224

CURE.

CURIOSITY.

CURE.

WHILE in the dark on thy soft hand I hung,
And heard the tempting syren in thy tongue,
What flames, what darts, what anquish I endured!
But when the candle enter'd, I was cured.

From Martial.

Repair thy wit good youth, or it will fall
To cureless ruin.

For love of heaven with patience undergo
A cureless ill, since fate will have it so.

Shakspere.

Dryden.

Hear what some love unpractised hearts endure

From love, the sole desire thou can'st not cure.

Diseases of their own accord,

But cures, come difficult and hard.

Pope.

Butler.

But man who knows no good unmixed and pure,
Oft finds a poison where he sought a cure.-Crabbe.

CURIOSITY.

EVEN then to them the spirit of lies suggests
That they were blind because they saw no ill;
And breathed into their uncorrupted breasts,
A curious wish which did corrupt their will.

Davies.

A veil obscured the sunshine of her eyes,
The rose within herself her sweetness closed;
Each ornament about her seemly lies
By curious chance or careless art composed.
Fairfax, from Tasso.

The over curious are not overwise.

I loathe that low vice curiosity.

The curious, questioning eye,

That plucks the heart of every mystery.

Massinger.

Byron.

Grenville Mellen.

A PLAGUE upon them! wherefore should I curse them?
Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
I would invent as bitter searching terms,
As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Delivered strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave.
My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,
Mine hair be fixed on end like one distract-
Ay, ev'ry joint should seem to curse and ban,
And even now my burdened heart would break,
Should I not curse them.

A curse is like a cloud, it passes.

Cursed be the social wants

Shakspere.

That sin against the strength of youth; Cursed be the social lies

That warp us from the living truth!
Cursed be the sickly forms

That err from honest nature's rule;
And cursed be the gold that gilds
The straightened forehead of a fool.

Byron.

Tennyson.

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!
In holy anger and pious grief,

He solemnly cursed that rascally thief;

He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed, From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; He cursed him eating, he cursed him drinking, He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking; He cursed him sitting, in standing, in lying! He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying, He cursed him living, he cursed him dying! Never was heard such a terrible curse:

But, what gave rise

To no little surprise,

Nobody seemed one penny the worse! R. Barham.

૨

THOU, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound; wherefore should I
Stand to the plague of custom.

'Tis base,

And argues a low spirit, to be taught
By custom, and to let the vulgar grow
To our example.

Shakspere.

Mead.

Custom in ills that do affect the sense,

Make reason useless when it should direct

The ills reforming: men habituate

In any evil, 't is their greatest curse:

Advice doth seldom mend, but makes them worse.

Nabb.

Custom in course of honour ever errs,

And they are best whom fortune least prefers.

Jonson.

For custom will a strong impression_leave:
Hard bodies which the lightest stroke receive,
In length of time will moulder and decay,
And stones with drops of rain are washed away.

Dryden.

Custom does often reason overrule,
And only serves for reason to the fool. Rochester.

Custom forms us all;

Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed belief,
Are consequences of our place of birth.—Aaron Hill.

Custom's the world's great idol we adore,

And, knowing this, we seek to know no more.
What education did at first conceive,
Our ripened eye confirms us to believe.

Custom that does still dispense

An universal influence;

Pomfret.

And makes things right or wrong appear,
Just as they do her liv'ry wear.

Butler.

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet, To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Byron.

DANGER.

WE'VE Scotched the snake, not killed it,

She'll close and be herself; while our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth.

Shakspere.

The absent danger greater still appears;

And less he fears, who's near the thing he fears.

Aleyn.

Our dangers and delights are near allies;
From the same stem the rose and prickle rise.

Daniel.

Danger, whose limbs of giant mould,
What mortal eye can fixed behold?
Who stalks his round, a hideous form,
Howling amid the midnight storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep.

Collins.

228

DARE. DARK.

DARE-DARING.

PR'YTHEE peace:

I dare do all that doth become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

The father bore it with undaunted soul,
Like one who durst his destiny controul.

Shakspere.

Dryden.

Presumptuous wretch! with mortal wit to dare
Immortal power, and brave the thunderer.

Granville.

All cold, but in her breast, I will despise:
And dare all heat, but that in Celia's eyes.

Roscommon.

DARK-DARKNESS.

Ir is as if a night should shade_noon-day,
Or that the sun was here, but forced away;
And we were left, under that hemisphere,
Where we must feel it dark for half a year.
Ben Jonson.

Clouds and ever-during dark
Surround me! from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off.

Milton.

The age wherein he lived was dark; but he
Could not want sight, who taught the world to see.

While we converse with her, we mark
No want of day, nor think it dark.

Darkness! thou first great parent of us all!
Thou art our great original;

Since from thy universal womb

Denham.

Waller.

[come.

Does all thou shad'st below thy numerous offspring

Thy wondrous birth is ev'n to Time unknown,
Or like Eternity thou 'dst none;
Whilst light did its first being owe

Unto that awful shade it dares to rival now.

Yalden,