Various - Familiar Quotations
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* * * * *
_Winter_. Line 393.
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.
* * * * *
_Hymn_. Line 25.
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade.
Line 114.
From seeming evil still educing good.
Line 118.
Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise.
* * * * *
_Castle of Indolence_. Canto i. St. 69.
A little round, fat, oily man of God.
* * * * *
_Alfred_. Act ii. Sc. 5.
Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves;
Britons never will be slaves.
* * * * *
_Song, "Forever, Fortune."_
Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love;
And, when we meet a mutual heart,
Step rudely in, and bid us part?
* * * * *
_Sophonisba_. Act iii. Sc. 2.
O Sophonisba! Sophonisba, O![18]
[Note 18: This line was altered, after the second edition, to "O
Sophonisba! I am wholly thine."]
* * * * *
JOHN DYER.
1700-1758.
_Grongar Hill_. Line 163.
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view.
Line 123.
As yon summits soft and fair,
Clad in colors of the air,
Which to those who journey near
Barren, brown, and rough appear.
* * * * *
PHILIP DODDRIDGE.
1702-1751.
_Epigram on his Family Arms_.
Live while you live, the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day;
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my views let both united be;
I live in pleasure, when I live to thee.
* * * * *
ROBERT DODSLEY
1703-1764.
_The Parting Kiss_.
One kind kiss before we part,
Drop a tear and bid adieu;
Though we sever, my fond heart
Till we meet shall pant for you.
* * * * *
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
1709-1784.
_Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre_.
Each exchange of many-colored life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new,
And panting time toiled after him in vain.
* * * * *
For we that live to please must please to live.
* * * * *
_Vanity of Human Wishes_.
Line 1.
Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind, from China to Peru.[19]
[Note 19: The Universal Love of Pleasure, line 1: "All human race,
from China to Peru, Pleasure, however disguised by art, pursue." _Rev.
Thos. Warton_.]
Line 159.
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail--
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Line 221.
He left the name, at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Line 257.
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.
Line 306.
Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.
Line 318.
And Swift expires, a driveller and a show.
Line 346.
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate.
_London_. Line 166.
Of all the griefs that harass the distressed,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
Line 176.
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed,
Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
* * * * *
_Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller_.
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
* * * * *
_Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village_.
Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.
* * * * *
_From Dr. Madden's_ "_Boulter's Monument_."
_Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson_. 1745.
Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.
_Basselas_. Chapter i.
Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers
of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms
of hope; who expect that age will perform
the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies
of the present day will be supplied by
the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas,
Prince of Abyssinia.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on Robert Levett_.
In Misery's darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan,
And lonely Want retired to die.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on Claudius Phillips, the Musician_.
Phillips, whose touch harmonious could remove
The pangs of guilty power or hapless love;
Rest here, distressed by poverty no more,
Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
Sleep, undisturbed, within this peaceful shrine,
Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
* * * * *
LORD LYTTELTON
1709-1773.
_Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus_.
For his chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line, which dying he could wish to blot.
_Epigram_.
None without hope e'er loved the brightest fair,
But love can hope where reason would despair.
* * * * *
_Soliloquy on a Beauty in the Country_.
Where none admire, 'tis useless to excel;
Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle.
* * * * *
_Song_.
Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can ne'er a transport know,
That never feels a pain.
* * * * *
EDWARD MOORE.
1712-1757.
_Fable IX. The Farmer, the Spaniel, and the Cat_.
Can't I another's face commend,
And to her virtues be a friend,
But instantly your forehead lowers,
As if _her_ merit lessened _yours_?
_Fable X. The Spider and the Bee_.
The maid who modestly conceals
Her beauties, while she hides, reveals;
Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws
Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.
* * * * *
But from the hoop's bewitching round,
Her very shoe has power to wound.
* * * * *
_The Happy Marriage_.
Time still, as he flies, adds increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
* * * * *
_The Gamester_. Act iii. Sc. 4.
'Tis now the summer of your youth: time
has not cropt the roses from your cheek,
though sorrow long has washed them.
* * * * *
WILLIAM SHENSTONE.
1714-1763.
_Written on the Window of an Inn_.
Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
His warmest welcome at an inn.
_Jemmy Dawson_.
For seldom shall you hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.
* * * * *
_The Schoolmistress_.
Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblems right meet of decency does yield.
* * * * *
JOHN BROWN.
1715-1766.
_Barbarossa_. Act. v. Sc. 3.
Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced
That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
Serves but to brighten all our future days.
* * * * *
DAVID GARRICK.
1716-1779.
_Prologue on Quitting the Stage in 1776, 10th of June_.
Their cause I plead--plead it in heart and mind;
A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.
_On the Death of Mr. Pelham_.
Let others hail the rising sun:
I bow to that whose race is run.
* * * * *
THOMAS GRAY.
1716-1771.
_On a Distant Prospect of Eton College_.
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain!
* * * * *
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day.
* * * * *
No more: where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
* * * * *
_Progress of Poesy_.
O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love.
* * * * *
Ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
* * * * *
_The Bard_.
Give ample room, and verge enough.
* * * * *
Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm.
* * * * *
_Elegy in a Country Churchyard_.
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
* * * * *
The short and simple annals of the poor.
* * * * *
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
* * * * *
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
* * * * *
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
* * * * *
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
* * * * *
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.
And read their history in a nation's eyes.
* * * * *
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.
* * * * *
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
* * * * *
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
* * * * *
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
* * * * *
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind.
* * * * *
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes, live their wonted fires.
* * * * *
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown.
* * * * *
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere.
* * * * *
He gave to misery (all he had) a tear.
* * * * *
The bosom of his Father and his God.
_Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude_.
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.
* * * * *
WILLIAM COLLINS.
1720-1756.
_Ode in 1746_.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blessed!
* * * * *
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
* * * * *
_The Passions_. Line 1.
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung.
Line 10.
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired.
Line 28.
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
Line 60.
In notes by distance made more sweet.
Line 68.
In hollow murmurs died away.
Line 95.
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid!
* * * * *
_Eclogue_ 1. Line 5.
Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell;
'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.
* * * * *
_Ode on the Death of Thomson_.
In yonder grave a Druid lies.
* * * * *
MARK AKENSIDE.
1721-1770.
_Epistle to Curio_.
The man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown's disguise.
* * * * *
NATHANIEL COTTON.
1721-1788.
_The Fireside_. St. 3.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies;
And they are fools who roam:
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut--our home.
St. 13.
Thus hand in hand through life we'll go;
Its checkered paths of joy and woe
With cautious steps we'll tread.
* * * * *
JOHN HOME.
1722-1808.
_Douglas_. Act i. Sc. 1.
In the first days
Of my distracting grief, I found myself
As women wish to be who love their lords.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father fed his flocks.
* * * * *
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
1728-1774.
THE TRAVELLER.
Line 1.
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
Line 7.
Where er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee.
Line 22.
And learn the luxury of doing good.
Line 26.
Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view.
Line 77.
Such is the patriot's boast, where er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.
Line 153.
By sports like these are all his cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child.
Line 172.
But winter lingering chills the lap of May.
Line 217.
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar.
But bind him to his native mountains more.
Line 251.
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore.
Line 327.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by.
Line 372.
For just experience tells, in every soil,
That those that think must govern those that toil.
Line 386.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Line 409.
Forced from their homes, a melancholy train.
* * * * *
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
Line 14.
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
Line 51.
Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay,
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Line 62.
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
Line 100.
A youth of labor with an age of ease.
Line 110.
While resignation gently slopes the way--
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past!
Line 122.
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
Line 141.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
Line 158.
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.
Line 161.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Line 164.
And even his failings leaned to virtue's side.
Line 170.
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Line 180.
And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.
Line 184.
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
Line 192.
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
Line 196.
The village master taught his little school.
Line 203.
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
Line 212.
For even though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.
Line 229.
Contrived a double debt to pay.
Line 254.
One native charm than all the gloss of art.
Line 264.
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.
Line 329.
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
Line 385.
O Luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree.
* * * * *
RETALIATION.
Line 24.
Who mixed reason with pleasure and wisdom with mirth.
Line 31.
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Line 37.
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit.
Line 94.
An abridgement of all that was pleasant in man.
* * * * *
VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
Chapter viii. _The Hermit_.
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.
* * * * *
Chapter xvii. _Elegy on a Mad Dog_.
The roan recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
* * * * *
Chapter xxiv.
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is--to die.
_Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaise_.
The king himself has followed her
When she has walked before.
* * * * *
TOBIAS SMOLLETT.
1721-1771.
_Ode to Independence_.
Thy spirit, Independence, let me share;
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
* * * * *
THOMAS PERCY.
1728-1811.
_Reliques of English Poetry. The Baffled Knight_.
He that wold not when he might,
He shall not when he wolda.
* * * * *
_The Friar of Orders Gray_.
Weep no more, lady, weep no more,
Thy sorrow is in vain;
For violets plucked the sweetest showers
Will ne'er make grow again.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot on sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
_From Byrd's Psalmes, Sonets, &c_. 1588.
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find,
As far exceeds all earthly bliss
That God and Nature hath assigned.
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
* * * * *
BEILBY PORTEUS.
1731-1808.
_Death, a Poem_. Line 154.
One murder makes a villain,
Millions a hero.
* * * * *
JAMES BEATTIE.
1735-1766.
_The Minstrel_. Book i. St. 1.
Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?
* * * * *
_The Hermit_. Line 8.
He thought as a sage, but he felt as a man.
* * * * *
_Epigram_. _The Bucks had dined_.
How hard their lot who neither won nor lost.
CHARLES CHURCHILL.
1741-1764.
_The Rosciad_. Line 861.
But spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel--must feel themselves.
* * * * *
MRS. THEALE.
1740-1822.
_Three Warnings_.
The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
'Twas therefore said, by ancient sages,
That love of life increased with years
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.
* * * * *
WILLIAM COWPER.
1731-1800.
THE TASK.
Book i. _The Sofa_.
God made the county, and man made the town.[20]
[Note 20: "God the first garden made, and the first city Cain."--Cowley]
Book ii. _The Timepiece_.
O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never roach me more.
* * * * *
Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
* * * * *
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.
* * * * *
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
* * * * *
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.
* * * * *
Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavor.
* * * * *
Book iii. _The Garden_.
Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that hast survived the fall!
How various his employments whom the world
jails idle; and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!
* * * * *
Book iv. _Winter Evening_.
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
* * * * *
'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
* * * * *
Book v. _Winter Morn in a Walk_.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
* * * * *
Book vi. _Winter Walk at Noon_.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
* * * * *
Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
_Tirocinium_.
Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a lustre, he that runs may read.
* * * * *
_Retirement_.
Built God a church, and laughed His word to scorn.
* * * * *
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
* * * * *
_Conversation_.
A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
* * * * *
_John Gilpin_.
That, though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
* * * * *
To dash through thick and thin.
* * * * *
A hat not much the worse for wear
* * * * *
_Lines to his Mother's Picture_.
O that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
_Walking with God_.
What peaceful hours I once enjoyed?
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.
* * * * *
VERSES,
_Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk_.
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.
* * * * *
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
* * * * *
But the sound of the church-going bell
Those valleys and rocks never heard,
Never sighed at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.
* * * * *
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged arrows of light.
* * * * *
W. J. MICKLE.
1734-1788.
_The Mariner's Wife_.
His very foot has music in 't
As he comes up the stairs.
JOHN LANGHORNE.
1735-1779.
_The Country Justice_.
Part i
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew;
The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptized in tears.
* * * * *
DR. WALCOTT.
1738-1819.
_Peter Pindar's Expostulatory Odes to a great Duke
and a little Lord_. _Ode XV_.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
* * * * *
MRS. BARBAULD.
1743-1825.
_Warrington Academy_.
Man is the noblest growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.
* * * * *
SIR WILLIAM JONES.
1746-1794.
_A Persian Song of Hafiz_.
Go boldly forth, my simple lay,
Whose accents flow with artless ease,
Like orient pearls at random strung.
* * * * *
_Ode in Imitation of Alcoeus_.
What constitutes a state?
* * * * *
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain.
* * * * *
And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
* * * * *
Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.[21]
[Note 21: "Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six, Four spend
in prayer, the rest on nature fix."--_Sir Edward Coke_.]
* * * * *
CAPTAIN CHARLES MORRIS.
--1832.
_Billy Pitt and the Farmer_.
Solid men of Boston, make no long orations;
Solid men of Boston, drink no deep potations.
* * * * *
JOHN TRUMBULL.
1750-1881.
_McFingal_. Canto i. Line 67.
But optics sharp it needs, I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.
Canto iii. Line 489.
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