MEETING.
I SWEAR
By the simplicity of Venus' doves!
By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves!
In the same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee. Shakspere.
The joy of meeting pays the pangs of absence;
Else who could bear it?
When lovers meet in adverse hour,
'Tis like a sun-glimpse through a shower;
A watery ray an instant seen,
Then darkly closing clouds between.
MELANCHOLY.
HENCE all your vain delights;
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly;
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy.
As letters some hand has invisibly trac'd,
When held to the flame, will steal out to the sight; So, many a feeling that long seem'd effac'd,
The warmth of a meeting like this brings to light.
Moore.
Go, you may call it madness-folly
You shall not chase my gloom away;
There's such a charm in melancholy,
I would not, if I could, be gay!
Melancholy
Sits on me as a cloud along the sky,
Which will not let the sunbeams through, nor yet
Descend in rain, and end; but spreads itself
'Twixt heav'n and earth, like envy between man
And man--and is an everlasting mist.
Byron.
LET not a death, unwept, unhonour'd, be
The melancholy fate allotted me!
But those who love me living, when I die,
Still fondly keep some cherish'd memory.
From Solon.
Fell star of fate! thou never can'st employ
A torment teeming with severer smart,
Than that which memory pours upon the heart,
While clinging round the sepulchre of joy.
Camoens.
O memory! thou fond deceiver,
Still importunate and vain,
To former joys recurring ever,
And turning all the past to pain:
Thou, like the world, th' oppress'd oppressing,
Thy smiles increase the wretch's woe!
And he who wants each other blessing,
In thee must ever find a foe.
She was a form of life and light,
That soon became a part of sight;
And rose whene'er I turned my eye;
The morning star of memory.
Ah me! how oft will fancy's spells, in slumber,
Recall my native country to my mind;
How oft regret will bid me sadly number
Each lost delight, and dear friend left behind!
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Dreams of the land where all my wishes centre,
Those scenes which I am doom'd no more to know,
Full oft shall memory trace-my soul's tormentor—
And turn each pleasure past to present woe.
Mat. G. Lewis.
Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine, From age to age unnumbered treasures shine! Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey, And place and time are subject to thy sway; Thy pleasures most we feel, when most alone; The only pleasures we can call our own.
Rogers.
MERCY.
THE quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth as the gentle dew from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesses him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mighty; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
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Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
That in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
Shakspere.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful;
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
The greatest attribute of heaven is mercy,
And 'tis the crown of justice, and the glory,
Where it may kill with right, to save with pity.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
He's a bad surgeon, that, for pity, spares
The part corrupted, till the gangrene spread,
And all the body perish; he that's merciful
Unto the bad, is cruel to the just.
O Mercy, heavenly bond, sweet attribute!
Thou great, thou best prerogative of power!
Justice may guard the throne, but join'd to thee,
On rocks of adamant it stands secure,
And braves the storms beneath; soon as thy smiles
Gild the rough deep, the foaming waves subside,
And all the noisy tumult sinks to peace.
William Somerville.
Hate shuts her soul when dove-eyed Mercy pleads.
Charles Sprague.
Heaven oft in mercy smites, even when the blow
Severest is.
Joanna Baillie.
MERIT.
Let none presume
"WHO chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves."
And well said too; for who shall go about
To cozen fortune, and be honourable
Without the stamp of merit?
To wear an undeserved dignity.
O, that estates, degrees, and offices,
Were not derived corruptly! and that clear honour
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!
How many then should cover, that stand bare!
How many be commanded, that command!
Shakspere.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Pope.
Let high birth triumph! What can be more great? Nothing-but merit in a low estate. Young.
MERRIMENT-MIRTH.
WHICH, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
Made my eyes water, but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
Lively and gossiping,
Stored with the treasures of the tattling world,
And with a spice of mirth, too.
But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch-so full of mirth,
The overflowing of an innocent heart;-
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody.
Rogers.
It is like mockery of the silent night
To choose her hours for merriment, but thus
We struggle with the natural laws, and make
Our life a strange disorder.
METAPHYSIC. METEOR. MIGHT.
METAPHYSIC.
THE mathematics, and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.
Shakspere.
The Metaphysic's but a puppet motion
That goes with screws, the notion of a notion;
The copy of a copy, and lame draught
Unnaturally taken from a thought:
That counterfeits all pantomimic tricks,
And turns the eyes like an old crucifix;
That counterchanges whatsoe'er it calls
B' another name, and makes it true or false;
Turns truth to falsehood, falsehood into truth,
By virtue of the Babylonian's tooth.
O, poet! thou had'st been discreeter,
Hanging the monarch's hat so high,
METEOR.
THEN flaming meteors, hung in air, were scen,
And thunders rattled through a sky serene.-Dryden.
Gone-like a meteor, that o'erhead
Suddenly shines, and ere we've said
"Look! look, how beautiful!"-'tis fled!
If thou had'st dubbed thy star a meteor,
Which did but blaze, and rove, and die. Prior.
Wherefore should not strength and might
There fail, where virtue fails?
MIGHT.
WHAT SO strong
But wanting rest will also want of might?-Spenser.
Quoth she, great grief will not be told,
And can more easily be thought than said; Right so, quoth he, but he that never would Could never: will to might gives greatest aid.
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