Short swallow-flights of song, that dip

Their wings

4626

and skim away.

Tennyson: In Memoriam. Pt. xlvii. St. 4.

The gift of Song was chiefly lent

To give consoling music for the joys

We lack, and not for those which we possess.

4627 Bayard Taylor: Poet's Journal. Third Evening Song forbids victorious deeds to die.

No two on earth in all things can agree;
All have some darling singularity:

Women and men, as well as girls and boys,

In gewgaws take delight, and sigh for toys,

Your sceptres and your crowns, and such like things,
Are but a better kind of toys for kings.

In things indifferent reason bids us choose,
Whether the whim's a monkey or a muse.
4631

SKULL.

Churchill: Apology. Line 40%

Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,
Its chambers desolate, its portals foul;
Yes, this was once ambition's airy hall,

The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.
4632

Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto ii. St. 6

SKY - see Blue, Clouds, Rainbow, Stars, Sun, Sunrise

Sunset.

The witchery of the soft blue sky.

4633

Wordsworth: Peter Bell. Pt. i. St. 15.

The blue sky

So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

4634

Byron: Dream. St. 4

SLANDER -see Detraction, Calumny, Rumor, Scandal

Society.

Slanderous reproaches, and foul infamies,
Leasings, backbitings, and vainglorious crakes,
Bad counsels, praises, and false flatteries;

All those against that fort did bend their batteries.

4635

Spenser Fairie Queene. Bk. ii. Canto xi. St. 16

I'll devise some honest slanders

To stain my cousin with: One doth not know How much an ill word may empoison liking. 4636

Shaks Much Ado. Act iii. Sc.

The jewel, best enamelled,
Will lose his beauty; and though gold 'bides still
That others touch, yet often touching will
Wear gold; and so no man that hath a name,
But falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
4637

Shaks.: Com. of Errors. Act ii. Sc 1
Slander lives upon succession;

For ever hous'd where it gets possession. 4638

Shaks.: Com. of Errors. Act iii. Sc. 1

I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here; Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear. 4639

Shaks. Richard II. Act i. Sc. 1.

We must not stint

Our necessary actions, in the fear

To cope malicious censurers; which ever,
As ravenous fishes, do a vessel follow
That is new trimm'd.

4640

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 2.

"Tis slander,

Whose edge is sharper than the sword: whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie

All corners of the world, -kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, - nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.

4641

Shaks.: Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Shaks.: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

4642

Slander,

Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,

As level as the cannon to his blank,

Transports his poison'd shot.

4643

Shaks.: Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 1

I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,

Some busy and insinuating rogue,

Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,
Have not devis'd this slander.

4644

Shaks.: Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2

Slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater.

4645

Shaks.: Sonnet lxx

The feeblest vermin can destroy,
As sure as stoutest beasts of prey;
And only with their eyes and breath
Infect, and poison men to death.

4646

Butler: Ode on Critics

Malicious slander never would have leisure
To search, with prying eyes, for faults abroad,
If all, like me, consider'd their own hearts,
And wept the sorrows which they found at home.
4647
Rowe: Jane Shore. Act iv. Sc. 1.

But 'tis a busy, talking world,
That, with licentious breath, blows like the wind,
As freely on the palace as the cottage.

4648

Rowe: Fair Penitent. Act iii. Sc. 1

Nor do they trust their tongues alone,
But speak a language of their own;
Can read a nod, a shrug, a look,
Far better than a printed book;
Convey a libel in a frown,
And wink a reputation down;
Or, by the tossing of a fan,
Describe the lady and the man.

4649

Swift: Journal of Modern Lady. Line 188.
The whisper'd tale,

That, like the fabling Nile, no fountain knows;
Fair-faced Deceit, whose wily conscious eye
Ne'er looks direct; the tongue that licks the dust,
But, when it safely dares, as prompt to sting.
4650

Thomson: Liberty. Pt. iv. Line 604.

Quick-circulating slanders mirth afford:
And reputation bleeds in every word.

4651

Churchill: Apology. Line 47

He rams his quill with scandal and with scoff;
But 'tis so very foul, it won't go off.

4652

Young: Epis. to Pope. Epis. i. 6:93

Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints,

With all the kind mendacity of hints,

While ming ing truth with falsehood, sneers wi' sres,

A thread of candor with a web of wiles;

A plain blust show of briefly-spoken seeming,

To hide her bioodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming?

A lip of lies, a face formed to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
With a vite mask the Gorgon would disown,
A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.
4653

Byron: Sketch. Line 55.

Does not the law of Heaven say blood for blood? And he who taints kills more than he who sheds it. 4654 Byron: Mar. Faliero. Act ii. Sc. 1 "Twas slander filled her mouth with lying words, Slander, the foulest whelp of sin.

4655

Pollok: Course of Time. Bk. viii. Line 715 'Tis false! 'tis basely false ! What wretch could drop from his envenom'd tongue A tale so damn'd? It chokes my breath.

4656

Joanna Baillie: De Monfort. Act iv. Sc. 2

SLAVERY- see Freedom, Liberty, Slave-Trade.
Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm
With favor never clasp'd: but bred a dog.
4657

Shaks.: Timon of A. Act iv. Sc. 3. Mechanic slaves

With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view.

4658

Shaks.: Ant. and Cleo. Act v. Sc. 2.

Base is the slave that pays. 4659

Shaks.: Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace,
Whate'er the humanizing muses teach;

The godlike wisdom of the tempered breast;
Progressive truth, the patient force of thought;
Investigation calm, whose silent powers

Command the world; the light that leads to heaven;
Kind equal rule, the government of laws,
And all-protecting freedom, which alone
Sustains the name and dignity of man :
These are not theirs.
4660

Thomson: Seasons. Summer. Line 875

Sharp penury afflicts these wretched isles!
There hope ne'er dawns, and pleasure never smiles.
The vassal wretch contented drags his chain,
And hears his famish'd babes lament in vain.

4661

Falconer: Shipwreck. Canto i. Line 70

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not color'd like his own, and having pow'r
'T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
4662

Cowper: Task. Bk. ii. Line 12

I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
4663

Cowper: Task. Bk. ii. Line 29

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free:
They touch our country and their shackles fall.
4664

Cowper: Task. Bk. ii. Line 40

The hearts within thy valleys bred,
The fiery souls that might have led
Thy sons to deeds sublime,

Now crawl from cradle to the grave,
Slavesnay, the bondsmen of a slave,
And callous, save to crime.

4665

Byron: Giaour. Line 147

A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation,
And age, and sex, were in the market rang'd;
Each bevy with the merchant in his station:

Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly chang'd:
All save the blacks seem'd jaded with vexation,

From friends, and home, and freedom far estrang'd.
The negroes more philosophy display'd,

Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay'd.

4666

Byron: Don Juan. Canto v. St. 7

SLAVE-TRADE - see Slavery.

What wish can prosper, or what prayer,
For merchants rich in cargoes of despair,
Who drive a loathsome traffic, gauge and span
And buy the muscles and the bones of man?
The tender ties of father, husband, friend,
All bonds of nature in that moment end,

And each endures, while yet he draws his breath,
A stroke as fatal as the scythe of death.
4667

SLEEP

Cowper: Charity. Line 137

see Care, Dreams, Repose, Rest. Come, sleep, O sleep! the certain knot of peace, The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe; The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, The impartial judge between the high and low. 4668

Sir Philip Sidney: Astrophel and Stella. St. 39

As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labor,
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones.

Shaks.: M. for M. Act iv. Sc. 2.

4669 Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye. 4670 Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast.

Shaks.: Mid. N. Dream. Act iii. Sc. 2

4671

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 2