So from Lahai-roi's Well some spicie cloud, H. VAUGHAN, Silex Scintillans. Evening after a Storm. Shepherd. AFORE sunset, heaven and earth, like lovers after a quarrel, lay embraced in each other's smile!-The lambs began their races on the lea, and the thrush o' Ettrive (there is but a single pair in the vale aboon the kirk) awoke his hymn in the hill silence. It was mair like a mornin than an evenin twilight," and a' the day's hurly-burly had passed awa into the uncertainty o' a last week's dream. Mid-day. Noctes Ambrosianæ. Shepherd. I'm wrapped up in my plaid, and lying a' my length on a bit green platform, fit for the fairies' feet, wi' a craig hangin over me a thousand feet high, yet bright and balmy a' the way up wi' flowers, and briars, and broom, and birks, and mosses, maist beautifu' to behold wi' half-shut ee, and through aneath ane's arm guardin the face frae the cloudless sunshine. North. A rivulet leaping from the rock Shepherd. No, Mr. North, no loupin, for it seems as if it were Nature's ain Sabbath, and the verra waters were at rest. Look down upon the vale profound, and the stream is without motion! No doubt, if you were walking along the bank, it would be murmuring with your feet. But here-here up amang the hills, we can imagine it asleep, even like the well within reach of my staff. North. Tickler, pray make less noise if you can în drinking, and also in putting down your tumbler. You break in upon the repose of James's picture. Shepherd. Perhaps a bit bonny butterfly is resting, * wi' What more felicity can fall to creature, SPENCER. faulded wings, on a gowan, no a yard frae your cheek, and noo, waukening out o' a simmer dream, floats awa in its wavering beauty, but as if unwilling to leave its place of mid-day sleep, comin back and back, and roun' and roun', on this side and that side, settling, in its capricious happiness, to fasten again on some brighter floweret, till the same breath o' wund that lifts up your hair sae refreshingly catches the airy voyager, and wafts her away into some other nook of her ephemeral paradise. Gin a pile o' grass straughtens itself in silence you hear it distinctly. I'm thinken that was the noise o' a beetle gaun to pay a visit to a freen on the ither side o' that mossy stane. The melting dew quakes! Ah, sing awa, my bonnie bee, maist industrious o' God's creatures! Dear me, the heat is o'er muckle for him, and he burrows himself in amang a tuft o' grass, like a beetle panting! and now invisible a' but the yellow doup o' him. I too feel drowsy, and will go to sleep amang the mountain solitude. THE LOVER'S DAY-BREAK. Noctes Ambrosianæ. THE lark now leaves his wat'ry nest And, to implore your light, he sings- Who look for day before his mistress.wakes. EYES. SIR W. DAVENANT, He answer'd, bending to her open eyes, KEATS. Lamia. A VAIL obscured the sunshine of her eyes, FAIRFAX' Tasso. Jerusalem. Book II. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, FROM A GREEK EPIGRAM. WHILE on the cliff, with calm delight she kneels GOOD WISHES. A GARLAND for the hero's crest, What can I wish but faithful knight ? What can I wish but lady true? To thee, dear schoolboy, whom my lay And pleasing dreams and slumbers light. Marmion-Conclusion. WILL AND DEED. GOD takes men's hearty desires and will, instead of the deed, where they have not the power to fulfil it; but he never took the bare deed instead of the will. BAXTER. DOMESTIC PEACE. IN a cottag'd vale she dwells And, conscious of the past employ, COLERIDGE. Northumberland. ANGER AND PASSION. STAY, my lord, And let your reason with your choler question Henry VIII., Act 1. TAKE heed lest passion sway, Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will GIVE me that man Paradise Lost. That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In Hamlet, Act II. PEOPLE have a custom of excusing the enormities of their conduct by talking of their passions, and as if they were under the control of a blind necessity, and sinned because they could not help it.* CUMBERLAND. PASSION is the great mover and spring of the soul. When men's passions are strongest, they may have great and noble effects; but they are then also apt to fall into the greatest miscarriages. SPRAT. THERE is going on in the human heart a perpetual generation of passions, so that the overthrow of one is almost always the establishment of another. ROCHEFOUCAULD. Weakness is thy excuse, And I believe it: weakness to resist Samson Agonistes. CONSIDER how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved. 'Tis madness to take offence at things, ANTONINUS. Ibid., from Euripides. GOVERNMENT OF PASSION. WHEN circumstances discompose and ruffle thee against thy will, recover thyself quickly, and be not out of tune longer than whilst thou art not able to help it; for by the habit of recovering thy temper, thou wilt become more and more master of it. ANTONINUS. Is the fault another's? then let it rest there.* Ibid. HE conquers twice, who upon victory overcomes himself. * Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side. ROCHEFOUCAULD. + The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave, GRAY. Elegy. |