Self is the medium least refin'd of all,
Through which Opinion's searching beam can
fall;
And passing there, the clearest, steadiest ray
Will tinge its light and turn its line astray.
How cold he hearkens to some bankrupt's woe,
Nods his wise head, and cries-"I told you so!"
Sprague's Poems.
Ye may twine the living flowers
Where the living fountains glide,
And beneath the rosy bowers
Let the selfish man abide;
And the birds upon the wing,
And the barks upon the wave, Shall no sense of freedom bring,—
All is slavery to the slave:
Mammon's close-link'd chains have bound him,
Self-impos'd and seldom burst;
Though heaven's waters gush around him,
He would pine with earth's poor thirst.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
The craven's fear is but selfishness,
Like his merriment.
Yet what is wit, and what the poet's art?
Can genius shield the vulnerable heart?
Ah no! Where bright imagination reigns,
The fine-wrought spirit feels acuter pains;
Where glow exalted sense and taste refin'd,
There keener anguish rankles in the mind;
There feeling is diffus'd through every part,
Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart;
And those whose gen'rous souls each tear would
keep
From others' eyes, are born themselves to weep.
Hannah More.
Oh! life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;
Whittier's Poems. And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
This power's sense, which from abroad doth bring
The colour, taste, and touch, and scent and sound,
The quantity and shape of every thing
Within earth's centre, or heaven's circle found.
Sir John Davis.
And though things sensible be numberless,
But only five the senses' organs be;
And in those five all things their forms express,
Which we can touch, taste, feel, or hear, or see.
Sir John Davis.
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous e'en to taste-'tis sense:
Good sense which only is the gift of heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.
Of plain sound sense life's current coin is made;
With that we drive the most substantial trade.
"Tis hard, where dulness overrules,
To keep good sense in crowds of fools.
Our sensibilities are so acute,
The fear of being silent makes us mute.
Cowper's Conversation.
When knaves and fools combin'd o'er all prevail | The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
When justice halts, and right begins to fail,
E'en then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of shame - unknown to others' fears.
More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,
And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.
Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home
Hies, merry-heartrd; and by turns relieves
The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail;
The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart,
Unknowing what the joy-mixt anguish means,
Sincerely loves, by that best language shown
Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds.
Thomson's Seasons.
And leads me to the mountain-brow,
Where sits the shepherd on the grassy turf,
Inhaling, healthful, the descending sun.
Around him feeds his many bleating flock,
Of various cadence; and his sportive lambs,
This way and that convolv'd, in friskful glee,
Their frolics play.
Thomson's Seasons.
The house-wife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay-dress'd maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthron'd,
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays
Her smiles, sweet beaming, on her shepherd king;
While the glad circle round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
Thomson's Seasons.
Frequent in the sounding hall, they wake
The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round;
The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart,
Easily pleas'd; the long loud laugh, sincere;
The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the sidelong maid,
On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep;
The leap, the slap, the haul; and, shook to notes
Of native music, the respondent dance.
Thus jocund fleets with them the winter night.
Thomson's Seasons.
The homely villager, the drudge of life,
Who eats but as he toils, is happier far:
No self-division, bosom anarchy,
Disturbs his hours; thoughtless he labours on,
Nor is at leisure to be wretched.
Your ships are not well mann'd:
Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people
Ingross'd by swift impress.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra,
Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning,
Play with your fancies; and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, ship-boys climbing:
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus'd: behold the threaden sails,
Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge.
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar'd to us; to sigh
To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.
Shaks. Tempest.
I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself
(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast, that liv'd upon the sea:
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.
On Scylla or Charybdis (dangerous rocks!)
She strikes rebounding; whence the shatter'd oak
So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea: in at the gaping side
The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming; horrors seize
The mariners; death in their eyes appears,
They stare, they rave, they pump, they swear, they
pray;
(Vain efforts!) still the battering waves rush in, Implacable, till, delug'd by the foam,
The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.
Philips's Splendid Shilling.
A piteous, fearful sight-
A noble vessel labouring with the storm,
Hath struck upon the rocks beneath our walls,
And by the quivering gleams of livid blue
Her deck is crowded with despairing souls,
And in the hollow pauses of the storm
We heard their piercing cries.
Wave high your torches on each crag and cliff-
Let many lights blaze on our battlements-
Shout to them in the pauses of the storm,
And tell them there is hope
And let our deep-ton'd bell its loudest peal
Send cheerfully o'er the deep-
"T will be a comfort to the wretched souls
In their extremity-all things are possible;
Fresh hope may give them strength, and strength
deliverance.
Maturin's Bertram.
For many a fathom doth the beetling rock
Rise o'er the breaker's surge that dashes o'er them;
No help of human hand can reach them there
One hour will hush their cries-and by the morn
Thou wilt behold the ruin-wreck and corse
Float on the weltering wave.
Five hundred souls in one instant of dread
Are hurried o'er the deck;
And fast the miserable ship
Becomes a lifeless wreck.
Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,
Her planks are torn asunder,
Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,
Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave,
Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;
And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell,
And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave,
And down comes her mast with a reeling shock, Like one who grapples with his enemy,
And a hideous crash like thunder,
Her sails are draggled in the brine
That gladden'd late the skies,
And her pendant that kiss'd the fair moonshine,
Down many a fathom lies.
Oh! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death;
And sights of home with sighs disturb'd
The sleepers' long drawn breath.
Instead of the murmur of the sea
The sailor heard the humming-tree
Alive through all its leaves,
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage door,
And the swallow's song in the caves.
His arms enclos'd a blooming boy,
Who listen'd with tears of sorrow and joy
To the dangers his father had pass'd;
And strives to strangle him before he die.
And first one universal shriek there rush'd,
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless clash
Wilson. Of billows; but at intervals there gush'd,
Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.
And his wife by turns she wept and smiled,
As she look'd on the father of her child,
Return'd to her heart at last.
He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.
The queenly ship! - brave hearts had striven,
And true ones died with her!
We saw her mighty cable riven,
Like floating gossamer.
We saw her proud flag struck that morn
A star once o'er the seas
Her anchor gone, her deck uptorn ·
And sadder things than these!
We saw her treasures cast away,—
The rocks with pearls were sown,
And, strangely sad, the ruby's ray
Flash'd out o'er fretted stone,
And gold was strewn the wet sands o'er,
Like ashes by a breeze;
The two proud sisters of the sea,
In glory and in doom!
Well may the eternal waters be
Their broad, unsculptur'd tomb!
The wind that rings along the wave,
The clear, unshadow'd sun,
Are torch and trumpet o'er the brave, -
Their last green wreath is won!
No stranger-hand their banners furl'd,
No victor's shout they heard,
Unseen, above them ocean curl'd,
Save by its own pale bird;
The gnashing billows heav'd and fell;
Wild shriek'd the midnight gale;
Far, far beneath the morning swell
Were pennant, spar, and sail!
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