Then, when I am thy captive, talk of chains,
Proud limitary cherub, but ere then
Far heavier load thyself expect to feel
From my prevailing arm, though heav'n's king
Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,
Us'd to the yoke, draw'st his triumphant wheels
In progress through the road of heav'n star-pav'd.
Milton's Paradise Lost.

Our puissance is our own; our own right hand
Shall teach us highest deeds, by proof to try
Who is our equal: then thou shalt behold
Whether by supplication we intend
Address, and to begirt the Almighty throne
Beseeching or besieging.

Milton's Paradise Lost.

I scorn (quoth she) thou coxcomb silly,
Quarter or counsel from a foe,
If thou canst force me to it, do.

Butler's Hudibras.

Enough for me: with joy I see
The different doom our fates assign;
Be thine despair and sceptred care,
To triumph and to die are mine.

Gray's Bard

Torture thou may'st, but thou shalt ne'er despise

mc:

Fell is their dint, who're mailed in despair.
Maturin's Bertram.

(Nay, never look upon your lord,
And lay your hand upon your sword,)

I tell thee thou'rt defied!

And if thou said'st, I am not peer
To any lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or highland, far or near,
Lord Angus, thou hast lied.

Scott's Marmion.

The mountaineer cast glance of pride
Along Benledi's living side,

Then fix'd his eye and sable brow,
Full on Fitz-James-"How say'st thou now?"
These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true;
And, Saxon,-I am Roderic Dhu!"

Scott's Lady of the Lake.

The shivering band stood oft aghast,
At the impatient glance he cast;—
Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As from the cliffs of Ben-venue
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And high in middle heaven reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warbler of the brake.

Scott's Lady of the Laka

On his dark face a scorching clime,
And toil had done the work of time,
Roughen'd the brow, the temples bared,
And sable hairs with silver shared,
Yet left what age alone could tame
The lip of pride, the eye of flame,
The full-drawn lip that upward curled,
The eye that seem'd to scorn the world.
Scott's Rokeby

The blood will follow, where the knive is driven;
The flesh will quiver, where the pincers tear;
And sighs and cries by nature grow on pain:
But these are foreign to the soul: not mine
The groans that issue, or the tears that fall;
They disobey me; -on the rack I scorn thee.
Young's Revenge.
Thou think'st I fear thee, cursed reptile,
And hast a pleasure in the damned thought.
Though my heart's blood should curdle at thy A life like thine to other wretches — live!

sight,

1'll stay and face thee still.

Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
On this spot I stand,

The champion of despair-this arm my brand-
This breast my panoply—and for my gage-
(Oh thou hast reft from me all knightly pledge!)
Take these black hairs torn from a head that hates

thee,

Go, wretch! and give

Byron's Heaven and Earth
Go, sun, while mercy holds me up
On Nature's awful waste
To drink this last and bitter cup

Of grief that man shall taste.
Go, tell that night that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,
On Earth's sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy

Deep be their dye before that pledge is ransom'd-To quench his immortality, in the heart's blood or mine.

Or shake his trust in God!

Maturin's Bertram.

Campbell

No-though of all earth's hope bereft,
Life, swords, and vengeance still are left.
We'll make yon valley's reeking caves
Live in the awe-struck minds of men,
Till tyrants shudder, when their slaves
Tell of the Gheber's bloody glen.

Stand! the ground 's your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in yon cannon's peal,
See it on yon bristling steel,
Ask it ye who will!

Woe to the British soldiery

That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear:
When waking to their tents on fire,
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again.

Moore.

DEFORMITY.

Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionably,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them.
But I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph.
Shaks. Richard III
Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb:
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub,
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to make my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size;
To disproportion me in every part,
Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp,
That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be belov'd?

Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
Nature herself started back when thou wert born,
And cried, the work's not mine.

The midwife stood aghast; and when she saw
Thy mountain-back, and thy distorted legs,
Thy face itself

Half-minted with the royal stamp of man,

And half o'ercome with beast, she doubted long
Whose right in thee were more;

And knew not if to burn thee in the flames
Were not the holier work.

Lee's Edipus.

Am I to blame, if nature threw my body
In so perverse a mould! yet when she cast
Her envious hand upon my supple joints,
Unable to resist, and rumpled them

On heaps in their dark lodging; to revenge
Pierpont. Her bungled work, she stamped my mind more

Bryant.

The Lord rebuke thee, thou smiter of the meek, Thou robber of the righteous, thou trampler of the weak!

fair,

And as from chaos, huddled and deform'd,
The gods struck fire, and lighted up the lamps
That beautify the sky; so she inform'd
This ill-shap'd body with a daring soul,
And, making less than man, she made me more.
Lee's Edipus

Deformity is daring;
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal-
Ay, the superior of the rest. There is
A spur in its halt movements, to become

Go, light the dark, cold hearth-stones-go turn the All that the others cannot, in such things
prison lock

Of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou wolfamid the flock. Whittier.

As still are free for both, to compensate
For stepdame Nature's avarice at first.
Byron's Deformed Transformea

130

Do you dare you

To taunt me with my born deformity?

DEITY.

Byron's Deformed Transformed
Glorious ambition!

I love thee most in dwarfs.

These are thy glorious works, parent of good,
Almighty thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sit'st above these heavens,
To us invisible, or dimly seen

Byron's Deformed Transformed. In these thy lowest works; yet these declare

Neve. aid bring forth a man without a man;
Nor could the first man, being but
The passive subject, not the active mover,
Be the maker of himself; so of necessity
There must be a superior pow'r to nature.
Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy.

It is not so with him that all things knows,
As 'tis with us, that square our guess by shows:
But most it is presumption in us, when
The help of heav'n, we count the act of men.
Shaks. All's Well.
It did not please the gods, who instruct the people :
And their unquestion'd pleasures must be serv'd.
They know what's fitter for us, than ourselves:
And 't were impiety to think against them.

Jonson's Catiline.
'Tis hard to find God, but to comprehend
Him, as he is, is labour without end.

Herrick.

And chiefly thou, O spirit, that dost prefer,
Before all temples, the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know'st.

Thy goodness beyond thought, and pow'r divine.
Milton's Paradise Lost.

Beyond compare the son of God was seen
Most glorious; in him all his father shone
Substantially express'd; and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appear'd,
Love without end, and without measure grace.
Milton's Paradise Lost.

From nature's constant or eccentric laws,

The thoughtful soul this general inference draws,
That an effect must pre-suppose a cause:
And, while she does her upward flight sustain,
Touching each link of the continued chain,
At length she is oblig'd and forc'd to see
A first, a source, a life, a deity;
What has for ever been, and must for ever be.
Prior's Soloman.

In this wild maze their vain endeavours end;
How can the less the greater comprehend,
Or finite reason reach infinity?
For what could fathom God were more than He.
Dryden's Religio Laici.

Hail, source of being! universal soul
Of heaven and earth! essential presence, hail!
To thee I bend the knee; to thee my thoughts
Continual climb; who, with a master hand,
Hast the great whole into perfection touch'd.
Thomson's Seasons.

With what an awful world-revolving power
Were first the unwieldy planets launch'd along
The illimitable void! Thus to remain
Amid the flux of many thousand years,

Milton's Paradise Lost. That oft has swept the toiling race of men,

For wonderful indeed are all his works,
I'leasant to know, and worthiest to be all
Had in remembrance always with delight;
But what created mind can comprehend
Their number, or the wisdom infinite
That brought them forth, but hid their causes deep.
Milton's Paradise Lost.

And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless in their course.
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the scasons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful: such the all-perfect hand!
That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady whole.

Thomson's Seasons

And yet was every falt'ring tongue of man,
Almighty father! silent in thy praise,

The blue, deep, glorious heavens! I lift mine eye
And bless thee, O my God! that I have met

Thy works themselves would raise a general voice, And own'd thine image in the majesty
Even in the depth of solitary woods,

By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power,
And to the quire celestial Thee resound,
The eternal cause, support, and end of all!
Thomson's Seasons.

Let no presuming impious railer tax
Creative wisdom as if aught was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of his mind?

Of their calm temple still! - that never yet
There hath thy face been shrouded from my sight
By noontide blaze, or sweeping storm of night:
I bless thee, O my God!

Mrs. Heman's Poems.

He who reigns on high

Upholds the earth, and spreads abroad the sky,
With none his name and power will he divide,
For He is God and there is none beside.
James Montgomery

DELAY.

Shun delays, they breed remorse;
Take thy time, while time is lent thee;
Creeping snails have weakest force;
Fly their fault, lest thou repent thee;
Good is best when soonest wrought,
Ling'ring labours come to naught.
Hoist up sail while gale doth last,
Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure;
Seek not time, when time is past,
Sober speed is wisdom's leisure,
After-wits are dearly bought,
Let thy fore-wit guide thy thought.

Robert Southwell.

Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.

O my good lord, that comfort comes too late;
'Tis like a pardon after execution:
That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me;
But now I'm past all comfort here but prayers.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Away towards Salisbury;-while we reason here,
Cowper's Task. A royal battle might be won and lost.

Thou dread source,
Prime, self-existing cause and end of all
That in the scale of being fill their place;
Above our human region or below,

Set and sustain'd. Thou, thou alone, O! Lord,
Art everlasting!

Wordsworth.

O, God! Thou wondrous One in Three,

As mortals must Thee deem;

Thou only canst be said to be,

We but at best to scem.

Bailey's Festus.

Shaks. Richard III.

Your gift is princely, but it comes too late,
And falls, like sun-beams, on a blasted blossom.
Suckling's Brennorall.

Go, fool, and teach a caratact to creep!
Can thirst, empire, vengeance, beauty, wait?
Young's Brother..

Be wise to-day; 't is madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Voung's Night Thoughts

Lord John Russel's Don Carlos. Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave!

Elizabeth Bogart. Who would rely upon these miserable

We, we shall view the deep's salt sources pour'd, I hate dependence on another's will,
Until one element shall do the work

Hark! even the forest beasts howl forth their pray'r! Elected him our absence to supply;
The dragon crawls from out his den,