Wine cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires
The young, makes weariness forget his toil,
And fear her danger: opens a new world
When this, the present, falls.
"T is done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! horror wide extends
Byron's Sardanapalus. His desolate domain! Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictur'd life: pass some few years,
Thy flowering spring, thy summer's ardent
strength,
Let the crystal beaker flame and shine,
Brimming o'er with the draught divine?
Not from the Rhine-
Not from fields of Burgundian vine
Bring me the bright Olympian wine!
J. Bayard Taylor's Poems.
Wine-bring wine
Flushing high with its growth divine,
In the crystal depth of my soul to shine :
Whose glow was caught
From the warmth which Fancy's summer brought
To the vintage fields in the Land of Thought!
J. Bayard Taylor.
To my thirsting soul will the goblet be,
Pour'd by the Hebe Poesy.
Oh winter! ruler of th' inverted year,
J. Bayard Taylor. Thy scatter'd hair with sleet-like ashes fill'd,
Lastly came winter, clothed all in frize,
Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill;
Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freeze,
And the dull drops that from his purple bill
As from a limbeck did adown distill;
In his right hand a tipped staff he held,
With which his feeble steps he stayed still,
For he was faint with cold and weak with eld,
That scarce his loosed limbs he able was to weld.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
The wrathful winter hast'ning on apace,
With blust'ring blasts had all ybar'd the treen,
And old Saturnus with his frosty face
With chilling cold had pierc'd the tender green;
The mantles rent wherein enwrapped been
The gladsome groves, that now lay overthrown,
The tapets torn, and ev'ry tree blown down.
Earl of Dorset in the Mirror for Magistrates.
My age, nor think, 'cause I appear forlorn,
I serve for no use; 't is my sharper breath
Does purge gross exhalations from the earth:
My frosts and snows do purify the air
From choking fogs, make the sky clear and fair:
And though by nature cold and chill I be,
Yet I am warm in bounteous charity.
Ford and Decker's Sun's Darling.
The keen, clear air— the splendid sight—
We waken to a world of ice;
Where all things are enshrin'd in light,
As by some genie's quaint device.
"Tis winter's jubilee - this day
His stores their countless treasures yield; See how the diamond glances play
In ceaseless blaze from tree and field.
Gently as lilies shed their leaves,
All human wisdom to divine is folly;
This truth, the wisest man made melancholy.
The wise do always govern their own fates,
And fortune with officious zeal attends
To crown their enterprizes with success.
Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast; There is a hand above will help thee on.
Topmost in heaven;-she is its light-its God
And in the heart of man she sits as high —
Andrews Norton. Though grovelling minds forget her oftentimes,
Seeing but this world's idols. The pure mind
Sees her for ever: and in youth we come
Fill'd with her sainted ravishment, and kneel,
Worshipping God through her sweet altar fires,
And then is knowledge "good!"
When summer days are fair, The feathery snow comes floating down, Like blossoms on the air;
And o'er the world like angel's wing
Unfolding soft and white,
It broods above the brown, sere earth,
And fills with forms of light
The dead and desolate domain,
Where Winter holds his iron reign.
Wealth, without wisdom, may live more content,
Than wit's enjoyers can, debarr'd of wealth
All pray for riches, but I ne'er heard yet
Of any since Solomon that pray'd for wit.
Tailor's Hog hath lost his Pearl.
Excellent morality! O the vast extent
O' th' kingdom of a wise man! such a mind
Can sleep secure, when the brine kisses the moon,
And thank the courteous storm for rocking him!
Baron's Mirza.
O wisdom! if thy soft control
Can soothe the sickness of the soul,
Can bid the warring passions cease,
Aud breathe the calm of tender peace;
Wisdom! I bless thy gentle sway,
And ever, ever will obey.
The bearing and the training of a child Is womar's wisdom.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it.
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost.
The world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts;
Which you on ali estates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit.
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost.
Short-liv'd wits do wither as they grow.
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost. Your wit makes wise things foolish; when we greet With eyes best seeming heaven's fiery eye, By light we lose light; your capacity, If of that nature, as to your huge store, Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor. Shaks. Love's Labour Lost.
But, indeed, my invention Comes from my pate, as bird-lime does from frize, It plucks out brains and all.
You can't expect that they should be great wits,
Who have small purses, they usually
Sympathize together; wit is expensive,
It must be dieted with delicacies,
It must be suckled with the richest wines,
Or else it will grow flat and dull.
So get you hence in peace and tell the Dauphin, | Wer 't possible that wit could turn a penny,
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it.
Shaks. Henry V.
"T is not a tale, 't is not a jest,
Admir'd with laughter at a feast,
Nor florid talk which can that title gain,
The proofs of wit for ever must remain.
Great wits have only been preferr'd
In princes' trains to be interr'd,
And, when they cost them nothing, plac'd
Among their followers not the last;
But while they liv'd were far enough
From all admittances kept off.
Tho' wit never can be learn'd,
It may be assum'd, and own'd, and earn'd,
And like our noblest fruits, improv'd;
By being transplanted and remov'd.
All wit does but divert men from the road In which things vulgarly are understood, And force mistake and ignorance to own A better sense than commonly is known.
Too much or too little wit
Do only render the owners fit
For nothing, but to be undone
Much easier than if they 'd none.
A man of quick and active wit
For drudgery is more unfit,
Compar'd to those of duller parts,
Than running-nags to draw in carts.
We grant, altho' he had much wit,
H' was very shy of using it;
As being loath to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about;
Unless on holy-days, or so,
As men their best apparel do.
Poets might then grow rich as well as any:
For 't is not wit to have a great estate,
The blind effect of fortune and of fate;
Since oft we see a coxcomb dull and vain,
Brim full of cash, yet empty in his brain:
Nor is it wit that makes the lawyer prize
His dazzled gown; its knavery in disguise:
Nor is it wit that drills the statesman on
To waste the sweets of life, so quickly gone:
For 't is not wit that brings a man to hanging,
That goes not further than a harmless banging.
Buckingham.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please!
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd two legg'd thing — a son.
Dryden.
With short plummets heav'n's deep well we sound,
That vast abyss where human wit is drown'd,
In our small skiff we must not launch too far;
We here but coasters, not discoverers, are.
rays of wit gild wheresoe'er they strike, But are not therefore fit for all alike; They charm the lively, but the grave offend, And raise a foe as often as a friend: Like the resistless beams of blazing light, That cheer the strong and pain the weakly sight.
All human race would fain be wits, And millions miss for one that hits: Young's universal passion, pride, Was never known to spread so wide.
Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things,
Atones not for that envy which it brings.
In youth alone its empty praise we boast:
But soon the short-liv'd vanity is lost,
Like some fair flow'r the early spring supplies
That gaily blooms, but e'en in blooming dies
Pape
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Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.
Pope.
Wit, a true pagan, deifies the brute,
And lifts our swine-enjoyments from the mire.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume,
The plume exposes, 't is our helmet saves.
Sense is the di'mond, weighty, solid, sound;
When cut by wit, it casts a brighter beam;
Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond still.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Who, for the poor renown of being smart,
Would leave a sting within a brother's heart?
Young's Love of Fame.
As in smooth oil the razor best is whet,
So wit is by politeness sharpest set,
Their want of edge from their offence is seen,
Both pain us least when exquisitely keen ;
The fame men give is for the joy they find;
Dull is the jester when the joke's unkind.
Young's Love of Fame.
Wit makes an enterpriser; sense a man.
Wisdom is rare-wit abounds.
Passion can give it; sometimes wine inspires
The lucky flash, and madness rarely fails.
Prudence protects and guides us; wit betrays;
A splendid source of ill ten thousand ways;
A certain snare to miseries immense;
A gay prerogative from common sense;
Unless strong judgment that wild thing can tame,
And break to paths of virtue and of fame.
The pride of nature would as soon admit
Competitors in empire as in wit;
Onward they rush at fame's imperious call,
And less than greatest, would not be at all.
WITCHES and WITCHCRAFT. For he by words could call out of the sky Both sun and moon, and make them him obey: 'The land to sca, and sea to main-land dry, And darksom night he eke could turn to day;
When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightning, or in rain.
Shaks. Macbeth. And be the juggling fiends no more believ'd, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope.
Infected be the air wherein they ride; And damn'd all those that trust them!
I never had to do with wicked spirits;
But you-
that are polluted with your lusts,
Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,
Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,—
Because you want the grace that others have,
You judge it straight a thing impossible
To compass wonders, but by help of devils.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I.
I spy'd a wither'd hag with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself;
Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall'd and red,
Cold palsy shook her head, her hands seem'd
wither'd,
And on her crook'd shou'lers had she wrap't
The tatter'd remnants of an old strip'd hanging,
Which serv'd to keep her carcass from the cold.
Otway's Orphan.
By force of potent spells, of bloody characters,
And conjurations, horrible to hear,
Trust not the treason of those smiling looks,
Until ye have their guileful trains well trode,
For they are liken, unto golden hooks,
That from the foolish fish their bates do hide.
And sooth to say, it is fool-hardy thing
Rashly to whiten creatures so divine?
For demigods they be, and first did spring
From heaven, though graft in frailness feminine.
Spenser.
Men's due deserts each reader may recite,
For men of men do make a goodly show,
But women's works can never come to light;
No mortal man their famous acts may know;
No writer will a little time bestow,
The worthy acts of women to repeat;
Call fiends and spectres from the yawning deep, Though their renown and the deserts be great. And set the ministers of hell at work.
She said, and rais'd her skinny hand
As in defiance to high heaven,
And stretch'd her long lean finger forth,
And spake aloud the words of power.
A life too stirring for those vague beliefs
That superstition builds in solitude.
Our witches are no longer old,
And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold,
But young and gay and laughing creatures,
With the heart's sunshine on their features;
Their sorcery ·
the light which dances
When the raised lid unveils its glances,
And the low-breathed and gentle tone
Faintly responding unto ours,
Soft, dream-like as a fairy's moan,
Above its nightly closing flowers.
Mirror for Magistrates.
A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And, while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.
Shaks. Taming the Shrew.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world;
But that our soft conditions, and our hearts,
Should well agree with our external parts.
Shaks. Taming the Shrew.
Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible;
Thou-stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
'Tis beauty, that doth oft make women proud:
But, God he knows, thy share thereof is small:
'Tis virtue that doth make them most admir'd;
The contrary doth make thee wonder'd at.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Whittier. Is not more loath'd, than an effeminate man
In time of action.
Ye gentle ladies! in whose sovereign power
Love hath the glory of his kingdom left,
And the hearts of men, as your eternal dower,
In iron chains of liberty bereft,
Delivered hath unto your hands by gift,
Be well aware how you the same do use,
That pride do not to tyranny you lift,
Lest if men you of cruelty accuse,
He from you take that chiefdom which ye do
abuse.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on; and her wit
Values itself so highly, that to her
All matter else seems weak: she cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endear'd.
Shaks. Much Ado about Nothing
We cannot fight for love as men may do;
We should be woo'd, and were not made to wor
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Drea799
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