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Mine after-life! what is mine after-life!

My day is closed! the gloom of night is come! A hopeless darkness settles o'er my fate.

Joanna Baillie's Basil.

Welcome rough war! with all thy scenes of blood;
Thy roaring thunders, and thy dashing steel!
Welcome once more! what have I now to do
But play the brave man o'er again, and die!
Joanna Baillie's Basil.

Be it what it may, or bliss or torment,
Annihilation, dark, and endless rest,

Or some dread thing, man's wildest range of thought
Hath never yet conceived, that change I'll dare
Which makes me any thing but what I am.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.

I would have time turn'd backward in his course,
And what is past ne'er to have been: myself
A thing that no existence ever had.
Canst thou do this for me?

Joanna Baillie's Rayner.
Ɔ that I were upon some desert coast!
Where howling tempests and the lashing tide
Would stun me into deep and senseless quiet.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
Come, madness! come unto me, senseless death!
I cannot suffer this! here, rocky wall,
Scatter these brains, or dull them!

Joanna Baillie's De Montford.

O that I had been form'd

An idiot from the birth! a senseless changeling, Who eats his glutton's meals with greedy haste, Nor knows the hand who feeds him!

Joanna Baillie's De Montford. He hangs upon me like a dead man's grasp On the wreck'd swimmer's neck.

Joanna Baillie's Ethwald. Full many a storm on this grey head has beat; And now, on my high station do I stand, Like the tired watchman in his rocked tower, Who looketh for the hour of his release. I'm sick of worldly broils, and fain would rest With those who war no more.

Joanna Baillie's Ethwald. O night, when good men rest, and infants sleep! Thou art to me no season of repose, But a fear'd time of waking more intense, Of life more keen, of misery more palpable. Joanna Baillie's Ethwald. The fountain of my heart dried up within me,With nought that ioved me, and with nought to

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What would'st thou more? I shrink not from the question.

I am a wretch, and proud of wretchedness,
'Tis the sole earthly thing that cleaves to me.
Maturin's Bertram.

The wretched have no country; that dear name
Comprises home, kind kindred, fostering friends,
Protecting laws, all that binds man to man-
But none of these are mine;-I have no country-
And for my race, the last dread trump shall wake
The sheeted relics of mine ancestry,
In the bright blazon of their stainless coats
Ere trump of herald to the armed lists,
Calls their lost child again.

Maturin's Bertram,

And in that deep and utter agony,
Though then, than ever most unfit to die,
I fell upon my knees and pray'd for death.

Maturin's Bertram. The storm for Bertram!-and it hath been with me, Dealt with me branch and bole, bared me to th'

roots,

And where the next wave bears my perish'd trunk In its dread lapse, I neither know nor reck of. Maturin's Bertram

Is there no forest,

Whose shades are dark enough to shelter us;
Or cavern rifted by the perilous lightning,
Where we must grapple with the tenanting wolf
To earn our bloody lair?- there let us bide,
Nor hear the voice of man nor call of heaven.
Maturin's Bertram.
Behold me, earth! what is the life he hunts for?
Come to my cave, thou human hunter, come;
For thou hast left thy prey no other lair,
But the bleak rock, or howling wilderness;
Cheer up thy pack of fanged and fleshed hounds,
Flash all the flames of hell upon its darkness,
Then enter if thou darest.
Lo, there the bruised serpent coils to sting thee,
Yea, spend his life upon the mortal throe.

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Maturin's Bertram

Grey hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, Which but supplies a feeling to decayAnd to be thus, eternally but thus, Having been otherwise! now furrow'd o'er Maturin's Bertram. With wrinkles plough'd by moments, not by years;

love. 'stood upon ne desert earth alone.

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Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or Think me not thankless — but this grief Looks not to priesthood for relief.

wishes,

Or lurking love of something on the earth.

Byron's Giaour.

Byron's Manfred.

My mother earth!

Waste not thine orison, despair
Is mightier than thy pious prayer:

And thou fresh breaking day, and you, ye moun- I would not, if I might, be blest,

tains!

Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye!
And thou the bright eye of the universe,
That openest over all, and unto all
Art a delight-thou shin'st not on my heart!
Byron's Manfred.

Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable,
Endless and all alike, as sands on the shore,
Innumerable atoms; and one desert,
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests save carcasses and wrecks,
Rocks and the salt surf weeds of bitterness.
Byron's Manfred.

Look on me in my sleep,

Or watch my watchings-come and sit by me!
My solitude is solitude no more,
But peopled with the furies;-I have gnash'd
My teeth in darkness till returning morn,
Then cursed myself till sunset;- I have pray'd
For madness as a blessing 't is denied me.
Byron's Manfred.
They who have nothing more to fear well
may
Indulge a smile at that which once appall'd;
As children at discover'd bugbears.

Byron's Sardanapalus.
Who thundering comes on blackest steed?
With slacken'd bit and hoof of speed;
Beneath the clattering iron's sound,
The cavern'd echoes wake around
In lash for lash, and bound for bound;
The foam that streaks the courser's side,
Seems gather'd from the ocean-tide;
Though weary waves are sunk to rest,
There's none within his rider's breast,
And though to-morrow's tempest lower,
'Tis calmer than thy heart, young Giaour!
Byron's Giaour.

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And hoped that peril might not prove in vain.
He raised his iron hand to heaven, and pray'd
One pitying flash to mar the form it made:
His steel and impious prayer attract alike—
The storm roll'd onward, and disdain'd to strike;
Its peal wax'd fainter-ceased-he felt alone,
As if some faithless friend had spurn'd his groan.
Byron's Corsair.

One fatal remembrance, one sorrow which throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes:
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring.
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting.
Moore.

Beware of desperate steps!-the darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.

Like one within a charnel cast,

Cowper.

I hear but dirges ringing for the deaa-
Walk all the time with hand in hand of Death!

Mrs. E. Oakes Smith

138

DESPONDENCY - DETERMINATION-DETRACTION - DEW.

DESPONDENCY.

The recollection of one upward hour Hath more in it to tranquillize and cheer The darkness of despondency, than years Of gayety and pleasure.

Percival.

My heart is very tired- - my strength is low-
My hands are full of blossoms pluck'd before,
Held dead within them till myself shall dic.
Miss Barrett.

It be that I shall forget my grief;
may
It may be time has good in store for me;
It may be that my heart will find relief
From sources now unknown. Futurity
May bear within its folds some hidden spring
From which will issue blessed streams; and yet
Whate'er of joy the coming year may bring,
The past-the past I never can forget.

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"T is not the wholesome sharp morality, Or modest anger of a satiric spirit,

That hurts or wounds the body of a state;

But the sinister application

Of the malicious, ignorant, and base
Interpreter; who will distort, and strain
The gen'ral scope and purpose of an author,
To his particular and private spleen.

Jonson's Poetasier. Who stabs my name, would stab my person too, Did not the hangman's axe lie in the way.

Crown's Henry VII. Happy are they that hear their detractions, And can put them to mending.

Shaks. Much ada.

Detraction's a bold monster, and fears not
To wound the fame of princes, if it find
But any blemish in their lives to work on.
Massinger.

To you I shall no trophy raise

From other men's detraction or dispraise:
That jewel never had inherent worth,
Which ask'd such foils as these to set it forth.
Bishop King

DEW.

And that same dew, which sometimes on the buds
Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes,
Like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.

DEVOTION-DIGNITY-DINNER-DISAPPOINTMENT-DISCONTENT.

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139

Great honours are great burdens: but, on whom
They're cast with envy, he doth bear two loads;
His cares must still be double to his joys,

In any dignity; where, if he err,
He finds no pardon; and, for doing well,

A most small praise, and that wrung out by force.
Jonson's Catiline

True dignity is never gained by place,
Miss Barrett. And never lost when honours are withdrawn.

Yet when the noontide comes, I know
Thou never cans't be found.

Massinger

Maria Lowell.

DINNER. (See FEASTING.)

DISAPPOINTMENT.-(See Grief.)

DEVOTION.

One grain of incense with devotion offer'd,
'S beyond all perfumes or Sabæan spices,
By one that proudly thinks he merits it.
Massinger's Bashful Lover.

The immortal gods

Accept the meanest altars that are raised
By pure devotion; and sometimes prefer
An ounce of frankincense, honey, or milk,
Before whole hecatombs of Sabæan gems,
Offer'd in ostentation.

Massinger.

The hand is rais'd, the pledge is given,
One monarch to obey, one creed to own,
That monarch, God; that creed, His word alone.
Sprague.

Like earth, awake, and warm, and bright

With joy the spirit moves and burns; So up to thee! O Fount of Light!

Our light returns.

DIGNITY.

John Sterling.

I know myself now, and I feel within me

A peace above all earthly dignities;

DISCONTENT.

O thoughts of men accurs'd!
Past and to come, seem best; things present, worst.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench,
Thou poutest upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
He reads much;

Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no
He is a good observer, and he looks

plays,

As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music:
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort,
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit
That could be mov'd to smile at any thing.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.

She is peevish, sullen, froward,

Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;
Neither regarding that she is my child,
Nor fearing me as if I were her father.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.

A still and quiet conscience. The king has cur'd Worthy Montano, you were wont to be civil;

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Did I request thee, maker, from my clay
To mould me man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me, or here place
In this delicious garden? as my will
Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right
And equal to reduce me to my dust,
Desirous to resign and render back
All I receiv'd unable to perform

Thy terms so hard, by which I was to hold
The good I sought not.

Milton's Paradise Lost.
Sour discontent that quarrels with our fate,
May give fresh smart, but not the old abate;
The uneasy passion's disingenuous wit,
The ill reveals, but hides the benefit.

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O, save to one familiar friend,

Thy heart its veil should wear,
The faithless vow be all unheard, -
The flattery wasted there;
Heeding the homage of the vain
As lightly as some star,

Burns. Whose steady radiance changes not,
Though thousands kneel afar.

Addison.

Willis.

Whittier.

Southey.

DISEASE. (See HEALTH.)

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