For the high ones and powerful shall come
To do you reverence; and the beautiful
Will know the purer language of your soul,
And read it like a talisman of love.
Press on for it is godlike to unloose
The spirit, and forget yourself in thought
Bending a pinion for the deeper sky,
And, in the very fetters of your flesh,
Mating with the pure essences of heaven.
Press on! for in the grave there is no work,
And no device.-Press on! while yet ye may.
Willis's Poems.
My soul would wind itself in love
Around all human things.
To splendour only do we live?
Must pomp alone our thoughts employ?
All, all that pomp and splendour give,
Is dearly bought with love and joy.
Can wealth give happiness? look around and see
What gay distress? what splendid misery!
I envy none their pageantry and show,
I envy none the gilding of their woe.
The splendours of our rank and state
Are shadows, not substantial things.
So forth issu'd the seasons of the year;
First lusty spring, all dight in leaves of flowers
That freshly budded, and new blossoms did bear,
In which a thousand birds had built their bowers,
That sweetly sung to call forth paramours;
A. H. J. Duganne. And in his hand a javelin he did bear,
And on his head (as fit for warlike stores)
A gilt engraven morion he did wear,
That as some did him love, so others did him fear.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen;
Parent of vapours, and of female wit,
Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit,
On various tempers act by various ways,
Make some take physic, others scribble plays:
Who cause the proud their visits to delay,
And send the godly in a pet to pray.
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns;
The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown,
And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort,
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears,
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her
What peremptory, eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,
That is not blinded by her majesty?
Shaks. Love's Labour Lost.
How Flora decks the fields
With all her tapestry! and the choristers
Of ev'ry grove chaunt carols! mirth is come
To visit mortals. Ev'ry thing is blithe,
Jocund, and jovial!
Randolph's Jealous Lovers.
Come, gentle spring, ethereal mildness, come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.
Thomson's Seasons.
See where surly winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts;
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet. His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The glorious sun
The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
Thomson's Seasons.
I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.
Stays in his course, and plays the alchymist, 'Turning, with splendour of his precious eye, The neagre, cloddy earth to glittering gold.
The shining moisture swells into her eyes,
In brighter flow; her wishing bosom heaves,
With palpitations wild; kind tumults seize
Her veins, and all her yielding soul is love.
Thomson's Seasons.
From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens; to the cherish'd eye
The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding, by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd,
In full luxuriance to the sighing gales.
Reviving sickness lifts her languid head;
Life flows afresh; and young-ey'd health exalts
The whole creation round. Contentment walks
The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss
Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings
To purchase.
Thomson's Seasons. Wide flush the fields: the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense, and every heart, is joy.
Grateful and salutary spring the plants
Which crown our numerous gardens, and
Invite to health and temperance, in the simple
meal,
Unpoison'd with rich sauces, to provoke
Th' unwilling appetite to gluttony.
Wind-winged emblem! brightest, best, and fairest! Whence comest thou, when, with dark winter's sadness,
The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?
Sister of joy, thou art the child that wearest
Thy mother's dying smile tender and sweet;
Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle
feet,
Disturbing not the leaves, which are her windingsheet. Shelley.
Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear;
Disclose the long-expected flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring;
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon :
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick glaring to the sun.
Sweet is thy coming spring! and, as I pass
Thy hedge-rows, where from the half-naked sprays
Peeps the sweet bud, and 'midst the dewy grass
The tufted primrose opens to the day:
My spirits light and pure confess thy pow'r
Of balmiest influence.
I mark'd the Spring as she pass'd along,
With her eye of light and her lip of song;
While she stole in peace o'er the green earth's
breast,
While the streams sprang out from their icy rest.
The buds bent low to the breeze's sigh,
And their breath went forth in the scented sky;
They are all up- the innumerable stars
That hold their place in heaven. My eyes have
been
Searching the pearly depths through which they
spring
Like beautiful creations.
When the fields look'd fresh in their sweet repose, Ye stars, that are the poetry of heaven.
And the young dews slept on the new-born rose.
Willis Gaylord Clark.
Byron's Childe Harold The sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light
So wildly, spiritually bright.
Who ever gaz'd upon them shining,
And turn'd to carth without repining,
Nor wish'd for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray?
Byron's Siege of Corinth.
Willis's Poems. But the stars, the soft stars!-when they glitter
The sick come forth for the healing South,
The young are gathering flowers;
And life is a tale of poetry,
That is told by golden hours.
If 't is not a true philosophy,
That the spirit when set free Still lingers about its olden home,
In the flower and the tree,
It is very strange that our pulses thrill
At the sight of a voiceless thing,
And our hearts yearn so with tenderness,
In the beautiful time of Spring.
When the warm sun that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has return'd again, 'Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs The first flower of the plain.
I
gaze on their beams with a feeling divine:
For, as true friends in sorrow more tenderly love us,
The darker the heaven, the brighter they shine
Mrs. Welby's Poems.
And infant cherubs pierc'd the blue,
Till rays of heaven came shining through.
W. B. O. Peabody.
A statesman, that can side with ev'ry faction,
Longfellow. And yet most subtly can untwist himself,
When he hath wrought the business up to danger.
Shirley's Court Secret.
Forbear, you things,
SPORTS. (See HUNTING and SHOOTING.)
That stand upon the pinnacles of state,
To boast your slipp'ry height; when you do fall,
You dash yourselves in pieces, ne'er to rise:
And he that lends you pity, is not wise.
Jonson's Sejanus.
Why thus should statesmen do,
That cleave through knots of craggy policies,
Use men like wedges, one strike out another;
Till by degrees the tough and gnarly trunk
Be riv'd in sunder.
Marston's Antonio and Melida.
I now perceive the great thieves eat the less,
And the huge leviathans of villany
Sup up the merits, nay then men and all
That do them service, and spout them out again
Into the air, as thin and unregarded
As drops of water that are lost i' th' ocean.
Beaumont and Fletcher's False One.
STORM-STUBBORNNESS-STUDY.
You have not, as good patriots should do, study'd | With more than mortal powers endow'd
Thus the court-wheel goes round like fortune's ball;
One statesman rising on another's fall.
Richard Brome's Queen's Exchange. He was not of that strain of counsellors, That, like a tuft of rushes in a brook, Bends every way the current turns itself, Yielding to every puff of appetite That comes from majesty, but with true zeal He faithfully declared all.
Brewer's Love-sick King. D'ye think that statesmen's kindnesses proceed From any principles but their own need? When they're afraid, they 're wondrous good and free;
But when they're safe, they have no memory.
How high they soar'd above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Looked up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of Pitt and Fox alone.
He that seeks safety in a statesman's pity, May as well run a ship upon sharp rocks, And hope a harbour.
Howard's Duke of Lerma.
And minds have there been nurtur'd whose control
Is felt even in their nation's destiny;
Men who sway'd senates with a statesman's soul.
From germs like these have mighty statesmen sprung,
Of prudent counsel and persuasive tongue; Unblenching minds, who rul'd the willing throng Their well-brac'd nerves by early labour strung. Mrs. Sigourney.
Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin. STUBBORNNESS.-(See OBSTINACY.)
A statesmen all but interest may forget,
And only ought in his own strength to trust: 'Tis not a statesman's virtue to be just,
Earl of Orrery's Henry V. Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Taming thought to human pride!—
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
"T will trickle to his rival's bier;
O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,-
"Here let their discord with them die,
Speak not for those a separate doom,
Whom fate made brothers in the womb,
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like again?"
That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks,
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
Still 'midst the leaves the earth-worm to detect, But we'll do more, Sempronius, we 'll deserve it. And this is Knowledge.
Mrs. E. J. Eames. Had I miscarried, I had been a villain;
You shall be as a father to my youth
For men judge actions always by events:
But when we manage by a just foresight,
Success is prudence, and possession right.
Higgons's Generous Conqueror.
It is success that colours all in life:
Success makes fools admir'd, makes villains
honest,
My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear; All the proud virtue of this vaunting world
And I will stoop and humble my intents
To your well practis'd, wise directions.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
My other self, my counsel's consistory,
My oracle, my prophet! - My dear cousin,
I, as a child, will go by thy direction.
Do you go back dismay'd? 't is a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires.
It grieves me to the soul
To see how man submits to man's control;
How overpower'd and shackled minds are led
In vulgar tracks, and to submission bred.
And I said it underbreath-
Ali our life is mix'd with death,-
And who knoweth which is best?
And I smil'd to think God's greatness
Flow'd around our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness, His rest.
Miss Barrett's Poems.
Fawns on success and power, howe'er acquir'd.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
What though I am a villain, who so bold
To tell me so? let your poor petty traitors
Feel the vindictive lash and scourge for wrong;
But who shall tax successful villany,
Or call the rising traitor to account?
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