568

SECRECY. SECURITY. SEDUCTION.

SECRECY.

A SECRET in his mouth

Is like a wild bird put into a cage,
Whose door no sooner opens, but 't is out.
Ben Jonson.

When two know it, how can it be a secret?
And indeed with what justice can you
Expect secrecy in me, that cannot
Be private to yourself.

Marston.

SECURITY.

As you may see a mighty promontory,
More digg'd and under-eaten than may warrant
A safe supportance to his hanging brows,
All passengers avoid him; shun all ground
That lies within his shadow, and bear still
A flying eye upon him; so great men
Corrupted in their grounds, and building out
Too swelling fronts for their foundations,

When most they should be propp'd, are most forsaken, And men will rather thrust unto the storms

Of better grounded states, than take a shelter
Beneath the ruinous and fearful weight;
Yet they so oversee their faulty bases,
That they remain securer in conceit;
And that security doth worse presage
Their near destruction, than their eaten grounds.

Chapman.

SEDUCTION.

HE fell, as doth the tempter ever fall,
Even in the gaining of his loathsome end.
God doth not work as man works, but makes all
The crooked paths of ill to goodness tend;
Let him judge Margaret! If to be the thrall
Of love and faith, too generous to defend
Its very life from him she loved, be sin,
What hope of grace may the seducer win?

J. R. Lowell.

SEEING.

WHAT We hear

With weaker passion will affect the heart,
Than when the faithful eye beholds the part.

569

Francis, from Horace.

O, what a life is the eye! what a strange and inscrutable essence!

Him that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him;

Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother;

Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber,

Even for him it exists! it moves and stirs in its prison! Lives with a separate life: and "is it a spirit?" he

murmurs:

Sure it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language. Coleridge.

SEEMING.

How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou still are blood!
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn;-
'Tis not the devil's crest.

Shakspere.

All live by seeming.

The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier
Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming;
The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier
Will eke with it his service. All admit it,
All practise it; and he who is content
With showing what he is, shall have small credit
In church, or camp, or state. So wags the world.
Old Play.

Who will believe? not I, for in deceiving

Lies the dear charm of life's delightful dream; I cannot spare the luxury of believing

That all things beautiful are what they seem.

Fitz-green Halleck.

570

SENSE.

SENSIBILITY.

SENSE-SENSES.

If we had nought but sense, each living wight, Which we call brute, would be more sharp than we. As having sense's apprehensive might

In a more clear and excellent degree.

And yet good sense doth purify the brain,
Awake the fancy, and the wits refine;
Hence old devotion incense did ordain,

To make men's spirits apt for thoughts divine.
Davies.

Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous e'en to taste-'tis sense:
Good sense which only is the gift of heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.

How mind will act with body glorified
And spiritualized, and senses fined
And pointed brilliantwise, we know not. Here
Even it may be wrong in us to deem

The senses degradations, otherwise

Than as fine steps, whereby the queenly soul
Comes down from her bright throne to view the mass
She hath dominion over, and the things

Of her inheritance; and re-ascends
With an indignant fiery purity
Not to be touched, her seat.

SENSIBILITY.

OUR sensibilities are so acute,

The fear of being silent makes us mute.

Sensibility, how charming,

Thou, my friend, canst truly tell;
But distress, with horrors arming,
Thou hast also known too well!

Pope.

Dearly bought, the hidden treasure,
Finer feelings can bestow!
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure,
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.

Bailey.

Cowper.

Burns.

SERENITY. SEVERITY.

SERENITY.

WOULD you taste the tranquil scene?
Be sure your bosom be serene:
Devoid of hate, devoid of strife,
Devoid of all that poisons life;
And much it 'vails you, in their place
To graft the love of human race.

571

Shenstone.

And the repress'd convulsion of the high
And princely brow of his old father, which
Broke forth in silent shudderings, though rarely,
Or in some clammy drops, soon wiped away
In stern serenity.

Byron.

Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,

Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the dead; And the spirit becalm'd but remember'd their power, As the billow the force of the gale that was fled! Moore.

Reflected on the lake, I love

To see the stars of evening glow;
So tranquil in the heavens above,
So restless in the wave below.
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.

SEVERITY.

Heber.

THOUGH sprightly, gentle, though polite, sincere.
And only of thyself a judge severe.

Beattie.

There was a brightening paleness in his face,
Such as Diana rising o'er the rocks
Showered on the lonely Latmian; on his brow
Sorrow there was, yet nought was there severe.
W. S. Lander.

572

SERVANTS. SERVICE. SERVILE.

SERVANTS.
-FROM the king

To the beggar, by gradations, all are servants;
And you must grant, the slavery is less
To study to please one than many.

Massinger.

Expect not more from servants than is just;
Reward them well if they observe their trust;
Nor with them cruelty nor pride invade,
Since God and Nature them own brothers made.
Denham.

SERVICE.

HAD I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not, in mine age,
Have left me to mine enemies.

Shakspere.

As in virtuous actions,
The undertaker finds a full reward,
Although conferred upon unthankful men;
So any service done to so much sweetness,
However dangerous, in your favour finds
A wished and glorious end.

Massinger.

Small service is true service while it lasts,
Of friends however humble scorn not one;
The daisy by the shadow that it casts,

Protects the lingering dew-drop from the sun.

Wordsworth.

SERVILE.

YET as winds sing through a hollow tree,
And, (since it lets them pass through,) lets it stand;
But a tree solid (since it gives no way
To their wild rage,) they rend up by the root;
So this whole man,

(That will not wind with every crooked way, Trod by the servile world,) shall reel and fall Before the frantic puffs of blind-born chance.

Chapman.