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LIBERTY-LIFE

When he had

A letter from his lady dear, he bless'd
The paper that her hand had travell'd o'er,
And her eyes look'd on; and would think he saw
Gleams of that light she lavish'd from her eyes,
Wandering amid the words of love there trac'd,
Like glow-worms amid buds of flowers.

Well, Mary, I've seen your nice billet,
It came unto me while at dinner;
My appetite was good-that did kill it,

BAILEY'S Festus

If it did not, then Satan 's no sinner!
I read it, perus'd it, and scann'd it—
I ponder'd, reflected, and thought
What could be the notion that plann'd it?
The conclusion arriv'd at- —was nought.

J. T. WATSON.

LIBERTY. (See FREEDOM.)

LIFE.

O, why do wretched men so much desire
To draw their days unto the utmost date,
And do not rather wish them soon expire,
Knowing the misery of their estate,

And thousand perils which them still await?

SPENSER'S Fairy Queen.

Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing

SHAKSPEARE.

LIFE.

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

Oh, how this spring of life resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day,

Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And, by and by, a cloud takes all away!

We are such stuff

As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

365

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

Since every man who lives is born to die,

And none can boast sincere felicity,

With equal mind what happens let us bear,
Nor joy, nor grieve for things beyond our care;
Like pilgrims, to th' appointed place we tend,
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

DRYDEN.

Who breathes, must suffer; and who thinks, must mourn; And he alone is blest, who ne'er was born.

There's not a day, but, to the man of thought,
Betrays some secret, that throws new reproach
On life, and makes him sick of seeing more.

PRIOR.

YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.

Oh, thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,
Too soon dejected, and too soon elate!

Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train,
Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain;
These, mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:
The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

POPE

POPE'S Essay on Man

Life can little more supply,

Than just to look about us and to die.

POPE'S Essay on Man

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing, anxious spirit e'er resign'd —
Left the warm precincts of the genial day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

Catch then, Oh catch the transient hour,
Improve each moment as it flies;
Life's a short summer- man a flower

He dies, alas! how soon he dies!

Our youthful summer oft we see
Dance by on wings of game and glee,
While the dark storm reserves its rage,
Against the winter of our age.

GRAY'S Elegy.

DR. JOHNSON.

SCOTT's Marmion.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
"Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

Well, well the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails;
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And, as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

Who with the weight of years would wish to bend
When youth itself survives young love and joy?
Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend,
Death has but little left him to destroy!

To give birth to those

BYRON'S Childe Harola

Who can but suffer many years, and die,
Methinks is merely propagating death
And multiplying murder.

BYRON' Cain

LIFE.

This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The Past, the Future-two eternities.

Life is a waste of wearisome hours,

MOORE

367

Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns,

And the heart, that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.

MOORE.

They may rail at this life — from the hour I began it,

I've found it a life full of kindness and bliss ; And, until they can show me some happier planet, More social and bright, I'll content me with this.

For what is life? At best a brief delight,
A sun, scarce bright'ning ere it sinks in night;
A flower, at morning fresh, at noon decay'd;
A still, swift river, gliding into shade.

MOORE.

From the Spanish.

And 't were as vain a thing,
To ask of Nature one perpetual spring,
As to evade those sad autumnal hours,
Or deem thy path of life shall bloom, all flowers.

MRS. NORTON's Dreum.

We live in deeds, not years - in thoughts, not breaths
In feelings, not in figures on a dial;—
We should count time by heart-throbs.
Who thinks most - feels the noblest

Slow pass our days in childhood

He most lives, acts the best.

BAILEY'S Festus.

every day Seems like a century; rapidly they glide In manhood; and in life's decline they fly.

Fleeting as were the dreams of old,
Remember'd like a tale that's told,
We pass away.

W. C. BRYANI

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

From the dull bondage of this suffering clay,
When every joy, that charm'd it once, must be
A hated thing from which it turns away.

For life, at best,

Is as a passing shadow in the west,

W. C. LODGE.

Which still grows long and longer till the last,
When the sun sinks, and it from earth hath past.

LIPS. (See EYES.)

J. T. WATSON.

LOQUACITY.-(See CONVERSATION.)

LOVE.

True he it said, whatever man it said,

That love with gall and honey doth abound;
But if the one be with the other weigh'd,
For
every drachm of honey therein found
A pound of gall doth over it redound.

SPENSER'S Fairy Queen