Il fares the land, to hast'ning 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.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Yes, let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, e'en while passion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy ?
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those pow'rs that raise the soul to flame,
Catch ev'ry nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a mould'ring fire,
Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer,
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
Far from the madd'ning crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Gray's Churchyard.
November chill blows loud wi' angry sugh;
The short ning winter-day draws near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn at ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does home-
ward bend.
Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night.
Right of voice in framing laws,
Yight of peers to try each cause;
Peasant homestead, mean and small,
acred as the monarch's hall.
From labour health, from health contectmen
Contentment opes the source of every joy.
He envied not, he never thought of kings;
Nor from those appetites sustain'd annoy,
That chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy;
Nor fate his calm and humble hope beguil'd;
He mourn'd no recreant friend, nor mistress coy!
For on his vows the blameless Phoebe smil'd,
And her alone he lov'd, and lov'd her from a child
Beattie's Minstrel,
Let luxury, sickening in profusion's chair,
Unwisely pamper his unworthy heir;
And while he feeds him, blush and tremble too,
But, Love and Labour, blush not, fear not you.
Your children, (splinters from the mountain's side,)
With rugged hands, shall for themselves provide.
Parent of valour, cast away thy fear;
Mother of men, be proud without a tear!
While round your hearth the woe-nurs'd virtues
All, all that manliness can ask of love;
Remember Hogarth, and abjure despair,
Remember Arkwright, and the peasant Clare.
Ebenezer Elliott
Oh! nature's noblest gift-my grey 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!
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
Ye safe and formal men,
Who write the deeds, and with unfeverish hand
Weigh in nice scales the motives of the great,
Ye cannot know what ye have never tried.
Bulwer's Richelieu
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch enchanter's wand! itself a nothing!
But taking sorcery from the master hand,
To paralyze the Cæsars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless!
In days of yore, the poet's pen
From wing of bird was plunder'd,
Perhaps of goose, but now and then,
From Jove's own eagle sunder'd.
But now, metallic pens disclose
Alone the poet's numbers;
In iron inspiration glows,
Or with the poet slumbers.
The "beaten track". -a slave for ever;
No! roam as thou wert wont to do
In author-land, by rock and river. Be like the sunbeam's burning wing, Be like the wand in Cinderella, And if you touch a common thing,
Ah! change to gold the pumpkin yellow!
May grace come fluttering round your steps,
Whene'er, my bird, you light on paper,
And music murmur at your lips,
And truth restrain each truant caper.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Be tun'd to tenderest music when
Of sin and shame thou 'rt sadly singing;
But diamond be thy point, my pen,
When folly's bells are round thee ringing!
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright. To have none, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail
In monumental mockery.
Revolt is recreant, when pursuit is brave;
Never to faint, doth purchase what we crave.
Machen's Dumb Knight
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard, but search will find it out.
Herrick
In war or peace, who his great purpose fields,
He is the only villain of this world:
But he who labours firm and gains his pom,
Be what it will, which crowns him with success
He is the son of fortune and of fame;
By those admir'd, those specious villains most,
That else had bellow'd out reproach against him
Thomson's Agamemnor
Perseverance is a Roman virtue,
That wins each god-like act, and plucks success
E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger
Havard's Regulus
- Forc'd to drudge for the dregs of men,
And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, The proudest motto for the young!
And mingle among the jostling crowd,
Where the sons of strife are busy and loud.
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
Write it in lines of gold
Upon thy heart, and in thy mind
The stirring words enfold;
And in misfortune's dreary hour,
Or fortune's prosperons gale,
"T will have a holy, cheering power.
"There's no such word as fail!"
Press on! for it is godlike to unloose
The spirit, and forget yourself in thought;
Bending a pinion for the deeper sky,
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, And, in the very fetters of your flesh,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
Shaks. King John.
Nature, in her productions, slow, aspires
Bv just degrees to reach perfection's height.
Somerville's Chase.
The growth of what is excellent, so hard 'I' attain perfection in this nether world.
1 et other bards of angels sing,
Mating with the pure essences of heaven!
Press on! "for in the grave there is no work,
And no device."-Press on! while yet you may!
Willis's Poems
Stick to your aim; the mongrel's hold wil
slip,
But only crow-bars loose the bull-dog's lip;
Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields
Cowper's Task. Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields
Bright suns without a spot;
But thou art no such perfect thing:
Rejoice that thou art not!
Wordsworth. PHILANTHROPY. — (See KINDNES")
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