And yet was every falt'ring tongue of man,
Almighty father! silent in thy praise,
The blue, deep, glorious heavens! I lift mine eye
And bless thee, O my God! that I have met
Thy works themselves would raise a general voice, And own'd thine image in the majesty
Even in the depth of solitary woods,
By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power,
And to the quire celestial Thee resound,
The eternal cause, support, and end of all!
Thomson's Seasons.
Let no presuming impious railer tax
Creative wisdom as if aught was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of his mind?
What prodigies can power divine perform
More grand than it produces year by year,
And all in sight of inattentive man?
Familiar with th' effect, we slight the cause,
And in the constancy of nature's course,
The regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,
See naught to wonder at.
Of their calm temple still!—that never yet
There hath thy face been shrouded from my sight
By noontide blaze, or sweeping storm of night:
I bless thee, O my God!
Upholds the earth, and spreads abroad the sky,
With none his name and power will he divide,
For He is God and there is none beside.
James Montgomery
Shun delays, they breed remorse ;
Take thy time, while time is lent thee;
Creeping snails have weakest force;
| Fly their fault, lest thou repent thee;
Good is best when soonest wrought,
Ling'ring labours come to naught.
Hoist up sail while gale doth last,
Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure;
Seek not time, when time is past,
Sober speed is wisdom's leisure,
After-wits are dearly bought,
Let thy fore-wit guide thy thought.
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an aguc, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
O my good lord, that comfort comes too late;
"Tis like a pardon after execution:
That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me;
But now I'm past all comfort here but prayers.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Away towards Salisbury;-while we reason here,
Cowper's Task. A royal battle might be won and lost.
Your gift is princely, but it comes too late,
And falls, like sun-beams, on a blasted blossom.
Suckling's Brennorall,
Go, fool, and teach a caratact to creep!
Can thirst, empire, vengeance, beauty, wait?
Young's Brother.
Be wise to-day; 't is madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Young's Night Thoughts
DELICACY - DELUGE - DEPENDANTS - DEPUTY.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Our greatest actions, or of good or evil,
The hero's and the murderer's, spring at once
From their conception: Oh! how many deeds
Of deathless virtue and immortal crime
The world had wanted, had the actor said,
I will do this to-morrow!
Hark! hark! the sea-birds cry!
In clouds they overspread the lurid sky,
And hover round the mountain, where before
Never a white wing, wetted by the wave,
Yet dared to soar,
Even when the waters wax'd too fierce to brave;
Soon it shall be their only shore.
And then, no more!
Byron's Heaven and Earth
Lord John Russel's Don Carlos. Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave!
Wilt thou sit among the ruins,
With all words of cheer unspoken,
Till the silver cord is loosen'd,
Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot:
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave
Shall lift its point to save,
Or show the place where strong despair hath
After long looking o'er the ocean wide For the expected ebb which cometh not: All shall be void,
Her love had yielded to her pride,
And the deep sense of wrong. She scorn'd the offering of a heart Which linger'd on its way,
Till it would no delight impart,
Nor spread one cheering ray.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
Elizabeth Bogart. Who would rely upon these miserable
Dependencies, in expectation
To be advanced to-morrow? what creature
Ever fed worse than hoping Tantalus ?
Nor ever died any man more fearfully,
Than he that hop'd for a pardon?
Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
We, we shall view the deep's salt sources pour'd, I hate dependence on another's will,
Until one element shall do the work
Of all in chaos; until they,
The creatures proud of their poor clay,
Shall perish, and their bleached bones shall lurk
In caves, in dens, in clefts of mountains, where
The deep shall follow to their latest lair;
Where even the brutes, in their despair,
Shall cease to prey on man and on each other,
And the striped tiger shall lie down and die
Beside the lamb, as though he were his brother:
Till all things shall be as they were,
Silent and uncreated, save the sky.
Byron's Heaven and Earth. The heavens and earth are mingling—God! Oh
Hark! even the forest beasts howl forth their pray'r! Elected him our absence to supply;
The dragon crawls from out his den,
To herd in terror innocent with men;
And the birds scream their agony through air! Byron's Heaven and Earth.
Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love;
And given his deputation all the organs
Of our own power.
Which we must pay and wait for the reward.
Sir Robert Howard.
I do believe, you think what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break:
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth but poor validity;
Thou blind man's mark; thou fool's self-chosen
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scatter'd thoughts;
Band of all evils; cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of ill, whose end is never wrought
Desire! Desire! I have too dearly bought
With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware,
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought,
Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare.
Sir P. Sidney.
Vain are these dreams, and vain these hopes;
And yet 'tis these give birth
To each high purpose, generous deed,
That sanctifies our earth.
He who hath highest aim in view,
Must dream at first what he will do.
And see how full it is of mighty schemes,
Some that shall ripen, some be ever dreams,
And yet, though dreams, shall act a real part.
F. W. Faber.
Labour shall be my lot;
My kindred shall be joyful in my praise; And fame shall twine for me in after days,
Which now, like fruits unripe, sticks on the tree, Oh, fountains that I have not reach'd, But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
That gush far off even now, Where shall I quench my spirits' thirs When your sweet waters flow!
O fierce desire, the spring of sighs and tears,
Reliev'd with want, impoverish'd with store,
Nurst with vain hopes, and fed with doubtful fears,
Whose force withstood, increaseth more and more!
Brandon's Octavia.
'Tis most ignoble, that a mind unshaken
By fear should by a vain desire be broken;
Or that those powers no labour e'er could vanquish,
Should be o'ercome and thrall'd by sordid pleasure.
Chapman.
How large are our desires! and yet how few
Events are answerable! So the dew,
Which early on the top of mountains stood,
Meaning, at least, to imitate a flood;
When once the sun appears, appears no more,
And leaves that parch'd which was too moist
before.
Gomersall.
The desire of the moth for the star
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Thou hast the noblest issues of all ill,
Which frailty brings us to; for to be worse
We fear not, and who cannot lose,
Is ever a frank gamester.
Sir Robert Howard
So cowards fight, when they can fly no further,
So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons:
So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,
Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III
They have ty'd me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bear-like, I must fight the course.
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act:
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms; that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Shaks. Macbeth. Environ'd with a wilderness of sea;
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Have so incens'd, that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.
So with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
weary
That I would set my life on any chance
To mend it, or be rid on 't.
In confus'd march forlorn, th' advent'rous bands
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,
View'd their lamentable lot, and found
No rest.
O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me; Pond'ring the danger with deep thoughts; and cach
That life, a very rebel to my will,
In other's count'nance read his own dismay
Astonish'd.
May hang no longer on me.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:
Fortune and Antony part here; even here
Do we shake hands. All come to this?-The
That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On blossoming Cæsar; and this pine is bark'd
That overtopp'd them all.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra. There's nothing in this world can make me joy:
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Shaks. King John. Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
Art thou damn'd.
Shaks. King John. To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
If thou didst but consent
To this most cruel act, do but despair,
And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread That ever spider twisted from her womb
With what delight could I have walk'd the round
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill and valley, rivers, woods and plains,
Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a Now land, now sea, and shores with forests crown'd beam
Rocks, dens and caves; but I in none of these
To hang thee on; or, would'st thou drown thyself, Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Gnashing for anguish, and despite and shame,
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbled by such rebuke.
And prophesy ten thousand thousand horrors;
I could join with her now, and bid 'em come;
They fit the present fury of my soul.
Milton's Paradise Lost. The stings of love and rage are fix'd within,
And drive me on to madness. Earthquakes, whirl.
Of my reception into grace; what worse,
For where no hope is left, is left no fear.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
Consider how the desperate fight;
Despair strikes wild,—but often fatal too-
And in the mad encounter wins success.
Was there no bolt, no punishment above? —
No, none is equal to despairing love:
Hell loudly owns it, and the damn'd themselves
Smile to behold a wretch more curs'd than they.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
My loss is such as cannot be repair'd;
And to the wretched, life can be no mercy.
Dryden's Marriage à la Mode.
Tell me why, good heaven,
Thou mad'st me what I am, with all the spirit,
Aspiring thoughts and elegant desires,
That fill the happiest man? Ah! rather, why
Did'st thou not form me sordid as my fate,
Base-minded, dull and fit to carry burdens?
Why have I sense to know the curse that's on me?
Is this just dealing, nature?
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Talk not of comfort, 'tis for lighter ills;
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way
To all the pangs and fury of despair.
A general wreck of nature now would please me.
Rowe's Royal Convert.
Whether first nature, or long want of peace,
Has wrought my mind to this, I cannot tell;
But horrors now are not displeasing to me;
I like this rocking of the battlements.
Rage on, ye winds; burst clouds, and waters roar !
You bear a just resemblance of my fortune,
And suit the gloomy habit of my soul!
Why let them come: let in the raging torrent:
I wish the world would rise in arms against me;
For I must die; and I would die in state.
Young's Busiris
Creation sleeps; 't is as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause
An awful pause! prophetic of her end,
And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd;
Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.
Young's Night Thoughts
From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose,
I wake; how happy they that wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infect the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding
thought,
From wave to wave of fancy'd misery,
At random drove, her helm of reason lost.
Tho' now restor'd, 't is only change of pain,
Addison's Cato. (A bitter change!) severer for severe.
O Lucius, I am sick of this bad world!
The day-light and the sun grow painful to me.
Addison's Cato.
Methinks we stand on ruin; nature shakes
About us; and the universal frame's
So loose, that it but wants another push
To leap from its hinges.
What miracle
Can work me into hope! Heav'n here is bankrupt,
The wond'ring gods blush at the want of power,
And quite abash'd confess they cannot help me.
Lee's Mithridates.
Curs'd fate! malicious stars! you now have drain'd
Yourselves of all your poisonous influence;
Ev'n the last baleful drop is shed upon me!
Lee's Mithridates.
The day too short for my distress; and night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.
Young's Night Thoughts
With woful measures wan despair-
Low sullen sounds his grief beguil'd;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air!
'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild.
Collins's Passions
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure,
Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Dr. Johnson's Irene
But dreadful is their doom whom doubt has driven
To censure fate, and pious hope forego:
Like yonder blasted boughs by lightning riven,
Perfection, beauty, life, they never know,
But frown on all that pass, a monument of wo
Beattie's Minsırel.
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