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"Life is before ye!"-Oh, if ye could look
Into the secrets of that sealed book,
Strong as ye are with youth, and hope, and faith,
Ye would sink down, and falter "Give us death!"
If the dread Sphinx's lips might once unclose,
And utter but a whisper of the woes

My life is like the prints, which feet
Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
All trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface
All vestige of the human race,

Which must o'ertake ye in your life-long doom-On that lone shore loud moans the sea,
Well might ye cry, "Our cradle be our tomb!" But none, alas! shall mourn for me!
Frances Kemble Butler.

Had but the heart that thrills a three years' boy
A voice to speak, 't would say that life is joy!
Note thou the youth whose impulse nought can

tame,

That life is action, tongue and limbs proclaim!
The man whom well-spent years from dread re-
lease,

Secure in knowledge, tells thee Life is Peace,
And the grey sage, who smiles beside the grave,
Knows life is all, and death a dusty slave!

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And departing leave behind us

Footsteps on the sands of timeFootprints that, perchance, another, Sailing o'er life's troubled main, A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.

Life is real, life is earnest;

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest;
Was not spoken of the soul.

Thus bravely live heroic men,
A consecrated band;
Life is to them a battle-field,
Their hearts a holy land.

My life is like the summer rose

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John Sterling.

That opens to the morning sky,
But ere the shades of evening close,
Is scatter'd on the ground-to die!
Yet on the rose's humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see —
But none shall weep a tear for me.

My life is like the autumn leaf

R. H. Wilde

Life hath but shadows, save a promise given, Which lights the future with a fadeless ray; touch the sceptre ! win a hope in heaven; Come, turn thy spirit from the world away! Willis G. Clark

Life mocks the idle hate Of his arch-enemy Death-yea, seats himself Upon the tyrant's throne-the sepulchre, And of the triumph of his ghastly foe Makes his own nourishment.

Bryant's Poems.

God! thou hast fix'd the date of man,
— And who would lengthen out the span?
Enough of pain, of toils and tears
Meet in the round of seventy years;
And earth must like a desert spread,
When all life's flowers are pluck'd or dead.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
Little thinks in the field, you red-cloak'd clown,
Longfellow. Of thee from the hill-top looking down;—
Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbour's creed hath lent,-
All are needed by each and one;

Longfellow. Nothing is fair or good alone.

Tuckerman.

R. H. Wilde.

That trembles in the moon's pale ray,
Its hold is frail-its date is brief,

Restiess-and soon to pass away!
Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The winds bewail the leafless tree,
But none shall breathe a sigh for me!
R. H. Wilde.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Our life is onward—and our very dust Is longing for its change, that it may take New combinations; that the seed may break From its dark thraldom, where it lies in trust Of its great resurrection.

Mrs. E. O. Smith's Poems.
The flow

Of life-time is a graduated scale;
And deeper than the vanities of power,
Or the vain pomp of glory, there is writ
A standard measuring its worth for heaven.
Willis's Poems,

'T were idle to remember now,
Had I the heart, my thwarted schemes;
I bear beneath this alter'd brow

The ashes of a thousand dreams;
Some wrought of wild ambition's fingers,
Some colour'd of Love's pencil well,
But none of which a shadow lingers,
And none whose story I could tell.
Willis's Melanie.

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Our souls have holy light within, And every form of grief and sin Shall see and feel its fire.

Ebenezer Elliott.

Ebenezer Elliott.

When the breaking day is flushing
All the East, and light is gushing
Upward through the horizon's haze,
Sheaf-like, with its thousand rays
Spreading, until all above
Overflows with joy and love,
And below, on earth's green bosom,
All is chang'd to light and blossom;
Then, O Father!-Thou alone,
From the shadow of thy throne,
To the sighing of my breast,

And its rapture answerest:

All my thoughts, with upward winging,

Bathe where Thy own light is springing!

Whittier's Poems.

The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpower'd.

Shaks. Richard II.

What! shall they seek the lion in his den?

And fright him there; and make him tremble there?

O let it not be said!

Shaks. King John.

A lioness with udders all drawn dry,
Lay couching, head on ground, with cat-like

watch,

When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis The royal disposition of that beast,

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.
Shaks. As you like t

So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch
That trembles under his destroying paws:
And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey;
And so he comes to rend his limbs asunder.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part IIL
Poor conquer'd lion—from that haughty glance
Still speaks the courage unsubdued by time,
And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread
Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime
O. W. Holmes

The steel-arm'd hunter view'd thee from afar,
Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path!
The famish'd tiger clos'd his flaming eye,
And crouch'd and panted as thy step went by '
O. W. Holmes

1

The weaker, wiser race,

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,

That wields the tempest and that rides the sea, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Even in the stillness of thy solitude

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Seek not from 'prentices to learn the way,
Those fabling boys will turn thy steps astray;
Ask the grave tradesman to direct thee right,
He ne'er deceives - but when he profits by 't.
Gay's Trivia.
The tavern! park! assembly! mask! and play!
Those dear destroyers of the tedious day!
That wheel of fops! that saunter of the town!
Call it diversion, and the pill goes down.

Young's Love of Fame.
London! the needy villain's general home,
The common sewer of Paris and of Rome;
With cager thirst, by folly or by fate,
Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.

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Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping

In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head- and there is London town!
Byron.

Dozens

Of fresh imported, staring country cousins,
To London come, the wax-work to devour,
And see their brother beasts within the tow'r.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pinaer,

LOVE.

Love is life's end; an end but never ending;
All joys, all sweets, all happiness, awarding;
Love is life's wealth (ne'er spent but ever spending),
More rich by giving, taking by discarding;
Love's life's reward, rewarded in rewarding:
Then from thy wretched heart fond care remove;
Ah! should'st thou live but once love's sweets t

prove,

Thou wilt not love to live, unless thou live to love.
Spenser's Britain's Ida.
The joys of love, if they should ever last
Without affliction or disquietness,
That worldly chances do among them cast,
Would be on earth too great a blessedness,
Liker to heaven than mortal wretchedness;
Therefore the winged God, to let men weet
That here on earth is no sure happiness,
A thousand sours hath temper'd with one sweet,
To make it seem more dear and dainty, as is meet.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.

True he it said, whatever man it said,
That love with gall and honey doth abound:
But if the one be with the other weigh'd,
For every drachm of honey therein found
A pound of gall doth over it redound.

Spenser's Fairy Queen
Such is the pow'r of that sweet passion,
That it all sordid baseness doth expel,
And the refined mind doth newly fashion
Unto a fairer form, which now doth dwell
In his high thought, that would itself excel,
Which he beholding still with constant sight,
Admires the mirror of so heavenly light.

Spenser's Hymn in honour of Love. Nor less was she in heart affected, But that she masked it with modesty, For fear she should of lightness be detected. Spenser's Fairy Queen.

Love is a celestial harmony Of likely hearts, compos'd of stars' consent, Which join together in sweet sympathy, To work each other's joy and true content, Which they have harbour'd since their first descent, Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see And know each other here belov'd to be.

O dear Phebe,

If ever (as that ever may be near)
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy
Then shall you know the wounds invisible
That love's keen arrows make.

Shaks. As you like it

I pray you do not fall in love with me, Spenser's Hymn in honour of Beauty. For I am falser than vows made in wine: Besides, I like you not.

Love does reign

In stoutest minds, and maketh monstrous war:
He maketh war, he maketh peace again,
And yet his peace is but continual jar:
O miserable men that to him subject are.

Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Little she ween'd that love he close conceal'd;
Yet still he wasted, as the snow congeal'd
When the bright sun his beams thereon doth beat.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
To love,

It is to be all made of sighs and tears,
It is to be all made of faith and service,
It is to be all made of fantasy,

All made of passion, and all made of wishes;
All adoration, duty, and observance,

All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance.

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Shaks. As you like it
Wherefore do you follow her,

Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man,
Than she a woman: 't is such fools as you,
That make the world full of ill-favour'd children.
Shaks. As you like it

O how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.

Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona,

O gentle Protheus, love 's a mighty lord;
And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,
There is no woe to his correction,
Nor to his service, no such joy on earth!
Now, no discourse, except it be of love;
Now, can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of love.

Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow,
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.

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row.

In revenge of my contempt of love,
Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes,
And made them watches of mine own heart's sor-
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
I have done penance for contemning love;
Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Fie, fie! how wayward is this foolish love,
That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse,
And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod.

Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
What dangerous action, stood it next to death,
Would I not undergo for one calm look?
O, 't is the curse of love, and still approv'd,
When women cannot love, where they're belov'd.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon.

O happy fair!

Your eyes are load-stars, and your tongue's sweet
air,

More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream
Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;
Being urg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sca nourished with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

Shaks. Romeo and Julia.
Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.

Love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over low'ring ills.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet

O brawling love! O loving hate!

O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!

Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Misshapen chaos of well-sceming forms!

I care not for her, I;

I hold him but a fool, that will endanger
His body for a girl that loves him not.

Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
For now my love is thaw'd;
Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was.

Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Things base and vile, holding no quality,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.

Ah me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
She, sweet lady, dotes,

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
You thief of love! what, have you come by night,
And stol'n my love's heart from him?

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep!

Shaks. Romeo and Julid

Holy St. Francis! what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou dost love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face;
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek,
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.
Shaks. Romeo and Juha.

O, gentle Romeo,

If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.
Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo: but, else, not for the world.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet

If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite
And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay,
And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.

Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream. Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say-ay;

Heien, I love thee; by my life, I do;

I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
To prove him false, that says I love thee not.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.

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