Is it to bear the miseries of a people!
To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents,
And sink beneath a load of splendid care!
To have your best success ascribed to fortune,
And fortune's failures all ascribed to you!
It is to sit upon a joyless height,
To ev'ry blast of changing fate expos'd!
Too high for hope! too great for happiness!
Hannah More's Daniel.
It being now settled that emp'rors and kings,
Like kites made of foolscap are high flying things,
To whose tails a few millions of subjects, or so,
Have been tied in a string to be whisk'd to and fro,
Just wherever it suits the said foolscap to go.
Moore's Crib's Memorial to Congress.
This was a truth to us extremely trite,
Not so to her, who ne'er had heard such things;
She deem'd her least command must yield delight,
Earth being only made for queens and kings.
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Ill do you know the spectral forms that wait
Upon a king; care with his furrow'd brow,
Unsleeping watchfulness, lone sccresy,
Attend his throne by day, his couch by night.
Lord John Russell's Don Carlot.
The people cry, "there is the prince shall reign
When Philip is no more:" old nurses bless
His beardless face, and silly children toss
Their tiny caps into the air; while I
Am met by frigid reverence, passive awe,
That fears, yet dares not own itself for fear;
As though the public hangman stalk'd behind me:
And thus it is to reign- to gain men's hate.
Thus for the future monarch, fancy weaves
A spotless robe, entwines his sceptre round
With flowery garlands, places on his head
A crown of laurels, while the weary present,
Like a stale riddle, or a last year's fashion,
Carries no grace with it. Base vulgar world!
"Tis thus that men for ever live in hope,
And he that has done nothing is held forth
As capable of all things.
He scarce afforded one kind parting word,
But went away so cold, the kiss he gave me
Scem'd the forc'd compliment of sated love.
Otway's Orphan.
Where are you loitering now when Guido's here?
By the bright God of love, I'll punish you,
Idler, and press your rich red lips until
The colour flies.
Massinger's Emperor of the East. Inform me, O delicious kiss!
More blest; nor like this kiss hath been another,
Nor ever beauties like, met at such closes,
But in the kisses of two damask roses.
Thus while she sleeps, gods do descend, and kiss;
They lend all others breath, but borrow this.
Cartwright's Siege.
Her kisses faster, though unknown before,
Than blossoms fall on parting spring, she strew'd;
Than blossoms sweeter, and in number more.
Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert.
These poor half kisses kill me quite :
Was ever man thus served?
Amidst an ocean of delight,
For pleasure to be starved.
Oh! could I give the world;
One kiss of thine, but thus to touch thy lips,
I were a gainer by the vast exchange.
The fragrant infancy of opening flowers
Flow'd to my senses in that melting kiss.
Southern's Disappointment.
The kiss you take is paid by that you give;
The joy is mutual, and I'm still in debt.
Why thou so suddenly art gone,
Lost in the moment thou art won?
A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love.
As thistles wear the softest down;
To hide their prickles till they're grown,
And then declare themselves, and tear
Whatever ventures to come near;
So a smooth knave does greater feats
Than one that idly rails and threats,
And all the mischief that he meant
Does, like the rattle-snake, prevent.
When men of infamy to grandeur soar,
They light a torch to show their shame the more
Those governments, which curb not evils, cause
Lord Lansdown's Heroic Love. And a rich knave's a libel on our laws.
I felt the while a pleasing kind of smart,
The kiss went tingling to my very heart.
When it was gone, the sense of it did stay,
The sweetness cling'd upon my lips all day,
Like drops of honey loth to fall away.
Dryden.
She brought her cheek up close, and lean'd on his;
At which he whisper'd kisses back on hers.
Dryden's All for Love.
Oh! let me live for ever on those lips!
The nectar of the gods to these is tasteless.
Dryden's Amphitryon.
Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word,
Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue;
Not soon provok'd, nor, being provok'd, soon calm'd:
His heart and hand both open, and both free;
For what he has, he gives; what thinks, he shows;
Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty,
Nor dignifies an impure thought in breath:
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;
For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes
To tender objects, but he, in heat of action,
Is more vindictive than jealous love.
Base minded they that want intelligence,
For God himself for wisdom most is prais'd,
And men to God thereby are nighest rais'd.
Spenser's Tears of the Muses.
A climbing height it is, without a head,
Depth without bottom, way without an end;
A circle with no line environed,
Not comprehended, all it comprehends,
Worth infinite, yet satisfies no mind
Till it that infinite of the godhead find.
The mind of man is this world's true dimension;
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida. And knowledge is the measure of the mind:
And as the mind, in her vast comprehension,
Contains more worlds than all the world can find;
So knowledge doth itself far more extend,
Than all the minds of man can comprehend.
A lac'd hat, worsted stockings, and - noble old
soul!
A fine ribbon and cross in his breast button-hole;
Just such as our prince, who nor reason nor fun
dreads,
Inflicts, without e'en a court-martial, on hundreds.
Moore's Fudge Family.
My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel:
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly rain from ladies' hands.
Tennyson's Sir Galahad.
A king can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that,—
But an honest man's aboon his might.
These are not the romantic times
So beautiful in Spenser's rhymes,
So dazzling to the dreaming boy,
Ours are the days of fact, not fable,
Of knights, but not of the round table,
Of Bailie Jarvie, not Rob Roy.
Learning is an addition beyond
Nobility or birth: honour of blood,
Without the ornament of knowledge, is
A glorious ignorance.
Applied to my instruction, cannot equal
My own soul's knowledge.
Chapman and Shirley's Admiral of France.
The Almighty wisdom, having given
Each man within himself an apter light
To guide his acts, than any light without him,
Creating nothing, not in all things equal:
It seems a fault in any that depend
On others' knowledge, and exile their own.
Chapman and Shirley's Admiral of France.
Those only may be truly said to know,
Whose knowledge pays their country what they
· Lady Alimony.
Halleck's Poems. Not to know at large of things remote
From use, obscure and subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom; what is more, is fume,
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence,
And renders us in things that most concern
Unpractis'd, unprepared, still to seek.
Through knowledge we behold the world's creation,
How in his cradle first he fostered was;
And judge of nature's cunning operation,
How things she formed of a formless mass:
By knowledge we do learn ourselves to know;
And what to ma and what to God we owe.
Remember that the curs'd desire to know,
Offspring of Adam! was thy source of woe,
Why wilt thou then renew the vain pursuit,
And rashly catch at the forbidden fruit;
With empty labour and eluded strife
Seeking, by knowledge, to attain to life;
For ever from that fatal tree debarr'd,
The wish to know-that endless thirst,
Which ev'n by quenching is awak'd,
And which becomes or blest or curst,
As is the fount whereat 't is slak'd-
Still urg'd me onward, with desire
Insatiate, to explore, inquire.
Moore's Loves of the Angels
Which flaming swords and angry cherubs guard? O wad some power the giftic gie us
Prior's Soloman. To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An foolish notion:
Voracious learning, often over-fed,
Digests not into sense her motley meal,
This bookcase, with dark booty almost burst,
This forager on others' wisdom, leaves
Her native farm, her reason, quite untill'd.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords
Light, but not heat; it leaves you undevout,
Frozen at heart, while speculation shines.
Young's Night Thoughts.
The clouds may drop down titles and estates;
Wealth may seek us, but wisdom must be sought;
Sought before all, but (how unlike all else
We seek on earth!) 'tis never sought in vain.
Young's Night Thoughts.
One science only will one genius fit,
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
Pope's Essay on Criticism.
Man loves knowledge, and the beams of truth
More welcome touch his understanding's eye,
Than all the blandishments of sound his ear,
Than all of taste his tongue.
I know is all the mourner saith
Knowledge by suffering entereth,—
As life is perfected by death.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,
And I linger more and more,
And the individual withers,
And the world is more and more.
Tennyson's Poems, All this boasted knowledge of the world To me seems but to mean acquaintance with Low things, or evil, or indifferent.
Bailey's Festus Much more is said of knowledge than it's worth Bailey's Festus Oh! there is nought on earth worth being known, But God and our own souls.
Knowledge hath a 'wildering tongue,
And she will stoop and lead you to the stars,
And witch you with her mysteries— till gold
Is a forgotten dross, and power and fame
Toys of an hour, and woman's careless love
Light as the breath that breaks it.
Cheer'd with the view, man went to till the ground | What living man will bring a gift
From whence he rose; sentenc'd indeed to toil,
As to a punishment, yet (c'en in wrath
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Oft did the harvest to the sickle yield,
Their harrow oft the stubborn glebe hath broke;
How jocund did they drive their teams afield,
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Gray's Elegy.
From labour health, from health contentment
springs.
Beattie's Minstrel.
What happiness the rural maid attends,
In cheerful labour while each day she spends!
She gratefully receives what Heaven has sent,
And, rich in poverty, enjoys content.
She never feels the spleen's imagin'd pains,
Nor melancholy stagnates in her veins;
She never loses life in thoughtless case,
Nor on the velvet couch invites disease;
Her homespun dress in simple neatness lies,
And for no glaring equipage she sighs:
No midnight masquerade her beauty wears,
And health, not paint, the fading bloom repairs.
Gay.
Here sun-brown'd Labour swings his Cyclop arms,
Long are the furrows he must trace between
The ocean's azure and the prairie's green;
Full many a blank his destin'd realm displays,
Yet see the promise of his riper days;
Far through yon depths the panting engine moves,
His chariot's ringing in their steel-shod grooves;
And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave
O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave.
O. W. Holmes.
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Of his own heart, and help to lift
The tune?" The race is to the swift!"
Miss Barrett's Poems.
What are we sent on earth for? Say, to toil!
Nor seek to leave the tending of thy vines
For all the heat o' the sun, till it declines,
And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil
Miss Barrett's Poems.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
Longfellow's Poems High curl'd the smoke from the humble roof with dawning's earliest bird,
And the tinkle of the anvil, first of the village sounds was heard;
The bellows-puff, the hammer-beat, the whistle and the song,
Told, steadfastly and merrily, toil roll'd the hours along. Street's Poems
-Give me the fair one, in country or city,
Whose home and its duties are dear to her heart,
Who cheerfully warbles some rustical ditty,
While plying the needle with exquisite art.
Samuel Woodworth
"Labour is worship”—the robin is singing:
"Labour is worship” — the wild bee is ringing.
Listen! that eloquent whisper upspringing,
Speaks to thy soul out of nature's great heart.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Labour is life!-'Tis the still water faileth;
Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth;
Keep the watch wound, or the dark rust assaileth
Mrs. Osgood's Poems
Labour is rest-from the sorrows that greet us
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us,
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
Rest from world-syrens that lure us to ill.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Labour is health-Lo! the husbandman reaping,
How through his veins goes the life-current leap
ing!
How his strong arm in its stalwart pride sweeping,
True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides.
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Here, brothers, secure from all turmoil and danger,
We reap what we sow, for the soil is our own;
We spread hospitality's board for the stranger,
And care not a fig for the king on his throne;
We never know want, for we live by our labour,
And in it contentment and happiness find.
George P. Morris.
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