towers and temples and cathedrals-Then, I say, a' at ance, the trees unfauld themselves like a banner, -or as you micht suddenly unfauld that fan-the yearth, that has been lookin' greyish and gloomyish, wi' a' the roots o' garse like mouse's nests, puts on without warnin' her green cymar, like a fairy bride gaun to be married. WILSON. Noctes Ambrosianæ. CHANGE TO COLD. THE seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II. TEARS. WHAT precious drops are these, Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew? DRYDEN. HER eye did seem to labour with a tear, SHIRLEY. The Brothers. So cheer'd he his fair spouse, and she was cheer'd; From either eye, and wiped them with her hair; Paradise Lost, Book V. BUT now, with head declined, Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps. How many a holy and obsequious tear Samson Agonistes. Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye, As interest of the dead. ANARCHY. SHAKSPEARE. Sonnet. AND vast confusion waits (As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast). King John, Act III. Mustapha, Captain of the Rabble. For what should a poor man do, that gets his living by hard labour, but pray for bad times when he may get it easily. Oh! for some incomparable tumult! Then should I naturally wish that the beaten party might prevail, because we have plundered the other side already, and there's nothing more to be got of them. * Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown MILTON. Comus. Then die! that she, The common fate of all things rare, May read in thee, How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair !* WALLER. A ROSE-BUD. A ROSE-BUD by my early walk, Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, It scents the early morning. BURNS. TASTE. TASTE and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure; and it infinitely abates the evils of vice. BURKE. TRUE Taste is an excellent Economist; she confines her choice to a few objects, and delights in producing great effects by small means; while False Taste is for ever sighing after the new and the rare, and reminds us in her works of the scholar of Apelles, who, not being able to paint his Helen beautiful, determined to make her fine. S. ROGERS. I BELIEVE it is no wrong observation, that persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of * The following stanza is added by H. Kirke White : Yet though thou fade, From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise And teach the maid That goodness Time's rude hand defies, T at Virtue lives when Beauty dies. nature; as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. On the contrary, people of the common level of understanding are principally delighted with the little niceties of fantastical operations of art, and constantly think that finest which is least natural. A citizen in no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. · POPE. WHEN they had passed all those troubled ways, And that which Beauty most, most wonder brought, SIMILAR TASTES. BUT thou and I are one in kind, As moulded like in Nature's mint; For us the same cold streamlet curl'd TENNYSON. In Memoriam.. GREECE. STRANGE-that where nature loved to trace, And every charm and grace hath mix'd Within the paradise she fix'd, There man, enamour'd of distress, Should mar it into wilderness, And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower And that which all faire works doth most aggrace, He who hath bent him o'er the dead The last of danger and distress, Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,) And mark'd the mild angelic air, The rapture of repose that's there, The fix'd yet tender traits that streak That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon; That parts not quite with parting breath; But beauty with that fearful bloom, That hue which haunts it to the tomb, A gilded halo hovering round decay, The farewell beam of Feeling past away! Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth. BYRON. The Giaour. |