England, with all thy faults, I love thee still,
My country! and while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage and her myrtle bowers.
To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task;
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart
any thund'rer there.
Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art,
With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed
By public exigence, 'till annual food
Fails for the craving hunger of the state,
Thee I account still happy, and the chief
Among the natrons, seeing thou art free!
My native nook of earth.
Yet much is talk'd of bliss; it is the art
Of such as have the world in their possession,
To give it a good name, that fools may envy;
For envy to small minds is flattery.
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Thomson's Seasons-Spring.
Who can in reason then or right assume
Monarchy over such as live by right
His equals, if in pow'r or splendour less,
In freedom equal ?
Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 5.
See the descending sun, Scatt'ring his beams about him as he sinks, And gilded heaven above, and seas beneath, With paint, no mortal pencil can express.
This as I guess should be th' appointed time:
For o'er our heads have pass'd on homeward wing
Dark flights of rooks, and daws, and flocking birds,
Wheeling aloft with wild dissonant screams;
Whilst from each hollow glen and river's bed
Rose the white curling mist, and softly stole
Up the dark wooded banks.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald, pt. 2, a. 5, s. 3.
Declin'd was hasting now, with prone career
To th' ocean isles, and in th' ascending scale
Of Heav'n the stars that usher evening rose.
Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 4.
In the western sky, the downward sun Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.
Thomson's Seasons-Spring.
The sun has lost his rage: his downward orb
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth,
And vital lustre; that, with various ray,
Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of heaven,
Incessant roll'd into romantic shapes,
The dream of waking fancy!
Of walking comes: for him who lonely loves
To seek the distant hills, and there converse
With Nature; there to harmonize his heart,
And in pathetic song to breathe around
The harmony to others. Thomson's Seasons-Summer.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
EXECUTION.
See they suffer death;
But in their deaths remember they are men:
Strain not the laws, to make their tortures grievous.
Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse! Strike-and but once!
Byron's Doge of Venice, a. 5, s. 3.
Yes, yes! from out the herd, like a mark'd deer,
They drive the poor distraught. The storms of heaven
Beat on him gaping hinds stare at his woe;
And no one stops to bid heav'n speed his way.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald, a. 5, s. 1.
Were far away from Venice, never saw
Her beautiful towers in the receding distance,
While every furrow of your vessel's track
Seem'd ploughing deep into your heart; you never
Saw day go down upon your native spires
So calmly with its cold and crimson glory,
And after dreaming a disturbed vision
Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not.
Byron-The Two Foscari, a. 3, s. 1.
O unexpected stroke, worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hop'd to spend ;
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both.
Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 11.
Some natural tears they dropt, but wip'd them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Unhappy he who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below;
Still fondly forming in the farthest verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim-discovered, dropping from the clouds;
At evening, to the setting sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless.
Thomson's Seasons-Summer.
And he is gone from all he loves for ever!
His wife, his boys, and his disconsolate parents!
Gone in the dead of night-unseen of any—
Without a word, a look of tenderness,
To be called up, when, in his lonely hours
He would indulge in weeping.
'Tis war that forms the prince: 'Tis hardship, toil; 'Tis sleepless nights, and never-resting days; 'Tis pain, 'tis danger, 'tis affronted death; 'Tis equal fate for all, and changing fortune; That rear the mind to glory, that inspire The noblest virtues, and the gentlest manners.
'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours;
And ask them what report they bore to heaven;
And how they might have borne more welcome news.
Their answers form what men Experience call;
If Wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst foe.
Young's Night Thoughts, n. 2.
Much had he read,
Much more had seen: he studied from the life,
And in th' original perus'd mankind.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health, b. 4.
We sacrifice to dress, till household joys
Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean.
And introduces hunger, frost, and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.
Cowper's Task, b. 2.
Mansions once
Knew their own masters, and laborious hinds
That had surviv'd the father, serv'd the son.
Now the legitimate and rightful Lord
Is but a transient guest, newly arrived,
And soon to be supplanted. He that saw
His patrimonial timber cast its leaf,
Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price
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