Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,* Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, Angels of rain and lightning; these are spread On the blue surface of thy airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear! Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams Angel forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks Paradise Lost, Book I. Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, O wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? THE wind, A sightless labourer, whistles at his task. SHELLEY. WORDSWORTH. The Excursion. DONE the tales, to bed we creep, By whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep. L'Allegro. Now gentle gales, Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Of Araby the Blest; with such delay Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league, Paradise Lost. Book IV. LUXURIES. Ir is an old and good distinction that some things are made only for our use, and some things for enjoyment. The first we value only for their use, the second we account our happiness. SHERLOCK. On Death. Lear. O, REASON not the need; our basest beggars Are in the poorest thing superfluous: Allow not nature more than nature needs, wear'st, King Lear. BOASTING. BOASTING is but an art our fears to blind, BOLDNESS. POPE. Iliad, Book XXII. FEAR not, but be bold: A decent boldness ever meets with friends, CHASTITY. POPE. Odyssey, Book VII. 'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity: She that has that, is clad in complete steel; Yea, there where every desolation dwells, Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow, And spotted mountain-pard, but set at naught The frivolous bolt of Cupid; gods and men Fear'd her stern frown, and she was queen o' the woods. What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield, That wise Minerva wore, unconquer'd virgin, Wherewith she freezed her foes to congeal'd stone, But rigid looks of chaste austerity, And noble grace that dash'd brute violence With sudden adoration and blank awe? And turn it by degrees to the soul's essence, Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp, Second Brother. How charming is divine philosophy! But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns. MILTON. Comus. Isabella. AUTHORITY. OH! 'tis excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. There is not, in my opinion, a consideration more effectual to extinguish inordinate desires in the soul of man, than the notions of Plato and his followers upon that subject. They tell us that every passion which has been contracted by the soul during her residence in the body, remains with her in a separate state, and that the soul in the body and out of the body differs no more than the man does from himself when he is in his house or in open air. Spectator. Lucio. That's well said. Isab. Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder. Merciful heaven! Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man! Dress'd in a little brief authority,* Most ignorant of what he's most assured, His glassy essence,-like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, GREATNESS. Measure for Measure, Act II. THOSE men only are truly great who place their ambition rather in acquiring to themselves the conscience of worthy enterprises, than in the prospect of glory which attends them. Spectator, No. 172. SOME men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Twelfth Night. "NOTHING," says Longinus, " can be great, the contempt of which is great." THE superiority of some men is merely local. They are great, because their associates are little. GREAT PLACE. JOHNSON. * Ir is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self. Certainly, great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy; for if they judge by their own feeling they cannot find it; but if they think with Nothing indeed but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man. BURKE. |