8. May screaming night-fiends, hot in recreant gore,
Rive their strain'd fibres to their heart's rank core,
Till startled conscience heap, in wild dismay,
Convulsive curses on the source of day!

CUSTOM - HABIT.

9. But curses are like arrows shot upright,
That oftentimes on our own heads do light:
And many times ourselves in rage prove worst;
The fox ne'er better thrives than when accurst.

3.

ROBERT TREAT PAINE.

1. All habits gather by unseen degrees,

As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

CUSTOM-HABIT.

2. Custom's the world's great idol we adore,
And, knowing this, we seek to know no more.
What education did at first conceive,

Our ripen'd eye confirms us to believe.

4. How use doth breed a habit in a man!

5. Custom does often reason overrule, And only serves for reason to the fool.

DRYDEN'S Ovid.

A custom

More honour'd in the breach than the observance.

169

7. Custom, 't is true, a venerable tyrant,
O'er servile man extends her blind dominion.

POMFRET.

6.

Custom forms us all;

Our thoughts, our morals, our most fix'd belief,
Are consequences of our place of birth.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

ROCHESTER.

AARON HILL.

THOMSON.

170

8. My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are; even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

BYRON's Prisoner of Chillon. 9. As custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway Our life and manners must alike obey.

BYRON'S Hints from Horace.

3.

DANCING-DANGER - PERIL.

DANGER-PERIL.

1. The absent danger greater still appears;
And less he fears, who's near the thing he fears.

2. From a safe port, 't is easy to give counsel.

We've scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it,
She'll close, and be herself; while our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.

5.

DANCING.— (See BALL.)

4. For he that stands upon a slippery place, Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.

6.

DANIEL.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

Let terror strike slaves mute;
Much danger makes great hearts most resolute.

MARSTON.

What is danger
More than the weakness of our apprehension ?
A poor cold part o' the blood; whom takes it hold of?
Cowards and wicked livers; valiant minds

Were made the masters of it.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

DAY-MORNING-NIGHT, &c.

7. Our dangers and delights are near allies; From the same stem the rose and prickle rise.

8. But there are human natures so allied
Unto the savage love of enterprise,
That they will seek for peril as a pleasure.

MORNING — NIGHT, &c.

1. Dark night that from the eye its function takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
pays the hearing double recompense.

It

2. The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.

3. Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tip-toe on the misty mountain tops.

DAY

4. But look! the moon, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

171

ALEYN.

7. Twilight, short arbiter 'twixt day and night.

BYRON.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

6. Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad:
Silence accompanied; for beasts and birds,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were sunk, all but the woeful nightingale.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

5. Oft till the star, that rose at evening bright,

Towards heaven's descent had sloped his westerning wheel.

MILTON.

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

172

DAY-MORNING - NIGHT, &c.

8. Sweet is the breath of morn; her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds.

9. The sun had long since, in the lap
Of Thetis, taken out his nap;.

And, like a lobster boil'd, the moon
From black to red began to turn.

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

10. The morning lark, the messenger of day,
Saluted with her song the morning grey;
And soon the sun arose with beams so bright,
That all th' horizon laugh'd, to see the joyous sight.

11. See the night wears away, and cheerful morn,
All sweet and fresh, spreads from the rosy east;
Fair nature seems reviv'd, and even my heart
Sits light and jocund at the day's return.

13.

BUTLER'S Hudibras.

12. This dead of night, this silent hour of darkness, Nature for rest ordain'd, and soft repose.

14.

15.

O, treach❜rous night!

Thou lend'st thy ready veil to every treason,
And teeming mischiefs thrive beneath thy shade!

DRYDEN.

ROWE.

-The approach of night,
The skies yet blushing with departing light,
When falling dews with spangles deck the glade,
And the low sun has lengthen'd every shade.

Rowe.

AARON HILL.

The waking dawn,

When night-fallen dews, by day's warm courtship won,
From reeking roses climb'd to kiss the sun;
Nature, new-blossom'd, shed her colours round;

The dew-bent primrose kiss'd the breeze-swept ground.
AARON HILL.

POPE.

DAY-MORNING-NIGHT, &c.

16. Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cup
That cheers but not inebriates, waits on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

18. Now the sun, so faintly glancing
O'er the western hills his ray;
Evening shadows quick advancing,
Triumph o'er the fading day.

17. Night, sable goddess, from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty now stretches forth

Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.

COWPER'S Task.

19. Day glimmer'd in the east, and the white moon Hung like a vapour in the cloudless sky.

20. The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane, Dividing darkness from the dawning main.

173

ROGERS'S Italy.

COBB.

21. The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,

And living as if earth contain'd no tomb-
And glowing into day.

BYRON'S Island.

BYRON'S Childe Harold. 22. Night wanes—the vapours, round the mountains curl'd, Melt into morn, and light awakes the world.

23. All was so still, so soft, in earth and air,
You scarce would start, to meet a spirit there;
Secure that nought of evil could delight
To walk in such a scene, on such a night!

BYRON'S Lara.

BYRON'S Lara.