Cowards die many times before their deaths; JULIUS CÆSAR ii. 2. I HAVE so abject a conceit of this common way of existence, this retaining to the Sun and Elements, I cannot think this is to be a man, or to live according to the dignity of humanity; in expectation of a better, I can with patience embrace this life, yet in my best meditations do often defy death: I honour any man that contemns it, nor can I highly love any that is afraid of it: this makes me naturally love a Soldier, and honour those tattered and contemptible Regiments, that will die at the command of a Sergeant. SIR THOMAS BROWNE. Now farewell light, thou sunshine bright, And all beneath the sky! May coward shame distain his name, The wretch that dares not die! BURNS. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where. MEASURE FOR MEASURE iii. I. I AM not content to pass away like a weaver's shuttle. These metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide, and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. CHARLES LAMB. FOR who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, GRAY. Unless things mortal move them not at all. HAMLET ii. 2. UT the dead genii were satisfied with little-a few BUT violets—a cake dipped in wine, or a morsel of honeycomb. Daily, from the time when his childish footsteps were still uncertain, had Marius taken them their portion of the family meal, at the second course, amidst the silence of the company. They loved those who brought them their sustenance; but, deprived of those services, would be heard wandering through the house, crying sorrowfully in the stillness of the night. IN consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, WALTER PATER. The Lars and Lemures moan with mid night plaint; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound— MILTON. And beauty making beautiful old rhyme, In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights. SONN. CVI. THERE highest art as in that of his inmost life, not made to be set open to the eyes and feet of the world. Love and death and memory keep charge for us in silence of some beloved names. It is the crowning glory of genius, the final miracle and transcendent gift of poetry, that it can add to the number of these, and engrave on the very heart of our remembrance fresh names and memories of its own creation. SWINBURNE. BLESSINGS be with them, and eternal praise, WORDSWORTH. Glory is like a circle in the water, Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to nought. I KING HENRY VI. i. 2. THESE fingers of lamplight, struggling up through smoke and thousandfold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of night, what thinks Boötes of them, as he leads his Huntingdogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire? CARLYLE. THUS those celestial fires, Though seeming mute, The fallacy of our desires, And all the pride of life, confute. For they have watched since first The world had birth, And found sin in itself accurst, And nothing permanent on earth. HABINGTON. |