BEAUTY UNADORNED. A NATIVE grace Sat fair-proportion'd on her polish'd limbs, And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild; The sweet Lavinia. THOMSON. Seasons.-Autumn. SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways, A maid whom there were none to praise, A violet by a mossy stone, Half-hidden from the eye! Fair as a star when only one She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be: But she is in her grave, and oh, The difference to me! GIVE me a look, give me a face, WORDSWORTH. That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free, They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. I WISH her beauty, BEN JONSON. The Silent Woman. That owes not all its duty To gaudy tire, or glist'ring shoe-tie : Something more than Taffita or tissue can, Or rampant feather, or rich fan. A face that's best By its own beauty drest, And can alone command the rest. A face made up Out of no other shop Than what Nature's white hand sets ope. R. CRASHAW. RUMOUR. Bastard. BUT, as I travell'd hither through the land, Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams; Hubert. Old men and beldams in the streets Do prophesy upon it dangerously; Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths; And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist; With open mouth, swallowing a tailor's news; † Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death. King John, Act. IV. Beauty truly blent, whose red and white, To deck the female cheek He only knows, Twelfth Night. YOUNG. Satire V. + The flying rumours gather'd as they roll'd; Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues. That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.* Henry IV., Second Part. RUMOUR doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the fear'd. Henry IV., Second Part, Act III. FAME. FAME, if not double faced, is double mouth'd, Samson Agonistes. COMMON Fame is the only liar that deserveth to have some respect still reserved to it; though she telleth many an untruth, she often hits right, and most especially when she speaketh ill of men. SAVILLE. Gibbon observes of the spread of Rumours, that the rumour is mentioned by Tacitus with a very becoming distrust and hesitation; whilst it is greedily transcribed by Suetonius, and solemnly confirmed by Dion.-Decline and Fall, note, chap. xvi. SPRING. THE blasts of Autumn drive the winged seeds O Spring! of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness, SHELLEY. The Revolt of Islam, Canto IX. SWEET Spring; thou com'st with all thy goodly train, Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow'rs, The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain, The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show'rs. Sweet Spring, thou com'st-but, ah! my pleasant hours, And happy days, with thee come not again ; The sad memorials only of my pain Do with thee come, which turn my sweets to sours. Delicious, lusty, amiable, fair; But she whose breath embalm'd thy wholesome air, Neglected virtue, seasons go and come, DRUMMOND. Sonnet. ROGET, droop not; see the Spring And the birds on every tree Hark how yonder throstle chants it, And her mate as proudly vaunts it ; See how every stream is drest For such brooks such flowers she had. As they would invite a lover, Had not felt the quickening good BROWNE. A SPRING DAY. As gentle western blasts with downy wings Hatching the tender springs, To th' unborn buds with vital whispers say,* Ye living buds why do ye stay? The passionate buds break through the bark their way. COWLEY. Ode, Plagues of Egypt. SUDDEN CHANGE AFTER COLD BACKWARD WEATHER. THE very instant that that week or fortnicht o' a' things observable to ee or mind's ee stannin still is ower, and the west wund again begins to waver awa the cluds into shapes like wee bit shielins and huts, and shiftin' aiblins at sunset to anither airt-say the south,-bigs them up roun' and aboon his disk, into Until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow SHELLEY. Ode to the West Wind. |