An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue,
Is no great matter, so 'tis in request,
"Tis nonsense to dispute about a hue,—
The kindest may be taken as a test.
The fair sex should be always fair; and no man,
Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman.
Byron's Don Juan.
She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew-
As seeking not to know it; silent, lonc,
As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew,
And kept her heart serene within its zone.
There was awe in the homage which she drew,
Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne
Apart from the surrounding world, and strong
In its own strength- most strange in one so
Byron's Don Juan.
We gaze and turn away, and know not where, Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart Reels with its fulness.
The beautiful is vanish'd, and returns not.
There's beauty all around our paths,
If but our watchful eyes
Can trace it 'midst familiar things And through their lowly guise.
True beauty never was defin'd— And features painted to the mind Are perfect only to the blind,
-Her check had the pale pearly pink
Mrs. Hemans. Of sea-shells, the world's sweetest tint, as though She lived, one half might deem, on roses sopp'd In silver dew.
Art thou a man? And sham'st thou not to beg?
To practise such a servile kind of life?
Why, were thy education ne'er so mean,
Having thy limbs, a thousand fairer courses
Offer themselves to thy election.
Jonson's Every Man in his Humour.
Men of thy condition feed on sloth,
As doth the beetle on the dung she breeds in;
John Pierpont. Not caring how the metal of your minds
Of sweet repose, where, by th' oblivious draught
Of each sad toilsome day to peace restor'd,
Unhappy mortals lose their woes awhile;
Thou hast no peace for me!
Is eaten with the rust of idleness.
Jonson's Every Man in his Humour
When beggars grow thus bold,
No marvel then though charity grow cold.
Drayton.
Base worldlings, that despise all such as need;
Who to the needy beggar still are dumb,
Not knowing unto what themselves may come.
Heywood's Royal King.
He makes a beggar first that first relieves him;
Not us'rers make more beggars where they live,
Than charitable men that use to give.
Heywood's Royal King.
Beggar?- the only free men of our common-
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda. His house was known to all the vagrant train,
Night is the time for rest;
See yonder poor, o'er-labour'd wight,
So abject, mean and vile,
Who begs a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil;
And see his lordly fellow-worm
The poor petition spurn!
A benefit upbraided, forfeits thanks.
Lady Carew's Mariam.
And 't is not sure so full a benefit,
Freely to give, as freely to require.
A bounteous act hath glory following it,
They cause the glory, that the act desire.
Lady Carew's Mariam.
He that neglects a blessing, though he want
A present knowledge how to use it,
The good old man, too eager in dispute,
Flew high; and, as his Christian fury rose,
Damn'd all for heretics who durst oppose.
Dryden's Religio Laici
The guiltless victim groan'd for their offence,
And cruelty and blood was penitence;
If sheep and oxen could atone for men,
Ah! at how cheap a rate the rich might sin!
And great oppressors might heaven's wrath be
guile,
By offering his own creatures for a spoil.
Dryden's Religio Laici.
The slaves of custom and establish'd mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road,
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.
Cowper's Tirocinium.
To follow foolish precedents, and wink
With both our eyes, is easier than to think.
Cowper's Tirocinium.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother. Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my sido
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
To brag of benefits one hath bestown,
Doth make the best seem less, and most seem Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
So oftentimes the greatest courtesy
Is by the doer made an injury.
If he kneel not before the same altar with me From the heretic girl of my soul shall I fly, To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? Brome's Novella. No! perish the hearts, and the laws that try Truth, valour, or love, by a standard like this.
Sure 'tis an orthodox opinion,
That grace is founded in dominion.
Nor does it follow, 'cause a herald
Can make a gentleman scarce a year old,
To be descended of a race
Of ancient kings in a small space,
That we should all opinions hold
Authentic that we can make old.
Soon their crude notions with each other fought;
The adverse sect deny'd what this had taught;
And he at length the amplest triumph gain'd,
Who contradicted what the last maintain'd.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Heav'n never took a pleasure or a pride,
In starving stomachs, or a horsewhipp'd hide.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Yet some there are, of men I think the worst,
Poor imps! unhappy, if they can't be curst.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
And many more such pious scraps,
To prove (what we 've long prov'd perhaps)
That mad as Christians us'd to be
About the thirteenth century,
There's lots of Christians to be had
In this, the nineteenth, just as mad!
Moore's Twopenny Post Bag.
Yet spite of tenets so flagitious
(Which must, at bottom, be seditious;
As no man living would refuse
Green slippers, but from treasonous views;
Nor wash his toes but with intent
To overturn the government!)
Such is our mild and tolerant way,
We only curse them twice a day,
(According to a form that's set)
And far from torturing, only let
All orthodox believers beat 'em,
And twitch their beards, where'er they meet 'em.
Moore's Twopenny Post Bag.
Where frugal monks their little relics show,
And sundry legends to the stranger tell.
Here impious men have punish'd been, and lo'
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell
In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.
Byron's Childe Harma
Superior heard, run through the sweetest length
Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes in thought
Elate, to make her night excel the day.
All abandon'd to despair, she sings
Her sorrows through the night; and, on the bough
Sole sitting, still at every dying fall
Takes up again her lamentable strain
Of winding woe; till, wide around, the woods
Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.
Thomson's Seasons.
"Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love;
That even to birds, and beasts, the tender arts
Light from the Book whose words are graved in Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind
There at the well-head had I found the dawn,
And day, and noon, of freedom:-but too bright
It shines on that which man to man hath given,
And call'd the truth-the very truth from heaven;
And therefore seeks he, in his brother's sight
To cast the mote, and therefore strives to bind
With his strong chain to earth, what is not
Earth's-the Mind.
Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll,
Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul;
The God of love, who gave the life that warms
All breathing dust in all its varied forms,
Asks not the tribute of a world like this
To fill the measure of his perfect bliss.
Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates
Pour forth their little souls.
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The live-long night: nor these alone whose notes
Nice finger'd art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud;
The jay, the pic, and e'en the boding owl
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
Cowper's Task.
Loud sung the lark, the awaken'd maid
Beheld him twinkling in the morning light,
And wish'd for wings and liberty like his.
Southey's Thalaba.
O. W. Holmes. Amid the flashing and feathery foam
The stormy Petrel finds a home.
But like the birds, great nature's happy com
That haunt in woods, in meads and flow'ry gardens,
Rifle the sweets and taste the choicest fruits,
Yet scorn to ask the lordly owner's leave.
Rowe's Fair Penitent.
Up springs the lark,
Shrill voic'd, and loud, the messenger of morn;
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations.
A light broke in upon my soul-
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased-and then it came again,
The sweetest song ear ever heard.
See the enfranchised bird, who wildly springs
With a keen sparkle in his glowing eye,
And a strong effort in his quivering wings
Up to the blue vault of the happy sky.
The star of our forest dominions,
The humming-bird darts to its food,
Thomson's Seasons. Like a gem or a blossom, on pinions,
Whose glory illumines the woods.
Deep tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads
the coy quiristers that lodge within,
Are prodigai of harmony. The thrush
And wood-lark, o'er the kind contending throng
Street's Poems This great solitude is quick with life; And birds that scarce have learn'd the fear of men Are here. Bryant
Lone whippoorwill;
There is much sweetness in thy fitful hymn,
Heard in the drowsy watches of the night.
Isaac McLellan, Jr.
Seeing one crow is lucky, 'tis true,
But sure misfortune attends on two,
And meeting with three is the devil.
M. G. Lewis.
With storm-daring pinion, and sun-gazing eye,
The Grey Forest Eagle is king of the sky.
Alfred B. Street.
An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty and high
Is the Grey Forest Eagle, that king of the sky,
It scorns the bright scenes, the gay places of
I swear, 't is better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
Shaks. Henry VIL
Madam, you haply scorn the vulgar earth
Of which I stand compacted: and because
I cannot add a splendour to my name,
Reflective from a royal pedigree,
You interdict my language; but be pleas'c
To know, the ashes of my ancestors,
If intermingled in the tomb with kings,
Could hardly be distinguish'd. The stars shoot
An equal influence on th' open cottage,
Where the poor shepherd's child is rudely nurs'd,
As on the cradle where the prince is rock'd
With care and whisper.
Habbington's Queen of Arragon
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