Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson

Is it not better to die willingly,
Than linger till the glass be all outrun?

137

What life refused, to gain by death he thought:
For life and death are but indiff'rent things,
And of themselves not to be shunn'd nor sought,
But for the good or ill that either brings.
EARL OF STIRLING.
Death is the port where all may refuge find,
The end of labour, entry unto rest;
Death hath the bounds of misery confined,
Whose sanctuary shrouds affliction best.
EARL OF STIRLING.

The fools, my juniors by a year,
Are tortured with suspense and fear,
Who wisely thought my age a screen,
When death approach'd to stand between.

One year
is -a different scene!
past,-
No farther mention of the dean :
Who now,
alas, no more is mist
Than if he never did exist.

SWIFT.

That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common ! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
TENNYSON: In Memoriam.

Whatever crazy sorrow saith,

No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly long'd for death.

TENNYSON: Two Voices.

Our drooping days are dwindled down to nought,
Their period finish'd ere 'tis well begun.

THOMSON.

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain!

THOMSON: Seasons.

The best

Are, by the playful children of this world,
At once forgot, as they had never been.

THOMSON: Tancred and Sigismund.

claim

We must resign! heav'n his great soul doth Some weep in perfect justice to the dead,
As conscious all their love is in arrear.
YOUNG: Night Thoughts.
His dying groans, his last breath, shake our isle, Life is the triumph of our mould'ring clay;

In storms as loud as his immortal fame:

And trees uncut fall for his fun'ral pile.

Death, of the spirit infinite! divine!

YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

All men think all men mortal but themselves.
YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

That man lives greatly,

Whate'er his fate, or fame, who greatly dies; High flush'd with hope, where heroes shall despair.

YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.
YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

A death-bed's a detector of the heart:
Here tired dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace that mistress of the scene;
Here real and apparent are the same.

YOUNG: Night Thoughts.
Death is the crown of life:
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain.
Death wounds to cure; we fall, we rise, we reign;
Spring from our fetters, fasten to the skies,
Where blooming Eden withers from our sight.
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

The chamber where the good man meets his Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death,

fate

Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.

YOUNG.

At death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
YOUNG.
On death-beds some in conscious glory lie,
Since of the doctor in the mode they die.

YOUNG.

Men drop so fast, ere life's mid stage we tread,
Few know so many friends alive as dead.

YOUNG.

Like other tyrants, death delights to smite
What, smitten, most proclaims the pride of pow'r,
And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme,
To bid the wretch survive the fortunate;
The feeble wrap the athletic in his shroud;
And weeping fathers build their children's tomb.
YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

To break the shock blind nature cannot shun,
And lands thought smoothly on the farther shore,
YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

Oh, colder than the wind that freezes
Founts that but now in sunshine play'd,

Is that congealing pang which seizes

The trusting bosom when betray'd.
MOORE: Lalla Rookh.

139

When first we practise to deceive!

SIR W. SCOTT: Marmion.

Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;

Lay open to my earthy gross conceit,
Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,

The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
SHAKSPEARE.

the doer.

MILTON.

Instant, he cried, your female discord end,
Ye deedless boasters! and the song attend.

POPE. Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue. SHAKSPEARE.

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,

The place is dignified by th' doer's deed.
SHAKSPEARE.

DELAY.

Defer not till to-morrow to be wise:
To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise.
CONGREVE: Letter to Cobham.

Think not to-morrow still shall be your care;
Alas! to-morrow like to-day will fare.
Reflect that yesterday's to-morrow's o'er,—
Thus one "to-morrow," one "to-morrow" more,
Have seen long years before them fade away,
And still appear no nearer than to-day.

GIFFORD: Perseus.

I have learn'd that fearful commenting
Is leaden servitor to dull delay;

Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.

SHAKSPEARE.

Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

YOUNG: Love of Fame.

Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer.

YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

DEEDS.

Thousands were there, in darker fame that dwell, Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn.

DRYDEN.

Procrastination is the thief of time.

Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven

invites,

Hell threatens.

YOUNG: Night Thoughts.

140

DELIGHT.-DESOLATION.-DESPAIR.

DELIGHT.

Such huge extremes when nature doth unite, Wonder from thence results, from thence delight. SIR J. DENHAM.

She was his care, his hope, and his delight, Most in his thought, and ever in his sight. DRYDEN. Longing they look, and, gaping at the sight, Devour her o'er and o'er with vast delight.

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless:-
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half taught in anguish, through the midnight
air,

Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach.

MRS. BROWNING Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear; Acquainted with all feelings save despair. BYRON: Island. Beware of desperate steps: the darkest day. Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away. COWPER: The Needless Alarm.

Uncertain ways unsafest are,
And doubt a greater mischief than despair.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Equal their flame, unequal was their care: One loved with hope, one languish'd with de spair.

DRYDEN.

DESPAIR.-DESTINY.-DEVOTION.

141

Despair takes heart when there's no hope to The father bore it with undaunted soul, speed: Like one who durst his destiny control.

The coward then takes arms and does the deed.

How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash embraced despair!
SHAKSPEARE.

Discomfort guides my tongue,
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
SHAKSPEARE.

To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword; despair and die.
SHAKSPEARE.

Why should he despair, that knows to court
With words, fair looks, and liberality?

SHAKSPEARE.

I will keep her ign'rant of her good,
To make her heav'nly comforts of despair,
When it is least expected.

SHAKSPEARE.

DRYDEN.

Far from that hated face the Trojans fly; All but the fool who sought his destiny.

DRYDEN.

How can hearts not free be tried whether they

serve

Willing or no, who will but what they must By destiny, and can no other choose?

MILTON.

He said, Dear daughter, rightly may I rue
The fall of famous children born of me;
But who can turn the stream of destiny,
Or break the chain of strong necessity,
Which fast is tied to Jove's eternal seat?
SPENSER.

DEVOTION.

Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,

Thou saw'st the wide-extended deep

In all its horrors rise.

ADDISON.

In vain doth man the name of just expect,
If his devotions he to God neglect.

SIR J. DENHAM. For this, with soul devout, he thank'd the god, And, of success secure, return'd to his abode. DRYDEN.

Meantime her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return with vain devotion pays.
DRYDEN.

Grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends, thither with heart, and voice, and eyes
Directed to devotion, to adore

And worship God supreme, who made him chief

Curst be good haps, and curst be they that build Of all his works.

Their hopes on haps, and do not make despair
For all these certain blows the surest shield.
SIR P. SIDNEY.

MILTON.

From the full choir when loud hosannas rise,
And swell the pomp of dreadful sacrifice,
Amid that scene, if some relenting eye
Glance on the stone where our cold reliques lie,
Devotion's self shall steal a thought from

heaven,

One human tear shall drop, and be forgiven. POPE.

Livros

Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson: With Copious ..., Volume 1873