How severe a thing it is to wear a crown;
Within whose circuit is elysium,
And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.
To be expos'd against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread bottled thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Shaks. Henry IV. Part III. Of quick cross lightning? mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Empires to-day are upside down,
'The castle kneels before the town,
The monarch fears a printer's frown,
A brickbat's range;
Give me, in preference to a crown,
Five shillings change
Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their
Halleck. Think it a bastard, whom the oracle
Oft those whose cruelty makes many mourn,
Do by the fires which they first kindle burn.
Earl of Sterline.
No council from our cruel wills can win us,
But ills once done, we bear our guilt within us.
John Ford's Love's Sacrifice.
I must be cruel only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.
Shaks. Hamlet. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,
Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!
How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex
To triumph, like an Amazonian trull,
Upon their woes, whom fortune captivates.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
O tiger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide!
How could'st thou drain the life blood of the child?
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
That face of his the hungry cannibals
Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd
with blood;
But you are more inhuman, more inexorable,-
O ten times more than tigers of Hyrcania.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Thou art come to answer
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch
Incapable of pity void and empty
From ev'ry drachm of mercy.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Neither bended knees, pure hands held up,
Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver shedding tears,
Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire.
Shaks Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Hath doubtfully pronounced thy throat shall cut, And mince it sans remorse
My lord of Winchester, you are a little,
By your good favour, too sharp; men so noble,
However faulty, yet should find respect
For what they have been: 'tis a cruelty
To load a falling man.
It is a barbarous grossness to lay on
The weight of scorn, where heavy misery
Too much already weighs men's fortunes down.
Daniel's Philotas.
O barbarous men! your cruel breasts assuage,
Why vent ye on the generous steed your rage?
Does not his service earn your daily bread?
Your wives, your children, by his labours fed!
If, as the Samian taught, the soul revives,
And shifting seats in other bodies lives;
Severe shall be the brutal coachman's change,
Doom'd in a hackney horse the town to range;
Car-men transformed, the groaning load shall
Whom other tyrants with the lash shall awe.
Gay's Trivia
O breasts of pity void! t' oppress the weak,
To point your vengeance at the friendless head,
And with one mutual cry insult the fallen!
Emblem too just of man's degenerate race.
Somerville's Chase.
Villain, abhorred villain!
Hath he not push'd me to extremity?
Are these wild limbs, these scarr'd and scathed
This wasted frame, a mark for human malice? There have been those who from the high bark's
Have whelm'd their enemy in the flashing deep; But who have watch'd to see his struggling hands, To hear the sob of death?
I would not enter on my list of friends
Faith we may boast, undarken'd by a doubt,
(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine We thirst to find each awful secrct out.
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path,
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside and let the reptile live.
The enquiring spirit will not be controll'd, We would make certain all, and all behold.
The curious questioning eye, That plucks the heart of every mystery.
Thou fairest flower, Why didst thou fling thyself across my path? My tiger spring must crush thee in its way, But cannot pause to pity thee.
Cruel of heart, and strong of arm,
Loud in his sport, and keen for spoil, He little reck'd of good or harm,
Fierce both in mirth and toil;
Yet like a dog could fawn, if need there were; Speak mildly, when he would, or look in fear.
But curses are like arrows shot upright,
That oftentimes on our own heads do light;
And many
times ourselves in rage prove worst;
The fox ne'er better thrives, but when accurst.
Valiant Welshman.
I do not wish them Egypt's plagues, but c'en
As bad as they: I'll add unto them seven.
I wish not grasshoppers, frogs, and lice come down,
But clouds of moths in ev'ry shop i' th' town.
Then, honest devil to their ink convey
Some aqua fortis, that may cat away
Their books.
Accuse my unkind destiny; declaim
Against the pow'r of love; rail at the charms
Of language and proportion, that betray us
Dryden. To hasty sorrow and too late repentance;
But breath is this way lost.
Take with thee thy most heavy curse;
Which in the day of battle tire thee more,
Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!
Shaks. Richard III.
The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
Let this pernicious hour Stand aye accursed in the calendar!
A plague upon them! wherefore should I curse
them?
Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
I would invent as bitter searching terms,
As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave.
My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,
Mine hair be fixed on end like one distract -
Shaks. Richard II. Ay, ev'ry joint should seem to curse and ban,
And even now my burden'd heart would break,
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest meat they taste!
Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
Their choicest prospects murd'ring basilisks!
Their softest touch, as smart as lizards' stings!
Their music frightful as the serpents' hiss!
And boding screech-owls make the concert full!
Shaks. Henry VI. Part II.
Oh! I will curse thee till thy frighted soul
Runs mad with horror.
Shaks. Macbeth.
May never glorious sun reflex his beams
Upon the country where you make abode !
But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
Environ you till mischief and despair
Drive you to break your necks, or hang yourselves.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I.
Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
And occupations perish!
Shaks. Coriolanus.
All the contagion of the south light on you,
You shames of Rome! you herd of
Plaster you o'er; that you may be abhorred
Further than seen, and one infect another
If he say so, may his pernicious soul
Rot half a grain a day! - he lies to the heart.
Shaks. Othello.
You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames
Into her scornful eyes! - Infect her beauty,
You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,
To fall and blast her pride!
Feed not thy sovereign's foe, thou gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets confort his rav'nous sense:
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited roads, lie in their way.
Lee's Casar Borgia,
May sorrow, shame, and sickness overtake her,
And all her beautics, like my hopes, be blasted.
Rowe's Royal Convert.
Plagues and palsy,
Disease and pestilence consume the robber,
Infest his blood, and wither ev'ry pow'r.
For who can better curse the plague or devil,
Than to be what they are: that curse be thine.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
Confusion on thy banners wait,
Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears.
Gray's Bard
Shaks. Richard II. May curses blast thy arm! may Ætna's fires
Convulse the land; to its foundation shake
The groaning isle. May civil discord bear
Her flaming brand thro' all the realms of Greece:
And the whole race expire in pangs like mine.
Murphy's Grecian Daughter.
Piety and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest and neighbourhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries and trades,
Degrees, observances, customs and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
But no, I will not curse them: thro' the world
And yet confusion live!-Plagues incident to men A curse will follow them, like the black plague,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap
Un Athens ripe for stroke!
Tracking their footsteps ever,-day and night,
Morning and eve, summer and winter-ever.
Proctor's Mirandola,
Go, virtuous dame, to thy most happy lord,
And Bertram's image taint your kiss with poison.
Maturin's Bertram.
Blast, blast her charms, some bloom-destroying air!
And turn his love to loathing; but let her's
Know no decrease, that disappointment,
Lover's worst hell, may meet her warmest wishes,
And make her curse the hour in which she wedded.
Elizabeth Haywood's Duke of Brunswick.
May the swords
And wings of fiery cherubim pursue him,
By day and night—snakes spring up in his path-
Earth's fruit be ashes in his mouth-the ieaves
On which he lays his head to sleep be strew'd
With scorpions! may his dreams be of his victim,
His waking a continual dread of death!
Byron's Cain.
May the grass wither from thy feet! the woods
Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust
A grave! the sun his light! and heaven her God.
Byron's Cain.
By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By that shut soul's hypocrisy,
By the perfection of thine art
Which pass'd for human thine own heart,
By the delight in others' pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee and compel
Thyself to be thy proper hell.
Cursed be the social wants
Custom in ills that do affect the sense,
Make reason useless when it should direct
The ills reforming: men habituate
In any evil, 't is their greatest curse:
Advice doth seldom mend, but makes them worse
Nabb's Microcosmus
And argues a low spirit, to be taught
By custom, and to let the vulgar grow
To our example.
Mead's Combat of Love and Friendship
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habits evil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good,
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: refrain to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence; the next, more easy;
For use can almost change the stamp of nature,
And master ev'n the devil, or throw him out,
With wondrous potency.
But to my mind; - though I am native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach, than the observance.
Shaks. Hamlet.
The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.
Byron's Manfred. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound; wherefore should I Stand to the plague of custom.
That sin against the strength of youth, Cursed be the social lies
That warp us from the living truth! Cursed be the sickly forms
That err from honest nature's rule! And cursed be the gold that gilds The straighten'd forchead of a fool!
A curse is like a cloud-it passes.
He turns and curses in his wrath
Both man and child; then hastes away
Shoreward, or takes some gloomy path;
But there he cannot stay;
Terror and darkness drive him back to men;
His hate of man to solitude again.
Custom in course of honour, ever errs:
And they are best, whom fortune least prefers.
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.
What! touch'd in the twirl by another man's knee!
What! pant and recline on another than me!
Sir! she's yours! From the grape you have press'd
the soft blue!
Cowper's Task. From the rose you have shaken the tremulous dew!
What you've touch'd, you may take! Pretty
Man yields to custom as he bows to fate,
In all things ruled-mind, body and cstate;
In pain, in sickness, we for cure apply
To them we know not, and we know not why.
Crabbe. Of mirrors and of lamps. With music and with flowers,
Habit with him was all the test of truth,
"It must be right: I've done it from my youth."
Dear creature! you'd swear,
When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round,
That her steps are of light, that her home is the air,
And she only, "par complaisance" touches the
Moore's Fudge Family.
How sweetly Marian sweeps along!
Her step is music, and her voice is song.
Silver-sandall'd foot! how blest
To bear the breathing heaven above,
Which on thee, Atlas-like, doth rest,
And round thee move.
Such a dancer!
Where men have souls or bodies she must answer.
Byron.
There when the sound of flute and fiddle
Gave signal sweet in that old hall,
Of hands across and down the middle.
Hers was the subtlest spell by far
Of all that sets young hearts romancing;
She was our queen, our rose, our star;
And when she danced-oh, heaven, her dancing!
Praed.
Bailey. I love to go and mingle with the young
In the gay festal room— when every heart
Is beating faster than the merry tune,
And their blue eyes are restless, and their lips
Parted with eager joy, and their round checks
Flush'd with the beautiful motion of the dance.
Willis.
And then he danced - all foreigners excel
The serious Angles in the cloquence
Of pantomime;—he danced, I say, right well,
With emphasis, and also with good sense-
A thing in footing indispensable:
He danced without theatrical pretence,
Not like a ballet-master in the van
Of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.
Byron.
Chaste were his steps, cach kept within due bound,
And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure;
Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground,
And rather held in than put forth his vigour.
And then he had an car for music's sound,
Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigour.
Such classic pas - -sans flaws-set off our hero,
He glanced like a personified Bolero.
This fellow put himself upon the rack,
With putting on 's apparel, and manfully
Endures his taylor, when he screws and wrests
His body into the fashion of
His doublet.
Shirley's Bird in a Cage.
The boot pinched hard-the suffering dandy
Jane fondly thought the sigh her beauty's due;
"Bootless your passion, Sir!" she proudly cried,
Byron's Childe Harold."Ah!" sighed the fop, "would I were bootless
Mrs. Osgood.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Oh! save me, ye powers, from these pinks of the
nation,
These tea-table heroes! these lords of creation.
Salmagundi
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