Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Suckling's Brennoralt.

This is a cause which our ambition fills;

[blocks in formation]

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it doth singe yourself; we may outrun,
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running. Know you not,
The fire, that mounts the liquor till it run o'er,
In seeming to augment it, wastes it? Be advis'd.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Trust none;

A cause, in which our strength we should not For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer cakes,

waste

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

CEREMONY-CHALLENGE-CHANGE.

If I am fair, 't is for myself alone;

I do not wish to have a sweetheart near me, Nor would I call another's heart my own, Nor have a gallant lover to revere me;

For surely I would plight my faith to none,

Then ceremony leads her bigots forth,

Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend:
As soldiers watch the signal of command,

Though many an amorous wit might jump to They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand;

hear me;

For I have heard that lovers prove deceivers,
When once they find that maidens are believers.
From Michel Angelo.
From her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall;
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride,
She seems to soar and beam above them all!
Mrs. Welby.
And thus she wanders on-half sad, half blest.-
Without a mate for the pure lonely heart,
That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast,
Never to find its lovely counterpart.

Mrs. Welby. I'm an old maid!—and though I suffer by it I Must change my style, and leave off gay society. Willis.

O many a summer's morning glow
Has lent the rose its ray,
And many a winter's drifting snow
Has swept its bloom away;
But she has kept the faithless pledge
To this, her winter hour,
And keeps it still, herself alone,
And wasted like the flower.

Happy to fill religion's vacant place
With hollow form, and gesture and grimace.

61

[blocks in formation]

O. W. Holmes.

[blocks in formation]

What are thy rents? What are thy comings in? I know thou hast told me

O ceremony, show me but thy worth:

What is thy toll, O adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy, being fear'd,
Than they in fearing.

To love thee no more, And I still must obey

Where I once did adore.

Bryant.

Tennyson.

Hoffman

In bower and garden rich and rare
There's many a cherish'd flower,
Whose beauty fades, whose fragrance flits
Within the flitting hour.
Not so the simple forest leaf,
Shaks. Henry V. Unprized, unnoticed, lying—

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.

[blocks in formation]

CHARACTER.

Mrs. Osgood.

Good name, in man and woman, dear

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

my

lord,

[blocks in formation]

Southey

And though, as you have said, the vernal bloom Of his first spirits fading, leaves him changed'Tis not to worse. His mind is as a meadow

Who steals my purse, steals trash; 't is something, of various grasses, rich and fresh beneath,

nothing,

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to

thousands;

[blocks in formation]

Shakspeare.

Stand free and fast, And judge him by no more than what you know Ingenuously, and by the right laid line Of truth, he truly will all styles deserve, Of wise, good, just; a man both soul and nerve. Shirley's Admiral of France. She can't be parallel'd by art, much less By nature: she'd battle painters to decypher Her exactly, as bad as agues puzzle doctors. Robert Neville's Poor Scholar. As through the hedgerows'shade the violet steals, And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals, Her softer charms, but by their influence known, Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own. Rogers. Though gay as mirth, as curious thoughts sedate; As elegance polite, as power elate; Profound as reason, and as justice clear; Soft as compassion, yet as truth severe.

But o'er the surface some that come to seed Have cast a colour of sobriety.

Taylor's Edwin

His talk is like a stream which runs

With rapid change from rocks to roses; He slips from politics to puns,

Passes from Mahomet to Moses; Beginning with the laws that keep

The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shoeing horses.
Praed-The Vicar

It is not mirth, for mirth she is too still;
It is not wit, which leaves the heart more chill,
But that continuous sweetness, which with ease
Pleases all round it from the wish to please.

[blocks in formation]

Savage. The angels sang in heaven when she was born.

With more capacity for love than earth
Restows on most of mortal mould and birth,
His early dreams of good out-stripped the truth,
And troubled manhood followed baffled youth.
Byron.

Longfellow.

Devoted, anxious, generous, void of guile,
And with her whole heart's welcome in her smile.
Mrs. Norton.

A gentle maiden, whose large, loving eyes Enshrine a tender, melancholy light, Like the soft radiance of the starry skies,

Or autumn sunshine, mellow'd when most bright; She is not sad, yet in her gaze appears Something that makes the gazer think of tears. Mrs. Embury.

She has a glowing heart, they say,
Though calm her seeming be;
And oft that warm heart's lovely play
Upon her cheek I see.

Though time her bloom is stealing, There's still beyond his artThe wild flower wreath of feeling, The sunbeam of the heart.

Mrs. Osgood.

Bold in the cause of God he stood Like Templar in the Holy Land; And never knight of princely blood In lady's bower more bland.

His high broad forehead, marble fair,

[blocks in formation]

The gentle deeds of mercy thou hast done,
Halleck. Shall die forgotten all; the poor, the pris'ner,
The fatherless, the friendless, and the widow,
Who daily own the bounty of thy hand,
Shall cry to heav'n, and pull a blessing on thee.
Rowe's Jane Shore.
Mrs. Hale. How few, like thee, inquire the wretched out,
And court the offices of soft humanity!
Like thee, reserve their raiment for the naked,
Reach out their bread to feed the crying orphan,
Or mix the pitying tears with those that reep!
Rowe's Jane Shore.
Great minds, like heaven, are pleas'd in doing
good,

Told of the power of thought within; And strength was in his raven hairBut when he smiled a spell was there That more than strength or power could win. Mrs. Hale's Vigil of Love.

CHARITY.

Good is no good, but if it be spend; God giveth good for none other end.

Though the ungrateful subjects of their favours Are barren in return.

Rowe's Tamerlane.

The secret pleasure of a generous act

Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar. Is the great mind's great bribe.

Charity ever

Finds in the act reward, and needs no trumpet
In the receiver.

Beaumont and Fletcher's Sea Voyage.
It was sufficient that his wants were known,
True charity makes others' wants their own.
Robert Dauborne's Poor Man's Comfort.
For true charity
Though ne'er so secret finds a just reward.
May's Old Couple.
For his bounty,

There was no winter in 't; an autumn 't was
That grew the more by reaping.

Shaks. Ant. and Cleo.
Nothing truly can be term'd mine own
But what I make mine own by using well.
Those deeds of charity which we have done
Shall stay for ever with us: and that wealth
Which we have so bestow'd, we only keep;
The other is not ours.

Middleton.

Dryden's Don Sebastian Is there a variance? enter but his door, Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses left the place, And vile attorneys, now an useless race.

Pope's Moral Essays.
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity:
All must be false that thwart this one great end;
And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend.
Pope's Essay on Mar.

Self-love thus push'd to social,-to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thina.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it let thy enemies have part,
Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life and scnse,
In one close system of benevolence:
Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree
And height of bliss but height of charity.

Pope's Essay on Man

The generous pride of virtue,
Disdains to weigh too nicely the returns
Her bounty meets with-like the liberal gods,
From her own gracious nature she bestows,
Nor stops to ask reward.

Thomson's Coriolanus.
But to the generous still-improving mind,
That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,
Diffusing kind beneficence around,
Boastless, as now descends the silent dew;
To him the long review of order'd life,
Is inward rapture, only to be felt.

Thomson's Seasons.
The truly generous is the truly wise;
And he who loves not others, lives unblest.

Home's Douglas.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings but reliev'd their pain:
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd.

Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow,

And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

There are, while human miseries abound,
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth,
Without one fool or flatterer at our board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust.

Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Pure in her aim, and in her temper mild,
Her wisdom seems the weakness of a child:
She makes excuses where she might condemn,
Revil'd by those that hate her, prays for the.n;
Suspicion lurks not in her artless breast,
The worst suggested, she believes the best;
Not soon provok'd, however stung and teas'd,
And, if perhaps made angry, soon appeas'd;
She rather waves than will dispute her right,
And injur'd makes forgiveness her delight.
Cowper's Charity.

True charity, a plant divinely nurs'd,
Fed by the love, from which it rose at first,
'Thrives against hope, and in the rudest scene,
Storms but enliven its unfading green;
Exuberant is the shadow it supplies,
Its fruit on earth, its growth above the skies.

Cowper's Charity.
and charity prevail, the press would prove
A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.

Couper's Charity. |

[blocks in formation]

There seems but worthy one-to do men good.
Bailey.
A poor man serv'd by thee, shall make thee rich.
Miss Barrett.

O, rich man's son! there is a toil,
That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,

But only whitens soft white hands;-
This is the best crop for thy lands;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.

When poverty, with mien of shame,

J. R. Lowell.

The sense of pity seeks to touch,—
Or, bolder, makes the simple claim

That, I have nothing, you have much,—
Believe not either man or book,

That bids you close the opening hand,
And with reproving speech and look,
Your first and free intent withstand.

Why not believe the homely letter

R. M. Milnes.

That all you give will God restore?
The poor man may deserve it better,
And surely, surely wants it more;

« EelmineJätka »