PREFACE. XV the convictions of the present day. Let us say with the American Poet, Grenville Mellen "We have been taught in oracles of old Of the enskied divinity of song; That Poetry and Music, hand in hand, Came in the light of inspiration forth, And claimed alliance with the rolling heavens. And were those peerless bards, whose strains have come In an undying echo to the world, Whose numbers floated round the Grecian isles, And made melodious all the hills of Rome, Were they inspired? Alas, for Poetry! And sing of gallantry in hall and bower, To courtly knights and ladies. * But other times have strung new lyres again, Comes robed in smiles, and in low-breathing sounds; That whisper an hereafter to our souls. It breathes upon our spirits a rich balm, And, with its tender tones and melody, Draws mercy from the warrior, and proclaims A morn of bright and universal love To those who journey with us through the vale; We have no minstrels in our echoing halls, And MILTON hymns us on to hope and heaven." that we The last lines remind us, by the way, ought to account for the exclusion from this collection of much beautiful Poetry of an especially sacred character: our reason for this exclusion is, that we purpose issuing a companion volume to the present, consisting wholly of such pieces. There is also another class of subjects to which anything like justice could not be done in less space than a volume; we have therefore reserved them for a POETICAL GALLERY OF NATURE, to be published by-and-by. The title will, we apprehend, sufficiently indicate its character. CYCLOPEDIA OF POETICAL QUOTATIONS. ABIDE-ABODE. WHILE lions war, and battle for their dens, Shakspere. Others may use the ocean for a road, The woodcock's early visit and abode, Where, tell me where Everywhere she abideth: None from her can run, But therein she glideth. Where, tell me where Of happiness eternal? That true agapemoné, Such as here could never be? B Waller. Phillips. H. G. A. 2 ABJECT. ABRIDGE. АВЈЕСТ. THE rarer thy example stands By how much from the top of wond'rous glory; To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall'n. Rivers from bubbling springs Milton. Have rise at first, and great from abject, things. The rapine is so abject and profane, Dryden, from Juvenal. How past expression, abject is the man ABRIDGE-ABRIDGMENT. I HAVE disabled mine estate, Pope. H. G. A. By showing something a more swelling port, All trying, by a love of littleness, To make abridgments, and to draw to less Shakspere. Many there be that do abridge their lives, Donne. H. G. A. LIKE as the culver on the barëd bough, Mourn to myself the absence of my love; Spenser. How like a winter hath my absence been Shakspere. From you have I been absent in the spring, That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew. Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose: What! keep a week away? Seven days and nights? Shakspere. Though absent, present in desires they be; Drayton. Without your sight my life is less secure; |