What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each lov'd one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.
By the first glance on that still-marble brow. It was enough-she died-what recked it how? The love of youth, the hope of better years, Byron's Childe Harold. The only living thing he could not hate, Was reft at once- and he deserved his fate, But did not feel it less;-the good explore, For peace, those realms where guilt can never
And she was lost-and yet I breath'd,
But not the breath of human life;
A serpent round my heart was wreathed,
And stung my every thought to strife.
Alike all time, abhorred all place, Shuddering I shrunk from nature's face, Where every hue that charmed before The blackness of my bosom bore.
The proud-the wayward—who have fixed below
Their joy and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all-perchance a mite-
But who in patience parts with all delight?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn;
Byron's Giaour. And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,
In smiles that least befit who wear them most.
Alas! the breast that inly bleeds,
Hath nought to dread from outward blow:
Who falls from all he knows of bliss,
Cares little into what abyss.
My slumbers if I slumber- —are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which then I can resist not: in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within; and yet I live, and bear
The aspect and the form of breathing men.
But grief should be the instructor of the wise;
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The tree of knowledge is not that of life.
Byron's Manfred.
Look on me! there is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure
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some of studySome worn with toil-some of mere wearinessSome of disease - and some, insanityAnd some of wither'd or of broken hearts; For this last is a malady which slays More than are numbered in the lists of fate, Taking all shapes, and bearing many names. Byron's Manfred. Though gay companions o'er the bowl Dispel awhile the sense of ill; Though pleasure fires the madd'ning soul: The heart-the heart is lonely still.
Despond not: wherefore wilt thou wander thus,
To add thy silence to the silent night.
And lift thy tearful eye unto the stars?
They cannot aid thee.
Byron's Heaven and Earth. |
Its solitude, and nothing more divests it
From its sad visions of the other world
Than calling it at moments back to this.
The busy have no time for tears.
Byron's Two Foscari.
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
Byron's Dream.
Of many an ill untold, unsung,
That will not-may not find a tongue,
But kept conceal'd without control,
Spread the fell cankers of the soul.
Byron to his Daughter.
Hair! 't is the robe which curious nature weaves
To hang upon the head, and does adorn
Our bodies; in the first hour we are born,
God does bestow that garment: when we die,
That, like a soft and silken canopy,
Is still spread over us: In spite of death,
Our hair grows in our grave, and that alone
Looks fresh, when all our other beauty's gone.
Decker's Satiromastix.
Her hair was roll'd in many a curious fret,
Much like a rich and curious coronet;
Upon whose arches twenty Cupids lay,
And were or ty'd, or loath to fly away.
In whose comparison, all whites are ink
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman!
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.
I take thy hand, this hand,
As soft as dove's down, and as white as it;
Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow,
That's bolted by the northern blast twice o'er.
Shaks. Winters's Tale
He who beholds her hand forgets her face.
I love a hand that meets mine own With grasp that causes some sensation
The Frost's icc-breath the seas may block,
An Earthquake's arm the mountains shake,
The lightning's eye dissolve the rock,
The heaving breast of Waters break
A pathway through the solid land;
No form that Nature's force can take Such changes in the World would make As doth the Human Hand.
Go, go, begone, to save your ship from wreck
Which cannot perish, having thee on board,
Being destined to a drier death on shore.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
While those who turn and wind their oaths
Have swell'd and sunk, like other froths;
Prevail'd awhile, but 't was not long
Before from world to world they swung,
As they had turn'd from side to side;
And as the changelings liv'd, they dy'd.
When the times begin to alter,
None rise so high as from the halter.
For matrimony and hanging here
Both go by destiny so clear,
That you as sure may pick and choose,
As Cross, I win; and Pile, you lose.
O, how bitter a thing it is to look
Into happiness through another man's eyes!
Shaks. As like it.
you
If it were now to die, 'T were now to be most happy; for I fear
Mrs. Hale — The Hand and its Work. My soul hath her content so absolute,
All wants that from our nature rise,
Life's common cares the Hand supplies;
It tends and clothes our myriad race,
And forms for each a resting-place;
And ceaseless ministry doth keep
From cradle dream to coffin sleep.
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.
What! we have many goodly days to see:
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed,
Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl;
Mrs. Hale- The Hand and its Work. Advantaging their loan, with interest
Oftentimes double gain of happiness.
All the good we have rests in the mind;
By whose proportions only we redeem
Our thoughts from out confusion, and do find
The measure of ourselves, and of our powers:
And that all happiness remains confin'd
Within the kingdom of this breast of ours.
Daniel to the Countess of Bedford.
What thing so good which not some harm may
bring?
E'en to be happy is a dangerous thing.
Earl of Sterline's Darius.
Happy are those,
That knowing in their births they are subject to
Uncertain change, are still prepar'd and arm'd
For either fortune: a rare principle,
And with much labour learn'd in wisdom's school.
Massinger's Bondmar.
That happiness does the longest thrive,
Where joys and griefs have turns alternative.
As with our eyes, that after a long darkness
Are dazzled at th' approach of sudden light;
When i' th' midst of fears we are surpris'd
With unexpected happiness; the first
Degrees of joy are mere astonishment.
Over all men hangs a doubtful fate:
One gains by what another is bereft;
The frugal deities have only left
A common bank of happiness below,
Maintain’d, like nature, by an ebb and flow.
Sir Robert Howard's Indian Queen.
Happiness is a stranger to mankind,
And, like to a forc'd motion, it is ever
Strongest at the beginning; then languishing
With time, grows weary of our company.
Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours.
I see there is no man but may make his paradise,
And it is nothing but his love and dotage
Upon the world's foul joys, that keeps him out on't;
For he that lives retir'd in mind and spirit,
Is still in paradise.
Thou happy wretch; by blindness art thou blest,
By dotage dandled to perpetual smiles.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Know, smiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd;
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor severe,
But rises in demand for her delay;
She makes a scourge of past posterity,
To sting thee more, and double thy distress.
Young's Night Thoughts.
The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cordis cable-to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
Young's Night Thoughts
Nature, in zeal for human amity,
Denies, or damps, an undivided joy.
Joy is an import; joy is an exchange,
Joy flies monopolists; it calls for two;
Rich fruit! Heav'n planted! never pluck'd by one.
Young's Night Thoughts.
O how portentous is prosperity!
How comet-like; it threatens, while it shines!
Young's Night Thoughts.
What makes man wretched? Happiness deny'd?
Lorenzo! no, 't is happiness disdain'd.
She comes too meanly drest to win our smile,
Beaumont and Fletcher's Nice Valour. And calls herself content, a homely name!
On earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind in the happy garden plac'd,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy-unrivall❜d love.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
They live too long, who happiness outlive:
For life and death are things indifferent;
Each to be chose, as either brings content.
Dryden's Indian Emperor.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies,
And they are fools who roam:
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut-our home.
Bliss! sublunary bliss!-proud words and vain!
Implicit treason to divine decree!
A bold invasion of the rights of heaven!
I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace!
What darts of agony had miss'd my heart!
Young's Night Thoughts.
How sad a sight is human happiness,
To those whose thoughts can pierce beyond an
hour!
Young's Night Thoughts.
Our flame is transport, and content our scorn.
Ambition turns, and shuts the door against her,
And weds a toil, a tempest, in her stead.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire;
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joy to death.
Young's Night Thoughts
Know thou this truth, (enough for man to know)
"Virtue alone is happiness below."
The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives;
The joy unequall'd, if its end it gain,
And if it lose, attended with no pain:
Without satiety, tho' e'er so blest,
And but more relish'd as the more distress'd:
The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears,
Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears:
Good from each object, from each place acquir o,
For ever exercis'd, yet never tir'd;
Never elated, while one man's oppress'd;
Never dejected, while another's blest,
And where no wants, no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.
Pope's Essay on Man
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