- The quality of mercy is not strained, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings: It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; This fellow's wise enough to play the fool; GOOD NATURE AND RECKLESSNESS. And earthly power doth then show likest God's, Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt, When mercy seasons justice. And every grin, so merry, draws one out. Expostulatory Odes: xv. DR. WOLCOTT (Peter Pindar). Much Ado about Nothing, Act iii. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE. Lowliness is young ambition's ladder, The fashion wears out more apparel than the man. Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. Nothing exceeds in ridicule, no doubt, In wearing others' follies than our own. DR. E. YOUNG My heart is drowned with grief, SHAKESPEARE. 'Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul; My body round engirt with misery; For what's more miserable than discontent? Brother of Faith! 'twixt whom and thee desire. Hope! let the wretch, once conscious of the joy, Hope! thou nurse of Hope. It is to hope, though hope were lost. Come here, fond youth COWPER. A. L. BARBAULD. A. COWLEY, I. BICKERSTAFF. True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings; King Richard III., Act v. sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought. King Henry IV., Part II. Activ. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE. Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind, Far off the massive portals of the wood, Where the dun wall rose roofed in plumy green. Dare one go in ?-Glance backward! Dusk as night Each column, fringed with sprays of amber light. No stir nor call the sacred hush profanes; Save when from some bare tree-top, far on high, Fierce disputations of the clamorous cranes Fall muffled, as from out the upper sky. The hollow dome is green with empty shade, Struck through with slanted shafts of afternoon; Aloft, a little rift of blue is made, Where slips a ghost that last night was the moon. Beside its pearl a sea-cloud stays its wing, Beneath, a tilted hawk is balancing. |