Imatges de pàgina
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I fear to die. And were it in my power,
By suffering of the keenest racking pains,
To keep upon me still these weeds of nature,
I could such things endure, that thou wouldst
marvel,

And cross thyself to see such coward bravery.
For oh! it goes against the mind of man
To be turn'd out from its warm wonted home,
Ere yet one rent admits the winter's chill.

Joanna Baillie's Rayner.

O thou most terrible, most dreaded power,
In whatsoever power thou meet'st the eye!
Whether thou bidd'st thy sudden arrow fly
In the dread silence of the midnight hour;
Or whether, hovering o'er the lingering wretch,
Thy sad cold javelin hangs suspended long,
While round the couch the weeping kindred throng
With hope and fear alternately on stretch;
Oh, say for me what horrors are prepared?
Am I now doom'd to meet thy fatal arm?
Or wilt thou first from life steal every charm,
And bear away each good my soul would guard?
That thus, deprived of all it loved, my heart
From life itself contentedly may part.

Friend to the wretch whom every friend forsakes,
I woo thee, death!

Porteus's Death.

Oft, too, when that disheartening fear,
Which all who love beneath this sky
Feel when they gaze on what is dear -
The dreadful thought that it must die!
That desolating thought, which comes
Into men's happiest hours and homes,
Whose melancholy boding flings
Death's shadow o'er the brightest things,.
Sicklies the infant's bloom, and spreads
The grave beneath young lovers' heads!

Moore's Loves of the Angels.

None to watch near him -none to slake
The fire that in his bosom lies,
With ev'n a sprinkle from that lake,
Which shines so cool before his eyes.
No voice well-known through many a day,
To speak the last the parting word,
Which, when all other sounds decay,
Is still like distant music heard.

That tender farewell on the shore

Of this rude world, when all is o'er,
Which cheers the spirit, ere its bark
Mrs. Tighe. Puts off into the unknown dark.

Death! to the happy thou art terrible,
But how the wretched love to think of thee,
O thou true comforter, the friend of all
Who have no friend beside!

Southey's Joan of Arc.
Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame
Forsake its languid melancholy frame!
Soon may these eyes their trembling lustre close,
Welcome the dreamless night of long repose;
Soon may this woe-worn spirit seek the bourn
Where, lull'd to slumber, grief forgets to mourn!
Campbell.

All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades,
Like the fair flow'r dishevell'd in the wind;
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream;
The man we celebrate must find a tomb,
And we that worship him, ignoble graves.

Cowper's Task. Hush'd were his Gertrude's lips! but still their bland

And beautiful expression seem'd to melt
With love that could not die! and still his hand
She presses to the heart no more that felt.
Ah, heart! where once each fond affection dwelt,
And features yet that spoke a soul more fair.
Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt,—
Of them that stood encircling his despair,
He heard some friendly words; but knew not what
they were.

Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming.

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Of death, although I know not what it is,
Yet it seems horrible. I have look'd out
In the vast desolate night in search of him;
And when I saw gigantic shadows in
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequer'd
By the far flashing of the cherubs' swords,
I watch'd for what I thought his coming; for
With fear rose longing in my heart to know
What 't was which shook us all-but nothing came,
And then I turn'd my weary eyes from off
Our native and forbidden paradise,
Up to the lights above us, in the azure,
Which are so beautiful:-shall they, too, die?
Byron's Cain.

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Thus lived-thus died she;-never more on her
Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth.

Вугоп

Perchance she died in youth; it may be, bow'd
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom
Heaven gives its favourites-early death.
Byron's Childe Harold.

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Peace to thy broken heart and virgin grave!
Ah! happy! but of life to lose the worst!
That grief-though deep-though fatal-was my
first!

Thrice happy! ne'er to feel nor fear the force
Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse!
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,
But where he died his grave was dug as deep!
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,
Though priest nor bless'd, nor marble deck'd the
Byron's Lara.
And grieve what may above thy senseless bier,
And earth nor sky will yield a single tear;
Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall,
Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all;
But creeping things shall revel in their spoil,
And fit thy clay to fertilize the soil.

mound.

Byron's Lara.

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Burns.

What a world were this, How unendurable its weight, if they Whom Death hath sunder'd did not meet again! Southey.

Voice after voice hath died away,

Once in my dwelling heard;

Sweet household name by name hath chang'd

To grief's forbidden word!

From dreams of night on each I call,

Each of the far remov'd;

And waken to my own wild cry,
Where are ye, my belov'd?

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Death is another life.

Bailey.

Death, thou art infinite; - 't is Life is little.

Bailey.

Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet-song and dance and wine;
And thou art terrible the tear,

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier;
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.

Halleck's Marco Bozzaris.

Death should come

Gently to one of gentle mould, like thee,

DEBTS.

Oh, how you wrong our friendship, valiant youth!
With friends there is not such a word as debt:
Where amity is ty'd with band of truth,
All benefits are there in common set.

Lady Carew's Mariam.

Dost think, friend,

The sense of all my debts could shake me thus?
I know 't would come, and in my fears examin'd
The mischief they present; 't is not their weight
Affrights me: let the vultures whet their talons;
And creditors, with hearts more stubborn than
The metal they adore, double their malice;
Had I a pile of debts upon me, more
Heavy than all the world, it could not, but with
The pressure, keep this piece of earth beneath 'em:
My soul would be at large, and feel no burthen.
Shirley's Example.

I

blame

you

You have outrun your fortune; not that you would be a beggar;

As light winds, wandering through groves of Each to his taste! But I do charge you, Sir,

bloom,

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That, being beggar'd, you should win false moneys Out of that crucible call'd DEBT!

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Mrs. Norton.

O. W. Holmes.

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Puts pirate's colours out at both our sterns,
That we might fight each other in mistake,
That he should share the ruin of us both!
Crown's Ambitious Statesman.

Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
Shaks. Twelfth Night.
Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice!

Shaks. Richard III.
Smooth runs the water, where the brook is deep;
And in his simple show he harbours treason.
The fox barks not, when he would steal the lamb.
No, no, my sovereign; Gloster is a man
Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit.

Shaks. Henry VI.
Get thee glass eyes;

And like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not.

Shaks. Lear.

They say this town is full of cozenage;
As nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches, that deform the body;
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such like libertines of sin.

Shaks. Comedy of Errors.
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou did'st bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh? —
Was ever book containing such vile matter,
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace.

Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.

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