590

SMOOTHNESS. SOARING. SOBRIETY.

SMOOTHNESS.

SMOOTHING the raven down

Of darkness till it smiled.

The music of that murmuring spring
Is not so mournful as the strains you sing;
Nor rivers winding through the vales below
So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.

Milton.

Pope.

SOARING.

BE wise:

Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise.

Shakspere.

Flames rise and sink by fits; at last they soar
In one bright flame, and then return no more.

Dryden.

When swallows fleet soar high and sport in air,
He told us that the welkin would be fair.

Gay.

SOBRIETY.

SIGNIOR Bassanio, hear me:

If I do not put on a sober habit,

Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,
Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely ;
Nay more, while grace is saying, hold mine eyes
Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say Amen;
Use all the observance of civility,

Like one well studied in a sad ostent

To please his grandam-never trust me more.

I will be sober: sober as a man

Shakspere.

That hath a lenten vow upon his conscience,
Aye sober as a shriven penitent,

Or most austere of monkish anchorites:
I will be sober, not because I must,
But eke because I love sobriety.

Old Play.

SOCIETY. SOFTNESS.

591

SOCIETY.

I AM ill; but your being by me Cannot amend me: society is no comfort To one not sociable.

Among unequals what society Can sort? what harmony or true delight?

Hail, social life! into thy pleasing bounds
Again I come, to pay the common stock
My share of service, and, in glad return,

Shakspere.

Milton.

To taste thy comforts, thy protected joys.-Thomson.
Man in society is like a flower

Blown in its native bed; 't is there alone
His faculties, expanded in full bloom,

Shine out; there only reach their proper use.

Cowper.

SOFTNESS.

You may as well go stand upon a beach,
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
You may as well go bid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise,
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven;
You may as well do anything most hard,

As seek to soften that (than which what's harder?)—
His Jewish heart.
Shakspere.

Nature has cast me in so soft a mould,
That, but to hear a story, feign'd for pleasure,
Of some sad lover's death, moistens my eyes
And robs me of my manhood.

I've gazed on many a brighter face,
But ne'er on one, for years,

Where beauty left so soft a trace
As it had left on hers.

Dryden.

Mrs. A. B. Welby.

592

SOLACE.

SOLDIER.

SOLACE.

IN midst of plenty only to embrace
Calm patience, is not worthy of your praise,
But he that can look sorrow in the face,
And not be daunted, he deserves the bays.
This is prosperity, where'er we find

A heavenly solace in an earthly mind.

Oh, never is the path we tread,
So drear, but if we upward gaze,

Hugh Compton.

The favouring smiles of heaven will shed

Some solace for our darkest days. W. J. Brock.

SOLDIER.

A SOLDIER;

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation,

Even in the cannon's mouth.

Dost thou know the fate of soldiers?

Shakspere.

They're but ambition's tools, to cut a way
To her unlawful ends; and when they 're worn,
Hack'd, hewn with constant service, thrown aside
To rust in peace, and rot in hospitals.

'Tis universal soldiership has stabbed

The heart of merit in the meaner class.

Southern.

*

To swear, to game, to drink, to show at home,
By lewdness, idleness, and sabbath-breach,

The great proficiency he made abroad;

To astonish and to grieve his gazing friends,

To break some maiden's and his mother's heart,
To be a pest where he was useful once,

Are his sole aim, and all his glory now.

Cowper.

A mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind

Of human sword in a fiend's hand; the other
Is master-mover of this warlike puppet.

Byron.

SOLEMNITY. SOLITUDE.

SOLEMNITY.

593

Then 'gan he loudly through the house to call,
But no one came to answer to his cry,
There reigned a solemn silence over all.

THE moon like a silver bow,

Now bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

Spenser.

Shakspere.

SOLITUDE.

WISDOM's self

Oft seeks for sweet retired solitude,

Where with her best nurse contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings.

O sacred solitude! divine retreat!

Choice of the prudent! envy of the great!

Milton.

By thy pure stream, or in thy waving shade,
We court fair Wisdom, that celestial maid.-Young.

Oh, solitude! first state of human kind!
Which bless'd remain'd till man did find
Ev'n his own helper's company:

As soon as two, alas! together join'd,
The serpent made up three.

Cowper.

For solitude, however some may rave,
Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave-
A sepulchre in which the living lie,
Where all good qualities grow sick and die.

Cowper.
Amidst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along, the world's tired denizen,

With none who bless us,-none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less,
Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued:
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude. Byron.

AND then will canker sorrow eat her bud,

And chase the native beauty from her cheek.

Shakspere.

Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
I tender it here; I do as truly suffer
As e'er I did offend.

Shakspere.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
Shakspere.

I wonder whence that tear came, when I smiled
In the production in't! Sorrow's a thief,
That can, when joy looks on, steal forth a grief.
Massinger.

Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,
Which, like growing fountains, rise,
To drown their banks: grief's sullen brooks
Would better flow in furrow'd looks;
Thy lovely face was never meant
To be the share of discontent.

Then clear those waterish stars again,
Which else portend a lasting rain;
Lest the clouds which settle there,
Prolong thy winter all the year,
And thy example others make
In love with sorrow for thy sake.

Dr. H. King.

Man is a child of sorrow, and this world

In which we breathe, hath cares enough to plague us; But it hath means withal to soothe these cares;

And he who meditates on others' woes,

Shall in that meditation lose his own.-Cumberland.

And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought

The intersected lines of thought;

Those furrows, which the burning share

Of sorrow ploughs untimely there:
Scars of the lacerated mind,

Which the soul's war doth leave behind.

Byron.