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404

LIPS. LISTEN. LITTLE.

LIPS.

HER lips were red, and one was thin,
Compared to that was next her chin;
Some bee had stung it newly.

Cherry ripe, cherry ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones-come and buy:
If so be you ask me where
They do grow? I answer there,
Where my Julia's lips do smile—
There's the land, or cherry isle;

Suckling.

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ON the green bank I lay, and listened long;
Nor till her lay was ended could I move,
But wished to dwell for ever in the grove.-Dryden.

With head upraised, and look intent,
An eye and ear attentive bent,

And locks flung back, and lips apart,
Like monument of Grecian art,

In listening mood, she seemed to stand,
The guardian naiad of the strand.

Scott.

LITTLE.

FOR what is gotten with but little pain,
As little grief it takes to lose again.

Who with a little cannot be content,
Endures an everlasting punishment.

Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.

W. Browne.

Herrick.

Goldsmith.

LIVERY. LIVING.

LIVERY.

405

WHEN forty winters shall besiege your brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held.
Shakspere.

At once came forth whatever creeps the ground,
Insect or worm: those wav'd their limber fans
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact,
In all the liv'ries deck'd of summer's pride,
With spots of gold and purple, azure and green.
Milton.

Leave to low buffoons by custom bred,
And form'd by nature to be kick'd and fed,
The vulgar and unenvied task to hit
All persons, right or wrong, with random wit.
Our wise forefathers, born in sober days,
Resign'd to fools the tart and witty phrase;
The motley coat gave warning for the jest,
Excused the wound, and sanctified the pest.
But we, from high to low, all strive to sneer,
Will all be wits, and not the livery wear.

LIVING.

Stillingfleet.

"LIVE while you live!" the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day;
"Live while you live!" the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies;
Lord, in my view let both united be!

I live in pleasure, while I live in Thee.

Dr. Johnson.

When all the fiercer passions cease,
(The glory and disgrace of youth;)
When the deluded soul in
peace,
Can listen to the voice of truth;
When we are taught in whom to trust,
And how to spare, to spend, to give;
(Our prudence kind, our pity just,)
'Tis then we rightly learn to live.

Crabbe.

406

LOATHING. LOCKS. LOFTINESS.

LOATHING-LOATH.

A SURFEIT of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.

Shakspere.
As some faint pilgrim standing on the shore,
First views the torrent he would venture o'er,
And then his aim upon the farther ground,
Loath to wade through, yet loather to go round.
Dryden.

Why do I stay within this hated place,

Where every object shocks my loathing eyes?—Rowe.

LOCKS.

Two locks, that graceful hung behind

In equal curls, and well conspired to deck

With shining ringlets her smooth ivory neck.-Pope.

Though time has thinned thy flowing locks,
And turned their raven hue to grey,

The love within my bosom mocks

At change, and time, and dim decay;
More beautiful thou seem'st to me,
With those few locks of silver hair,
Than when in youth I courted thee,
And felt and called thee wondrous fair.

Anon.

LOFTINESS.

My lowly verse may loftily arise,

And lift itself unto the highest skies.

Spenser.

He, who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find

Their loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;

He, who surpasses or subdues mankind,

Must look down on the hate of those below.

Though far above the sun of glory glow,

And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head.

Byron.

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HE was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in analytic;

He could distinguish and divide

A hair 'twixt south, and south-west side.

Logicians use to clap a proposition,
As justices do criminals in prison,

Butler.

And in as learn'd authentic nonsense writ
The names of all their moods and figures fit!
For a logician's one that has been broke
To ride and pace his reason by the book,
And by their rules, and precepts, and examples,
To put his wits in any kind of trammels.

Butler.

List! and mark what I say,
I beg of you,that so my lungs have holiday.
He that will be in the right, having tongue enough,
May triumph with erroneous stuff!
In this case, I being tired of your sophisticated logic,
Hold my tongue! You're right, because I'm logic-sick!
Goethe.

LONDON.

A MIGHTY mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye

Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head-and there is London town!

Byron.

And there is London!-England's heart and soul.
By the proud flowing of her famous Thames,
She circulates through countless lands and isles
Her greatness; gloriously she rules,

At once the awe and sceptre of the world.

Robert Montgomery.

408

LONELINESS.

LONG.

LONELINESS.
I SEE

The mystery of your loneliness, and find
Your salt tears' head.

Shakspere.

Alone, amid the wide and desert world,
Without a heart to echo to our own.
O! what is all the pomp and play of life!
There is a solitude that lifts the mind
To lofty things; seclusion from the rush
And sin of the unfeeling crowd, whose days
Reap scarce a thought to sanctify their flight:
Far from the city dim, may wisdom haunt
Her lone retreats, and yet not live alone:
For is there not a fellowship of books
Divine-the company of kindling thoughts,
And all that nature yields a grateful mind?
This is not loneliness: to look around

The peopled world, and 'mong its myriad hearts
To find no sympathies to nurse our own;

O! this is loneliness!-that solitude

Of soul which makes the world a desert seem.

Robert Montgomery.

LONG-LONGING.

SOME say, that ever 'gainst the season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long,
And then, they say, no spirit walks abroad.

Shakspere.

By every circumstance I know he loves;
Yet he but doubts, and parlies, and casts out
Many a long look for succour.

The feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles rain.

Dryden.

Longfellow.

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