Comes skulking last, with selfishness and fear,
And dies collecting lumber in the rear.

Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffus'd,
As poison heals, in just proportion us'd.

Moore.

Pope: Moral Essays.

The lust of gold succeeds the rags of conquest:
The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless!
The last corruption of degenerate man.

Dr. Johnson: Irene.

"Tis strange the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can neʼer enjoy.

Beauty.

Pope: Moral Essays.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breath

ing.

Keats: Endymion.

If eyes were made for seeing,

Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

Emerson: The Rhodora.

There's beauty all around our paths, if but our

watchful eyes

Can trace it 'midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise.

Felicia D. Hemans: Our Daily Paths.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

Byron: She Walks in Beauty.

The Universe is girdled with a chain,
And hung below the Throne

Where Thou dost sit, the Universe to bless,
Thou sovereign Smile of God, Eternal Loveliness.
R. H. Stoddard: Hymn to the Beautiful.

All things of beauty are not theirs alone
Who hold the fee; but unto him no less
Who can enjoy, than unto them who own,
Are sweetest uses given to possess.
For Heaven is bountiful; and suffers none
To make monopoly of aught that's fair.

Bells; see Music.

J. G. Saxe: The Beautiful.

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time,
When last I heard their soothing chime!

Moore: Those Evening Bells.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Tennyson: In Memoriam.

How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear

In cadence sweet; now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again and louder still,
Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on;
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where memory slept.

Blindness.

Cowper: Task.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon;
Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,

Without all hope of day.

Milton: Samson Agonistes.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide;
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless,

Doth God exact day-labor, light denied,

I fondly ask? But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,

They also serve who only stand and wait.

Milton: Sonnet On His Blindness.

Thus with the year

Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Milton: Paradise Lost.

Books; see Authorship and Poetry.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces

That which makes thousands, perhaps millions,
think;

'Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses
Instead of speech may form a lasting link of ages.
Byron: Don Juan.

'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, altho' there's nothing in 't.
Byron: English Bards.

Many books,

Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
Uncertain and unsettled still remains-
Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself.

Milton: Paradise Regained,

All rests with those who read. A work or thought
Is what each makes it to himself, and may

Be full of great dark meanings, like the sea,
With shoals of life rushing.

A blessing on the printer's art!
Books are the Mentors of the heart.
The burning soul, the burdened mind,
In books alone companions find.

Books are sepulchres of thought.

Bailey: Festus.

Hale: Three Hours.

Longfellow: The Wind Over the Chimney.

The pleasant books, that silently among
Our household treasures take familiar places,
And are to us as if a living tongue

Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces.

Longfellow: Seaside and Fireside.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good;

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

Wordsworth: Personal Talk.

Brotherhood, Equality, Fellowship.

Frae the pure air of heaven the same air we draw;
Come, gi'e me your hand,-we are brethren a'.

Robert Nicoll.

Think of thy brother no ill, but throw a veil over his failings.

Longfellow: Children of the Lord's Supper.