that it is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke. Rambler, No. 1. EVENING. Now came still evening on, and twilight grey Paradise Lost, Book IV. Now is the pleasant time, The cool, the silent, save where silence yields Paradise Lost, Book V. Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest ; Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart c When Nero perish'd by the justest doom Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd, Don Juan, Canto II THE MOON RISING. As, when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, POPE. Iliad, Book VIII. ΗΥΜΝ ΤΟ DIANA. QUEEN and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep : Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright. * As when fayre Cynthia, in darksome night As in a noyous cloud enveloped, Where she may finde the substance thin and light, Of the poore travailer, that went astray With thousand blessings she is heried. Faery Queen, Book III., Canto 1. Earth, let not thy envious shade Heaven to clear when day did close: Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy crystal-shining quiver; Space to breathe how short soever : BEN JONSON. MIDNIGHT. 'TIS midnight: on the mountains brown Who ever gazed upon them shining, BYRON. The Siege of Corinth. O MAJESTIC night! Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder born! And fated to survive the transient sun! By mortals and immortals seen with awe! A starry crown thy raven brow adorns, An azure zone, thy waist; clouds, in Heaven's loom Thy flowing mantle form, and, heav'n throughout, YOUNG. Night Thoughts, Night V. APPROACH OF MORNING. By this the northerne wagoner had set To all that in the wide deepe wandering arre, SPENSER. Faëry Queen, Book I., Canto 2. Now morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl. Paradise Lost, Book V. NIGHT Wanes-the vapours round the mountains curl'd, PHOEBUS, arise! * And paint the sable skies With azure, white, and red; BYRON. Lara, Canto II. Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed, The nightingales thy coming each where sing: Give light to this dark world which lieth dead; Spread forth thy golden hair In larger locks than thou wast wont before, And emperor-like decore With diadem of pearl thy temples fair: Chase hence the ugly night Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light. * This is the morn should bring into this grove But show thy blushing beams, The gentle day, Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Much Ado about Nothing, Act V., s. 1. And thou two sweeter eyes Shalt see than those which by Peneus' streams Did once thy heart surprise. Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise: If that ye winds would hear A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre, The winds all silent are, Beyond the hills to sheen his flaming wheels; DRUMMOND. CONFORMITY. It will ever be one of the nicest problems for a man to solve, how far he shall profit by the thoughts of other men, and not be enslaved by them. Friends in Council. WHILE you, you think What others think, or what you think they'll say, Shaping your course by something scarce more tangible Of aspen trees by flickering breezes sway'd Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night, I am not the utter slave which that man is,* Whose sole word, thought, and deed, are built on what HEALTH. Quoted ibid. O BLESSED health! thou art above all gold and treasure; 'tis thou who enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive 'Tis to be a slave in soul, And to hold no strong controul All that others make of ye. SHELLEY. Masque of Anarchy. |