And evermore the waters worship God ;- And bards and prophets tune their mystic lyres While listening to the music of the waves!
Type of the Infinite! I look away Over thy billows, and I cannot stay My thought upon a resting-place, or make A shore beyond my vision, where they break; But on my spirit stretches, till it's pain
To think; then rests, and then puts forth again.
Dana's Factitious Life. Oh! how old
If my offence be of such mortal kind, That neither service past, nor present sorrows, Nor purpos'd merit in futurity, Can ransom me into his love again, But to know so must be my benefit;
Thou art to me! For countless years thou 'st So shall I clothe me in a forc'd content,
Before an car did hear thee, thou didst mourn, Prophet of sorrow, o'er a race unborn; Waiting, thou mighty minister of death, Lonely thy work, ere man had drawn his breath! Dana's Factitious Life.
Thou art the same, eternal sea! The earth hath many shapes and forms, Of hill and valley, flower and tree; Fields that the fervid noontide warms, Or winter's rugged grasp deforms, Or bright with autumn's golden store; Thou coverest up thy face with storms, Or smil'st screne but still thy roar And dashing foam go up to vex the sea-beat shore. George Lunt.
The ocean looketh up to heaven, As 't were a living thing; The homage of its waves is given In ceaseless worshipping. They kneel upon the sloping sand, As bends the human knee,
List, how he sings in an under tone, Chiming with our melody;
And there, where the smooth, wet pebbles be, The waters gurgle longingly,
As if they fain would seek the shore,
And shut myself up in some other course, To fortune's alms.
OFFICE.
Custom calls me to 't,
What custom wills in all things, should we do't. The dust on antique time would lie unswept, And mountainous error be too highly heap'd For truth to overpeer. Rather than feel it so, J. R. Lowen -- The Syrens. To one who would do thus. Let the high office and the honour go
'To be at rest from the ceaseless roar,
To be at rest for evermore.
Thus on life's gloomy sea, Heareth the marinere, Voices sweet from far and near,
Ever singing in his ear,
"Here is rest and peace for thee!"
Shaks. Coriolanus. You, yourself
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm;
To sell and mart your offices for gold
J. R. Lowell- The Syrens.
He climbs, he pants, he grasps them; at his heels, That fastens upon wit and sense,
Why, look around, And count, if possible, the pamper'd numbers Who fatten on the state: they are the men, Who, if they find a man too honourable To be a fellow-gleaner of the spoils, When faction's sickle sweeps the public wealth, Lift up their angry voices to the crowd And breathe around their pestilential breath, Till virtue's self is tainted by the touch.
Dawes's Athenia of Damascus. They who bend to Power, and lap its milk, Are fickler and more dangerous far than they Who honestly defy it!
Opinion's but a fool, that makes us scan The outward habit by the inward man.
Opinion, the blind goddess of fools, foe To the virtuous, and only friend to Undeserving persons.
That with a venomous contagion, Invades the sick imagination; And when it seizes any part, It strikes the poison to the heart.
This men of one another catch By contact, as the humours match; And nothing's so perverse in nature As a profound opinionator.
How can you rest where pow'r is still alarm'd: Each crowd a faction, and each faction arm'd? Who fashions of opinion love to change, And think their own the best for being strange; Their own, if it were lasting, they would hate; Yet call it conscience when 't is obstinate. Sir W. Davenant.
We all, my lords, have err'd. Men may, I find, be honest, though they differ. Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda. For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh, Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn. Thomson's Seasons.
How much there is self-will would do,
Were it not for the dire dismay That bids ye shrink, as ye suddenly think Of "what will my neighbours say?"
He lov'd his kind, but sought the love of few, And valued old opinions more than new. Park Benjamin.
Yet in opinions look not always back; Chapman's Widow's Tears. Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track; Leave what you've done for what you have to do, Don't be "consistent," but be simply true.
Let not opinion make thy judgment err; The evening conquest crowns the conqueror.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flow, leads on to fortune, Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows, and in miseries On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.
Her feet are swift, bald is her head behind: Whoso hath hold, and after lets her go, Doth lose the lot which fortune did bestow. Mirror for Magistrates. Opportunity to statesmen, is as the just degree Of heat to chymists; it perfects all the work. Suckling's Brennoralt.
The old Scythians Painted blind fortune's powerful hands with wings, To show her gifts come swift and suddenly, Which, if her fav'rite be not swift to take, He loses them for ever.
Chapman's Busy D'Ambois. Accursed opportunity!
The midwife and the bawd to all our vices: That work'st our thoughts into desires: desires To resolutions: and these being ripe and quicken'd, Thou giv'st 'em birth, and bring'st 'em forth to
And 't is remarkable that they Talk most, that have the least to say. Your daily speakers have the curse, To plead their causes down to worse: As dames who native beauty want, Still uglier look the more they paint.
Prior's Alma. Grac'd as thou art with all the power of words, So known, so honour'd at the house of lords. Pope.
With studied impropriety of speech, He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach; To epithets allots emphatic state, Whilst principles ungrac'd, like lacquies wait; In ways first trodden by himself excels,
And stands alone in undeclinables; Conjunction, preposition, adverb join
To stamp new vigour on the nervous line; In monosyllables his thunders roll, He, she, it, and we, ye, they, fright the soul. Churchill's Rosciad. Statesman all over! in plots famous grown! He mouths a sentence, as curs mouth a bone. Churchill's Rosciad. While words of learned length, and thund'ring sound,
Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around; And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew That one small head should carry all he knew. Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining. Goldsmith's Retaliation. So quick the words too, when he deign'd to speak,
As if each syllable would break its neck. Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Proud of his "hear hims," proud too of his vote And last virginity of oratory,
Proud of his learning (just enough to quote), He revell'd in his Ciceronian glory: With memory excellent to get by rote, With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story, Graced with some merit and with more effrontery, 'His country's pride;" he came down to the country.
His speech was a fine sample, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call "rigmarole." Byron.
He answer'd like a statesman or a prophet, In such guise that she could make nothing of it. Byron.
He scratch'd his ear, the infallible resource To which embarrass'd people have recourse.
Sense of pleasure we may well Spare out of life perhaps, and not repine, But live content, which is the calmest life: But pain is perfect misery, the worst Of evils, and excessive, overturns All patience
Unreasonable creatures feed their young; And tho' man's face be fearful to their eyes, Yet, in protection of their tender ones, Who hath not seen them, even with those wings Which sometimes they have us'd with fearful flight,
Milton's Paradise Lost. Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest, Off'ring their own lives in their young's defence? Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Our pains are real things, and all Our pleasures but fantastical; Diseases of their own accord, But cures come difficult and hard.
Butler's Hudibras. Thee, too, my Paridel! she mark'd thee there, Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair, And heard thy everlasting yawn confess The pains and penalties of idleness.
Again the play of pain
Shoots o'er his features as the sudden gust Crisps the reluctant lake, that lay so calm Beneath the mountain shadow.
They talk of short-liv'd pleasure—be it so— Pain dies as quickly; stern, hard-featur'd pain Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. The fiercest agonies have shortest reign.
When, with too strict a rein, they do hold in Their child's affections; and control that love, Which the powers divine instruct them with: When in their shallow judgments, they may know Affection cross'd, brings misery and woe.
Robert Taylour's Hog hath lost its Pearl. Fathers their children, and themselves abuse; That wealth, a husband, for their daughters choose. Shirley's School of Compliments
Honour thy parents to prolong thine end; With them, though for a truth, do not contend: Though all should truth defend, do thou lose rather The truth awhile, than lose their love for ever: Whoever makes his father's heart to bleed, Shall have a child that will revenge the deed.
That I shall say-good night till it be to-morrow. Shaks. Romeo and Juliet. "Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone: And yet no further than a wanton's bird; Who lets it hop a little from her hand, Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silken thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty.
And even there, his eye being big with tears, Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, And with affection wondrous sensible, He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted. Shaks. Merchant of Venice. Farewell: the leisure and the fearful time Shaks. Romeo and Juliet. Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love,
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet. Farewell; God knows, when we shall meet again, I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life.
What! gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak : For truth hath better deeds, than words, to grace Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Sweet Valentine, adieu! Think on thy Porteus, when thou, haply, seest Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel: Wish me partaker in thy happiness,
And 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;
When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy If not, why then this parting was well made.
If ever danger do environ thee,
Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
For I will be tny beadsman, Valentine. Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
1 would have broke mine eye-strings; crack'd them, but
To look upon him; till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle: Nav, follow'd him, till he had melted from The smallness of a gnat to air; and then Have turn'd mine eye and wept.
« ZurückWeiter » |