Must we count

Life a curse and not a blessing, summed-up in its whole amount,

Help and hindrance, joy and sorrow?

Browning: La Saisiaz.

I hear a sound of life-of life like ours-
Of laughter and of wailing, of grave speech,
Of little plaintive voices innocent,

Of life in separate courses flowing out

Like our four rivers to some outward main.
I hear life-life!

Elizabeth B. Browning: Drama of Exile.

Life's a vast sea

That does its mighty errand without fail, Panting in unchanged strength though waves are changing.

George Eliot: Spanish Gypsy.

Life is arched with changing skies:
Rarely are they what they seem:
Children we of smiles and sighs-
Much we know, but more we dream.

William Winter: Light and Shadow.

Life is the gift of God, and is divine.

Longfellow: Tales of a Wayside Inn.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Longfellow: Psalm of Life.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all;
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Longfellow: The Rainy Day.

Life hath evolved through pain. The studious eye Finds here the path of Being's highest gain. Earth's agonies have been earth's bliss, not bane. James H. West.

Not in vain we seek Life's meaning. If we lift our heedful eyes

Voices everywhere enthrall us-the whole universe

replies.

James H. West.

Life! the symphony whose harmony would languish into death

If it never knew the discord which brings out its sweeter breath.

James H. West.

Our life is scarce the twinkle of a star

In God's eternal day.

Bayard Taylor: Autumnal Vespers.

I am: how little more I know!
Whence came I? Whither do I go?
A centred self, which feels and is;
A cry between the silences;

A shadow-birth of clouds at strife
With sunshine on the hills of life;
A shaft from Nature's quiver cast
Into the Future, from the Past;
Between the cradle and the shroud,
A meteor's flight from cloud to cloud.

Whittier: Questions of Life.

Love, Lovers; see Brotherhood, Home, Friendship, and Jealousy.

Such is the power of that sweet passion,

That it all sordid baseness doth expel,
And the refined mind doth newly fashion
Unto a fairer form, which now doth dwell
In his high thought, that would itself excel;
Which he, beholding still with constant sight,
Admires the mirror of so heavenly light.

Spenser: Hymn in Honor of Love.

Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt, I love.

Shakespeare: Hamlet.

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

Shakespeare: Twelfth Night.

A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon

Than love that would seem hid: love's night is

noon.

Shakespeare: Twelfth Night.

My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear; That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere. Shakespeare: Sonnets.

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved;-

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Shakespeare: Sonnets.

Things base and vile, holding no quality,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.

Shakespeare: Midsummer Night's Dream.

Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.
It is to be all made of sighs and tears,

It is to be all made of faith and service,

It is to be all made of fantasy,

All adoration, duty, and observance,

All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance.

Shakespeare: As You Like It.

Love endures no tie,

And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.

Dryden: Palamon and Arcite.

Love never fails to master what he finds,
But works a different way in different minds,
The fool enlightens, and the wise he blinds.

Dryden: Cymon and Iphigenia.

Love is not to be reason'd down, or lost
In high ambition, and a thirst of greatness:
'Tis second life, it grows into the soul,
Warms ev'ry vein, and beats in ev'ry pulse.

Addison: Cato.

Let those love now, who never loved before,
Let those who always loved, now love the more.
Parnell.

Why should we kill the best of passions, love?
It aids the hero, bids ambition rise,

To nobler heights, inspires immortal deeds,
Ev'n softens brutes, and adds a grace to virtue.
Thomson: Sophonisba.

Instruct me now what love will do; 'Twill make a tongueless man to woo.