ページの画像
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

THIS fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons pease;
And utters it again when God doth please:
He is wit's pedlar; and retails his wares
At wakes, and wassels, meetings, markets, fairs,
And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;
Had he been Adam he had tempted Eve.
He can carve too, and lisp: why this is he
That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;
This is the ape of form, Monsieur the nice,
That when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms: nay he can sing
A mean most meanly; and in ushering
Mend him who can: the ladies call him Sweet;
The stairs, as he treads on them kiss his feet.
This is the flower that smiles on every one,
To shew his teeth as white as whale his bone:
And consciences that will not die in debt,
Pay him the due of honey-tongu'd Boyet.

[blocks in formation]

See where it comes!-Behaviour what wert thou Till this man shew'd thee? and what art thou now?

Shakspere.

To their wills wedded, to their errors slaves,
No man like them they think himself behaves.

Denham.

Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk,
And dinna be sae rude to me,
As kiss me sae before folk.
It wad na' gie me meikle pain,
Gin we were seen and heard by nane,
To tak a kiss or grant ye ane;
But gude sake! no before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk.
Whate'er ye do when out of view,
Be cautious aye before folk!

Alexander Rodgers.

[blocks in formation]

BEING-BEINGS.

THERE is none but he

Whose being I do fear; and under him

My genius is rebuked.

The Father, first they sung, omnipotent,
Immutable, immortal, infinite,

Eternal King! Thee, author of all being!

Shakspere.

Milton.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know; Or who could suffer being here below.

The beings of the mind are not of clay,
Essentially immortal, they create

Pope.

And multiply in us a brighter ray,
And more belov'd existence.

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars
Till he had peopled them with beings bright
As their own beams.

BELIEF.

Byron.

Byron.

Now God be praised, that to believing souls,
Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.

Shakspere.

He can, I know, but doubt to think he will;
Yet hope would fain subscribe, and tempts belief.

Milton.

Those comforts that shall never cease,
Future in hope, but present in belief. Wotton.

What he says

You may believe, and pawn your soul upon it.
Shirley.

Oh! how unlike the complex works of man,
Heaven's easy, artless, unincumbered plan!
No meretricious graces to beguile,
No clustering ornaments to cloy the pile;

[blocks in formation]

From ostentation as from weakness free,
It stands like the cerulean arch we see,
Majestic in its own simplicity.

Inscribed above the portals from afar,
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star;

Legible only by the light they give,

Stand the soul-quickening words-BELIEVE AND LIVE.

BELLS.

Cowper.

YOUR flock, assembled by the bells,

Encircle you to hear with reverence.

Shakspere.

Get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself,

And bid the merry bells ring to thy ear,
That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.

Those flattering bells have all

One sound at wedding, and at funeral.

Shakspere.

Webster.

Loud ringing changes all our bells have marred;
Jangled they have and jarred,

So long they're out of tune and out of frame,
They seem not now the same.

Put them in frame anew, and once begin
To tune them so that they may chime all in.

The humble records of my life to search,

Herbert.

I have not herded with mere pagan beasts,
And sometimes I have "sat at good men's feasts,"
And I have been where bells have knolled to church.
Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells,
When on the undulating ear they swim!

Now loud as welcomes! faint now as farewells!
And trembling all about the breezy dells,

As fluttered by the wings of cherubim;
Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn,
And lost to sight the ecstatic lark above,
Sings, like soul beatified, of love.

Thos. Hood.

The bells themselves are the best of preachers;
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,

BELLS.

From their pulpits of stone in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the law,
Now a sermon and now a prayer.
The clangorous hammer is the tongue,
This way, that way, beaten and swung;

107

That from mouth of brass, as from mouth of gold,
May be taught the Testaments, New and Old.
And above it the great cross-beam of wood,
Representeth the Holy Rood,

Upon which, like the bell, our hopes are hung;
And the wheel wherewith it is swayed and rung,
Is the mind of man, that round and round
Sways, and maketh the tongue to sound!
And the rope, with its twisted cordage three,
Denoteth the Scriptural Trinity

Of morals, and symbols, and history;

And the upward and downward motions show
That we touch upon matters high and low;
And the constant change and transmutation
Of action and of contemplation-

Downward, the scripture brought from on high,
Upward, exalted again to the sky;

Downward, the literal interpretation,

Upward, the vision and mystery!

On the pagoda spire,

The bells are swinging,

Their little golden circles in a flutter,

Longfellow.

With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter;

Till all are singing,

As if in a choir;

Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing;

And with a lulling sound,

The music floats around,

And drops like balm into the drowsy ear.

Mrs. E. C. Judson.

Those evening bells—those evening bells—
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth and home-and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!

Colman.

108

BENEFICENCE.

BENEVOLENCE.

BENEFICENCE.-BENEFITS.

BENEFICENCE regardless of herself,
Of pride, ambition, policy, or pelf,
Enjoys in blest return, for one poor mite,
A mine, an empire of sublime delight.-Lathrop.

When noble benefits shall prove

Not well disposed, the mind grown once corrupt,
They turn to vicious forms.

As many as offered life
Neglect not, and the benefit embrace
By faith, not void of works.

Shakspere.

Milton.

A benefit upbraided, forfeits thanks;
And 'tis not sure so full a benefit,
Freely to give, as freely to require.
A bounteous act hath glory following it,
They cause the glory, that the act desire.

To brag of benefits one hath bestown,

Lady Carew.

Doth make the best seem less, and most seem none; So oftentimes the greatest courtesy

Is by the doer made an injury.

Brome.

BENEVOLENCE.

GRASP the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense. In one close system of benevolence.

Nature all

Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.

Ah! little think the gay, licentious, proud,

Pope.

Thomson.

Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround; They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel riot, waste;

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,

« 前へ次へ »