Type of the Infinite! I look away
Over thy billows, and I cannot stay
My thought upon a resting-place, or make
A shore beyond my vision, where they break;
But on my spirit stretches, till it's pain
To think; then rests, and then puts forth again.
Dana's Factitious Life.
Oh! how old
If my offence be of such mortal kind,
That neither service past, nor present sorrows,
Nor purpos'd merit in futurity,
Can ransom me into his love again,
But to know so must be my benefit;
Thou art to me! For countless years thou'st So shall I clothe me in a forc'd content,
Before an ear did hear thee, thou didst mourn,
Prophet of sorrow, o'er a race unborn;
Waiting, thou mighty minister of death,
Lorely thy work, ere man had drawn his breath!
Dana's Factitious Life.
Thou art the same, eternal sea!
The earth hath many shapes and forms,
Of hill and valley, flower and tree;
Fields that the fervid noontide warms,
Or winter's rugged grasp deforms,
Or bright with autumn's golden store;
Thou coverest up thy face with storms,
Or smil'st serene - but still thy roar
And dashing foam go up to vex the sea-beat shore.
George Lunt.
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
As 't were a living thing;
The homage of its waves is given
In ceaseless worshipping.
They kneel upon the sloping sand,
As bends the human knee,
A beautiful and tireless band,
The priesthood of the sea!
Look how the grey, old ocean,
From the depth of his heart rejoices,
Heaving with a gentle motion,
When he hears our restful voices;
And shut myself up in some other course, To fortune's alms.
What custom wills in all things, should we do 't.
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap'd
For truth to overpeer. Rather than feel it so,
Let the high office and the honour go
The Syrens. To one who would do thus.
J. R. Lowell - The Syrens.
Shaks. Coriolanus. You, yourself
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm;
To sell and mart your offices for gold
In council, which was once esteem'd an honour,
And a reward for virtue, hath quite lost
Lustre and reputation, and is made
The seals of office glitter in his eyes;
Opinion governs all mankind,
Like the blind's leading of the blind;
For he that has no eyes in 's head
Must be b' a dog glad to be led ;
And no beasts have so little in 'em,
As that inhuman brute, opinion;
"Tis an infectious pestilence,
He climbs, he pants, he grasps them; at his heels, That fastens upon wit and sense,
Close at his heels a demagogue ascends,
And, with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,
And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.
Addison.
And here and there some stern, high patriot stood,
Who could not get the place for which he sued.
Why, look around,
And count, if possible, the pamper'd numbers
Who fatten on the state: they are the men,
Who, if they find a man too honourable
To be a fellow-gleaner of the spoils,
When faction's sickle sweeps the public wealth,
Lift up their angry voices to the crowd
And breathe around their pestilential breath,
Till virtue's self is tainted by the touch.
Dawes's Athenia of Damascus.
They who bend to Power, and lap its milk,
Are fickler and more dangerous far than they
Who honestly defy it!
Opinion 's but a fool, that makes us scan
The outward habit by the inward man.
Opinion, the blind goddess of fools, foe
To the virtuous, and only friend to
Undeserving persons.
That with a venomous contagion,
Invades the sick imagination;
And when it seizes any part,
It strikes the poison to the heart.
This men of one another catch
By contact, as the humours match;
And nothing's so perverse in nature
As a profound opinionator.
How can you rest where pow'r is still alarm'd:
Each crowd a faction, and each faction arm'd?
Who fashions of opinion love to change,
And think their own the best for being strange;
Their own, if it were lasting, they would hate;
Yet call it conscience when 'tis obstinate.
Sir W. Davenant.
We all, my lords, have err'd.
Men may, I find, be honest, though they differ.
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn.
Thomson's Seasons.
How much there is self-will would do,
Were it not for the dire dismay
That bids ye shrink, as ye suddenly think
Of "what will my neighbours say?"
Miss Eliza Cook.
He lov'd his kind, but sought the love of few,
And valued old opinions more than new.
Park Benjamin.
Yet in opinions look not always back;
Chapman's Widow's Tears. Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track;
Leave what you've done for what you have to do,
Don't be "consistent," but be simply true.
He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach;
To epithets allots emphatic state,
Whilst principles ungrac'd, like lacquies wait;
In first trodden by himself excels,
ways
And stands alone in undeclinables;
Conjunction, preposition, adverb join
To stamp new vigour on the nervous line;
In monosyllables his thunders roll,
He, she, it, and we, ye, they, fright the soul.
Churchill's Rosciad.
Statesman all over! in plots famous grown!
He mouths a sentence, as curs mouth a bone.
Churchill's Rosciad
While words of learned length, and thund'ring
sound,
Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around;
And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew
That one small head should carry all he knew.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought
of dining.
Goldsmith's Retaliation.
So quick the words too, when he deign'd to speak,
As if each syllable would break its neck.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar..
Proud of his "hear hims," proud too of his vote
And last virginity of oratory,
Proud of his learning (just enough to quote),
He revell'd in his Ciceronian glory:
With memory excellent to get by rote,
With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story,
Graced with some merit and with more effrontery,
His country's pride;" he came down to the
country.
Ah, when the means are gone, that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made!
Feast-won, fast lost: one cloud of winter show'rs
These flies are couch'd
You smiling, smooth, detested parasite;
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears
You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time-flies,
Cap-and-knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks;
Of man and beast the infinite malady
Crust you quite o'er.
Sense of pleasure we may well
Spare out of life perhaps, and not repine,
But live content, which is the calmest life:
But pain is perfect misery, the worst
Of evils, and excessive, overturns
All patience
Unreasonable creatures feed their young;
And tho' man's face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
Who hath not seen them, even with those wings
Which sometimes they have us'd with fearful
flight,
Milton's Paradise Lost. Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,
Off'ring their own lives in their young's defence?
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Our pains are real things, and all
Our pleasures but fantastical;
Diseases of their own accord,
But cures come difficult and hard.
Butler's Hudibras.
Thee, too, my Paridel! she mark'd thee there,
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness.
Again the play of pain
Shoots o'er his features as the sudden gust
Crisps the reluctant lake, that lay so calm
Beneath the mountain shadow.
When, with too strict a rein, they do hold in
Their child's affections; and control that love,
Which the powers divine instruct them with:
When in their shallow judgments, they may know
Affection cross'd, brings misery and woe.
Robert Taylour's Hog hath lost its Pearl.
Fathers their children, and themselves abuse;
That wealth, a husband, for their daughters choose.
Shirley's School of Compliments
Honour thy parents to prolong thine end;
Byron. With them, though for a truth, do not contend:
Though all should truth defend, do thou lose rather
The truth awhile, than lose their love for ever:
Whoever makes his father's heart to bleed,
Shall have a child that will revenge the deed.
They talk of short-liv'd pleasure - be it so-
Pain dies as quickly; stern, hard-featur'd pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign.
That I shall say-good night till it be to-morrow.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
"Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton's bird;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silken thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Farewell; God knows, when we shall meet again,
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
And even there, his eye being big with tears,
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
And with affection wondrous sensible,
He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Farewell: the leisure and the fearful time
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet. Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love,
What! gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak :
For truth hath better deeds, than words, to grace
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Sweet Valentine, adieu!
Think on thy Porteus, when thou, haply, seest
Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel:
Wish me partaker in thy happiness,
And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take:-
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again why we shall smile;
When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy If not, why then this parting was well made.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar. without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit, that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business, and desire, shall point you:
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is, and for my own poor part,
Look you, I will go pray.
With that, wringing my hand he turns away,
And tho' his tears would hardly let him look,
Yet such a look did through his tears make way,
As show'd how sad a farewell there he took.
Daniel's Arcadia.
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