SOLEMNITY.
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.
Oft seeks for sweet retired solitude,
Where with her best nurse contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings.
Milton.
O sacred solitude! divine retreat!
Choice of the prudent! envy of the great!
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.
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.
SORROW.
AND then will canker sorrow eat her bud,
And chase the native beauty from her cheek.
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.
The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the grave, where sorrow is unknown;
No traveller ever reached that blest abode,
But found out thorns and briars on the road.
Oh sacred sorrow, by whom souls are tried,
Sent not to punish mortals, but to guide;
If thou art mine, (and who shall proudly dare
To tell his Maker he has had his share?)
Still let me feel for what thy pangs are sent,
And be my guide, and not my punishment.-Crabbe.
The sweetest flower in pleasure's path, Will bloom on sorrow's grave. For sorrow is the messenger between The poet and men's bosoms:-Genius can Fill with unsympathizing gods the scene, But grief alone can teach us what is man. Sir E. L. Bulwer.
Hear me for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gathered shape; for it may be
That while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.
A fairy shield your genius made,
And gave you on your natal day;
Your sorrow only sorrow's shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.
You've seen the lightning's flash at night
Play brightly o'er a cloudy pile;
The moonshine tremble on the height,
When winter glances cold and bright;-
And like that flash, and like that light,
Is sorrow's vain and heartless smile.
Tennyson.
He who has most of heart, knows most of sorrow.
Bailey.
SOUL.
ONE thinks the soul is air; another, fire;
Another, blood diffus'd about the heart;
Another saith the elements conspire,
And to her essence each doth give a part.
But, as the sharpest eye discerneth nought,
Except the sunbeam in the air do shine, So the best soul with her reflecting thought, Sees not herself without some light divine.
Davies.
The soul of man, a native of the skies,
High-born and free, her freedom should maintain
Unsold, unmortgag'd for earth's little bribes.
Young.
Let earth dissolve-yon ponderous orb descend,
And grind us into dust-the soul is safe!
The man emerges-mounts above the wreck,
As towering flame from nature's funeral pyre!
Young.
Let fortune empty all her quiver in me,
I have a soul that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.
Dryden.
The soul that desires not release from the clay,
Is no bird in a cage, but a corpse in the tomb.
Anware, from the Persian.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives,
But when the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
The soul on earth is an immortal guest,
Compelled to starve at an unreal feast:
A spark that upward tends by nature's force,
A stream diverted from its parent source;
A drop dissevered from the boundless sea,
A moment parted from eternity;
A pilgrim panting for a rest to come,
An exile anxious for his native home.
SOVEREIGNTY.
JOVE's own tree,
That holds the woods in awful sovereignty,
Requires a depth of lodging in the ground;
High as his topmost boughs to heaven ascend,
So low his roots to hell's dominions tend.
A sovereign's great example forms a people;
The public breast is noble, or is vile,
As he inspires it.
SOURCE.
OF himself is none;
But that eternal Infinite, and One,
SOUND.
I HATE those potent madmen who keep all Mankind awake while they, by their great deeds, Are drumming hard upon this hollow world, Only to make a sound to last for ages.
Etherege.
Well-sounding verses are the charms we use,
Heroic thoughts and virtue to infuse:
Things of deep sense we may in prose unfold,
But they move more in lofty numbers told.
By the loud trumpet which our courage aids,
We learn that sound, as well as sense, persuades.
Waller.
Who never did begin, and ne'er can end,
On him all beings as their source depend.-Dryden.
But were not nature still endow'd at large
With all which life requires, though unadorn'd
With such enchantment? Wherefore then her form
So exquisitely fair? her breath perfum'd
With such etherial sweetness? whence her voice
Inform'd at will to raise or to depress
The impassioned soul? whence the robes of light
Which thus invest her with more lovely pomp
Than fancy can describe? whence but from Thee,
O Source Divine of overflowing love?
Akenside.
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