What woful stuff this madrigal would beIf some starved hackney sonneteer, or me,But let a lord once own the happy lines,How the wit brightens! how the style refines!Essay on Criticism, Pt. IIA. POPE.
'Tis from high life high characters are drawn;A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.Moral Essays, Epistle I. A. POPE.
Oh! Amos Cottle![A] Phoebus! What a nameTo fill the speaking trump of future fame!English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. LORD BYRON.
[Footnote A: "Mr. Cottle, Amos or Joseph, I don't know which, but one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, but now writers of books that do not sell, have published a pair of epics."—THE AUTHOR.]
The fall of kings,The rage of nations, and the crush of states,Move not the man, who, from the world escaped,In still retreats and flowery solitudes,To nature's voice attends, from month to month,And day to day, through the revolving year.The Seasons: Autumn. J. THOMSON.
When that the monthe of MayIs comen, and that I hear the foules synge,And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,Farwel my boke, and my devocion.Legende of Goode Women: Prologue. CHAUCER.
To one who has been long in city pent,'Tis very sweet to look into the fairAnd open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayerFull in the smile of the blue firmament.Sonnet XIV. KEATS.
What more felicitie can fall to creature.Than to enjoy delight with libertie,And to be lord of all the workes of Nature,To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie,To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature!The Fate of the Butterfly. E. SPENSER.
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees.Essay on Man, Epistle I. A. POPE.
In such green palaces the first kings reigned,Slept in their shades, and angels entertained;With such old counsellors they did advise,And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.On St. James' Park. E. WALLER
And recognizes ever and anonThe breeze of Nature stirring in his soul.The Excursion, Bk. IV. W. WORDSWORTH.
Nature! great parent! whose unceasing handRolls round the seasons of the changeful year;How mighty, how majestic are thy works!The Seasons: Winter. J. THOMSON.
Every sound is sweet;Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,The moan of doves in immemorial elms,And murmuring of innumerable bees.The Princess, Canto VII. A. TENNYSON.
I trust in Nature for the stable lawsOf beauty and utility. Spring shall plantAnd Autumn garner to the end of time.I trust in God—the right shall he the rightAnd other than the wrong, while he endures;I trust in my own soul, that can perceiveThe outward and the inward, Nature's goodAnd God's.A Soul Tragedy, Acti. R. BROWNING.
I care not, Fortune, what you me deny;You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,You cannot shut the windows of the sky,Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;You cannot bar my constant feet to traceThe woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve.The Castle of Indolence, Canto II. J. THOMSON.
Who can paintLike Nature? Can imagination boast,Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?The Seasons: Spring. J. THOMSON.
For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.The Cock and Fox. J. DRYDEN.
The course of nature is the art of God.Night Thoughts, Night IX. DR. E. YOUNG.
'Tis elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand:Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.Night Thoughts, Night IX. DR. E. YOUNG.
Nature, the vicar of the almightie Lord.Assembly of Foules. CHAUCER.
To the solid groundOf nature trusts the Mind that builds for aye.Miscellaneous Sonnets. W. WORDSWORTH.
Darkness now rose,As daylight sunk, and brought in low'ring Night,Her shadowy offspring.Paradise Regained, Bk. IV. MILTON.
Now black and deep the Night begins to fall,A shade immense! Sunk in the quenching gloom,Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.Order confounded lies; all beauty void,Distinction lost, and gay varietyOne universal blot: such the fair powerOf light, to kindle and create the whole.The Seasons: Autumn. J. THOMSON.
How beautiful is night!A dewy freshness fills the silent air;No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,Breaks the serene of heaven:In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divineRolls through the dark-blue depths.Beneath her steady rayThe desert-circle spreads.Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.How beautiful is night!Thalaba. R. SOUTHEY.
This sacred shade and solitude, what is it?'Tis the felt presence of the Deity.
* * * * *
By night an atheist half believes a God.Night Thoughts, Night V. DR. E. YOUNG.
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,In rayless majesty, now stretches forthHer leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.Night Thoughts, Night I. DR. E. YOUNG.
All is gentle; naughtStirs rudely; but, congenial with the night,Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit.Doge of Venice. LORD BYRON.
O radiant Dark! O darkly fostered ray!Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day.The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I. GEORGE ELIOT.
I linger yet with Nature, for the nightHath been to me a more familiar faceThan that of man; and in her starry shadeOf dim and solitary loveliness,I learned the language of another world.Manfred, Act iii. Sc. 4. LORD BYRON.
Night is the time for rest;How sweet, when labors close.To gather round an aching breastThe curtain of repose,Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the headDown on our own delightful bed!Night. J. MONTGOMERY.
Now the hungry lion roars,And the wolf behowls the moon;Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,All with weary task foredone.Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Quiet night, that bringsRest to the laborer, is the outlaw's day,In which he rises early to do wrong,And when his work is ended dares not sleep.The Guardian, Act ii. Sc. 4. P. MASSINGER.
I must become a borrower of the nightFor a dark hour or twain.Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
All was so still, so soft, in earth and air,You scarce would start to meet a spirit thereSecure that nought of evil could delightTo walk in such a scene, on such a night!Lara. LORD BYRON.
Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hourFriendliest to sleep and silence.Paradise Lost, Bk. V. MILTON.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve;Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
In the dead vast and middle of the night.Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,When churchyards yawn, and Hell itself breathes outContagion to this world.Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
O wild and wondrous midnight,There is a might in theeTo make the charmèd bodyAlmost like spirit be.And give it some faint glimpsesOf immortality!Midnight. J.R. LOWELL.
Be noble! and the nobleness that liesIn other men, sleeping, but never dead,Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.Sonnet IV. J.R. LOWELL.
His nature is too noble for the world:He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,Or Jove for 's power to thunder.Coriolanus, Act iii. Sc 1. SHAKESPEARE.
This was the noblest Roman of them all:All the conspirators save only heDid that they did in envy of great Cæsar;He only, in a general honest thoughtAnd common good to all, made one of them.Julius Cæsar, Act v. Sc 5. SHAKESPEARE.
For most men (till by losing rendered sager)Will back their own opinions by a wager.Beppo. LORD BYRON.
Some praise at morning what they blame at night,But always think the last opinion right.Essay on Criticism, Pt. II. A. POPE.
He that complies against his willIs of his own opinion still.Hudibras, Canto III. S. BUTLER.
Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offered,Shall never find it more.Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 7. SHAKESPEARE.
This could but have happened once,And we missed it, lost it forever.Youth and Art. R. BROWNING.
He that will not when he may,When he will he shall have nay.Quoted in Anatomy of Melancholy. R. BURTON.
He that would not when he might,He shall not when he wolda.Reliques: The Baffled Knight. BISHOP T. PERCY.
Urge them while their soulsAre capable of this ambition.Lest zeal, nor melted by the windy breathOf soft petitions, pity and remorse,Cool and congeal again to what it was.King John, Act ii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Turning, for them who pass, the common dustOf servile opportunity to gold.Desultory Stanzas. W. WORDSWORTH.
But, spite of all the criticising elves,Those who would make us feel—must feel themselves.The Rosciad. C. CHURCHILL.
Words that weep and tears that speak.The Prophet. A. COWLEY.
Thence to the famous orators repair,Those ancient, whose resistless eloquenceWielded at will that fierce democratie,Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,To Macedon. and Artaxerxes' throne.Paradise Regained, Bk, IV. MILTON.
Where nature's end of language is declined,And men talk only to conceal the mind.Love of Fame, Satire II. DR. E. YOUNG.
What means this passionate discourse,This peroration with such circumstance?Henry VI., Pt. II. Act i. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Frank, haughty, rash,—the Rupert of debate.The New Timon, Pt. I. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
For rhetoric, he could not opeHis mouth, but out there flew a trope.
* * * * *
For all a rhetorician's rulesTeach nothing but to name his tools.Hudibras, Pt. 1. Canto 1. S. BUTLER.
"I wonder if Brougham thinks as much as he talks,"Said a punster, perusing a trial;"I vow, since his lordship was made Baron Vaux,He's beenVaux et proeterea nihil!"A Voice and Nothing More. ANONYMOUS.
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproarStood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined;Till at his second bidding darkness fled.Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.Paradise Lost, Bk. III. MILTON.
For the world was built in orderAnd the atoms march in tune:Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder,The sun obeys them, and the moon.Monadnock. R.W. EMERSON.
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state,Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate.Essay on Man, Epistle III. A. POPE.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centreObserve degree, priority and place,Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,Office and custom, in all line of order.Troilus and Cresida, Act . Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
The scourge of life, and death's extreme disgrace,The smoke of Hell, that monster called Paine.Sidera: Paine. SIR P. SIDNEY.
Nothing begins, and nothing ends,That is not paid with moan;For we are born in others' pain,And perish in our own.Daisy. F. THOMPSON.
Pain is no longer pain when it is past.Nature's Lesson. M.J. PRESTON.
Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain.Love's Labor's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Alas! by some degree of woeWe every bliss must gain;The heart can ne'er a transport knowThat never feels a pain.Song. LORD LYTTELTON.
The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bringHome to our hearts the truth from which they spring.Monody on the Death of the Rt. Hon. R.B. Sheridan. LORD BYRON.
Hard features every bungler can command:To draw true beauty shows a master's hand.To Mr. Lee, on his Alexander. J. DRYDEN.
A flattering painter, who made it his careTo draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.Retaliation. O. GOLDSMITH.
Lely on animated canvas stoleThe sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul.Horace, Bk. II. Epistle I. A. POPE.
I will say of it,It tutors nature: artificial strifeLives in these touches, livelier than life.Timon of Athens, Act i. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
With hue like that when some great painter dipsHis pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.The Revolt of Islam. P.B. SHELLEY.
To know, to esteem, to love,—and then to part,Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart.On Taking Leave of——. S.T. COLERIDGE.
Forever, Fortune, wilt thou proveAn unrelenting foe to love;And, when we meet a mutual heart,Come in between and bid us part?Song. J. THOMSON.
Two lives that once part, are as ships that divideWhen, moment on moment, there rushes betweenThe one and the other, a sea;—Ah, never can fall from the days that have beenA gleam on the years that shall be!A Lament. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.Childe Harold, Canto I. LORD BYRON.
We twain have met like the ships upon the sea,Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;One little hour! and then, away they speedOn lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam,To meet no more.Life Drama, Sc. 4. A. SMITH.
He did keepThe deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,Still waving as the fits and stirs of his mindCould best express how slow his soul sailed on.—How swift his ship.Cymbeline, Act i. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
But in vain she did conjure him,To depart her presence so,Having a thousand tongues t'allure himAnd but one to bid him go.When lips invite,And eyes delight,And cheeks as fresh as rose in JunePersuade delay,What boots to sayForego me now, come to me soon?Dulcina. SIR W. RALEIGH.
Good night, good night: parting is such sweet sorrow,That I shall say good night till it be morrow.Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
JULIET.—O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?ROMEO.—I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serveFor sweet discourses in our time to come.Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
In the hope to meetShortly again, and make our absence sweet.Underwoods.. B. JONSON.
When we two partedIn silence and tears,Half broken-hearted,To sever for years,Pale grew thy cheek and cold,Colder thy kiss:Truly that hour foretoldSorrow to this!When we two parted. LORD BYRON.
BRUTUS.—Whether we shall meet again I know not.Therefore our everlasting farewell take;For ever, and for ever, farewell. Cassius!If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;If not, why, then this parting was well made.CASSIUS.—For ever, and for ever, farewell, Brutus!Julius Cæsar, Act v. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Take heed lest passion swayThy judgment to do aught, which else free willWould not admit.Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII. MILTON.
In men, we various ruling passions find;In women two almost divide the kind;Those only fixed, they first or last obey,The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.Moral Essays, Epistle II. A. POPE.
Passions are likened best to floods and streams,The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.The Silent Lover. SIR W. RALEIGH.
A little fire is quickly trodden out;Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.Henry VI., Pt. III. Act iv. Sc. 8SHAKESPEARE.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,The ruling passion conquers reason still.
* * * * *
Hear then the truth: 'Tis Heav'n each passion sends,And different men directs to different ends.Extremes in nature equal good produce;Extremes in man concur to general use.Moral Essays, Epistle III. A. POPE.
And hence one master passion in the breast,Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.Essay on Man, Epistle II. A. POPE.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return.
* * * * *
To-day, unhappy day, too late.King Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power;But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.Imitation of Horace, Bk, I. Ode XXIX. J. DRYDEN.
Things without all remedyShould be without regard: what's done is done.Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were,
* * * * *
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour!Childe Harold, Canto II. LORD BYRON.
This is the place. Stand still, my steed,Let me review the scene,And summon from the shadowy PastThe forms that once have been.A Gleam of Sunshine. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
ApplauseTo that blest son of foresight: lord of fate!That awful independent on to-morrowWhose work is done; who triumphs in the past;Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile.Night Thoughts, Night II. DR. E. YOUNG.
For time is like a fashionable host,That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,Grasps-in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,And farewell goes out sighing.Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Endurance is the crowning quality,And patience all the passion of great hearts.Columbus. J.R. LOWELL.
His patient soul endures what Heav'n ordains,But neither feels nor fears ideal pains.The Borough. G. CRABBE.
'Tis all men's office to speak patienceTo those that ring under the load of sorrow.But no man's virtue nor sufficiencyTo be so moral when he shall endureThe like himself.Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
And I must bearWhat is ordained with patience, being awareNecessity doth front the universeWith an invincible gesture.Prometheus Bound. E.B. BROWNING.
How poor are they that have not patience!What wound did ever heal but by degrees?Othello, Act ii. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
I will with patience hear, and find a timeBoth meet to hear and answer such high things.Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
I worked with patience, which means almost power.Aurora Leigh, Bk. III. E.B. BROWNING.
Or arm th' obdured breastWith stubborn patience as with triple steel.Paradise Lost, Bk. II. MILTON.
Patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.The Vanity of Human Wishes. DR. S. JOHNSON.
Patience, my lord! why, 't is the soul of peace;Of all the virtues 'tis nearest kin to heaven;It makes men look like gods. The best of menThat e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,The first true gentleman that ever breathed.The Honest Whore, Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 12. T. DEKKER.
They love their land, because it is their own,And scorn to give aught other reason why.Connecticut. F-G. HALLECK.
No factious voiceCalled them unto the field of generous fame,But the pure consecrated love of home;No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakesIn all its greatness.The Graves of the Patriots. J.G. PERCIVAL.
The worst of rebels never armTo do their king and country harm,But draw their swords to do them good,As doctors use, by letting blood.Hudibras. S. BUTLER.
Hail! Independence, hail! Heaven's next best gift,To that of life and an immortal soul!Liberty, Pt. V.J. THOMSON.
The inextinguishable spark, which firesThe soul of patriots.Leonidas.R. GLOVER.
I do loveMy country's good with a respect more tender,More holy and profound, than mine own life.Coriolanus, Actiii.Sc. 3.SHAKESPEARE.
What pity is itThat we can die but once to save our country!Cato, Activ.Sc. 4. J. ADDISON.
O Peace! thou source and soul of social life;Beneath whose calm inspiring influenceScience his views enlarges, Art refines,And swelling Commerce opens all her ports.Britannia. J. THOMSON.
Ay, but give me worship and quietness;I like it better than a dangerous honor.King Henry VI., Pt. III. Activ.Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,For freedom only deals the deadly blow:Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,For gentle peace in freedom's hallowed shade.Written in an Album. J.Q. ADAMS.
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace,By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
King Richard III., Actv.Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Take away the sword;States can be saved without it.Richelieu, Actii.Sc. 2. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
A peace is of the nature of a conquest:For then both parties nobly are subdued,And neither party loser.King Henry IV., Pt. II. Activ.Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,And lover's sonnets turned to holy psalms;A man at arms must now serve on his knees,And feed on prayers, which are his age's alms.Polyhymnia. G. PEELE.
Ne'er to meet, or ne'er to part, is peace.Night Thoughts, Night V. DR. E. YOUNG.
Till each man finds his own in all men's good,And all men work in noble brotherhood,Breaking their mailèd fleets and armèd towers,And ruling by obeying Nature's powers,And gathering all the fruits of peace and crowned with all her flowers.Ode, sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition.A. TENNYSON.
Beneath the rule of men entirely greatThe pen is mightier than the sword.Richelieu, Act ii. Sc 3. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
The feather, whence the penWas shaped that traced the lives of these good men,Dropped from an Angel's wing.Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. III., v. Walton's Book of Lives.W. WORDSWORTH.
Whose noble praiseDeserves a quill pluckt from an angel's wing.Sonnet. DOROTHY BERRY.
You still shall live—such virtue hath my pen,Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.Sonnet, LXXXI. SHAKESPEARE.
Oh! nature's noblest gift—my gray-goose quill!Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,Torn from thy parent-bird to form a pen,That mighty instrument of little men!English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. LORD BYRON.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain—Vain as the leaf upon the stream,And fickle as a changeful dream;Fantastic as a woman's mood,And fierce as Frenzy's fevered blood.Thou many-headed monster thing,O, who would wish to be thy king!Lady of the Lake, Canto V. SIR W. SCOTT.
I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people.Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7. SHAKESPEARE.
He that dependsUpon your favors swims with fins of lead,And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?With every minute you do change a mind;And call him noble that was now your hate,Him vile that was your garland.Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
The scumThat rises upmost when the nation boils.Don Sebastian. J. DRYDEN.
Rumor is a pipeBlown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,And of so easy and so plain a stopThat the blunt monster with uncounted heads,The still-discordant wavering multitude,Can play upon it.King Henry IV., Pt. II. Act i. Induction. SHAKESPEARE.
The people's voice is odd,It is, and it is not, the voice of God.To Augustus. A. POPE.
Through all disguise, form, place or name,Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,Through poverty and squalid shame,Thou lookest on the man within.
On man, as man, retaining yet,Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim,The crown upon his forehead set—The immortal gift of God to him.Democracy. J.G. WHITTIER.
To gild refinèd gold, to paint the lily,To throw a perfume on the violet,To smooth the ice, or add another hueUnto the rainbow, or with taper-lightTo seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.King John, Act iv. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
How many things by season seasoned areTo their right praise and true perfection!Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Those about herFrom her shall read the perfect ways of honor.King Henry VIII., Act v. Sc. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.Essay on Criticism, Pt. II. A. POPE.
And the ripe harvest of the new-mown hayGives it a sweet and wholesome odor.Richard III. (Altered), Act v. Sc. 3. C. CIBBER.
Perfume for a lady's chamber.Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Take your paper, too.And let me have them very well perfumed,For she is sweeter than perfume itselfTo whom they go to.Taming of the Shrew, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Sabean odors from the spicy shoreOf Arabie the blest.Paradise Lost, Bk. IV. MILTON.
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.Rape of the Lock, Canto I. A. POPE.
A violet in the youth of primy nature,Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,The perfume and suppliance of a minute.Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
I cannot talk with civet in the room,A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.Conversation. W. COWPER.
As that renownèd poet them compyledWith warlike numbers and heroicke sound,Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.Faërie Queene, Bk. IV. Canto II. E. SPENSER.
Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick!Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings.King Henry VI., Part III. Act iii. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
The starry Galileo, with his woes.Childe Harold, Canto IV. LORD BYRON.
The admired mirror, glory of our isle,Thou far, far more than mortal man, whose styleStruck more men dumb to hearken to thy songThan Orpheus' harp, or Tully's golden tongue.To him, as right, for wit's deep quintessence,For honor, valor, virtue, excellence,Be all the garlands, crown his tomb with bay,Who spake as much as e'er our tongue can say.Britannia's Pastorals, Bk. II. Song 2. W. BROWNE.
Divinest Spenser, heaven-bred, happy Muse!Would any power into my brain infuseThy worth, or all that poets had before,I could not praise till thou deserv'st no more.Britannia's Pastorals, Bk. II. Song 1. W. BROWNE.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!Essay on Man, Epistle IV. A. POPE.
O rare Ben Jonson!Epitaph. SIR J. YOUNG.
What things have we seenDone at the Mermaid! heard words that have beenSo nimble, and so full of subtle flame,As if that every one from whence they cameHad meant to put his whole wit in a jest,And had resolved to live a fool the restOf his dull life: then when there hath been thrownWit able enough to justify the townFor three days past; wit that might warrant beFor the whole city to talk foolishlyTill that were cancelled; and when that was gone,We left an air behind us, which aloneWas able to make the two next companies(Right witty, though but downright fools) more wise.Letter to Ben Jonson. F. BEAUMONT.
Renownèd Spenser, lie a thought more nighTo learnèd Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lieA little nearer Spenser, to make roomFor Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.On Shakespeare. W. BASSE.
Old mother-wit and nature gaveShakespeare and Fletcher all they have;In Spenser and in Jonson artOf slower nature got the start;But both in him so equal are,None knows which bears the happiest share;To him no author was unknown,Yet what he wrote was all his own.Elegy on Cowley. SIR J. DENHAM.
[Lord President of the Council to King James I. Parliament wasdissolved March 10, and he died March 14, 1628.]
Till the sad breaking of that ParliamentBroke him….Killed with report that old man eloquent.To the Lady Margaret Ley. MILTON.
As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bearInto the Avon, Avon to the tideOf Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,Into main ocean they, this deed accursedAn emblem yields to friends and enemies,How the bold Teacher's doctrine, sanctifiedBy truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Part II. xvii. To Wickliffe. W. WORDSWORTH.
[Bartlett quotes, in this connection, the following:]
"Some prophet of that day said:'The Avon to the Severn runs,The Severn to the sea;And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad,Wide as the waters be.'"From Address before the "Sons of New Hampshire" (1849). D. WEBSTER.
Nor second he, that rode sublimeUpon the seraph-wings of ecstasy,The secrets of the abyss to spy.He passed the flaming bounds of place and time,The living throne, the sapphire blaze,Where angels tremble while they gaze,He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,Closed his eyes in endless night.Progress of Poesy. T. GRAY.
His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone;For he was great, ere fortune made him so:And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.Oliver Cromwell. J. DRYDEN.
Or, ravished with the whistling of a name,See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame!Essay on Man, Epistle IV. A. POPE.
Here lies our sovereign lord the king,Whose word no man relies on;He never says a foolish thing,Nor ever does a wise one.Written on the Bedchamber Door of Charles II. EARL OF ROCHESTER.
The solitary monk who shook the worldFrom pagan slumber, when the gospel trumpThundered its challenge from his dauntless lipsIn peals of truth.Luther. R. MONTGOMERY.
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,The sleepless soul that perished in his pride.Resolution and Independence. W. WORDSWORTH.
A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems,Who, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain,On virtue still, and Nature's pleasing themes,Poured forth his unpremeditated strain:
The world forsaking with a calm disdain,Here laughed he careless in his easy seat;Here quaffed, encircled with the joyous train,Oft moralizing sage: his ditty sweetHe lothèd much to write, he carèd to repeat.Stanza introduced into Thomson's "Castle of Indolence,"Canto I. LORD LYTTELTON.
In yonder grave a Druid lies.Where slowly winds the stealing wave;The year's best sweets shall duteous riseTo deck its poet's sylvan grave.Ode on the Death of Thomson. W. COLLINS.
The hand of him here torpid liesThat drew the essential form of grace;Here closed in death the attentive eyesThat saw the manners in the face.Epitaph. DR. S. JOHNSON.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.Epitaph. A. POPE.
Here lies David Garrick—describe me, who can.An abridgement of all that was pleasant in man.As an actor, confessed without rival to shine;As a wit, if not first, in the very first line.Retaliation. O. GOLDSMITH.
Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,We scarcely can praise it, or blame it, too much;Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind.And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat,To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote:Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining;Though equal to all things, for all things unfit,Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit;For a patriot too cool; for a drudge disobedient;And too fond of therightto pursue theexpedient.In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed, or in place, sir,To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.Retaliation. O. GOLDSMITH.
Whose humor, as gay as the firefly's light,Played round every subject, and shone as it played;—Whose wit, in the combat, as gentle as bright,Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade;—Whose eloquence—brightening whatever it tried,Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave—Was as rapid, as deep, and as brilliant a tide,As ever bore freedom aloft on its wave!Lines on the Death of Sheridan. T. MOORE.
Long shall we seek his likeness,—long in vain.And turn to all of him which may remain,Sighing that Nature formed but one such man.And broke the die—in moulding Sheridan!Monody on the Death of Sheridan. LORD BYRON.
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'erShall sink while there's an echo left to air.Age of Bronze. LORD BYRON.
O good gray head which all men knew,O voice from which their omens all men drew,O iron nerve to true occasion true,O fallen at length that tower of strengthWhich stood four-square to all the winds that blew!Such was he whom we deplore.The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er.The great World-victor's victor will be seen no more.On the Death of the Duke of Wellington. A. TENNYSON.
His nature's a glass of champagne with the foam on 't.As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont;So his best things are done in the flash of the moment.A Fable for Critics. J.R. LOWELL.
There in seclusion and remote from menThe wizard hand lies cold,Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,And left the tale half told.
Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,And the lost clew regain?The unfinished window in Aladdin's towerUnfinished must remain!Hawthorne, May 23, 1864H.W. LONGFELLOW.
A Greek head on right Yankee shoulders, whose rangeHas Olympus for one pole, for t'other the Exchange;He seems, to my thinking (although I'm afraidThe comparison must, long ere this, have been made).A Plotinus-Montaigne, where the Egyptian's gold mistAnd the Gascon's shrewd wit cheek-by-jowl coexist.A Fable for Critics. J.R. LOWELL.
C.'s the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of limb,—E. the clear-eyed Olympian, rapid and slim;The one's two thirds Norseman, the other half Greek,Where the one's most abounding, the other's to seek;C.'s generals require to be seen in the mass,—E.'s specialties gain if enlarged by the glass;C. gives nature and God his own fits of the blues.And rims common-sense things with mystical hues,—E. sits in a mystery calm and intense,And looks coolly around him with sharp common-sense.A Fable for Critics. J.R. LOWELL.
There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge,Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters.In a way to make people of common sense damn metres,Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind.A Fable for Critics. J.R. LOWELL.
There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heartStrains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart,And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect,Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect;There was ne'er a man born who had more of the swingOf the true lyric bard and all that kind of thing;
* * * * *
Our Quaker leads off metaphorical fightsFor reform and whatever they call human rights,Both singing and striking in front of the war,And hitting his foes with the mallet of Thor.A Fable for Critics. J.R. LOWELL.
The intellectual power, through words and things,Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!
The Excursion, Bk. III. W. WORDSWORTH.
How charming is divine philosophy!Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,But musical as is Apollo's lute,And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,Where no crude surfeit reigns.Comus. MILTON.
In discourse more sweet,(For eloquence the soul song charms the sense,)Others apart sat on a hill retired,In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned highOf providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.Of good and evil much they argued then,Of happiness and final misery,Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.Paradise Lost, Bk. II. MILTON.
Sublime Philosophy!Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven,And bright with beckoning angels;—but alas!We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams.By the first step,—dull slumbering on the earth.Richelieu, Actiii.Sc. 1. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
Not so the son; he marked this oversight.And then mistook reverse of wrong for right;(For What to shun, will no great knowledge need,But What to follow, is a task indeed!)Moral Essays, Epistle III. A. POPE.
He knew what's what, and that's as highAs metaphysic wit can fly.Hudibras, Pt. I. DR. S. BUTLER.
His cogitative faculties immersedIn cogibundity of cogitation.Chronon, Acti.Sc. 1. H. CAREY.
When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"And proved it—'t was no matter what he said.Don Juan, Canto XI. LORD BYRON.
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought.And naught is everything and everything is naught.Rejected Addresses: Cui Bono? H. AND J. SMITH.
HORATIO.—O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!HAMLET.—And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.Hamlet, Acti.Sc. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Pity's akin to love; and every thoughtOf that soft kind is welcome to my soul.Oroonoko, Actii.Sc. 2. T. SOUTHERNE.
My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,As you would beg, were you in my distress:A begging prince what beggar pities not?King Richard IV., Acti.Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,My mildness hath allayed their swelling griefs.King Henry VI., Pt. III. Activ.Sc. 8. SHAKESPEARE.
Pity is the virtue of the law,And none but tyrants use it cruelly.Timon of Athens, Actiii.Sc. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Soft pity never leaves the gentle breastWhere love has been received a welcome guest.The Duenna, Actii.Sc. 3. R.B. SHERIDAN.
Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem;There's not a leaf that falls upon the groundBut holds some joy of silence or of sound,Some sprite begotten of a summer dream.Hidden Joys. L. BLANCHARD.
Pleasure admitted in undue degreeEnslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.Progress of Error. W. COWPER.
Sure as night follows day,Death treads in Pleasure's footsteps round the world,When Pleasure treads the paths which Reason shuns.Night Thoughts, Night V. DR. E. YOUNG.
To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.Night Thoughts, Night VIII. DR. E. YOUNG.A man of pleasure is a man of pains.Night Thoughts, Night V. DR. E. YOUNG.
Who mixed reason with pleasure and wisdom with mirth.Retaliation. O. GOLDSMITH.
Never to blend our pleasure or our prideWith sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.Resolution and Independence. W. WORDSWORTH.
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,Lie in three words—health, peace, and competence.Essay on Man, Epistle IV. A. POPE.
We call those poets who are first to markThrough earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,—Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark,While others only note that day is gone.Shakespeare. O.W. HOLMES.
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.Epistle to G.F. Mathews. J. KEATS.
Most joyful let the poet be;It is through him that all men see.The Poet of the Old and New Times. W.E. CHANNING.
God's prophets of the beautiful.Vision of Poets. E.B. BROWNING.
For that fine madness still he did retain,Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.Of Poets and Poesy: (Christopher Marlowe). M. DRAYTON.
But he, the bard of every age and clime,Of genius fruitful, and of soul sublime,Who, from the glowing mint of fancy, poursNo spurious metal, fused from common ores,But gold, to matchless purity refin'd,And stamp'd with all the godhead in his mind.Juvenal. W. GIFFORD.
Most wretched menAre cradled into poetry by wrong;They learn in suffering what they teach in song.Julian and Maddalo. P.B. SHELLEY.Here at the fountain's sliding foot,Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,Casting the body's vest aside,My soul into the boughs does glide:
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,Then whets and claps its silver wings,And, till prepared for longer flight,Waves in its plumes the various light.The Garden (Translated). A. MARVELL.
In his own verse the poet still we find.In his own page his memory lives enshrined.As in their amber sweets the smothered bees,—As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze,Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees.Bryant's Seventieth Birthday. O.W. HOLMES.
There is a pleasure in poetic painsWhich only poets know.The Timepiece: The Task, Bk. II. W. COWPER.
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.The Dunciad. A. POPE.
Deem not the framing of a deathless layThe pastime of a drowsy summer day.But gather all thy powers,And wreak them on the verse that thou wouldst weave.The Poet. W.C. BRYANT.
From his chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyreNone but the noblest passions to inspire,Not one immoral, one corrupted thought.One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus. LORD LYTTELTON.
I can no more believe old Homer blind,Than those who say the sun hath never shined;The age wherein he lived was dark, but heCould not want sight who taught the world to see.Progress of Learning. SIR J. DENHAM.
Read Homer once, and you can read no more,For all books else appear so mean, so poor;Verse may seem prose; but still persist to read,And Homer will be all the books you need.Essay on Poetry. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
The poet in a golden clime was born,With golden stars above;Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,The love of love.The Poet. A. TENNYSON.
Happy who in his verse can gently steerFrom grave to light, from pleasant to severe.The Art of Poetry. J. DRYDEN.
But those that write in rhyme still makeThe one verse for the other's sake;For one for sense, and one for rhyme,I think 's sufficient at one time.Hudibras, Pt. II. DR. S. BUTLER.
For rhyme the rudder is of verses.With which, like ships, they steer their courses.Hudibras, Pt. I. DR. S. BUTLER.
And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad,It is not poetry, but prose run mad.Prologue to Satires. A. POPE.
I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew,Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers;I had rather hear a brazen can stick turned,Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,Nothing so much as mincing poetry:'T is like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.King Henry IV., Pt. I. Actiii.Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to traceThe naked nature and the living grace,With gold and jewels cover every part,And hide with ornaments their want of art.True wit is nature to advantage dressed,What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.Essay on Criticism, Pt. II. A. POPE.
Unjustly poets we asperse;Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,And all the fictions they pursueDo but insinuate what is true.To Stella. J. SWIFT.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares,—The Poets! who on earth have made us heirsOf truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!Personal Talk. W. WORDSWORTH.
Wisdom married to immortal verse.The Excursion, Bk. VII. w. WORDSWORTH.
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well;No writing lifts exalted man so highAs sacred and soul-moving poesy.Essay on Poetry. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
Poetry is itself a thing of God;He made his prophets poets; and the moreWe feel of poesie do we becomeLike God in love and power.—under-makers.Festus: Proem. P.J. BAILEY.
Go boldly forth, my simple lay,Whose accents flow with artless ease,Like orient pearls at random strung.A Persian Song of Hafiz. SIR W. JONES.
One simile that solitary shinesIn the dry desert of a thousand lines.Imitations of Horace. Epistle I. Bk. II. A. POPE.
Read, meditate, reflect, grow wise—in vain;Try every help, force fire from every spark;Yet shall you ne'er the poet's power attain,If heaven ne'er stamped you with the muses' mark.The Poet. A. HILL.
Jewels five-words long,That on the stretched forefinger of all timeSparkle forever.The Princess, Canto II. A. TENNYSON.
Choice word and measured phrase above the reachOf ordinary men.Resolution and Independence. W. WORDSWORTH.
The varying verse, the full resounding line.The long majestic march, and energy divine.Imitations of Horace, Bk. II. Epistle I. A. POPE.
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flowerNear the lark's nest, or in their natural hourHave passed away; less happy than the oneThat, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to proveThe tender charm of poetry and love.Poems in Summer of1833,XXXVII. W. WORDSWORTH.Thanks untraced to lips unknownShall greet me like the odors blownFrom unseen meadows newly mown,Or lilies floating in some pond,Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;The traveller owns the grateful senseOf sweetness near, he knows not whence,And, pausing, takes with forehead bareThe benediction of the air.Snow-Bound. J.G. WHITTIER.
Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep,Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems arise,Which, by the toil of gathering energies,Their upward way into clear sunshine keepUntil, by Heaven's sweetest influences,Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of greenInto a pleasant island in the seas,Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen,And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour,Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.Sonnet VII. J.R. LOWELL.
A drainless showerOf light is poesy: 't is the supreme of power;'T is might half slumbering on its own right arm.Sleep and Poetry. J. KEATS.
For dear to gods and men is sacred song.Self-taught I sing: by Heaven and Heaven alone,The genuine seeds of poesy are sown.Odyssey, Bk. XXII. HOMER.Trans. ofPOPE.
Still govern thou my song,Urania, and fit audience find, though few.Paradise Lost, Bk. VII. MILTON.
The freeman casting, with unpurchased hand,The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.Poetry. O.W. HOLMES.
A weapon that comes down as stillAs snowflakes fall upon the sod;But executes a freeman's will,As lightning does the will of God:And from its force, nor doors nor locksCan shield you;—'t is the ballot-box.A Word from a Petitioner. J. PIERPONT.
What is a Communist? One who has yearningsFor equal division of unequal earnings.Epigram. E. ELLIOTT.
Measures, not men, have always been my mark.The Good-natured Man, Act ii. O. GOLDSMITH.
Coffee, which makes the politician wise,And see through all things with his half shut eyes.Rape of the Lock, Canto III. A. POPE.
Get thee glass eyes;And, like a scurvy politician, seemTo see the things thou dost not.King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6. SHAKESPEARE.
Here and there some stern, high patriot stood,Who could not get the place for which he sued.Don Juan, Canto XIII. LORD BYRON.
Get place and wealth; if possible, with grace;If not, by any means get wealth and place.Epistles of Horace, Epistle I. A. POPE.
O, that estates, degrees, and officesWere not derived corruptly, and that clear honorWere purchased by the merit of the wearer!Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 9. SHAKESPEARE.
When I behold what pleasure is pursuit,What life, what glorious eagerness it is,Then mark how full possession falls from this,How fairer seem the blossoms than the fruit,—I am perplext, and often stricken mute,Wondering which attained the higher bliss,The wingèd insect, or the chrysalisIt thrust aside with unreluctant foot.Pursuit and Possession. T.B. ALDRICH.
Bliss in possession will not last;Remembered joys are never past;At once the fountain, stream, and sea,They were, they are, they yet shall be.The Little Cloud. J. MONTGOMERY.
But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,And roam along, the world's tired denizen,With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.Childe Harold, Canto II. LORD BYRON.
I die,—but first I have possessed,And come what may, Ihave beenblessed.The Giaour. LORD BYRON.