How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms!
Shaks.: Wint. Tale. Act i. Sc. 2
How hard it is to hide the sparks of Nature!
Shaks.: Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 3
Nature, despairing e'er to make the like,
Brake suddenly the mould in which 'twas fashion'd.
3439
Massinger: Parliament of Love. Act v. Sc. 1
In contemplation of created things
By steps we may ascend to God.
Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. v. Line 511
By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid, art,
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow;
Thus fishes first to shipping did impart,
Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.
Dryden: Annus Mirabilis. St. 155.
Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings?
Keats: Addressed to Haydon.
3442 How mean the order and perfection sought In the best product of the human thought, Compar'd to the great harmony that reigns In what the spirit of the world ordains! 3443
Prior: Solomon. Bk. i. Line 508.
To build, to plant, whatever you intend,
To rear the column, or the arch to bend,
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot,
In all, let nature never be forgot;
But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
Nor overdress, nor leave her wholly bare.
3444
Pope: Moral Essays. Epis. iv. Line 47.
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise.
3445
Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. i. Line 13,
Lo! the poor Indian whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heav'n.
3446
Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. i. Line 99
First follow nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same;
Unerring nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchang'd, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.
3447
Pope: E. on Criticism. Pt. i. Line 68
The green earth sends her incense up
From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup
She pours her sacred wine.
3448 Whittier: The Tent on the Beach. Abraham Davenport
Nature ever yields reward
To him who seeks, and loves her best.
3449
Barry Cornwall: Above and Below
Like two cathedral towers these stately pines
Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;
The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;
No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,
No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones,
No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.
Enter! the pavement, carpeted with leaves,
Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!
Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds,
In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,
Are singing! listen, ere the sound be fled,
And learn there may be worship without words.
3450
If thou art worn and hard beset
Longfellow: My Cathedral.
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Longfellow: Sunrise on the Hills.
In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven
With sunsets, and the lovely forms of clouds
And flying vapors.
Longfellow: Michael Angelo. Pt. ii. 4.
O Nature, gracious mother of us all,
Within thy bosom myriad secrets lie
Which thou surrenderest to the patient eye
That seeks and waits.
Margaret J. Preston: The Question.
O Nature, how fair is thy face,
And how light is thy heart, and how friendless thy grace! 3454 Owen Meredith: Lucile. Pt. i. Canto v. St. 28.
For wheresoe'er I looked, the while,
Was nature's everlasting smile.
William Cullen Bryant: Song.
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teaching.
William Cullen Bryant: Thanatopsis.
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
William Cullen Bryant: Thanatopsis.
Not long can Nature satisfy the mind,
Nor outward fancies feed its inner flame;
We feel a growing want we cannot name,
And long for something sweet, but undefined.
The wants of Beauty other wants create,
Which overflow on others, soon or late;
For all that worship thee must ease the heart,
By Love, or Song, or Art.
Divinest Melancholy walks with thee,
And Music with her sister Poesy;
But on thy breast Love lies, immortal child,
Begot of thine own longings, deep and wild.
3458
R. H. Stoddard: Hymn to the Beautiful.
He who studies nature's laws,
From certain truth his maxims draws.
Gay: Fables. Introduction.
3459 Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year; How mighty, how majestic are thy works! With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul That sees astonish'd! and astonish'd sings! 3460
Thomson: Seasons. Winter. Line 107
Who can paint
Like Nature? Can Imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows?
Thomson: Seasons. Spring. Line 428
Who lives to Nature, rarely can be poor;
Who lives to fancy never can be rich.
Young: Night Thoughts.
Man's rich with little, were his judgment true;
Nature is frugal, and her wants are few.
3463
Mark the matchless workings of the power
That shuts within its seed the future flower:
Bids these in elegance of form excel,
In color these, and those delight the smell;
Sends Nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
3464
Young: Love of Fame. Satire v. Line 167
Cowper: Retirement. Line 791
Lovely indeed the mimic works of art,
But Nature's works far lovelier.
Cowper: Task. Bk. i. Line 420
Liberal, not lavish, is kind Nature's hand;
Nor was perfection made for man below.
Yet all her schemes with nicest art are plann'd,
Good counteracting ill, and gladness woe.
With gold and gems if Chilian mountains glow,
If bleak and barren Scotia's hills arise,
There plague and poison, lust and rapine grow;
Here peaceful are the vales, and pure the skies,
And freedom fires the soul, and sparkles in the eyes.
3466
Beattie: Minstrel. Bk. i. St. 6
Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,
In nameless print, that I have no devotion;
But set those persons down with me to pray,
And you shall see who has the properest notion
Of getting into heaven the shortest way;
My altars are the mountains and the ocean,
Earth, air, stars, all that spring from the great Whole,
Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.
3467
Byron: Don Juan. Canto iii. Line 104
The rain comes when the wind calls;
The river knows the way to the sea;
Without a pilot it runs and falls,
Blessing all lands with its charity;
The sea tosses and foams to find
Its way up to the cloud and wind;
The shadow sits close to the flying ball;
The date fails not on the palm-tree tall;
3468
Emerson Woodnotes. Pt. ii. Line 265
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even;
He sings the song, but it cheers not now,
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye.
3469
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
3470
Shaks.: Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious. 3471
Shaks.: King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He must needs go that the devil drives. 3472
Shaks.: All's Well. Act i. Sc. 3.
All places, that the eye of heaven visits,
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens:
Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
There is no virtue like necessity.
3473
Shaks.: Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.
Spirit of nature! all-sufficing power, Necessity! thou mother of the world! 3474
Shelley: Queen Mab. Pt. vi.
So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.
3475
Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. iv. Line 39%.
To which the gods must yield; and I obey,
Till I redeem it by some glorious way.
3476 Beaumont and Fletcher: False One. Act v. Sc. 1. Nature means Necessity.
Soul of the world, divine Necessity,
Bailey: Festus. Dedication.
Bailey: Festus. Sc. The Sun.
Servant of God, and master of all things.
Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
'Tis the same with common natures,
Use 'em kindly, they rebel,
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
Aaron Hill: Written on a Window in Scotland
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