Unnumber'd maladies man's joints invade,
Lay siege to life, and press the dire blockade;
But unextinguish'd avarice still remains,
And dreaded losses aggravate his pains;
He turns with anxious heart and crippled hands,
His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands;
Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes,
Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies.
O, may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see,
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid,
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul: -
"Tis thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.
He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Whom fortune hath made faulty by their fall;
They who are vanquished, may not refuse
The titles of reproach they're charg'd withal.
Daniel's Cleopatra.
Nothing is a misery,
Unless our weakness apprehend it so:
We cannot be more faithful to ourselves
In any thing that's manly, than to make
Ill fortune as contemptible to us,
As it makes us to others.
O mortals, short of sight, who think the past
O'erblown misfortunes shall still prove the last.
Alas! misfortunes travel in a train,
And oft in life form one perpetual chain;
Fear buries fear, and ills on ills attend,
Till life and sorrow meet one common end.
Know, smiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd;
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor severe,
But rises in demand for her delay;
She makes a scourge of past prosperity,
To sting thee more and double thy distress.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Misfortune does not always wait on vice;
Nor is success the constant guest of virtue.
Havard's Regulus
And even should misfortune come,
I, here who sit, hae met wi' some,
An's thankfu' for them yet;
They gie the wit of age to youth,
They let us ken oursel;
They mak us see the naked truth,
The real guid an' ill.
Burns's Poems.
The furrows of long thought dried up in tears.
Byron's Childe Harold.
But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tir'd denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we may
bless.
Byron's Childe Harold.
The quivering flesh, though torture-torn, may live,
Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune. But souls, once deeply wounded, heal no more.
I pray, sir, deal with men in misery,
Like one that may himself be miserable:
Insult not too much upon my wretchedness;
The noble minds still will not, when they can.
Heywood's Royal King.
Sorrow enough: 'tis envy to ourselves,
To augment it by prediction.
Habbington's Queen of Arragon.
The thrifty heav'ns mingle our sweets with gall,
Lest being glutted with excess of good,
We should forget the giver.
Thomas Rawlins's Rebellion.
From this unhappy palace let us fly!
But whither shall we leave our misery?
Who to the unfortunate will kind appear?
The wretched are unwelcome ev'ry where.
Crown's Andromache. |
Prays on my heart, that medicine cannot reach,
Invincible and cureless.
More noisy than the rest, but cries halloo
And in a trice the bellowing herd come out;
The gates are barr'd, the ways are barricadoed:
And one and all's the word: true cocks o' th'
game!
They never ask for what, or whom they fight;
But turn 'em out, and show 'em but a foe;
Cry liberty, and that's a cause for quarrel.
Dryden's Spanish Friar.
These slaves,
These wide-mouth'd brutes, that bellow thus for
freedom;
O how they run before the hand of power,
Flying for shelter into every brake!
Otway's Caius Marius.
Ah! can you bear contempt? the venom'd tongue
Of those whom ruin pleases? the keen sneer,
The rude reproaches of the rascal herd;
Who for the self-same actions, if successful,
Would be as grossly lavish in your praise?
And the brute crowd, whose envious zeal
Huzzas each turn of Fortune's wheel,
And loudest shouts when lowest lie
Exalted worth, and station high.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as frenzy's fever'd blood.
Thou many-headed monster-thing,
O who would wish to be thy king!
Scott's Lady of the Lake
Thus look'd he proudly on the vulgar crew,
Whom statutes govern, and whom fears subdue.
Crabbe.
Each pull'd different ways with many an oath, "Arcades ambo," id est-blackguards both.
These slaves, whom I have nurtur'd, pamper'd, fed, And swoll'n with peace, and gorg'd with plenty, till
Now swarm forth in rebellion, and demand
His death, who made their lives a jubilee.
Byron's Sardanapalus.
Thomson's Agamemnon. They reign themselves—all monarch in their Inconstant, blind, Deserting friends at need, and dup'd by foes; Loud and seditious, when a chief inspir'd Their headlong fury, but, of him depriv'd, Already slaves that lick'd the scourging hand. Thomson's Liberty. Their feet through faithless leather meet the dirt, And oft'ner chang'd their principles than shirt. Young's Epistle to Mr. Pope.
The multitude unaw'd is insolent;
Once seiz'd with fear, contemptible and vain.
Mallet's Mustapha.
What, dare the ungrateful miscreants thus return
The many favours of my princely grace?
'Tis ever thus: indulgence spoils the base;
Raising up pride, and lawless turbulence,
Like noxious vapours from the fulsome marsh,
When morning shines upon it.
The good old Rule
Sufficeth them, the simple Plan
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
In the modesty of fearful duty,
I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream
Her looks do argue her replete with modesty
The blushing beauties of a modest maid.
Rude and impatient, then like chastity
She locks her beauties in her bud again,
And leaves him to base briars.
Rowley's Two Noble Kinsmen.
Sure 't was his modesty. He might have thriven
Much better possibly, had his ambition
The crimson glow of modesty o'erspread
Her cheek, and gave new lustre to her charms.
Dr. Thomas Franklin.
Still, from the sweet confusion, some new grace
Blushed out by stealth, and languish'd in her face.
The meek mountain daisy, with delicate crest,
And the violet whose eye told the heaven of her
breast.
Mrs. Sigourney.
The violet droops its soft and bashful brow,
But from its heart, sweet incense fills the air;—
Been greater much. They ofttimes take more So rich within-so pure without-art thou,
Who look for pins, than those who find out stars.
John Fountain's Rewards of Virtue.
That modest grace subdu'd my soul,
That chastity of look which seems to hang,
A veil of purest light o'er all her beauties,
And by forbidding most inflames desire.
With modest mien and soul of virtue rarc!
Mrs. Osgood.
Heaven help me! how could I forget
To beg of thee, dear violet!
Some of thy modesty!
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers.
Thomson's Seasons.
I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain,
And bear the marks upon a blushing face
Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.
Our sensibilities are so acute,
The fear of being silent makes us mute.
Cowper's Conversation.
True modesty is a discerning grace,
And only blushes in the proper place;
Shaks. Merchant of Venice
The moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And, through this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
The neighbouring moon
(So call that opposite fair star) her aid
Timely interposes, and her monthly round
Still ending, still renewing, through mid-heaven,
With borrow'd light her countenance triform,
Hence fills and empties to enlighten th' earth,
But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear, And in her pale dominion checks the night.
Where 't is a shame to be asham'd t' appear:
Humility the parent of the first,
The lost by vanity produc'd and nurs'd.
Shines fair with all her virgin stars about her.
Otway's Caius Marius.
The queen of night, whose large command
Rules all the sea, and half the land,
And over moist and crazy brains,
In high spring tide, at midnight reigns,
Was now declining to the west,
To go to bed and take her rest.
Butler's Hudibras.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.
Thomson's Seasons.
Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere,
Since all things lost on earth are treasur'd there;
There heroes' wits are kept in pond'rous vases,
And beaux' in snuff-boxes and tweezer-cases.
There broken vows, and death-bed alms are found,
And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound;
The courtiers' promises, and sick men's prayers,
The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs,
Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea,
Dried butterflies, and tomes of casuistry.
Pope's Rape of the Lock.
Round us pours a lambent light:
Light that seems but just to show Breasts that beat, and cheeks that glow.
Dr. Johnson.
My own lov'd light,
That every soft and solemn spirit worships,
That lovers love so well-strange joy is thine,
Whose influence o'er all tides of soul hath power,
Who lend'st thy light to rapture and despair;-
The glow of hope and wan hue of sick fancy
Alike reflect thy rays: alike thou lightest
The path of meeting or of parting love —
Alike on mingling or on breaking hearts
Thou smil'st in throned beauty!
The wild rose, eglantine, and broom,
Wasted around their rich perfume!
The birch-trees wept in fragrant balm,
The aspens slept beneath the calm;
The silver light, with quivering glance,
Play'd on the water's still expanse,—
Wild were the heart whose passion's sway
Could rage beneath the sober ray.
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
The silver light, which, hallowing tree and tower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
A loving languor which is not repose.
There is a dangerous silence in that hour,
A stillness which leaves room for the full soul
To open all itself, without the power
Of calling wholly back its self-control.
And thou did'st shine, thou rolling moon, upen All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Maturin's Bertram. Which soften'd down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up, As 't were, anew, the gaps of centuries; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion and the heart ran o'er With silent worship.
Sweet moon! if like Crotona's sage,
By any spell my hand could dare
To make thy disk its ample page.
And write my thoughts, my wishes there;
How many a friend, whose careless eye
Now wanders o'er that starry sky,
Should smile upon thy orb to meet
The recollection, kind and sweet,
The reveries of fond regret,
The promise, never to forget,
And all my heart and soul would send
To many a dear-lov'd, distant friend!
How calmly gliding through the dark blue sky The midnight moon ascends! Her placid beams, Through thinly scatter'd leaves and boughs gr
Mottle with mazy shades the orchard slope, Moore. Here o'er the chesnut's retted foliage, gray
And massy, motionless they spread; here shine
Upon the crags, deepening with blacker night
Their chasms; and there the glittering argentry
Ripples and glances on the confluent streams.
A lovelier, purer light than that of day
Rests on the hills; and, oh, how awfully
Into the deep and tranquil firmament
The summits of Anseva rise serene!
The watchman on the battlements partakes
The stillness of the solemn hour, and feels
The silence of the earth; the endless sound
Of flowing water soothes him, and the stars,
Which in that brightest moonlight well nigh
quenched
Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth
Of yonder sapphire infinite are seen,
Draw on with elevating influence
Toward eternity the attempered mind:
Musing on worlds beyond the grave he stands,
And to the virgin mother silently
Breathes forth her hymn of praise.
Southey's Don Roderick.
O moon! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees Feel palpitations when thou lookest in.
The moon! the moon! oh, tell me, do ye love her placid ray?
Do ye love the shining starry train that gathers round her way?
Oh, if ye do, go watch her when she climbs above the main,
While her full transcript lives below upon the crystal plain!
While her soft light serenely falls, and rising billows seem
Like sheets of silver spreading forth to meet her hallow'd beam!
Miss Eliza Cook's Poems.
Myriads have sung thy praise,
Fair Dian, virgin goddess of the skies!
And myriads will raise
Their songs while time yet onward flies,
To thee, chaste prompter of the lover's sighs,
And of the minstrel's lays;
But still exhaustless as a theme
Shall be thy name
While lives immortal Fame
As when to people the first poet's dream,
Thy inspiration came.
The moon is sailing o'er the sky,
But lonely all as if she pin'd For somewhat of companionship,
And felt it were in vain she shin'd. Earth is her mirror, and the stars
Are as the court around her throne; She is a beauty and a queen,—
But what of this? she is alone.
Night on the waves! and the moon is on high,
Hung like a gem on the brow of the sky;
Treading its depths, in the power of her might,
And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light.
T. K. Hervey.
There is no grave in all the earth
That moonlight hath not seen;
It gazeth cold and passionless
Where agony hath been;
And it is well that changeless ray
A deeper thought should throw,
What is there in thee, moon, that thou should'st When mortal love pours forth its tide
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