_Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9._
Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings,
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.
_Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9._
Truths that wake,
To perish never.
_Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9._
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.
_Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9._
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.
_Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 10._
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
_Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 10._
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.
_Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 11._
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
_Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 11._
Two voices are there: one is of the sea,
One of the mountains,--each a mighty voice.
_Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland._
Earth helped him with the cry of blood.[478-1]
_Song at the Feast of Broughton Castle._
The silence that is in the starry sky.
_Song at the Feast of Broughton Castle._
The monumental pomp of age
Was with this goodly personage;
A stature undepressed in size,
Unbent, which rather seemed to rise
In open victory o'er the weight
Of seventy years, to loftier height.
_The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto iii._
"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my tale;
And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring
When prayer is of no avail?
_Force of Prayer._
A few strong instincts, and a few plain rules.
_Alas! what boots the long laborious Quest?_
Of blessed consolations in distress.
_Preface to the Excursion._ (Edition, 1814.)
The vision and the faculty divine;
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.
_The Excursion. Book i._
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.
_The Excursion. Book i._
That mighty orb of song,
The divine Milton.
_The Excursion. Book i._
The good die first,[479-1]
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket.
_The Excursion. Book i._
This dull product of a scoffer's pen.
_The Excursion. Book ii._
With battlements that on their restless fronts
Bore stars.
_The Excursion. Book ii._
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.
_The Excursion. Book iii._
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.
_The Excursion. Book iii._
Monastic brotherhood, upon rock
Aerial.
_The Excursion. Book iii._
The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on a dim and perilous way![480-1]
_The Excursion. Book iii._
Society became my glittering bride,
And airy hopes my children.
_The Excursion. Book iii._
And the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain.
_The Excursion. Book iv._
There is a luxury in self-dispraise;
And inward self-disparagement affords
To meditative spleen a grateful feast.
_The Excursion. Book iv._
Recognizes ever and anon
The breeze of Nature stirring in his soul.
_The Excursion. Book iv._
Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god!
_The Excursion. Book iv._
I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell,
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy, for from within were heard
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with his native sea.[480-2]
_The Excursion. Book iv._
So build we up the being that we are.
_The Excursion. Book iv._
One in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition.
_The Excursion. Book iv._
Spires whose "silent finger points to heaven."[481-1]
_The Excursion. Book vi._
Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man,
Could field or grove, could any spot of earth,
Show to his eye an image of the pangs
Which it hath witnessed,--render back an echo
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!
_The Excursion. Book vi._
And when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
A consciousness remained that it had left
Deposited upon the silent shore
Of memory images and precious thoughts
That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
_The Excursion. Book vii._
Wisdom married to immortal verse.[481-2]
_The Excursion. Book vii._
A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays
And confident to-morrows.
_The Excursion. Book vii._
The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;
The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.
_The Excursion. Book ix._
By happy chance we saw
A twofold image: on a grassy bank
A snow-white ram, and in the crystal flood
Another and the same![481-3]
_The Excursion. Book ix._
The gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.
_Laodamia._
Mightier far
Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,
Is Love, though oft to agony distrest,
And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast.
_Laodamia._
Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,
Brought from a pensive though a happy place.
_Laodamia._
He spake of love, such love as spirits feel
In worlds whose course is equable and pure;
No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,--
The past unsighed for, and the future sure.
_Laodamia._
Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there
In happier beauty; more pellucid streams,
An ampler ether, a diviner air,
And fields invested with purpureal gleams.
_Laodamia._
Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.
_Laodamia._
But shapes that come not at an earthly call
Will not depart when mortal voices bid.
_Dion._
But thou that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation.
_Yarrow Visited._
'T is hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
Of faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.
_Weak is the Will of Man._
We bow our heads before Thee, and we laud
And magnify thy name Almighty God!
But man is thy most awful instrument
In working out a pure intent.
_Ode. Imagination before Content._
Sad fancies do we then affect,
In luxury of disrespect
To our own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness.
_Ode to Lycoris._
That kill the bloom before its time,
And blanch, without the owner's crime,
The most resplendent hair.
_Lament of Mary Queen of Scots._
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side,--a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
_The Italian Itinerant._
Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows
That for oblivion take their daily birth
From all the fuming vanities of earth.
_Sky-Prospect from the Plain of France._
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold.
_Desultory Stanza._
Babylon,
Learned and wise, hath perished utterly,
Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh
That would lament her.
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part i. xxv. Missions and Travels._
As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main ocean they, this deed accursed
An emblem yields to friends and enemies
How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.[483-1]
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part ii. xvii. To Wickliffe._
The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an angel's wing.[484-1]
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. v. Walton's Book of Lives._
Meek Walton's heavenly memory.
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. v. Walton's Book of Lives._
But who would force the soul tilts with a straw
Against a champion cased in adamant.
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. vii. Persecution of the Scottish
Covenanters._
Where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die,
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. xliii. Inside of King's Chapel,
Cambridge._
Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.
_To the Lady Fleming._
But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things.
_Elegiac Stanzas. Addressed to Sir G. H. B._
To the solid ground
Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye.
_A Volant Tribe of Bards on Earth._
Soft is the music that would charm forever;
The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.
_Not Love, not War._
True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.
_To ----. Let other Bards of Angels sing._
Type of the wise who soar but never roam,
True to the kindred points of heaven and home.
_To a Skylark._
A Briton even in love should be
A subject, not a slave!
_Ere with Cold Beads of Midnight Dew._
Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.[485-1]
_Scorn not the Sonnet._
And when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains,--alas! too few.
_Scorn not the Sonnet._
But he is risen, a later star of dawn.
_A Morning Exercise._
Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark.
_A Morning Exercise._
When his veering gait
And every motion of his starry train
Seem governed by a strain
Of music, audible to him alone.
_The Triad._
Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays:
A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!
_The Triad._
Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.
_On the Power of Sound. xii._
The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift.
_Presentiments._
Nature's old felicities.
_The Trosachs._
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the one
That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.
_Poems composed during a Tour in the Summer of 1833. xxxvii._
Small service is true service while it lasts.
Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.
_To a Child. Written in her Album._
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source,
The rapt one, of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.
_Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg._
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
_Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg._
Those old credulities, to Nature dear,
Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock
Of history?
_Memorials of a Tour in Italy. iv._
How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and in that freedom bold.
_A Poet! He hath put his Heart to School._
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.
_Yes, Thou art Fair._
FOOTNOTES:
[465-1] Coleridge said to Wordsworth ("Memoirs" by his nephew,
vol. ii. p. 74), "Since Milton, I know of no poet with so many
_felicities_ and unforgettable lines and stanzas as you."
[465-2]
The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on a dim and perilous way!
_The Excursion, book iii._
[468-1] The original edition (London, 1819, 8vo) had the following
as the fourth stanza from the end of Part i., which was omitted in
all subsequent editions:--
Is it a party in a parlour?
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,--
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent and all damned.
[469-1] See Milton, page 241.
[471-1] See Gray, page 382.
[474-1] It was on this occasion [the failure in energy of Lord Mar
at the battle of Sheriffmuir] that Gordon of Glenbucket made the
celebrated exclamation, "Oh for an hour of Dundee!"--MAHON:
_History of England, vol. i. p. 184._
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo,
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!
BYRON: _Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 12._
[475-1] See Milton, page 239.
[476-1] See Milton, page 235.
[477-1] See Shakespeare, page 57.
[477-2] See Collins, page 390.
[478-1] This line is from Sir John Beaumont's "Battle of Bosworth
Field."
[479-1] Heaven gives its favourites--early death.--BYRON: _Childe
Harold, canto iv. stanza 102._ Also _Don Juan, canto iv. stanza
12._
Quem Di diligunt
Adolescens moritur
(He whom the gods favor dies in youth).
PLAUTUS: _Bacchides, act iv. sc. 7._
[480-1] See page 465.
[480-2]
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue;
. . . . .
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
LANDOR: _Gebir, book v._
[481-1] An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches
in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be
referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the
sky and stars.--COLERIDGE: _The Friend, No. 14._
[481-2] See Milton, page 249.
[481-3] Another and the same.--DARWIN: _The Botanic Garden._
[483-1] In obedience to the order of the Council of Constance
(1415), the remains of Wickliffe were exhumed and burned to ashes,
and these cast into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard
by; and "thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon
into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main
ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his
doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."--FULLER:
_Church history, sect. ii. book iv. paragraph 53._
What Heraclitus would not laugh, or what Democritus would not
weep? . . . For though they digged up his body, burned his bones,
and drowned his ashes, yet the word of God and truth of his
doctrine, with the fruit and success thereof, they could not
burn.--FOX: _Book of Martyrs, vol. i. p. 606_ (edition, 1641).
"Some prophet of that day said,--
"'The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad
Wide as the waters be.'"
DANIEL WEBSTER: _Address before the Sons of New Hampshire, 1849._
These lines are similarly quoted by the Rev. John Cumming in the
"Voices of the Dead."
[484-1]
The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly sing
Made of a quill from an angel's wing.
HENRY CONSTABLE: _Sonnet._
Whose noble praise
Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel's wing.
DOROTHY BERRY: _Sonnet._
[485-1]
With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
BROWNING: _House._
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 1771-1832.
Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto i. Stanza 7._
If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 1._
O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 10._
I was not always a man of woe.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 12._
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 't was said to me.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 22._
In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iii. Stanza 1._
Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
For lovers love the western star.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iii. Stanza 24._
Along thy wild and willow'd shore.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iv. Stanza 1._
Ne'er
Was flattery lost on poet's ear;
A simple race! they waste their toil
For the vain tribute of a smile.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iv. Stanza 35._
Call it not vain: they do not err
Who say that when the poet dies
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto v. Stanza 1._
True love 's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven:
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes soon as granted fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto v. Stanza 13._
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd[488-1]
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,--
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.[488-2]
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1._
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood;
Land of the mountain and the flood!
_Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 2._
Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.
_Marmion. Introduction to Canto i._
Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
_Marmion. Introduction to Canto ii._
When, musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone.
_Marmion. Introduction to Canto ii._
'T is an old tale and often told;
But did my fate and wish agree,
Ne'er had been read, in story old,
Of maiden true betray'd for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like me.
_Marmion. Canto ii. Stanza 27._
When Prussia hurried to the field,
And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield.[489-1]
_Marmion. Introduction to Canto iii._
In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle
With groans of the dying.
_Marmion. Canto iii. Stanza 11._
Where 's the coward that would not dare
To fight for such a land?
_Marmion. Canto iv. Stanza 30._
Lightly from fair to fair he flew,
And loved to plead, lament, and sue;
Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain,
For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.
_Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 9._
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.[489-2]
_Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 12._
But woe awaits a country when
She sees the tears of bearded men.
_Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 16._
And dar'st thou then
To beard the lion in his den,
The Douglas in his hall?
_Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 14._
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
_Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 17._
O woman! in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou![490-1]
_Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 30._
"Charge, Chester, charge! on, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.
_Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 32._
Oh for a blast of that dread horn[490-2]
On Fontarabian echoes borne!
_Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 33._
To all, to each, a fair good-night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.
_L' Envoy. To the Reader._
In listening mood she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 17._
And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace
Of finer form or lovelier face.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 18._
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 18._
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly press'd its signet sage,
Yet had not quench'd the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth:
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 21._
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil nor night of waking.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 31._
Hail to the chief who in triumph advances!
_Lady of the Lake. Canto ii. Stanza 19._
Some feelings are to mortals given
With less of earth in them than heaven.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto ii. Stanza 22._
Time rolls his ceaseless course.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto iii. Stanza 1._
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever!
_Lady of the Lake. Canto iii. Stanza 16._
The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew,
And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto iv. Stanza 1._
Art thou a friend to Roderick?
_Lady of the Lake. Canto iv. Stanza 30._
Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 10._
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 10._
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood.
Thou many-headed monster[492-1] thing,
Oh who would wish to be thy king!
_Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 30._
Where, where was Roderick then?
One blast upon his bugle horn
Were worth a thousand men.
_Lady of the Lake. Canto vi. Stanza 18._
In man's most dark extremity
Oft succour dawns from Heaven.
_Lord of the Isles. Canto i. Stanza 20._
Spangling the wave with lights as vain
As pleasures in the vale of pain,
That dazzle as they fade.
_Lord of the Isles. Canto i. Stanza 23._
Oh, many a shaft at random sent
Finds mark the archer little meant!
And many a word at random spoken
May soothe, or wound, a heart that 's broken!
_Lord of the Isles. Canto v. Stanza 18._
Where lives the man that has not tried
How mirth can into folly glide,
And folly into sin!
_Bridal of Triermain. Canto i. Stanza 21._
Still are the thoughts to memory dear.
_Rokeby. Canto i. Stanza 32._
A mother's pride, a father's joy.
_Rokeby. Canto iii. Stanza 15._
Oh, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer's queen.
_Rokeby. Canto iii. Stanza 16._
Thus aged men, full loth and slow,
The vanities of life forego,
And count their youthful follies o'er,
Till Memory lends her light no more.
_Rokeby. Canto v. Stanza 1._
No pale gradations quench his ray,
No twilight dews his wrath allay.
_Rokeby. Canto vi. Stanza 21._
Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended;
Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded.
_Pibroch of Donald Dhu._
A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere
working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may
venture to call himself an architect.
_Guy Mannering. Chap. xxxvii._
Bluid is thicker than water.[493-1]
_Guy Mannering. Chap. xxxviii._
It 's no fish ye 're buying, it 's men's lives.[493-2]
_The Antiquary. Chap. xi._
When Israel, of the Lord belov'd,
Out of the land of bondage came,
Her fathers' God before her mov'd,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
_Ivanhoe. Chap. xxxix._
Sea of upturned faces.[493-3]
_Rob Roy. Chap. xx._
There 's a gude time coming.
_Rob Roy. Chap. xxxii._
My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor.
_Rob Roy. Chap. xxxiv._
Scared out of his seven senses.[493-4]
_Rob Roy. Chap. xxxiv._
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
_Old Mortality. Chap. xxxiv._
The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.[494-1]
_Answer to the Author of Waverley to the Letter of Captain Clutterbuck.
The Monastery._
Within that awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
_The Monastery. Chap. xii._
And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
_The Monastery. Chap. xii._
Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh,
The sun has left the lea.
The orange flower perfumes the bower,
The breeze is on the sea.
_Quentin Durward. Chap. iv._
Widowed wife and wedded maid.
_The Betrothed. Chap. xv._
Woman's faith and woman's trust,
Write the characters in dust.
_The Betrothed. Chap. xx._
I am she, O most bucolical juvenal, under whose charge are placed
the milky mothers of the herd.[494-2]
_The Betrothed. Chap. xxviii._
But with the morning cool reflection came.[494-3]
_Chronicles of the Canongate. Chap. iv._
What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that
it runs back to a successful soldier?[494-4]
_Woodstock. Chap. xxxvii._
The playbill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of
Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out.
_The Talisman. Introduction._
Rouse the lion from his lair.
_The Talisman. Chap. vi._
Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in
a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye 're sleeping.[495-1]
_The Heart of Midlothian. Chap. viii._
Fat, fair, and forty.[495-2]
_St. Ronan's Well. Chap. vii._
"Lambe them, lads! lambe them!" a cant phrase of the time derived
from the fate of Dr. Lambe, an astrologer and quack, who was
knocked on the head by the rabble in Charles the First's time.
_Peveril of the Peak. Chap. xlii._
Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could
claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers.[495-3]
_Life of Napoleon._
The sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V.[495-4]
_Life of Napoleon._ (February, 1807.)
FOOTNOTES:
[488-1] Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us
by the way?--_Luke xxiv. 32._
Hath not thy heart within thee burned
At evening's calm and holy hour?
S. G. BULFINCH: _The Voice of God in the Garden._
[488-2] See Pope, page 341.
[489-1] See Freneau, page 443.
[489-2] Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eye.--LOVER: _Rory
O'More._
[490-1] See Shakespeare, page 144.
Scott, writing to Southey in 1810, said: "A witty rogue the other
day, who sent me a letter signed Detector, proved me guilty of
stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had
never seen or heard of." The passage alleged to be stolen ends
with,--
"When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!"
which in Vida "ad Eranen," El. ii. v. 21, ran,--
"Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor,
Fungeris angelico sola ministerio."
"It is almost needless to add," says Mr. Lockhart, "there are no
such lines."--_Life of Scott, vol. iii. p. 294._ (American
edition.)
[490-2] Oh for the voice of that wild horn!--_Rob Roy, chap. ii._
[492-1] See Massinger, page 194.
[493-1] This proverb, so frequently ascribed to Scott, is a common
proverb of the seventeenth century. It is found in Ray and other
collections of proverbs.
[493-2]
It is not linen you 're wearing out,
But human creatures's lives.
HOOD: _Song of the Shirt._
[493-3] DANIEL WEBSTER: _Speech, Sept. 30, 1842._
[493-4] Huzzaed out of my seven senses.--_Spectator, No. 616, Nov.
5, 1774._
[494-1] Fearful concatenation of circumstances.--DANIEL WEBSTER:
_Argument on the Murder of Captain White, 1830._
Fortuitous combination of circumstances.--DICKENS: _Our Mutual
Friend, vol. ii. chap. vii._ (American edition).
[494-2] See Spenser, page 27.
[494-3] See Rowe, page 301.
[494-4]
Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux:
Qui sert bien son pays, n'a pas besoin d'aïeux
(The first who was king was a successful soldier. He who serves
well his country has no need of ancestors).--VOLTAIRE: _Merope,
act i. sc. 3._
[495-1] The very words of a Highland laird, while on his
death-bed, to his son.
[495-2] See Dryden, page 275.
[495-3] See Pope, page 331.
[495-4] A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole
globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning
drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours,
circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the
martial airs of England.--DANIEL WEBSTER: _Speech, May 7, 1834._
Why should the brave Spanish soldier brag the sun never sets in
the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we
have conquered for our king?--CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH: _Advertisements
for the Unexperienced, &c._ (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series,
vol. iii. p. 49).
It may be said of them (the Hollanders) as of the Spaniards, that
the sun never sets on their dominions.--GAGE: _New Survey of the
West Indies. Epistle Dedicatory._ (London, 1648.)
I am called
The richest monarch in the Christian world;
The sun in my dominions never sets.
SCHILLER: _Don Karlos, act. i. sc. 6._
Altera figlia
Di quel monarca, a cui
Nè anco, quando annotta il sol tramonta
(The proud daughter of that monarch to whom when it grows dark
[elsewhere] the sun never sets).--GUARINI: _Pastor Fido_ (1590).
On the marriage of the Duke of Savoy with Catherine of Austria.
JAMES MONTGOMERY. 1771-1854.
When the good man yields his breath
(For the good man never dies).[496-1]
_The Wanderer of Switzerland. Part v._
Gashed with honourable scars,
Low in Glory's lap they lie;
Though they fell, they fell like stars,
Streaming splendour through the sky.
_The Battle of Alexandria._
Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea.
_The Ocean. Line 54._
Once, in the flight of ages past,
There lived a man.
_The Common Lot._
Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more.
_The West Indies. Part iii._
Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive.[496-2]
_The World before the Flood. Canto v._
Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet _more_ exquisite when past.
_The Little Cloud._
Bliss in possession will not last;
Remembered joys are never past;
At once the fountain, stream, and sea,
They were, they are, they yet shall be.
_The Little Cloud._
Friend after friend departs;
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end.
_Friends._
Nor sink those stars in empty night:
They hide themselves in heaven's own light.
_Friends._
'T is not the whole of life to live,
Nor all of death to die.
_The Issues of Life and Death._
Beyond this vale of tears
There is a life above,
Unmeasured by the flight of years;
And all that life is love.
_The Issues of Life and Death._
Night is the time to weep,
To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years.
_The Issues of Life and Death._
Who that hath ever been
Could bear to be no more?
Yet who would tread again the scene
He trod through life before?
_The Falling Leaf._
Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer home.
_At Home in Heaven._
If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will paradise be found!
_The Earth full of God's Goodness._
Return unto thy rest, my soul,
From all the wanderings of thy thought,
From sickness unto death made whole,
Safe through a thousand perils brought.
_Rest for the Soul._
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,--
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
_What is Prayer?_
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.
_What is Prayer?_
FOOTNOTES:
[496-1] Thnêskein mê lege tous agathous (Say not that the good
die).--CALLIMACHUS: _Epigram x._
[496-2] See Barbauld, page 433.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 1772-1834.
He holds him with his glittering eye,
And listens like a three years' child.[498-1]
_The Ancient Mariner. Part i._
Red as a rose is she.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part i._
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part ii._
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part ii._
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part ii._
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part iii._
The nightmare Life-in-Death was she.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part iii._
The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part iii._
And thou art long and lank and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.[498-2]
_The Ancient Mariner. Part iv._
Alone, alone,--all, all alone;
Alone on a wide, wide sea.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part iv._
The moving moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part iv._
A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
And I bless'd them unaware.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part iv._
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part v._
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part v._
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head,
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part vi._
So lonely 't was, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part vii._
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part vii._
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part vii._
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
_The Ancient Mariner. Part vii._
And the spring comes slowly up this way.
_Christabel. Part i._
A lady richly clad as she,
Beautiful exceedingly.
_Christabel. Part i._
Carv'd with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain.
_Christabel. Part i._
Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.
_Christabel. Part i._
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
_Christabel. Part i._
That saints will aid if men will call;
For the blue sky bends over all!
_Christabel. Conclusion to part i._
Each matin bell, the Baron saith,
Knells us back to a world of death.
_Christabel. Part ii._
Her face, oh call it fair, not pale!
_Christabel. Part ii._
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth,
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny, and youth is vain,
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
_Christabel. Part ii._
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,--
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder:
A dreary sea now flows between.
_Christabel. Part ii._
Perhaps 't is pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
_Christabel. Conclusion to Part ii._
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
_Kubla Khan._
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
_Kubla Khan._
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
_Kubla Khan._
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
_Kubla Khan._
Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.
_Epitaph on an Infant._
Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.
_France. An Ode. v._
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place
(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fring'd lids, and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven
Cries out, "Where is it?"
_Fears in Solitude._
And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is pride that apes humility.[501-1]
_The Devil's Thoughts._
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
_Love._
Blest hour! it was a luxury--to be!
_Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement._
A charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of life.
_This Lime-tree Bower my Prison._
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course?
_Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni._
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines.
_Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni._
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
_Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni._
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost.
_Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni._
Earth with her thousand voices praises God.
_Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni._
Tranquillity! thou better name
Than all the family of Fame.
_Ode to Tranquillity._
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.
_Dejection. An Ode. Stanza 1._
Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud.
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
_Dejection. An Ode. Stanza 5._
A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
_The Three Graves._
Never, believe me,
Appear the Immortals,
Never alone.
_The Visit of the Gods._ (Imitated from Schiller.)
Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn.
_A Christmas Carol. viii._
The knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
_The Knight's Tomb._
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits
If any man obtains that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
. . . . . . . . .
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures,--love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,--
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
_Complaint. Ed. 1852. The Good Great Man. Ed. 1893._
My eyes make pictures when they are shut.
_A Day-Dream._
To know, to esteem, to love, and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!
_On taking Leave of ----, 1817._
In many ways doth the full heart reveal
The presence of the love it would conceal.
_Motto to Poems written in Later Life._
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When youth and I lived in 't together.
_Youth and Age._
Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
Oh the joys that came down shower-like,
Of friendship, love, and liberty,
Ere I was old!
_Youth and Age._
I have heard of reasons manifold
Why Love must needs be blind,
But this the best of all I hold,--
His eyes are in his mind.[503-1]
_To a Lady, Offended by a Sportive Observation._
What outward form and feature are
He guesseth but in part;
But what within is good and fair
He seeth with the heart.
_To a Lady, Offended by a Sportive Observation._
Be that blind bard who on the Chian strand,
By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.[503-2]
_Fancy in Nubibus._
I counted two-and-seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks.
_Cologne._
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, nymphs! what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
_Cologne._
Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows;
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
_The Homeric Hexameter._ (Translated from Schiller.)
In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column,
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
_The Ovidian Elegiac Metre._ (From Schiller.)
I stood in unimaginable trance
And agony that cannot be remembered.
_Remorse. Act iv. Sc. 3._
The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths,--all these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason.
_Wallenstein. Part i. Act ii. Sc. 4._ (Translated from Schiller.)
I 've lived and loved.
_Wallenstein. Part i. Act ii. Sc. 6._
Clothing the palpable and familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
_The Death of Wallenstein. Act i. Sc. 1._
Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.[504-1]
_The Death of Wallenstein. Act v. Sc. 1._
Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.[504-2]
_Biog. Lit. Chap. xv._
A dwarf sees farther than the giant when he has the giant's
shoulder to mount on.[504-3]
_The Friend. Sec. i. Essay 8._
An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat
countries, with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred
to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and
star.[504-4]
_Ibid., No. 14._
Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets,
historians, biographers, if they could; they have tried their
talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn
critics.[505-1]
_Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, p. 36. Delivered 1811-1812._
Schiller has the material sublime.
_Table Talk._
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely
definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,--words in their
best order; poetry,--the best words in their best order.
_Table Talk._
That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by
cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner of
nonsense.
_Table Talk._
Iago's soliloquy, the motive-hunting of a motiveless
malignity--how awful it is!
_Notes on some other Plays of Shakespeare._
FOOTNOTES:
[498-1] Wordsworth, in his Notes to "We are Seven," claims to have
written this line.
[498-2] Coleridge says: "For these lines I am indebted to Mr.
Wordsworth."
[501-1]
His favourite sin
Is pride that apes humility.
SOUTHEY: _The Devil's Walk._
[503-1] See Shakespeare, page 57.
[503-2]
And Iliad and Odyssey
Rose to the music of the sea.
_Thalatta, p. 133._ (From the German of Stolberg.)
[504-1] Sed ita a principio inchoatum esse mundum ut certis rebus
certa signa præcurrerent (Thus in the beginning the world was so
made that certain signs come before certain events).--CICERO:
_Divinatione, liber i. cap. 52._
Coming events cast their shadows before.--CAMPBELL: _Lochiel's
Warning._
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the
mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the
present.--SHELLEY: _A Defence of Poetry._
[504-2] "A phrase," says Coleridge, "which I have borrowed from a
Greek monk, who applies it to a patriarch of Constantinople."
[504-3] See Burton, page 185.
[504-4] See Wordsworth, page 481.
[505-1] Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid
and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in
despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.--SHELLEY:
_Fragments of Adonais._
You know who critics are? The men who have failed in literature
and art.--DISRAELI: _Lothair, chap. xxxv._
JOSIAH QUINCY. 1772-1864
If this bill [for the admission of Orleans Territory as a State]
passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a
dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their
moral obligation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will
be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a
separation,--amicably if they can, violently if they must.[505-2]
_Abridged Cong. Debates, Jan. 14, 1811. Vol. iv. p. 327._
FOOTNOTES:
[505-2] The gentleman [Mr. Quincy] cannot have forgotten his own
sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if
we can, forcibly if we must."--HENRY CLAY: _Speech, Jan. 8, 1813._
ROBERT SOUTHEY. 1774-1843.
"You are old, Father William," the young man cried,
"The few locks which are left you are gray;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,--
Now tell me the reason I pray."
_The Old Man's Comforts, and how he gained them._
The march of intellect.[506-1]
_Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. Vol. ii. p. 360.
The Doctor, Chap. Extraordinary._
The laws are with us, and God on our side.
_On the Rise and Progress of Popular Disaffection_ (1817), _Essay viii.
Vol. ii. p. 107._
Agreed to differ.
_Life of Wesley._
My days among the dead are passed;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
_Occasional Pieces. xxiii._
How does the water
Come down at Lodore?
_The Cataract of Lodore._
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store.
_The Cataract of Lodore._
Through moss and through brake.
_The Cataract of Lodore._
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-scurry.
_The Cataract of Lodore._
A sight to delight in.
_The Cataract of Lodore._
And so never ending, but always descending.
_The Cataract of Lodore._
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
_The Cataract of Lodore._
From his brimstone bed, at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his little snug farm of the World,
And see how his stock went on.
_The Devil's Walk. Stanza 1._
He passed a cottage with a double coach-house,--
A cottage of gentility;
And he owned with a grin,
That his favourite sin
Is pride that apes humility.[507-1]
_The Devil's Walk. Stanza 8._
Where Washington hath left
His awful memory
A light for after times!
_Ode written during the War with America, 1814._
How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures; nor cloud, or speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:
In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths;
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!
_Thalaba. Book i. Stanza 1._
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he;
"But 't was a famous victory."
_The Battle of Blenheim._
Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue.[507-2]
_Madoc in Wales. Part i. 5._
What will not woman, gentle woman dare,
When strong affection stirs her spirit up?
_Madoc in Wales. Part ii. 2._
And last of all an Admiral came,
A terrible man with a terrible name,--
A name which you all know by sight very well,
But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.
_The March to Moscow. Stanza 8._
They sin who tell us love can die;
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
. . . . .
Love is indestructible,
Its holy flame forever burneth;
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
. . . . .
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of love is there.
_The Curse of Kehama. Canto x. Stanza 10._
Oh, when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight?
_The Curse of Kehama. Canto x. Stanza 11._
Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But 't is the happy that have called thee so.
_The Curse of Kehama. Canto xv. Stanza 11._
The Satanic School.
_Vision of Judgment. Original Preface._
FOOTNOTES:
[506-1] See Burke, page 408.
[507-1] See Coleridge, page 501.
[507-2]
"Darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"
As some one somewhere sings about the sky.
BYRON: _Don Juan, canto iv. stanza 110._
CHARLES LAMB. 1775-1834.
The red-letter days now become, to all intents and purposes,
dead-letter days.
_Oxford in the Vacation._
For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to
speak profanely) to be present with the Lord.
_Oxford in the Vacation._
A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game.
_Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist._
Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony; but organically I am
incapable of a tune.
_A Chapter on Ears._
Not if I know myself at all.
_The Old and New Schoolmaster._
It is good to love the unknown.
_Valentine's Day._
The pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering
substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed),
resembling--a homely fancy, but I judged it to be sugar-candy;
yet to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities,
it appeared a glorified candy.
_My First Play._
Presents, I often say, endear absents.
_A Dissertation upon Roast Pig._
It argues an insensibility.
_A Dissertation upon Roast Pig._
Books which are no books.
_Detached Thoughts on Books._
Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body
came to be called in question by it.
_Amicus Redivivus._
Gone before
To that unknown and silent shore.
_Hester. Stanza 7._
I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days.
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
_Old Familiar Faces._
For thy sake, tobacco, I
Would do anything but die.
_A Farewell to Tobacco._
And half had staggered that stout Stagirite.
_Written at Cambridge._
Who first invented work, and bound the free
And holiday-rejoicing spirit down
. . . . . . . . .
To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood?
. . . . . . . . .
Sabbathless Satan!
_Work._
I like you and your book, ingenious Hone!
In whose capacious all-embracing leaves
The very marrow of tradition 's shown;
And all that history, much that fiction weaves.
_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._
He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to
society.
_Captain Starkey._
Neat, not gaudy.[510-1]
_Letter to Wordsworth, 1806._
Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!
_Lamb's Suppers._
Returning to town in the stage-coach, which was filled with Mr.
Gilman's guests, we stopped for a minute or two at Kentish Town.
A woman asked the coachman, "Are you full inside?" Upon which
Lamb put his head through the window and said, "I am quite full
inside; that last piece of pudding at Mr. Gilman's did the
business for me."
_Autobiographical Recollections._ (Leslie.)
FOOTNOTES:
[510-1] See Shakespeare, page 130.
JAMES SMITH. 1775-1839.
No Drury Lane for you to-day.
_Rejected Addresses. The Baby's Début._
I saw them go: one horse was blind,
The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet.
_Rejected Addresses. The Baby's Début._
Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait.
_The Theatre._
WILLIAM PITT. ---- -1840.
A strong nor'-wester 's blowing, Bill!
Hark! don't ye hear it roar now?
Lord help 'em, how I pities them
Unhappy folks on shore now!
_The Sailor's Consolation._
My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots
About their heads are flying!
_The Sailor's Consolation._
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 1775-1864.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.
_Rose Aylmer._
Wearers of rings and chains!
Pray do not take the pains
To set me right.
In vain my faults ye quote;
I write as others wrote
On Sunium's hight.
_The last Fruit of an old Tree. Epigram cvi._
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,[511-1]--
Therefore on him no speech! And brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walk'd along our roads with steps
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse.
_To Robert Browning._
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.
_To Robert Browning._
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed
In the sun's palace-porch, where when unyoked
His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave:
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.[512-1]
_Gebir. Book i._ (1798).
Past are three summers since she first beheld
The ocean; all around the child await
Some exclamation of amazement here.
She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased,
_Is this the mighty ocean? is this all?_
That wondrous soul Charoba once possest,--
Capacious, then, as earth or heaven could hold,
Soul discontented with capacity,--
Is gone (I fear) forever. Need I say
She was enchanted by the wicked spells
Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed
The western winds have landed on our coast?
I since have watcht her in lone retreat,
Have heard her sigh and soften out the name.[512-2]
_Gebir. Book ii._
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved; and next to Nature, Art.
I warm'd both hands against the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
_Dying Speech of an old Philosopher._
FOOTNOTES:
[511-1]
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
R. W. EMERSON: _May-Day and Other Pieces. Solution._
[512-1] See Wordsworth, page 480.
Poor shell! that Wordsworth so pounded and flattened in his marsh
it no longer had the hoarseness of a sea, but of a
hospital.--LANDOR: _Letter to John Forster._
[512-2] These lines were specially singled out for admiration by
Shelley, Humphrey Davy, Scott, and many remarkable men.--FORSTER:
_Life of Landor, vol. i. p. 95._
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 1777-1844.
'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.[512-3]
_Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 7._
But Hope, the charmer, linger'd still behind.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 40._
O Heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save!
_Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 359._
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shriek'd as Kosciusko fell![513-1]
_Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 381._
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 385._
And rival all but Shakespeare's name below.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 472._
Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 5._
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh what were man?--a world without a sun.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 21._
The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And man the hermit sigh'd--till woman smiled.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 37._
While Memory watches o'er the sad review
Of joys that faded like the morning dew.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 45._
There shall he love when genial morn appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 95._
And muse on Nature with a poet's eye.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 98._
That gems the starry girdle of the year.
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 194._
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul!
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 263._
O star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there,
To waft us home the message of despair?
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 325._
But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.[513-2]
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 357._
Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave, oh leave the light of Hope behind!
What though my winged hours of bliss have been
Like angel visits, few and far between.[514-1]
_Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 375._
The hunter and the deer a shade.[514-2]
_O'Connor's Child. Stanza 5._
Another's sword has laid him low,
Another's and another's;
And every hand that dealt the blow--
Ah me! it was a brother's!
_O'Connor's Child. Stanza 10._
'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.[514-3]
_Lochiel's Warning._
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field and his feet to the foe,
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.
_Lochiel's Warning._
And rustic life and poverty
Grow beautiful beneath his touch.
_Ode to the Memory of Burns._
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.
_Ode to the Memory of Burns._
Ye mariners of England,
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
_Ye Mariners of England._
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
_Ye Mariners of England._
When the stormy winds do blow;[515-1]
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
_Ye Mariners of England._
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn,
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
_Ye Mariners of England._
There was silence deep as death,
And the boldest held his breath
For a time.
_Battle of the Baltic._
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!
_Hohenlinden._
Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.
_Hohenlinden._
There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill;
For his country he sigh'd, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill.
_The Exile of Erin._
To bear is to conquer our fate.
_On visiting a Scene in Argyleshire._
The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.[515-2]
_The Soldier's Dream._
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young.
_The Soldier's Dream._
But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
_The Soldier's Dream._
Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art.
_To the Rainbow._
A stoic of the woods,--a man without a tear.
_Gertrude of Wyoming. Part i. Stanza 23._
O Love! in such a wilderness as this.
_Gertrude of Wyoming. Part iii. Stanza 1._
The torrent's smoothness, ere it dash below!
_Gertrude of Wyoming. Part iii. Stanza 5._
Again to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!
Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree,
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.
_Song of the Greeks._
Drink ye to her that each loves best!
And if you nurse a flame
That 's told but to her mutual breast,
We will not ask her name.
_Drink ye to Her._
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
_Hallowed Ground._
Oh leave this barren spot to me!
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree![516-1]
_The Beech-Tree's Petition._
FOOTNOTES:
[512-3] See John Webster, page 181.
The mountains too, at a distance, appear airy masses and smooth,
but seen near at hand they are rough.--DIOGENES LAERTIUS: _Pyrrho,
ix._
[513-1]
At length, fatigued with life, he bravely fell,
And health with Boerhaave bade the world farewell.
CHURCH: _The Choice_ (1754).
[513-2] See Sterne, page 379.
[514-1] See Norris, page 281.
[514-2] See Freneau, page 443.
[514-3] See Coleridge, page 504.
[515-1] When the stormy winds do blow.--MARTYN PARKER: _Ye
Gentlemen of England._
[515-2] The starres, bright centinels of the skies.--HABINGTON:
_Castara, Dialogue between Night and Araphil._
[516-1]
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
G. P. MORRIS: _Woodman, spare that Tree._
HENRY CLAY. 1777-1852.
The gentleman [Josiah Quincy] cannot have forgotten his own
sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if
we can, forcibly if we must."[516-2]
_Speech, 1813._
Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are
trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the
benefit of the people.
_Speech at Ashland, Ky., March, 1829._
I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know
no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any
allegiance.
_Speech, 1848._
Sir, I would rather be right than be President.
_Speech, 1850_ (referring to the Compromise Measures).
FOOTNOTES:
[516-2] See Quincy, page 505.
F. S. KEY. 1779-1843.
And the star-spangled banner, oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
_The Star-Spangled Banner._
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation![517-1]
Then conquer we must when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
_The Star-Spangled Banner._
FOOTNOTES:
[517-1] It made and preserves us a nation.--MORRIS: _The Flag of
our Union._
HORACE SMITH. 1779-1849.
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is everything and everything is nought.
_Rejected Addresses. Cui Bono?_
In the name of the Prophet--figs.
_Johnson's Ghost._
And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory.
_Address to the Mummy at Belzoni's Exhibition._
THOMAS MOORE. 1779-1852.
When Time who steals our years away
Shall steal our pleasures too,
The mem'ry of the past will stay,
And half our joys renew.
_Song. From Juvenile Poems._
Weep on! and as thy sorrows flow,
I 'll taste the luxury of woe.
_Anacreontic._
Where bastard Freedom waves
The fustian flag in mockery over slaves.
_To the Lord Viscount Forbes, written from the City of Washington._
How shall we rank thee upon glory's page,
Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage?
_To Thomas Hume._
I knew, by the smoke that so gracefully curl'd
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near;
And I said, "If there 's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that was humble might hope for it here."
_Ballad Stanzas._
Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
_A Canadian Boat-Song._
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight 's past.
_A Canadian Boat-Song._
The minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human
eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is
shed upon them.
_Preface to Corruption and Intolerance._
Like a young eagle who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,
See their own feathers pluck'd to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart.[518-1]
_Corruption._
A Persian's heaven is eas'ly made:
'T is but black eyes and lemonade.
_Intercepted Letters. Letter vi._
There was a little man, and he had a little soul;
And he said, Little Soul, let us try, try, try!
_Little Man and Little Soul._
Go where glory waits thee![519-1]
But while fame elates thee,
Oh, still remember me!
_Go where Glory waits thee._
Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid,
_Oh breathe not his Name._
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
_Oh breathe not his Name._
The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er;
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more.
_The Harp that once through Tara's Halls._
Who ran
Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all.
_On the Death of Sheridan._
Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright,
Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade.
_On the Death of Sheridan._
Good at a fight, but better at a play;
Godlike in giving, but the devil to pay.
_On a Cast of Sheridan's Hand._
Though an angel should write, still 't is devils must print.
_The Fudges in England. Letter iii._
Fly not yet; 't is just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night
And maids who love the moon.
_Fly not yet._
Oh stay! oh stay!
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that oh 't is pain
To break its links so soon.
_Fly not yet._
When did morning ever break,
And find such beaming eyes awake?
_Fly not yet._
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
_Oh think not my Spirits are always as light._
Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.
_Rich and rare were the Gems she wore._
There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.
_The Meeting of the Waters._
Oh, weep for the hour
When to Eveleen's bower
The lord of the valley with false vows came.
_Eveleen's Bower._
Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
_Come, send round the Wine._
No, the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose.
_Believe me, if all those endearing young Charms._
The moon looks
On many brooks
"The brook can see no moon but this."[521-1]
_While gazing on the Moon's Light._
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen,
The maiden herself will steal after it soon.
_Ill Omens._
'T is sweet to think that where'er we rove
We are sure to find something blissful and dear;
And that when we 're far from the lips we love,
We 've but to make love to the lips we are near.
_'T is sweet to think._
'T is believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee
Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.
_The Origin of the Harp._
But there 's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.
_Love's Young Dream._
To live with them is far less sweet
Than to remember thee.[521-2]
_I saw thy Form._
Eyes of unholy blue.
_By that Lake whose gloomy Shore._
'T is the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone.
_The Last Rose of Summer._
When true hearts lie wither'd
And fond ones are flown,
Oh, who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
_The Last Rose of Summer._
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear.
_The Young May Moon._
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
_Farewell! But whenever you welcome the Hour._
Thus, when the lamp that lighted
The traveller at first goes out,
He feels awhile benighted,
And looks around in fear and doubt.
But soon, the prospect clearing,
By cloudless starlight on he treads,
And thinks no lamp so cheering
As that light which Heaven sheds.
_I 'd mourn the Hopes._
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us,
All earth forgot, and all heaven around us.
_Come o'er the Sea._
The light that lies
In woman's eyes.
_The Time I 've lost in wooing._
My only books
Were woman's looks,--
And folly 's all they 've taught me.
_The Time I 've lost in wooing._
I know not, I ask not, if guilt 's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee whatever thou art.
_Come, rest in this Bosom._
To live and die in scenes like this,
With some we 've left behind us.
_As slow our Ship._
Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free,
First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.
_Remember Thee._
All that 's bright must fade,--
The brightest still the fleetest;
All that 's sweet was made
But to be lost when sweetest.
_All that 's Bright must fade._
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!
_Those Evening Bells._
Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.
_Oft in the Stilly Night._
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.
_Oft in the Stilly Night._
As half in shade and half in sun
This world along its path advances,
May that side the sun 's upon
Be all that e'er shall meet thy glances!
_Peace be around Thee._
If I speak to thee in friendship's name,
Thou think'st I speak too coldly;
If I mention love's devoted flame,
Thou say'st I speak too boldly.
_How shall I woo?_
A friendship that like love is warm;
A love like friendship, steady.
_How shall I woo?_
The bird let loose in Eastern skies,
Returning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam;
But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.
_Oh that I had Wings._
This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,--
There 's nothing true but Heaven.
_This World is all a fleeting Show._
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumph'd,--his people are free.
_Sound the loud Timbrel._
As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.
As still to the star of its worship, though clouded,
The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,
So dark when I roam in this wintry world shrouded,
The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.
_The Heart's Prayer._
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.
_Come, ye Disconsolate._
Oh call it by some better name,
For friendship sounds too cold.
_Oh call it by some better Name._
When twilight dews are falling soft
Upon the rosy sea, love,
I watch the star whose beam so oft
Has lighted me to thee, love.
_When Twilight Dews._
I give thee all,--I can no more,
Though poor the off'ring be;
My heart and lute are all the store
That I can bring to thee.[525-1]
_My Heart and Lute._
Who has not felt how sadly sweet
The dream of home, the dream of home,
Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet,
When far o'er sea or land we roam?
_The Dream of Home._
To Greece we give our shining blades.
_Evenings in Greece. First Evening._
When thus the heart is in a vein
Of tender thought, the simplest strain
Can touch it with peculiar power.
_Evenings in Greece. First Evening._
If thou would'st have me sing and play
As once I play'd and sung,
First take this time-worn lute away,
And bring one freshly strung.
_If Thou would'st have Me sing and play._
To sigh, yet feel no pain;
To weep, yet scarce know why;
To sport an hour with Beauty's chain,
Then throw it idly by.
_The Blue Stocking._
Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are!
From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war,
Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.
_On the Entry of the Austrians into Naples, 1821._
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future,--two eternities!
_Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan._
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
_Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan._
There 's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream.
_Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan._
Like the stain'd web that whitens in the sun,
Grow pure by being purely shone upon.
_Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan._
One morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate.
_Paradise and the Peri._
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,--
One minute of heaven is worth them all.
_Paradise and the Peri._
But the trail of the serpent is over them all.
_Paradise and the Peri._
Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour,
I 've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower
But 't was the first to fade away.
I never nurs'd a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well
And love me, it was sure to die.
_The Fire-Worshippers._
Oh for a tongue to curse the slave
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might!
_The Fire-Worshippers._
Beholding heaven, and feeling hell.
_The Fire-Worshippers._
As sunshine broken in the rill,
Though turned astray, is sunshine still.
_The Fire-Worshippers._
Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!
Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea.
_The Fire-Worshippers._
Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied;
That stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
Like ships that have gone down at sea
When heaven was all tranquillity.
_Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem._
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.
_Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem._
And oh if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this!
_Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem._
Humility, that low, sweet root
From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
_The Loves of the Angels. The Third Angel's Story._
FOOTNOTES:
[518-1] See Waller, page 220.
[519-1] This goin ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable
feetur.--LOWELL: _The Biglow Papers. First Series, No. 11._
[521-1] This image was suggested by the following thought, which
occurs somewhere in Sir William Jones's Works: "The moon looks
upon many night-flowers; the night-flower sees but one moon."
[521-2] In imitation of Shenstone's inscription, "Heu! quanto
minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse."
[525-1] This song was introduced in Kemble's "Lodoiska," act iii.
sc. 1.
LORD DENMAN. 1779-1854.
A delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
_O'Connell v. The Queen, 11 Clark and Finnelly Reports._
The mere repetition of the _Cantilena_ of lawyers cannot make it
law, unless it can be traced to some competent authority; and if
it be irreconcilable, to some clear legal principle.
_O'Connell v. The Queen, 11 Clark and Finnelly Reports._
CLEMENT C. MOORE. 1779-1863.
'T was the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,--not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
_A Visit from St. Nicholas._
LORD BROUGHAM. 1779-1868.
Let the soldier be abroad if he will, he can do nothing in this
age. There is another personage,--a personage less imposing in
the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The schoolmaster is
abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the
soldier in full military array.
_Speech, Jan. 29, 1828._
In my mind, he was guilty of no error, he was chargeable with no
exaggeration, he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who
once said that all we see about us, kings, lords, and Commons,
the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the
system, and its varied workings, end in simply bringing twelve
good men into a box.
_Present State of the Law, Feb. 7, 1828._
Pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.[528-1]
Death was now armed with a new terror.[528-2]
FOOTNOTES:
[528-1] The title given by Lord Brougham to a book published in
1830.
[528-2] Brougham delivered a very warm panegyric upon the
ex-Chancellor, and expressed a hope that he would make a good end,
although to an expiring Chancellor death was now armed with a new
terror.--CAMPBELL: _Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vii. p. 163._
Lord St. Leonards attributes this phrase to Sir Charles Wetherell,
who used it on the occasion referred to by Lord Campbell.
From Edmund Curll's practice of issuing miserable catch-penny
lives of every eminent person immediately after his decease,
Arbuthnot wittily styled him "one of the new terrors of
death."--CARRUTHERS: _Life of Pope_ (second edition), _p. 149_.
PAUL MOON JAMES. 1780-1854.
The scene was more beautiful far to the eye
Than if day in its pride had arrayed it.
_The Beacon._
And o'er them the lighthouse looked lovely as hope,--
That star of life's tremulous ocean.
_The Beacon._
CHARLES MINER. 1780-1865.
When I see a merchant over-polite to his customers, begging them
to taste a little brandy and throwing half his goods on the
counter,--thinks I, that man has an axe to grind.
_Who 'll turn Grindstones._[528-3]
FOOTNOTES:
[528-3] From "Essays from the Desk of Poor Robert the Scribe,"
Doylestown, Pa., 1815. It first appeared in the "Wilkesbarre
Gleaner," 1811.
JOHN C. CALHOUN. 1782-1850.
The very essence of a free government consists in considering
offices as public trusts,[529-1] bestowed for the good of the
country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.
_Speech, Feb. 13, 1835._
A power has risen up in the government greater than the people
themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful
interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the
cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.[529-2]
_Speech, May 27, 1836._
FOOTNOTES:
[529-1] See Appendix, page 859.
[529-2] From this comes the phrase, "Cohesive power of public
plunder."
DANIEL WEBSTER. 1782-1852.
(_From Webster's Works. Boston. 1857._)
Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.
_Speech at Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1820._[529-3] _Vol. i. p. 44._
We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed
spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also
to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence and
gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of
him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who
revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the
liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise,
till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the
morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit!
_Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825. P.
62._
Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation.
Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might
behold this joyous day.
_Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825.
Vol. i. p. 64._
Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the
process by which human ends are ultimately answered.
_Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825.
Vol. i. p. 71._
Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and
power are scattered with all its beams.
_Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825.
Vol. i. p. 74._
Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but
our country.
_Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825.
Vol. i. p. 78._
Knowledge is the only fountain both of the love and the
principles of human liberty.
_Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. P. 93._
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book
of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from
God.
_Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. P. 102._
America has furnished to the world the character of Washington.
And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that
alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.
_Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. P. 105._
Thank God! I--I also--am an American!
_Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. P. 107._
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and
my heart to this vote.[530-1]
_Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826. P. 133._
It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be
my dying sentiment,--Independence now and Independence
forever.[531-1]
_Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826. Vol. i. p. 136._
Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor
engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their
remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.
_Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826. Vol. i. p. 146._
Washington is in the clear upper sky.[531-2]
_Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826. Vol. i. p. 148._
He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams
of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public
Credit, and it sprung upon its feet.[531-3]
_Speech on Hamilton, March 10, 1831. P. 200._
One country, one constitution, one destiny.
_Speech, March 15, 1837. P. 349._
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are
the founders of human civilization.
_Remarks on Agriculture, Jan. 13, 1840. P. 457._
Sea of upturned faces.[531-4]
_Speech, Sept. 30, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 117._
Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth.
_On Mr. Justice Story, 1845. P. 300._
Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.
_Speech at the Charleston Bar Dinner, May 10, 1847. Vol. ii. p. 393._
The law: It has honored us; may we honor it.
_Toast at the Charleston Bar Dinner, May 10, 1847. Vol. ii. p. 394._
I have read their platform, and though I think there are some
unsound places in it, I can stand upon it pretty well. But I see
nothing in it both new and valuable. "What is valuable is not
new, and what is new is not valuable."
_Speech at Marshfield, Sept. 1, 1848. P. 433._
Labour in this country is independent and proud. It has not to
ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of
labor.
_Speech, April, 1824. Vol. iii. p. 141._
The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than
by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national
debt is a national blessing.[532-1]
_Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 303._
I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which
is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I
trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.
_Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 316._
I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none.
There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her
history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is
secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker
Hill; and there they will remain forever.
_Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 317._
The people's government, made for the people, made by the people,
and answerable to the people.[532-2]
_Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 321._
When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun
in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored
fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered,
discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or
drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood.
_Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. Vol. iii. p. 342._
Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.
_Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. Vol. iii. p. 342._
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always
ready to guard and defend it.
_Speech, June 3, 1834. Vol. iv. p. 47._
On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet
afar off, they [the Colonies] raised their flag against a power
to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome
in the height of her glory is not to be compared,--a power which
has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her
possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat,
following the sun,[533-1] and keeping company with the hours,
circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the
martial airs of England.[533-2]
_Speech, May 7, 1834. P. 110._
Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of
circumstances, are often justifiable.
_Speech, July 25 and 27, 1846. Vol. v. p. 187._
I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an
American.[533-3]
_Speech, July 17, 1850. P. 437._
There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is
confession.
_Argument on the Murder of Captain White, April 6, 1830. Vol. vi. p. 54._
There is nothing so powerful as truth,--and often nothing so
strange.
_Argument on the Murder of Captain White. Vol. vi. p. 68._
Fearful concatenation of circumstances.[534-1]
_Argument on the Murder of Captain White. Vol. vi. p. 88._
A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the
Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty
violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we
say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light
our obligations are yet with us.
_Argument on the Murder of Captain White. Vol. vi. p. 105._
I shall defer my visit to Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American
liberty, until its doors shall fly open on golden hinges to
lovers of Union as well as lovers of liberty.[534-2]
_Letter, April, 1851._
FOOTNOTES:
[529-3] This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as
much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of
every century, and indeed at the end of every year, forever and
ever.--JOHN ADAMS: _Letter to Webster, Dec. 23, 1821._
[530-1] Mr. Adams, describing a conversation with Jonathan Sewall
in 1774, says: "I answered that the die was now cast; I had passed
the Rubicon. Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my
country was my unalterable determination."--JOHN ADAMS: _Works,
vol. iv. p. 8._
Live or die, sink or swim.--PEELE: _Edward I._ (1584?).
[531-1] Mr. Webster says of Mr. Adams: "On the day of his death,
hearing the noise of bells and cannon, he asked the occasion. On
being reminded that it was 'Independent Day,' he replied,
'Independence forever.'"--_Works, vol. i. p. 150._ BANCROFT:
_History of the United States, vol. vii. p. 65._
[531-2]
We shall be strong to run the race,
And climb the upper sky.
WATTS: _Spiritual Hymns, xxiv._
[531-3] He it was that first gave to the law the air of a science.
He found it a skeleton, and clothed it with life, colour, and
complexion; he embraced the cold statue, and by his touch it grew
into youth, health, and beauty.--BARRY YELVERTON (Lord Avonmore):
_On Blackstone._
[531-4] See Scott, page 493.
[532-1] A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a
national blessing.--ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
[532-2] When the State of Pennsylvania held its convention to
consider the Constitution of the United States, Judge Wilson said
of the introductory clause, "We, the people, do ordain and
establish," etc.: "It is not an unmeaning flourish. The
expressions declare in a practical manner the principle of this
Constitution. It is ordained and established by the people
themselves." This was regarded as an authoritative
exposition.--_The Nation._
That government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN: _Speech at
Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863._
[533-1] See Scott, page 495.
[533-2]
The martial airs of England
Encircle still the earth.
AMELIA B. RICHARDS: _The Martial Airs of England._
[533-3] See Patrick Henry, page 429.
[534-1] See Scott, page 494.
[534-2] Mr. Webster's reply to the invitation of his friends, who
had been refused the use of Faneuil Hall by the Mayor and Aldermen
of Boston.
JANE TAYLOR. 1783-1824.
Though man a thinking being is defined,
Few use the grand prerogative of mind.
How few think justly of the thinking few!
How many never think, who think they do!
_Essays in Rhyme._ (_On Morals and Manners. Prejudice._) _Essay i. Stanza
45._
Far from mortal cares retreating,
Sordid hopes and vain desires,
Here, our willing footsteps meeting,
Every heart to heaven aspires.
_Hymn._
I thank the goodness and the grace
Which on my birth have smiled,
And made me, in these Christian days,
A happy Christian child.
_A Child's Hymn of Praise._
Oh that it were my chief delight
To do the things I ought!
Then let me try with all my might
To mind what I am taught.
_For a Very Little Child._[535-1]
Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.
_My Mother._
FOOTNOTES:
[535-1] Written by Ann Taylor.
REGINALD HEBER. 1783-1826.
Failed the bright promise of your early day.
_Palestine._
No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.[535-2]
Majestic silence!
_Palestine._
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.
_Epiphany._
By cool Siloam's shady rill
How sweet the lily grows!
_First Sunday after Epiphany. No. ii._
When Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.
_Seventh Sunday after Trinity._
Death rides on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower.
_At a Funeral. No. i._
Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,
Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb.
_At a Funeral. No. ii._
Thus heavenly hope is all serene,
But earthly hope, how bright soe'er,
Still fluctuates o'er this changing scene,
As false and fleeting as 't is fair.
_On Heavenly Hope and Earthly Hope._
From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand.
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