560

SCARS. SCEPTIC. SCHEME.

SCARS.

HE jests at scars, that never felt a wound.

Shakspere.

Shakspere.

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it.

Yet I'll not shed her blood,

Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.

The soft delicious air,

Shakspere.

To heal the scars of these corrosive fires,
Shall breathe her balm.

Milton.

SCEPTIC.

OH! lives there, heaven! beneath thy dread expanse, One hopeless, dark idolater of chance,

Content to feed with pleasures unrefined,

The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind;

Who mouldering earthward, 'reft of every trust,
In joyless union wedded to the dust,
Could all his parting energy dismiss,

And call this barren world sufficient bliss?

Ah me! the laurelled wreath that murder rears,
Blood-nursed, and watered by the widow's tears,
Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread,
As waves the night-shade round the sceptic head.
Campbell.

SCHEME.

THE greatest schemes that human wit can forge,
Or bold ambition dares to put in practice,
Depend upon our husbanding a moment,
And the light lasting of a woman's will;
As if the lord of nature should delight
To hang this ponderous globe upon a hair,
And bid it dance before a breath of wind.

Rowe.

TELL arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they lack profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming.

Sir W. Raleigh.
Beside yon straggling fence, that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was, and stern to view:
I knew him well, and every truant knew.
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd;
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was a fault.

Goldsmith.

In every village mark'd with little spire,
Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells in lowly shed, and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we school-mistress name;
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame,
They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent,
Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame;
And, oft-times, on vagaries idly bent,

For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.
Shenstone.
In a green lane that from the village street
Diverges, stands the school-house; long and low
The frame, and blacken'd with the hues of time.

Yet is the school-house rude,

As is the chrysalis to the butterfly,

To the rich flower the seed. The dusky walls
Hold the fair germ of knowledge, and the tree
Glorious in beauty, golden with its fruits,

To this low school-house traces back its life.-Street.

562

SCIENCE. SCORN.

SCIENCE.

THROUGH error's mazy grove, with fruitless toil,
Perplexed with puzzling doubts we roam;
False images our sight beguile;

And still we stumble through the gloom,
And science seek which still deludes the mind.
Yet we're enamoured of the race,

With disproportioned speed we urge the chase
In vain! the various prey no hounds restrain;
Fleeting it only leaves, t'increase our pain,

A cold unsatisfying scent behind. Elijah Fenton.

What cannot art and industry perform,
When science plans the progress of their toil.

Knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.

Beattie.

Byron.

SCORN.

DISDAIN and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes.

Imfamous wretch!

Shakspere.

So much below my scorn, I dare not kill thee!

He hears

On all sides, from innumerable tongues,

A dismal, universal hiss, the sound

Of public scorn.

Dryden.

Milton.

Thou may'st from law, but not from scorn escape;

The pointed finger, cold, averted eye,

Insulted virtue's hiss-thou canst not fly.

Charles Sprague.

Pardon me sir. The air of folly best Doth nourish in the cynic's keenest thoughts; Dwells he 'midst men of sense, his spirit dies, Having no food for his fierce scorn to live on. Barry Cornwall.

SCRIBBLE. SCULPTURE. SCURRILITY.

SCRIBBLE.

LEAVE flattery to fulsome dedicators,

563

Whom when they praise the world believes no more, Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er.

Pope.

Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame,
The cry is up, and scribblers are my game. Byron.

Hot, noisy, envious, proud, the scribbling fry
Burn, hiss, and bounce; waste paper, ink; and die.
Young.

SCULPTURE.

CHISEL in hand, stood a sculptor boy,
With his marble block before him,
And his face lit up with a smile of joy,
As an angel dream passed o'er him;
He carved the dream on that shapeless stone,
With many a sharp incision;

With Heaven's own light the sculpture shone;
He had caught the angel vision.

Sculptors of life are we, as we stand

With our souls uncarved before us;
Waiting the hour when, at God's command,
The life-dream passeth o'er us.

If we carve it then on the yielding stone,
With many a sharp incision,

Its heavenly beauty shall be our own,
Our lives that angel vision.

SCURRILITY,

You must not think that a satyric style
Allows of scandalous and brutish words;

The better sort abhor scurrility.

The license of the tongue-scurrility!

Doane.

Roscommon.

Bred of malicious thoughts within the heart,
And ripened into fruitage by the breath
Of hot contention.

Anon.

Disturbs the quiet of poor shallow waters;

But winds must arm themselves, ere the large sea Is seen to tremble.

Thou boundless, shining, glorious sea!
With ecstasy I gaze on thee;

And, as I gaze, thy billowy roll
Wakes the deep feelings of my soul!

Habbington.

From the German.

The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide region round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies. Barry Cornwall.

And thou majestic mighty main

Appear'st from changes so free,

That bards have styled thee in their strain
The everlasting sea.

Type of the Infinite! I look away Over thy billows, and I cannot stay

Barton.

My thought upon a resting-place, or make
A shore beyond my vision, where they break;
But on my spirit stretches, till it's pain
To think; then rests, and then puts forth again.
Thou hold'st me by a spell; and on thy beach
I feel all soul; and thoughts unmeasured reach
Far back beyond all date. And, O! how old
Thou art to me. For countless years thou hast rolled:
Before an ear did hear thee, thou didst mourn;
Prophet of sorrows, o'er a race unborn;
Waiting, thou mighty minister of death,

Lonely thy work, ere man had drawn his breath.
At last thou didst it well! The dread command
Came, and thou swept'st to death the breathing land;
And then once more, unto the silent heaven
Thy lone and melancholy voice was given.

Dana.