SPY.
STERN command we had,
To see that none thence issued forth a spy
Or enemy while God was in his work.
Nothing lies hid from radiant eyes;
All they subdue become their spies.
Born in a garret, in a kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next for some gracious service unexpressed,
And from its wages only to be guessed-
Raised from the toilet to the table, where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabashed,
She dines from off the plate she lately washed;
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie-
The genial confidante, and general spy.
Byron.
Squander not the wealth which God
Hath entrusted to thy care;
Yet no niggard be, but give
To the needy one a share.
Ever from the line of right
SQUANDER.
LET a spendthrift grow to be old, he will set his heart on saving,
Will thy feet be wandering,
If thou let'st a generous heart
Prompt to wasteful squandering.
And labour to build up by penury that which extravagance threw down:
Even so with most men, do riches earn themselves a double curse;
They are ill-got by tight dealing: they are ill-spent by loose squandering. Martin F. Tupper.
STAGE.
THE Stage-a subject fair and free,
'Tis yours 't is mine-'t is public property.
All common exhibitions open lie
For praise or censure to the common eye.
Hence are a thousand hackney writers fed;
Hence monthly critics earn their daily bread.
This is a general tax which all must pay,
From those who scribble down to those who play.
Churchill.
Lo where the Stage, the poor, degraded Stage,
Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age;
There, where to raise the Drama's moral tone,
Fool Harlequin usurps Apollo's throne;
*
*
*
Where mincing dancers sport tight pantelits,
And turn fops' heads by turning pirouettes.
STARS.
IT were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it.
Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven,
-ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,
That
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Towards heaven's descent had sloped his westering
Milton.
wheel.
And for the stars that gleamed above,
They each seemed smiles of heavenly love,
Teaching the wanderer o'er the wild
That every lost one was God's child.
fortune-fame-power-life-have named them
selves a star.
Byron.
STATE.
TELL men of high condition,
That rule affairs of state,
Their purpose is ambition;
Their practice only hate.
Sir W. Raleigh.
Who's in or out, who moves the grand machine,
Nor stirs my curiosity, nor spleen;
Secrets of state no more I wish to know
Than secret movements of a puppet-show;
Let but the puppets move, I've my desire,
Unseen the hand which guides the master wire,
Churchill.
What constitutes a state?
Not high_rais'd battlements, or labor'd mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate;
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown'd;
Not bays and broad arm'd ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Nor starr'd and spangled courts,
Where low-brow'd baseness wafts perfumes to pride-
No! men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endu'd,
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights; and knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chainThese constitute a state.
Sir William Jones.
STATESMAN.
A STATESMAN, that can side with every faction,
And yet most subtly can entwist himself,
When he hath wrought the business up to danger.
Shirley.
Thus the court wheel goes round, like fortune's ball; One statesman rising on another's fall. R. Brome.
STEAM.
THE saying that the world must end in smoke
Seems true in these last days of steam and coke,
When the loud engine, on the iron rails,
O'er ancient ties and sympathies prevails.
Homeless, and counting love of home a dream,
From land to land we pass in clouds of steam,
For ever on the same dull, level ground,
With universal sameness all around.
Gostick, from the German of Ludwig I., King of
Bavaria.
Lay down your rails, ye nations near and far-
Yoke you full trains to Steam's triumphal car;
Link town to town; unite in iron bands
The long-estranged and oft-embattled lands.
Peace, mild-eyed seraph-knowledge, light divine,
Shall send their messengers by every line.
Men, join'd in amity, shall wonder long
That Hate had power to lead their fathers wrong;
Or that false Glory lured their hearts astray,
And made it virtuous and sublime to slay.-Mackay.
Blessings on Science, and her handmaid Steam!
They make Utopia only half a dream;
And show the fervour of capacious souls,
Who watch the ball of progress as it rolls:
That all as yet completed, as begun,
Is but the dawning that precedes the sun.-Mackay.
STING.
As some wayfaring man passing a wood,
Whose waving top hath long a seamark stood,
Goes jogging on, and in his mind nought hath,
But how the primrose finely strews the path,
And sweetest violets lay down their heads
At some tree's root on mossy feather beds,
Until his heel receives an adder's sting,
Whereat he starts, and back his head doth fling.
William Browne.
STORM.
AND either tropic now
'Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven: the clouds,
From many a horrid rift, abortive poured
Fierce rain with lightning mixt, water with fire,
In rain reconciled: nor slept the winds
Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vex'd wilderness, whose tallest pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks,
Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer. Ill wast thou shrouded then,
O patient Son of God! yet only stood'st
Unshaken! nor yet stayed the terror there:
Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round [shrieked,
Environed thee: some howled, some yelled, some
Some bent at thee their fiery darts; while thou
Sat'st unappalled in calm and sinless peace.-Milton.
It is a storm-when the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood,
And each loose passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.-Dr. Henry King.
STORY.
THEIR copious stories, oftentimes begun,
End without audience and are never done.
A story should, to please, at least_seem true,
Be apropos, well told, concise, and new:
And whensoe'er it deviates from these rules
The wise will sleep and leave applause to fools.
Trust not to each accusing tougue,
As most weak persons do,
But still believe that story wrong,
That ought not to be true.
|