COMMEND. COMMENT.

COMMEND.

To thee I do commend my watchful soul
Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes:
Sleeping or waking, O defend me still!

189

Shakspere.

Who is Sylvia? What is she
That all the swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise, is she.

Shakspere.

Each finding, like a friend,

Something to blame, and something to commend.

Pope.

He loved my worthless rhymes, and, like a friend, Would find out something to commend.

Cowley.

COMMENT.

IN such a time as this it is not meet

That every nice offence shall bear its comment.

Enter his chamber, view his lifeless corpse,
And comment then upon his sudden death.

The honour's overpaid

Shakspere.

Shakspere.

When he that did the act is commentator.Shirley.

Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,
And comments on thee; for in every thing

Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,
And in another make me understood.

Still with itself compared, his text peruse;

Herbert.

And let your comment be the Mantuan muse.-Pope.

Commentators each dark passage shun,

And hold their farthing rushlight to the sun.-Pope.

His very name a title-page, and next
His life a commentary on the text.

Woodbridge.

COMMON-COMMONWEALTH.

OR as the man whom princes do advance,
Upon their gracious mercy-seat to sit,
Doth common things of course and circumstance,
To the reports of common men commit.

Davies.

The gods of greater nations dwell around,
And, on the right and left, the palace bound;
The commons where they can; the nobler sort,
With winding doors wide open, front the court.

Dryden.

This commoner has worth and parts,
Is praised for arms, or loved for arts;
His head aches for a coronet,
And who is blest that is not great?

Prior.

The doctor now obeyed the summons,
Likes both his company and commons;
Displays his talents; sits till ten;
Next day invited comes again.

We will record the times of truth and justice,
Condensing in a fair free commonwealth,
Not rash equality, but equal rights,

Proportioned like the columns of the temple,

Giving and taking strength reciprocal,

Swift.

And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,

So that no part could be removed without

Infringement of the general symmetry.

Common is the vital air,

Common is the azure sky,
Common flowers are every where,
Common stars shine out on high:
Music of the forest bird,

Cometh without stint or measure,
Friendly smile and loving word,
Common are as earthly pleasure;
Why from common things then turn,
And for the uncommon yearn?

Byron.

Anon.

COMMUNE.

COMPANY.

191

COMMUNE-COMMUNION.

I WILL commune with you of such things
As want no ears but yours.

He was but, as the cuckoo is in June,

Shakspere.

Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes,
As seek, and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze.

Thou so pleased,

Shakspere.

Canst raise thy creatures to what height thou wilt
Of union, or communion, deified.

Milton.

Nor let thine own inventions hope
Things not revealed, which th' invisible king,
Only omniscient, hath suppressed in night
To none communicable in earth or heaven.

My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are; even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

COMPANY.

HONEST Company

I thank you all, That have beheld me give myself away

Milton.

Byron.

To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.

I do desire thee

To bear me company, and go with me.

You are welcome hither.

In company you wish to be commended;
But, when we are alone, I shall be ready
To be your servant.

Shakspere.

Shakspere.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

Thus through what path soe'er we rove,
Rage 'companies our hate, and grief our love.

Prior.

With anxious doubts, with raging passions torn,
No sweet companion near with whom to mourn.

Prior.

COMPASS-COMPASSES.

THIS day I breathed first; time is not come round;
And where I did begin, there shall I end;
My life is run its compass.

Shakspere.

To enjoy a man from whose example,
As from a compass, we may steer our fortunes,
Our actions, and our age, and safe arrive at
A memory that shall become our ashes,
Such things are few and far to seek.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

In his hand

He took the golden compasses prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things.

Rude as their ships was navigation then,
No useful compass or meridian known;
Coasting, they kept the land within their ken.

Milton.

Dryden.

In every work regard the writer's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend.

Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion;
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;
The soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans and harkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th' other foot obliquely run:

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

Pope.

And makes me end where I begun.-Donne.

COMPASSION.

COMPETENCY.

193

COMPASSION.

O, HEAVENS! can you hear a good man groan,
And not relent, or not compassion him?-Shakspere.

Their angry hands

My brothers hold, and vengeance these exact;
This pleads compassion, and repents the fact.

Compassionates my pains, and pities me!
What is compassion, when 't is void of love?

Dryden.

Addison.

Compassion proper to mankind appears,
Which nature witnessed when she lent us tears;
Of tender sentiments we only give

These proofs: to weep is our prerogative;
To shew by pitying looks and melting eyes,
How with a suffering friend we sympathize.
Who can all sense of others' ills escape,
Is but a brute at best in human shape.

Tate, from Juvenal.

COMPETENCY.

FOR competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil.

1. You have a great estate.

2.-A competency

Shakspere.

Sufficient to maintain me and my rank;
Nor am I, I thank heaven, so courtly bred
As to employ the utmost of my rents
In paying tailors for fantastic robes;
Or, rather than be second in the fashion,
Eat out my officers and my revenues
With grating usury; my back shall not be
The base on which your soothing citizen
Erects his summer houses; nor on th' other side
Will I be so penuriously wise,

As to make money (that's my slave) my idol;
Which yet to wrong, merits as much reproof
As to abuse our servant. Beaumont and Fletcher.