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
Off with his head! so much for Buckingham!
Act v. Sc. 3.
Richard is himself again!
* * * * *
JOSEPH ADDISON.
1672-1719.
CATO.
Act i. Sc. 1.
The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, th' important day, big with the fate
Of Cato, and of Home.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Thy steady temper, Portius,
Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Caesar,
In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
Act i. Sc. 1.
'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius: we'll deserve it.
Act i. Sc. 1.
'Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul;
I think the Romans call it Stoicism.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget
The pale unripened beauties of the North.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
My voice is still for war.
Gods! can a Roman Senate long debate
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?
Act iv. Sc. 1.
The woman that deliberates is lost.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honor is a private station.
Act v. Sc. 1.
It must be so.--Plato, thou reasonest well.
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
* * * * *
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates Eternity to man.
Act v. Sc. I.
I'm weary of conjectures.
Act v. Sc. 1.
The soul secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
Act v. Sc. 1.
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds
* * * * *
_The Campaign_.
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.[9]
* * * * *
[Note 9: This line has been frequently ascribed to Pope, as it is
found in the Dunciad, Book iii., line 261.]
_From the Letter on Italy_.
For wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise;
Poetic fields encompass me around,
And still I seem to tread on classic ground.[10]
[Note 10: Malone states that this was the first time the phrase
_classic ground_, since so common, was ever used.]
* * * * *
_Ode_.
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue, ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
* * * * *
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
While all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their tarn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
* * * * *
Forever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.
JONATHAN SWIFT.
1667-1745.
_Imitation of Horace_. B. ii. Sat. 6.
I've often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end.
* * * * *
_Poetry, a Rhapsody_.
So geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
* * * * *
WILLIAM CONGREVE.
1669-1729.
_The Mourning Bride_. Act i. Sc. 1.
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
* * * * *
By magic numbers and persuasive sound.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned.
ALEXANDER POPE.
1688-1744.
ESSAY ON MAN.
Epistle i. Line 5.
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.
Line 13.
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise.
Line 88.
A hero perish or a sparrow fall.
Line 95.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never _is_, but always _to be_ blest.
Line 99.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.
Line 200.
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
Line 294.
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
Epistle ii. Line 1.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.[11]
[Note 11: From Charron (de la Sagesse):--"La vraye science et
le vray etude de l'homme c'est l'homme."]
Line 217.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated, needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Line 231.
Virtuous and vicious every man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree.
Line 276.
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
Epistle iii. Line 305.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
Epistle iv. Line 49.
Order is Heaven's first law.
Line 193.
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part--there all the honor lies.
Line 203.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Line 215.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Line 247.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Line 254.
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart.
Line 281.
Think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
Line 310.
Virtue alone is happiness below.
Line 330.
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through nature up to nature's God.
Line 379.
Formed by thy converse happily to steer
Prom grave to gay, from lively to severe.
* * * * *
MORAL ESSAYS.
Epistle i. Line 135.
'Tis from high life high characters are drawn--
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.
Line 149.
'Tis education forms the common mind:
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
Line 246.
Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke,
Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.
Epistle ii. Line 15.
Whether the charmers sinner it or saint it,
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
Line 43.
Fine by defect and delicately weak.
Line 97.
With too much quickness ever to be taught,
With too much thinking to have common thought.
Line 215.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake.
Line 268.
And mistress of herself, though china fall.
Line 270.
Woman's at best a contradiction still.
Epistle iii. Line 1.
Who shall decide when doctors disagree?
Line 95.
But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college or a cat.
Line 153.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Line 161.
Extremes in nature equal good produce.
Line 250.
Rise, honest muse! and sing--The man of Ross.
Line 285.
Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.
* * * * *
AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Part i. Line 9.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches; none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Line 153.
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
Part ii. Line 215.
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
Line 232.
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise,
Line 297.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.
Line 357.
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Line 362.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
Line 365.
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Line 525.
To err is human: to forgive, divine.
Part iii. Line 625.
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
* * * * *
ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY.
Line 54.
By strangers honored and by strangers mourned
* * * * *
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances and the public show.
* * * * *
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.
Canto ii. Line 7.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.
Canto ii. Line 17.
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all.
Canto iii. Line 16.
At every word a reputation dies.
Line 21.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine.
* * * * *
SATIRES AND IMITATIONS OF HORACE
Prologue, Line 1.
Shut, shut the door, good John.
Line 12.
E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me.
Line 18.
Who pens a stanza when he should engross.
Line 127.
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
Line 197.
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
Line 201.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer.
Line 308.
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
Line 333.
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Book ii. Satire i. Line 6.
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Line 69.
Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet.
Line 127.
Then St. John mingles with my friendly bowl,
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Book ii. Satire ii. Line 159.
For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.[12]
[Note 12: See the Odyssey, Book xv. line 83.]
Book ii. Epistle i. Line 108.
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease.
* * * * *
_Epilogue to the Satires_.
Dialogue i. Line 136.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
_Epitaph on Gay_.
Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit a man, simplicity a child.
* * * * *
THE DUNCIAD.
Book i. Line 54.
And solid pudding against empty praise.
Book iii. Line 158.
All crowd, who foremost shall be damned to fame.
Book iii. Line 165.
Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous; answer him, ye owls.
Book iv. Line 614.
E'en Palinurus nodded at the helm.
* * * * *
ODYSSEY.
Book ii. Line 315.
Few sons attain the praise
Of their great sires, and most their sires disgrace.
Book xiv. Line 410.
Far from gay cities and the ways of men.
Book xv. Line 79.
Who love too much, hate in the like extreme.
Book xv. Line 83.
True friendship's laws are by this rule expressed,
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
* * * * *
_Windsor forest_.
Thus, if small things we may with great compare.
* * * * *
_Martinus Scriblerus on the Art of Sinking in Poetry_.
Chapter xi.
Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on the Hon. S. Harcourt_.
Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
* * * * *
THOMAS TICKELL.
1686-1740.
_On the Death of Addison_. Line 45.
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade.
Line 79.
There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.
_Colin and Lucy_.
I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay,
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.
* * * * *
JOHN GAY.
1688-1732.
_What D'ye Call 't_.
Act ii. Sc. 9.
So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er,
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.
* * * * *
_Beggars' Opera_.
Act i. Sc. 1.
O'er the hills and far away.
* * * * *
How happy could I be with either,
Were t'other dear charmer away.
FABLES.
_The Shepherd and the Philosopher_.
Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil
O'er books consumed the midnight oil?
* * * * *
_The Mother, the Nurse, and the Fairy_.
When yet was ever found a mother
Who'd give her booby for another?
* * * * *
_The Sick Man and the Angel_.
While there is life there's hope, he cried.
* * * * *
_The Hare and Many Friends_.
And when a lady's in the case,
You know all other things give place.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on Himself_.
Life's a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, and now I know it.
* * * * *
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE.
1690-1762.
_The Lady's Resolve_.
Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide--
In part she is to blame that has been tried;
He comes too near, that comes to be denied.
NICHOLAS ROWE.
1673-1718.
_The Fair Penitent_.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?
Act v. Sc. 1.
Is this that gallant, gay Lothario?
* * * * *
JOHN PHILIPS.
1676-1708.
_Splendid Shilling_.
Line 121.
My galligaskins, that have long withstood
The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued (what will not time subdue?)
A horrid chasm disclosed.
* * * * *
THOMAS PARNELL.
1679-1718.
_The Hermit_. Line 5.
Remote from men, with God he passed his days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.
BARTON BOOTH.
1681-1733.
_Song_.
True as the needle to the pole,
Or as the dial to the sun.
* * * * *
MATTHEW GREEN.
1696-1737.
_The Spleen_. Line 93.
Fling but a stone, the giant dies.
* * * * *
JOHN BYROM.
1691-1763.
_'On the Feuds between Handel and Bononcini_.[13]
Some say, compared to Bononcini,
That Mynheer Handel's but a ninny;
Others aver that he to Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange all this difference should be
'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
[Note 13: "Nourse asked me if I had seen the verses upon Handel and
Bononcini, not knowing that they were mine." Byrom's Remains (Cheltenham
Soc), Vol. I. p 173. The last two lines have been attributed to Switt
and Pope. _Vide_ Scott's edition of Swift, and Dyce's edition of Pope.]
* * * * *
_The Astrologer_.
As clear as a whistle.
* * * * *
_Epigram on Two Monopolists_.
Bone and skin, two millers thin,
Would starve us all, or near it;
But be it known to Skin and Bone
That Flesh and Blood can't bear it.
* * * * *
BISHOP BERKELEY.
1684-1753.
_On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America_.
Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.
* * * * *
ROBERT BLAIR.
1699-1746.
_The Grave_. Part ii. Line 586.
The good he scorned,
Stalked off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost,
Not to return; or if it did, in visits
Like those of angels, short and far between.
* * * * *
EDWARD YOUNG.
1681-1765.
NIGHT THOUGHTS.
Night i. Line 1.
Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
Night i. Line 55.
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss.
Night i. Line 154.
To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
Night i. Line 390.
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer.
Night i. Line 393.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
Night i. Line 417.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan.
Night i. Line 424.
All men think all men mortal but themselves.
Night ii. Line 376.
'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
And ask them what report they bore to heaven.
Night ii. Line 602.
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
Night ii. Line 633.
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 iii. Line 81.
Beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
Night iii. Line 104
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay.
Night iv. Line 10.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep, damp vault, the darkness, and the worm.
Night iv. Line 15.
Man makes a death, which nature never made.
Night iv. Line 118.
Man wants but little, nor that little long.
Night v. Line 775.
The man of wisdom is the man of years.
Night v. Line 1011.
Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.
Night vi. Line 309.
Pygmies are pygmies still, though perched on Alps.
And pyramids are pyramids in vales.
Night vi. Line 606.
And all may do what has by man been done.
Night vii. Line 496.
The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
Night ix. Line 771.
An undevout astronomer is mad.
Night ix. Line 1660.
Emblazed to seize the sight; who runs, may read.
* * * * *
LOVE OF FAME.
Satire i. Line 89.
Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
Satire i. Line 238.
None think the great unhappy, but the great.
Satire ii. Line 207.
Where nature's end of language is declined,
And men talk only to conceal their mind.[14]
[Note 14: "Ils n'emploient les paroles que pour deguiser leurs
pensées "--_Voltaire_.]
Satire vii. Line 97.
How commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.[15]
[Note 15: Imitated by Crabbe in the Parish Register, Part I.,
Introduction, and taken originally from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy,
Part III. Sec. 2. Mem. 1. Subs 2. "But to enlarge or illustrate this
power or effects of love is to set a candle in the sun."]
_Lines Written with the Diamond Pencil of Lord Chesterfield_.
Accept a miracle, instead of wit,
See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.
* * * * *
HENRY CAREY.
1663-1743.
_God save the King_.[16]
God save our gracious king,
Long live our noble king,
God save the king.
[Note 16: The authorship both of the words and music of "God save the
King" has long been a matter of dispute, and is still unsettled, though
the weight of the evidence is in favor of Carey's claim.]
* * * * *
_Chrononhotonthologos_. Act i. Sc. 3.
To thee, and gentle Rigdum Funnidos,
Our gratulations flow in streams unbounded.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
Go call a coach, and let a coach be called,
And let the man who calleth be the caller;
And in his calling let him nothing call
But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a coach, ye gods!
ISAAC WATTS.
1674-1748.
DIVINE SONGS.
To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, three in one,
Be honor, praise, and glory given,
By all on earth, and all in heaven.
* * * * *
Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy head.
* * * * *
Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so;
Let bears and lions growl and fight.
For 'tis their nature too.
* * * * *
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day,
From every opening flower.
* * * * *
Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound.
'Tis the voice of the sluggard, I heard him complain,
"You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again."
SIR SAMUEL TUKE.
--1673.
_Adventures of Five Hours_. Act v. Sc. 3.
He is a fool who thinks by force or skill
To turn the current of a woman's will.
* * * * *
AARON HILL
1685-1750.
_Epilogue to Zara_.
First, then, a woman will, or won't--depend on 't;
If she will do 't, she will; and there's an end on 't.
But, if she won't, since safe and sound your trust is,
Fear is affront: and jealousy injustice.[17]
* * * * *
_Verses Written on a Window in Scotland_.
Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
[Note 17: The following lines are copied from the pillar erected on
the mount in the Dane John Field, Canterbury:
"Where is the man who has the power and skill
To stem the torrent of a woman's will?
For if she will, she will, you may depend on 't;
And if she won't, she won't; so there's an end on't."]
'Tis the same with common natures:
Use 'em kindly, they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
* * * * *
RICHARD SAVAGE.
1698-1743.
_The Bastard_. Line 7.
He lives to build, not boast a generous race:
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.
* * * * *
JAMES THOMSON.
1700-1748.
THE SEASONS.
_Spring_. Line 283.
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Line 465.
But who can paint
Like Nature? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
Line 1149.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,--
To teach the young idea how to shoot,--
Line 1158.
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books.
Ease and alternate labor, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!
* * * * *
_Summer_. Line 1188.
Sighed and looked unutterable things.
Line 1285.
A lucky chance, that oft decides the fate
Of mighty monarchs.
Line 1346.
So stands the statue that enchants the world.
* * * * *
_Autumn_. Line 204.
Loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is when unadorned, adorned the most.
Line 283.
For still the world prevailed, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn.
* * * * *
_Winter_. Line 393.
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.
* * * * *
_Hymn_. Line 25.
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade.
Line 114.
From seeming evil still educing good.
Line 118.
Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise.
* * * * *
_Castle of Indolence_. Canto i. St. 69.
A little round, fat, oily man of God.
* * * * *
_Alfred_. Act ii. Sc. 5.
Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves;
Britons never will be slaves.
* * * * *
_Song, "Forever, Fortune."_
Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love;
And, when we meet a mutual heart,
Step rudely in, and bid us part?
* * * * *
_Sophonisba_. Act iii. Sc. 2.
O Sophonisba! Sophonisba, O![18]
[Note 18: This line was altered, after the second edition, to "O
Sophonisba! I am wholly thine."]
* * * * *
JOHN DYER.
1700-1758.
_Grongar Hill_. Line 163.
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view.
Line 123.
As yon summits soft and fair,
Clad in colors of the air,
Which to those who journey near
Barren, brown, and rough appear.
* * * * *
PHILIP DODDRIDGE.
1702-1751.
_Epigram on his Family Arms_.
Live while you live, the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day;
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my views let both united be;
I live in pleasure, when I live to thee.
* * * * *
ROBERT DODSLEY
1703-1764.
_The Parting Kiss_.
One kind kiss before we part,
Drop a tear and bid adieu;
Though we sever, my fond heart
Till we meet shall pant for you.
* * * * *
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
1709-1784.
_Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre_.
Each exchange of many-colored life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new,
And panting time toiled after him in vain.
* * * * *
For we that live to please must please to live.
* * * * *
_Vanity of Human Wishes_.
Line 1.
Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind, from China to Peru.[19]
[Note 19: The Universal Love of Pleasure, line 1: "All human race,
from China to Peru, Pleasure, however disguised by art, pursue." _Rev.
Thos. Warton_.]
Line 159.
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail--
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Line 221.
He left the name, at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Line 257.
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.
Line 306.
Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.
Line 318.
And Swift expires, a driveller and a show.
Line 346.
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate.
_London_. Line 166.
Of all the griefs that harass the distressed,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
Line 176.
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed,
Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
* * * * *
_Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller_.
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
* * * * *
_Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village_.
Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.
* * * * *
_From Dr. Madden's_ "_Boulter's Monument_."
_Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson_. 1745.
Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.
_Basselas_. Chapter i.
Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers
of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms
of hope; who expect that age will perform
the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies
of the present day will be supplied by
the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas,
Prince of Abyssinia.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on Robert Levett_.
In Misery's darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan,
And lonely Want retired to die.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on Claudius Phillips, the Musician_.
Phillips, whose touch harmonious could remove
The pangs of guilty power or hapless love;
Rest here, distressed by poverty no more,
Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
Sleep, undisturbed, within this peaceful shrine,
Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
* * * * *
LORD LYTTELTON
1709-1773.
_Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus_.
For his chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line, which dying he could wish to blot.
_Epigram_.
None without hope e'er loved the brightest fair,
But love can hope where reason would despair.
* * * * *
_Soliloquy on a Beauty in the Country_.
Where none admire, 'tis useless to excel;
Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle.
* * * * *
_Song_.
Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can ne'er a transport know,
That never feels a pain.
* * * * *
EDWARD MOORE.
1712-1757.
_Fable IX. The Farmer, the Spaniel, and the Cat_.
Can't I another's face commend,
And to her virtues be a friend,
But instantly your forehead lowers,
As if _her_ merit lessened _yours_?
_Fable X. The Spider and the Bee_.
The maid who modestly conceals
Her beauties, while she hides, reveals;
Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws
Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.
* * * * *
But from the hoop's bewitching round,
Her very shoe has power to wound.
* * * * *
_The Happy Marriage_.
Time still, as he flies, adds increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
* * * * *
_The Gamester_. Act iii. Sc. 4.
'Tis now the summer of your youth: time
has not cropt the roses from your cheek,
though sorrow long has washed them.
* * * * *
WILLIAM SHENSTONE.
1714-1763.
_Written on the Window of an Inn_.
Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
His warmest welcome at an inn.
_Jemmy Dawson_.
For seldom shall you hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.
* * * * *
_The Schoolmistress_.
Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblems right meet of decency does yield.
* * * * *
JOHN BROWN.
1715-1766.
_Barbarossa_. Act. v. Sc. 3.
Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced
That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
Serves but to brighten all our future days.
* * * * *
DAVID GARRICK.
1716-1779.
_Prologue on Quitting the Stage in 1776, 10th of June_.
Their cause I plead--plead it in heart and mind;
A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.
_On the Death of Mr. Pelham_.
Let others hail the rising sun:
I bow to that whose race is run.
* * * * *
THOMAS GRAY.
1716-1771.
_On a Distant Prospect of Eton College_.
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain!
* * * * *
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day.
* * * * *
No more: where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
* * * * *
_Progress of Poesy_.
O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love.
* * * * *
Ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
* * * * *
_The Bard_.
Give ample room, and verge enough.
* * * * *
Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm.
* * * * *
_Elegy in a Country Churchyard_.
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
* * * * *
The short and simple annals of the poor.
* * * * *
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
* * * * *
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
* * * * *
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
* * * * *
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
* * * * *
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.
And read their history in a nation's eyes.
* * * * *
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.
* * * * *
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
* * * * *
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
* * * * *
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
* * * * *
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind.
* * * * *
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes, live their wonted fires.
* * * * *
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown.
* * * * *
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere.
* * * * *
He gave to misery (all he had) a tear.
* * * * *
The bosom of his Father and his God.
_Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude_.
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.
* * * * *
WILLIAM COLLINS.
1720-1756.
_Ode in 1746_.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blessed!
* * * * *
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
* * * * *
_The Passions_. Line 1.
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung.
Line 10.
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired.
Line 28.
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
Line 60.
In notes by distance made more sweet.
Line 68.
In hollow murmurs died away.
Line 95.
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid!
* * * * *
_Eclogue_ 1. Line 5.
Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell;
'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.
* * * * *
_Ode on the Death of Thomson_.
In yonder grave a Druid lies.
* * * * *
MARK AKENSIDE.
1721-1770.
_Epistle to Curio_.
The man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown's disguise.
* * * * *
NATHANIEL COTTON.
1721-1788.
_The Fireside_. St. 3.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies;
And they are fools who roam:
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut--our home.
St. 13.
Thus hand in hand through life we'll go;
Its checkered paths of joy and woe
With cautious steps we'll tread.
* * * * *
JOHN HOME.
1722-1808.
_Douglas_. Act i. Sc. 1.
In the first days
Of my distracting grief, I found myself
As women wish to be who love their lords.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father fed his flocks.
* * * * *
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
1728-1774.
THE TRAVELLER.
Line 1.
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
Line 7.
Where er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee.
Line 22.
And learn the luxury of doing good.
Line 26.
Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view.
Line 77.
Such is the patriot's boast, where er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.
Line 153.
By sports like these are all his cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child.
Line 172.
But winter lingering chills the lap of May.
Line 217.
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar.
But bind him to his native mountains more.
Line 251.
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore.
Line 327.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by.
Line 372.
For just experience tells, in every soil,
That those that think must govern those that toil.
Line 386.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Line 409.
Forced from their homes, a melancholy train.
* * * * *
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
Line 14.
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
Line 51.
Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay,
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Line 62.
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
Line 100.
A youth of labor with an age of ease.
Line 110.
While resignation gently slopes the way--
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past!
Line 122.
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
Line 141.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
Line 158.
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.
Line 161.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Line 164.
And even his failings leaned to virtue's side.
Line 170.
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Line 180.
And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.
Line 184.
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
Line 192.
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
Line 196.
The village master taught his little school.
Line 203.
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
Line 212.
For even though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.
Line 229.
Contrived a double debt to pay.
Line 254.
One native charm than all the gloss of art.
Line 264.
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.
Line 329.
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
Line 385.
O Luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree.
* * * * *
RETALIATION.
Line 24.
Who mixed reason with pleasure and wisdom with mirth.
Line 31.
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Line 37.
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit.
Line 94.
An abridgement of all that was pleasant in man.
* * * * *
VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
Chapter viii. _The Hermit_.
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.
* * * * *
Chapter xvii. _Elegy on a Mad Dog_.
The roan recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
* * * * *
Chapter xxiv.
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is--to die.
_Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaise_.
The king himself has followed her
When she has walked before.
* * * * *
TOBIAS SMOLLETT.
1721-1771.
_Ode to Independence_.
Thy spirit, Independence, let me share;
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
* * * * *
THOMAS PERCY.
1728-1811.
_Reliques of English Poetry. The Baffled Knight_.
He that wold not when he might,
He shall not when he wolda.
* * * * *
_The Friar of Orders Gray_.
Weep no more, lady, weep no more,
Thy sorrow is in vain;
For violets plucked the sweetest showers
Will ne'er make grow again.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot on sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
_From Byrd's Psalmes, Sonets, &c_. 1588.
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find,
As far exceeds all earthly bliss
That God and Nature hath assigned.
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
* * * * *
BEILBY PORTEUS.
1731-1808.
_Death, a Poem_. Line 154.
One murder makes a villain,
Millions a hero.
* * * * *
JAMES BEATTIE.
1735-1766.
_The Minstrel_. Book i. St. 1.
Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?
* * * * *
_The Hermit_. Line 8.
He thought as a sage, but he felt as a man.
* * * * *
_Epigram_. _The Bucks had dined_.
How hard their lot who neither won nor lost.
CHARLES CHURCHILL.
1741-1764.
_The Rosciad_. Line 861.
But spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel--must feel themselves.
* * * * *
MRS. THEALE.
1740-1822.
_Three Warnings_.
The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
'Twas therefore said, by ancient sages,
That love of life increased with years
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.
* * * * *
WILLIAM COWPER.
1731-1800.
THE TASK.
Book i. _The Sofa_.
God made the county, and man made the town.[20]
[Note 20: "God the first garden made, and the first city Cain."--Cowley]
Book ii. _The Timepiece_.
O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never roach me more.
* * * * *
Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
* * * * *
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.
* * * * *
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
* * * * *
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.
* * * * *
Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavor.
* * * * *
Book iii. _The Garden_.
Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that hast survived the fall!
How various his employments whom the world
jails idle; and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!
* * * * *
Book iv. _Winter Evening_.
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
* * * * *
'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
* * * * *
Book v. _Winter Morn in a Walk_.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
* * * * *
Book vi. _Winter Walk at Noon_.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
* * * * *
Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
_Tirocinium_.
Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a lustre, he that runs may read.
* * * * *
_Retirement_.
Built God a church, and laughed His word to scorn.
* * * * *
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
* * * * *
_Conversation_.
A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
* * * * *
_John Gilpin_.
That, though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
* * * * *
To dash through thick and thin.
* * * * *
A hat not much the worse for wear
* * * * *
_Lines to his Mother's Picture_.
O that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
_Walking with God_.
What peaceful hours I once enjoyed?
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.
* * * * *
VERSES,
_Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk_.
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.
* * * * *
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
* * * * *
But the sound of the church-going bell
Those valleys and rocks never heard,
Never sighed at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.
* * * * *
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged arrows of light.
* * * * *
W. J. MICKLE.
1734-1788.
_The Mariner's Wife_.
His very foot has music in 't
As he comes up the stairs.
JOHN LANGHORNE.
1735-1779.
_The Country Justice_.
Part i
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew;
The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptized in tears.
* * * * *
DR. WALCOTT.
1738-1819.
_Peter Pindar's Expostulatory Odes to a great Duke
and a little Lord_. _Ode XV_.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
* * * * *
MRS. BARBAULD.
1743-1825.
_Warrington Academy_.
Man is the noblest growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.
* * * * *
SIR WILLIAM JONES.
1746-1794.
_A Persian Song of Hafiz_.
Go boldly forth, my simple lay,
Whose accents flow with artless ease,
Like orient pearls at random strung.
* * * * *
_Ode in Imitation of Alcoeus_.
What constitutes a state?
* * * * *
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain.
* * * * *
And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
* * * * *
Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.[21]
[Note 21: "Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six, Four spend
in prayer, the rest on nature fix."--_Sir Edward Coke_.]
* * * * *
CAPTAIN CHARLES MORRIS.
--1832.
_Billy Pitt and the Farmer_.
Solid men of Boston, make no long orations;
Solid men of Boston, drink no deep potations.
* * * * *
JOHN TRUMBULL.
1750-1881.
_McFingal_. Canto i. Line 67.
But optics sharp it needs, I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.
Canto iii. Line 489.
No man e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law.
* * * * *
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
1751-1816.
_The Rivals_. Act v. Sc. 3.
As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.
* * * * *
_The Critic_. Act ii. Sc. 1.
My valor is certainly going! it is sneaking
off! I feel it oozing out as it were at the pain,
of my hands.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Where they do agree, their unanimity is
wonderful.
* * * * *
_School for Scandal_. Act i. Sc. 1.
You shall see a beautiful quarto page, where
a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a
meadow of margin.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen;
Here's to the widow of fifty;
Here's to the flaunting, extravagant quean,
And here's to the housewife that's thrifty.
Let the toast pass;
Drink to the lass;
I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass.
_The Duenna_. Act i. Sc. 2.
I ne'er could any lustre see
In eyes that would not look on me;
I ne'er saw nectar on a lip
But where my own did hope to sip.
* * * * *
_Speech in Reply to Mr. Dundas_.
The Right Honorable gentleman is indebted
to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.
* * * * *
GEORGE CRABBE.
1754-1832.
_Parish Register_.
Oh! rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain,
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,
And hold their glimmering taper to the sun.
_The Borough Schools_.
Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.
* * * * *
_The Borough Placers_.
In this fool's paradise lie drank delight.
* * * * *
_The Birth of Flattery_.
In idle wishes fools supinely stay;
Be there a will, then wisdom finds a way.
* * * * *
ROBERT BURNS.
1759-1796.
_Tom O'Shanter_.
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gather in' her brows like gatherin' storm,
Nursin' her wrath to keep it warm.
* * * * *
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.
* * * * *
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white, then melts for ever.
As Tammie gloured, amazed and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.
_To a Mouse_.
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley;
An' lea'e us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.
* * * * *
_Scots wha hae_.
Let us do, or die!
* * * * *
_Address to the Unco Guid_.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler, sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang
To step aside is human.
* * * * *
_On Captain Grose's Peregrinations through Scotland_.
If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it;
A chiel's amang you takin' notes,
An', faith, he'll prent it.
_To a Louse_.
O wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.
* * * * *
_Epistle to a Young Friend_.
The fear o' hell 's a hangman's whip
To haud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honor grip,
Let that aye be your border.
* * * * *
_The Twa Dogs_.
His locked, lettered, braw brass collar
Shawed him the gentleman and scholar.
* * * * *
_Epistle to James Smith_.
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.
* * * * *
_Despondency_.
O Life! them art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
_Auld Lang Syne_.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
* * * * *
_Green grow the Rashes_.
Her 'prentice han' she tried on man.
And then she made the lasses, O!
* * * * *
_Man was made to Mourn_.
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
* * * * *
_Death and Dr. Hornbook_.
Some wee short hour ayont the twal.
* * * * *
_Is there for honest Poverty_.
The _rank_ is but the guinea's _stamp_.
The man's the gowd for a' that.
* * * * *
A prince can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a that:
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.
_The Cotter's Saturday Night_.
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.
* * * * *
THOMAS MOSS.
--1808.
_The Beggar_.
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;
Oh! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store.
* * * * *
GEORGE COLMAN.
1762-1836.
BROAD GRINS.
_The Maid of the Moor_.
And what's impossible can't be,
And never, never comes to pass.
* * * * *
Three stories high, long, dull, and old,
As great lord's stories often are.
* * * * *
_Lodgings for Single Gentlemen_.
But when ill indeed,
E'en dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.
_The Poor Gentleman_.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Thank you, good sir, I owe you one.
* * * * *
_Prologue to the Heir ft Law_.
On their own merits modest men are dumb.
* * * * *
THOMAS MORTON.
1764-1836.
_Speed the Plough_. Act i. Sc. 1.
What will Mrs. Grundy say?
* * * * *
GEORGE CANNING.
1770-1827.
POETRY OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN.
_The Needy Knife-Grinder_.
Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir!
* * * * *
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee d--d first.
* * * * *
_The Loves of the Triangles_.
Line 178.
So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourne, glides
The Derby dilly, carrying three insides.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
1770-1850.
_Quilt and Sorrow_.
St. 41.
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
* * * * *
_My Heart Leaps up_.
The Child is father of the Man.
* * * * *
_Lucy Gray_.
St. 2.
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door.
* * * * *
_We are Seven_.
A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
* * * * *
_The Pet Lamb_.
Drink, pretty creature, drink.
* * * * *
_The Brothers_.
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn.
_Stanzas written in Thomson_.
A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.
* * * * *
_Lucy_.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love:
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh!
The difference to me!
* * * * *
_The Solitary Reaper_.
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again.
* * * * *
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
_Rob Hoy's Grave_.
St. 9.
Because the good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
_Yarrow Unvisited_.
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
* * * * *
_Sonnets to National Independence and Liberty_.
Part i. vi
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great is passed away.
Part i. xiv.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart.
Part i. xvi.
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
* * * * *
_Nutting_.
One of those heavenly days that cannot die.
_She was a Phantom of Delight_.
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles;
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
* * * * *
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.
* * * * *
_I Wandered Lonely_.
That inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
* * * * *
_Ruth_.
A Youth to whom was given
So much of earth, so much of heaven.
* * * * *
_Resolution and Independence_.
Part i. St. 7
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough, along the mountainside.
* * * * *
_Hart-Leap Well_.
Part ii
"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is cursed."
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
* * * * *
_Tintern Abbey_.
Sensations sweet
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.
* * * * *
That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
* * * * *
That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened.
* * * * *
The fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.
* * * * *
The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thoughts supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
But hearing often-times
The still, sad music of humanity.
* * * * *
_To a Skylark_.
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.
* * * * *
_Peter Bell_.
Prologue. St. 1.
There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon.
Prologue. St. 27.
The common growth of Mother Earth
Suffices me--her tears, her mirths
Her humblest mirth and tears.
Part i. St. 12.
A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
Part i. St. 15.
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky!
Part i. St. 26.
As if the man had fixed his face,
In many a solitary place,
Against the wind and open sky!
_Miscellaneous Sonnets_.
Part i. xxx.
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration.
Part i. xxxiii.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Part i. xxxv.
'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.
Part ii. xxxvi.
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
* * * * *
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets_.
Part iii. v. _Walton's Book of Lives_.
The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an Angel's wing.
* * * * *
Meek Walton's heavenly memory.
_The Tables Turned_.
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
* * * * *
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
* * * * *
_A Poet's Epitaph_.
St. 5.
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave.
* * * * *
_Personal Talk_.
St. 3.
The gentle Lady married to the Moor,
And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb.
* * * * *
_The Small Celandine_.
(From Poems referring to the Period of Old Age.)
To be a Prodigal's Favorite--then, worse truth,
A Miser's Pensioner--behold our lot!
_Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a Picture of Peele
Castle in a Storm_.
St. 4.
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream.
* * * * *
_Intimations of Immorality_.
St 5.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.
* * * * *
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
St. xi.
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
* * * * *
THE EXCURSION.
Book i.
The vision and the faculty divine.
* * * * *
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.
* * * * *
The good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket.
Book ii.
With battlements, that on their restless fronts
Bore stars.
Book iii.
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.
* * * * *
Monastic brotherhood, upon rock Aerial.
Book iv.
I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for from within were heard
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
* * * * *
One in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition.
Book vi.
Spires whose silent fingers point to heaven.
Book vii.
Wisdom married to immortal verse.
Book ix.
The primal duties shine aloft, like stars,
The charities, that soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers.
* * * * *
HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER.
1770-1834.
_Lines to Lady A. Hamilton_.
Too late I stayed--forgive the crime;
Unheeded flew the hours.
How noiseless falls the foot of time,
That only treads on flowers!
* * * * *
DR. GEORGE SEWELL.
--1726.
When all the blandishments of life are gone,
The coward sneaks to death, the brave live on.
* * * * *
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
1772-1834
_The Ancient Mariner_.
Part i.
And listens like a three years' child.
Part ii.
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
* * * * *
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
Part iv.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea.
Part v.
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy mouth of June.
Part vii.
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
* * * * *
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things, both great and small.
* * * * *
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
* * * * *
_Christabel_. Part ii.
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth:
And constancy lives in realms above.
_The Devil's Thoughts_.
And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin,
Is pride that apes humility.
* * * * *
_Love_.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feeds his sacred flame.
* * * * *
_Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement_.
Blest hour! it was a luxury--to be!
* * * * *
_Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni_.
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course?
* * * * *
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines.
* * * * *
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
* * * * *
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
* * * * *
_The Three Graves_.
A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
_The Visit of the Gods_.
Never, believe me,
Appear the Immortals,
Never alone.
* * * * *
_The Knight's Tomb_.
The Knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
* * * * *
_On Taking Leave of_--. 1817.
To know, to esteem, to love--and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!
* * * * *
_Cologne_.
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, nymphs! what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
* * * * *
_Wallenstein_.
Part i. Act ii. Sc. 4.
The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason.
* * * * *
_The Death of Wallenstein_.
Act. v. Sc. 1.
Clothing the palpable and familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
Act v. Sc. 1.
Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events.
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.
* * * * *
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
1774-1843.
_Curse of Kehama_. Canto x.
They sin who tell us love can die.
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
* * * * *
CHARLES LAMB.
1775-1834.
_Old Familiar Faces_.
I have had playmates, 1 have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
_Detached Thoughts on Books_.
Books which are no books.
* * * * *
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
1777-1844.
_Pleasures of Hope_.
Part i. Line 7.
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Line 359.
O Heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save.
Line 381.
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell!
* * * * *
O'er Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below.
Part ii. Line 5.
Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?
Line 23.
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Of what were man?--a world without a sun.
Line 37.
The world was sad!--the garden was a wild!
And man, the hermit, sighed--till woman smiled.
Line 45.
While Memory watches o'er the sad review
Of joys that faded like the morning dew.
Line 95.
There shall he love, when genial mom appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears.
Line 194.
That gems the starry girdle of the year.
Line 263.
Melt, and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul!
Line 325.
O star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there,
To waft us home the message of despair?
Line 377.
What though my winged hours of bliss have been,
Like angel-visits, few and far between.
_O'Connor's Child_.
Another's sword has laid him low,
Another's and another's;
And every hand that dealt the blow,
Ah me! it was a brother's!
_Lochiel's Warning_.
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
_Ye Mariners of England_.
Ye mariners of England!
That guard our native seas,
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze.
* * * * *
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
* * * * *
_The Soldier's Dream_.
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young.
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
* * * * *
_Hohenlinden_.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
_Gertrude of Wyoming_.
Part iii. St. 1.
O love! in such a wilderness as this.
* * * * *
WALTER SCOTT.
1771-1832.
THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.
Canto ii. St. 1.
If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.
Canto ii. St. 12.
I was not always a man of woe.
Canto ii. St. 22.
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.
Canto iii. St. 2.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Canto v. St. 1.
Call it not vain; they do not err,
Who say, that, when the poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshiper,
And celebrates his obsequies.
Canto v. St. 13.
True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven.
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.
Canto vi. St. 1.
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
Prom wandering on a foreign strand?
* * * * *
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
Canto vi. St. 2.
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.
* * * * *
_Marmion_.
Canto ii. St. 27.
'Tis an old tale, and often told.
Canto v. St. 12.
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.
Canto vi. St. 14.
And dar'st thou then
To beard the lion in his den?
Canto vi. St. 30,
O woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made,
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!
Canto vi. St. 32.
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!
Were the last words of Marmion.
Canto vi. Last Lines.
To all, to each, a fair good night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light,
* * * * *
_The Lady of the Lake_.
Canto i. St. 18.
And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A nymph, a naiad, or a grace,
Of finer form or lovelier face.
* * * * *
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew.
Canto i. St. 21.
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly pressed its signet sage.
Canto ii. St. 22.
Some feelings are to mortals given
With less of earth in them than heaven.
Canto iv. St. 1.
The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
Canto iv. St. 30.
Art thou a friend to Roderick?
Canto v. St. 10.
Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.
* * * * *
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
* * * * *
_The Lord of the Isles_.
Canto v. Stanza 18.
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!
* * * * *
_Old Mortality_.
Vol. ii. Chapter xxi.
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
_Bob Roy_.
Vol. i. Chapter ii.
O for the voice of that wild horn
On Fontarabian echoes borne.
* * * * *
_The Monastery_.
Vol. i. Chapter ii.
Within that awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
* * * * *
THOMAS MOORE.
1780-1852.
_Lalla Rookh_. _The Fire-Worshippers_.
O, ever thus from childhood's hour
I've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower,
But 'twas the first to fade away.
* * * * *
_The Light of the Harem_.
Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied;
That stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When heaven was all tranquillity.
_All that's bright must fade_.
All that's bright must fade--
The brightest still the fleetest;
All that's sweet was made
But to be lost when sweetest.
* * * * *
_Farewell! But whenever you welcome the hour_.
You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
* * * * *
REGINALD HEBER.
1783-1826.
_Christman Hymn_.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning!
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.
* * * * *
_Missionary Hymn_.
From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand.
* * * * *
_Palestine_.
No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm, the mystic fabric sprung.
Majestic silence!
JONATHAN M. SEWALL.
_Epilogue to Cato_.
_Written for the Bow Street Theatre, Portsmouth_, N. H., 1778.
No pent-up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours.
* * * * *
SAMUEL WOODWORTH.
1785-1842.
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.
* * * * *
LORD BYRON.
1788-1821.
_Childe Harold_.
Canto i. St. 9.
Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,
And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair.
Canto ii. St. 2.
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!
* * * * *
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.
Stanza 6.
The dome of Thought, the palace of the soul.
Stanza 23.
Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy?
Stanza 73.
Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!
Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!
Stanza 76.
Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?
Stanza 88.
Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground.
* * * * *
Age shakes Athena's towers, but spares gray Marathon.
Canto iii. St. 1.
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart.
Stanza 21.
There was a sound of revelry by night.
And all went merry as a marriage-bell.
Stanza 28.
Battle's magnificently stern array!
Stanza 55.
The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine.
Stanza 92.
The sky is changed! and such a change! O night,
And storm, and darkness! ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman.
Stanza 113.
I have not loved the world, nor the world me.
Canto iv. St. 1.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs.
Stanza 24.
The cold--the changed--perchance the dead anew,
The mourned--the loved--the lost--too many! yet how few!
Stanza 49.
Fills
The air around with beauty.
Stanza 69.
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss.
Stanza 79.
The Niobe of nations! there she stands.
Stanza 109.
Man!
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.
Stanza 115.
The nympholepsy of some fond despair.
Stanza 145.
While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Home falls, the world.[22]
[Note 22: The exclamation of the pilgrims in the eighth century is
recorded by the Venerable Bede]
Stanza 177.
O that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her!
Stanza 178.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar.
* * * * *
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
Stanza 179.
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined and unknown.
Stanza 185.
And what is writ, is writ.
Would it were worthier!
_Memoranda from his Life_.
I awoke one morning and found myself famous.
* * * * *
_The Giaour_. Line 72.
Before decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.
Line 92.
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.
Line 106.
Shrine of the mighty! can it be
That this is all remains of thee?
Line 123.
For freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Line 418.
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own;
And every won a tear can claim,
Except an erring sister's shame.
* * * * *
_Parasina_. St. 1.
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whispered word.
_The Bride of Abydos_.
Canto i. St. 1.
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle.
Stanza 6.
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!
Canto ii. St. 20.
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!
The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,
And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
* * * * *
He makes a solitude, and calls it--peace.[23]
[Note 23: "Solitudinem fociunt--pacem appellant."
--_Tacitus, Agricola_, cap. 30.]
_Darkness_.
I had a dream which was not all a dream.
* * * * *
_Lara_.
Canto i. St. 2.
Lord of himself--that heritage of woe!
_The Corsair_.
Canto i. St. 1.
O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea;
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home.
Stanza 3.
She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.
Stanza 8.
The power of Thought--the magic of the Mind.
* * * * *
The many still must labor for the one!
Stanza 9.
There was a laughing devil in his sneer.
Hope withering fled, and Mercy sighed Farewell!
Stanza 15.
Farewell!
For in that word--that fatal word--howe'er
We promise--hope--believe--there breathes despair.
Canto iii. St. 22.
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For truth denies all eloquence to woe.
Stanza 24.
He left a corsair's name to other times,
Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.
* * * * *
_Beppo_.
Stanza 27.
For most men (till by losing rendered sager)
Will back their own opinions by a wager.
Stanza 45.
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
Stanza 80.
O Mirth and Innocence! O Milk and Water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!
* * * * *
_The Dream_.
And both were young, and one was beautiful.
* * * * *
And to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
* * * * *
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
so cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.
_The Waltz_.
Hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side.
* * * * *
_English Bards_.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.
* * * * *
As soon
Seek roses in December--ice in June.
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff.
* * * * *
Believe a woman, or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics.
* * * * *
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the
Psalms.
* * * * *
O Amos Cottle! Phoebus! what a name!
* * * * *
_Monody on the Death of Sheridan_.
When all of Genius which can perish dies.
* * * * *
Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.
* * * * *
Who track the steps of Glory to the grave.
Sighing that Nature formed but one such man,
And broke the die in moulding Sheridan.
* * * * *
_Don Juan_.
Canto i. St. 22.
But, O ye lords of ladies intellectual!
Inform us truly, have they not henpecked you all?
Canto i. St. 117.
Whispering I will ne'er consent, consented.
Canto xiii. St. 95.
Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the _Bores_ and _Bored_.
Canto xv. St. 13.
The devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice,
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.
* * * * *
_Hebrew Melodies_.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
CHARLES WOLFE.
1791-1823.
_The Burial of Sir John Moore_.
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
* * * * *
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory!
* * * * *
JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.
1795-1820.
_The American flag_.
When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
* * * * *
JOHN KEATS.
1796-1820.
_Endymion_. Line 1.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
* * * * *
_St. Agnes' Eve_. Stanza 27.
Music's golden tongue
Flattered to tears this aged man and poor.
* * * * *
_Hyperion_. Line 5.
That large utterance of the early gods.
* * * * *
ROBERT POLLOK.
1798-1827.
_The Course of Time_.
Book viii. Line 616.
He was a man
Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven
To serve the devil in.
* * * * *
THOMAS HOOD.
1798-1845.
_The Death-Bed_.
We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
* * * * *
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
* * * * *
_The Bridge of Sighs_.
One more Unfortunate
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death.
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly
Young, and so fair!
* * * * *
SAMUEL ROGERS.
_Human Life_.
A guardian-angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.
* * * * *
The soul of music slumbers in the shell,
Till waked and kindled by the master's spell;
And feeling hearts--touch them but rightly--pour
A thousand melodies unheard before!
Then, never less alone than when alone,
Those that he loved so long and sees no more,
Loved and still loves--not dead, but gone before--
He gathers round him.
* * * * *
_A Wish_.
Mine be a cot beside the hill;
A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall, shall linger near.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.
_Tragedy of the Lac de Gaube_.
Stanza 2.
But on and up, where Nature's heart
Beats strong amid the hills.
* * * * *
_The Men of Old_.
Great thoughts, great feelings, came to them,
Like instincts, unawares.
* * * * *
A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet.
* * * * *
BRYAN W. PROCTOR.
_The Sea_.
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
* * * * *
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more.
* * * * *
ALFRED TENNYSON.
_Locksley Hall_.
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have
spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer
than his horse.
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear
my dusky race.
* * * * *
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of
Cathay.
* * * * *
_In Memoriam_. xxvii.
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
* * * * *
_Fatima_. St. 3.
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
* * * * *
_The Princess_. Canto iv.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Canto 7.
Sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
* * * * *
Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay.
* * * * *
_Lady Clara Vere de Vere_.
From yon blue heaven above us bent,
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of loner descent.
* * * * *
HENRY TAYLOR
_Philip Van Artevelde_.
Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.
The world knows nothing of its greatest men.
* * * * *
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON.
_Richelieu_. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.
_Festus_.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
* * * * *
THOMAS K. HERVEY.
_The Devil's Progress_.
The tomb of him who would have made
The world too glad and free.
* * * * *
He stood beside a cottage lone,
And listened to a lute,
One summer's eve, when the breeze was gone,
And the nightingale was mute!
* * * * *
Like ships, that sailed for sunny isles,
But never came to shore!
* * * * *
JAMES ALDRICH.
_A Death-Bed_.
Her suffering ended with the day,
Yet lived she at its close,
And breathed the long, long night away,
In statue-like repose!
But when the sun, in all his state,
Illumined the eastern skies,
She passed through Glory's morning gate,
And walked in Paradise.
* * * * *
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
_Thanatopsis_.
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language.
* * * * *
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings.
* * * * *
Sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch.
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
* * * * *
_March_.
The stormy March has come at last,
With wind and clouds and changing skies;
I hear the rushing of the blast
That through the snowy valley flies.
* * * * *
_Autumn Woods_.
But 'neath yon crimson tree,
Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,
Her blush of maiden shame.
_Forest Hymn_.
The groves were God's first temples.
* * * * *
_The Death of the Flowers_.
The melancholy days are come,
The saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods,
And meadows brown and sear.
* * * * *
_The Battlefield_.
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again:
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
* * * * *
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.
_Marco Bozzaris_.
Strike--for your altars and your fires;
Strike--for the green graves of y our sires;
God, and your native land!
* * * * *
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.
* * * * *
_On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake_.
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days;
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.
_Burns_.
Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined--
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.
* * * * *
CHARLES SPRAGUE.
_Curiosity_.
Lo, where the stage, the poor, degraded stage,
Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age.
* * * * *
Through life's dark road his sordid way he wends,
An incarnation of fat dividends.
* * * * *
_Centennial Ode_.
Stanza 22.
Behold! in Liberty's unclouded blaze
We lift our heads, a race of other days.
* * * * *
_To my Cigar_.
Yes, social friend, I love thee well,
In learned doctor's spite;
Thy clouds all other clouds dispel,
And lap me in delight.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
_A Psalm of Life_.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
* * * * *
Art is long, and Time is fleeting.
* * * * *
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
* * * * *
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
* * * * *
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
* * * * *
_The Light of Stars_.
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
* * * * *
_It is not always May_.
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year's nest!
_Maidenhood_.
Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
* * * * *
_The Goblet of Life_.
O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried!
* * * * *
_Resignation_.
There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dear lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair.
* * * * *
The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead.
* * * * *
_The Golden Legend_.
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.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
_A Metrical Essay_.
The freeman casting with unpurchased hand
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
* * * * *
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky.
* * * * *
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale.
* * * * *
_Urania_.
Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure,
He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!--
And, when you stick on conversation's burrs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_.
* * * * *
_The Music-Grinders_.
You think they are crusaders, sent
From some infernal clime,
To pluck the eyes of Sentiment,
And dock the tail of Rhyme,
To crack the voice of Melody,
And break the legs of Time.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
_The Vision of Sir Launfal_.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
* * * * *
_The Changeling_.
This child is not mine as the first was,
I cannot sing it to rest,
I cannot lift it up fatherly
And bless it upon my breast;
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair.
* * * * *
WILLIAM BASSE.
1613-1648.
_On Shakespeare_.
Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
DAVID EVERETT.
1769-1813.
_Lines written for a School Declamation_.
You'd scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.
* * * * *
JOSEPH HOPKINSON.
1770-1842.
_Hail Columbia_.
Hail Columbia! happy land!
Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band!
* * * * *
F. S. KEY.
_The Star-spangled Banner_.
The star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
* * * * *
ALBERT G. GREENE.
_Old Grimes_.
Old Grimes is dead; that good old man,
We ne'er shall see him more:
He used to wear a long black coat,
All buttoned down before.
JOHN LOUIS UHLAND.
_The Passage_. _Translated by Mrs. Sarah Austin_.
Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee;
Take--I give it willingly;
For, invisible to thee,
Spirits twain have crossed with me.
* * * * *
CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.
_Stanzas_.
Thought is deeper than all speech;
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.
* * * * *
EATON STANNARD BARRETT.
_Woman_.
Not she with trait'rous kiss her Master stung,
Not she denied him with unfaithful tongue;
She, when apostles fled, could danger brave,
Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.
* * * * *
MISS FANNY STEERS.
_Song_.
The last link is broken
That bound me to thee,
And the words thou hast spoken
Have rendered me free.
RICHARD BAXTER.
1615-1691.
_Love breathing Thanks and Praise_.
I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men.
* * * * *
ROGER L'ESTRANGE.
1616-1704.
_Fables from several Authors_.
Fable 398.
Though this may be play to you,
'Tis dea
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