DRUNKENNESS.

DUELLING.

259

DRUNKENNESS.

Он, that men should put an enemy in

Their mouths, to steal away their brains! that we
Should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause,
Transform ourselves to beasts!

Shakspere.

When fumes of wine do once the brain possess,
Then follows straight an indisposedness

Throughout; the legs are fettered in that case,
They cannot with their reeling trunk keep pace.
The tongue trips, mind droops, eyes stand full of
water,

Noise, hiccough, brawls and quarrels follow after.

Lucretius.

Could ev'ry drunkard, ere he sits to dine,
Feel in his head the dizzy fumes of wine,
No more would Bacchus chain the willing soul,
But loathing horror shun the poison'd bowl.

Merivale.

That daring vice for which the whole age suffers.
The blood of our bold youth that heretofore
Was spent in honourable actions,

Or to defend, or to enlarge the kingdom,

For the honour of our country and our prince,—
Pours itself out, with prodigal expense,

Upon our mother's lap-the earth that bred us,-
For every trifle, and these private duels,—
Which had their first original from the French,
And for which to this day we're justly censured,—
Are banished from all civil governments.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

Some fiery fop, with new commission vain,
Who sleeps on brambles till he kills his man;
Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast,
Provokes a broil, and stabs him for a jest.

Dr. Johnson.

260

DULLNESS. DUST. DUTY.

DULLNESS.

As turns a flock of geese, and, on the green, Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen, (Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss and bite,

So war their quills when sons of dullness write.

Who that would ask a heart to dullness wed,
The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead?

Young.

Campbell.

DUST.

Do not for ever, with thy veiled lids,
Seek for thy noble father in the dust;

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that live, must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

Shakspere.

How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not,

To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee,

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be.-Pope.

Tell zeal it lacks devotion,
Tell love it is but lust;

Tell time it is but motion,
Tell flesh it is but dust.

Raleigh.

DUTY.

POSSESSIONS vanish, and opinions change,
And passion holds a fluctuating seat,
But, subject neither to eclipse nor wane,
Duty remains.

There was a soft and pensive grace,
A cast of thought upon her face,
That suited well the forehead high,
The eyelash dark and downcast eye;
The mild expression spoke a mind,
In duty firm, composed, resigned.

Wordsworth.

Scott.

THESE wickets of the soul are plac'd on high,
Because all sounds do lightly mount aloft;
And that they may not pierce too violently,
They are delay'd with turns and windings oft.
For, should the voice directly strike the brain,
It would astonish and confuse it much;
Therefore these plaits and folds the sound restrain,
That it the organ may more gently touch.

They being told there was small hope of case,
Were willing at the first to give an ear
To anything that sounded liberty.

The leaves on trees not more,

Davies.

Jonson.

Nor bearded ears in fields, nor sands upon the shore.

Dryden.

Pope.

If in a pillory or near a throne,
He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.

EARLY.

EARLY before the morn with crimson ray,
The windows of bright heaven opened had.

I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit
Drop earliest to the ground, and so let me.

Spenser.

Shakspere.

And yet my numbers please the rural throng,
Rough satyrs dance, and Pan approves the song;
The nymphs, forsaking every cave and spring,
Their early fruits, and milk-white turtles bring.

Better to die in early life,

Without the worldling's traint,
Than wage with sin uncertain strife,
Till age with years grows faint.

Pope.

W. H. Leatham.

THE earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb.

Shakspere. Earth's days are number'd, nor remote her doom; As mortal, tho' less transient, than her sons.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,

Young.

The homely nurse doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her inmate man,
Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.
Wordsworth.

Oh, there is not lost

One of earth's charms from off her bosom yet,
After the lapse of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And still shall lie.

Percival.

EASE.

WE should not find it half so brave and bold
To lead it to the wars and to the seas;
To make it suffer watchings, hunger, cold,
When it might feed with plenty, rest with ease.

The priest on skins of off'rings takes his ease,
And mighty visions in his slumbers sees.

Davies.

Dryden.

True ease, in writing, comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

As lamps burn silent, with unconscious light,
So modest ease in beauty shines most bright;
Unaiming charms with edge resistless fall,
And she who means no mischief does it all.

Pope.

A. Hill.

ECHO.

ECHO.

STINT thy babbling tongue!

Fond echo, thou profan'st the grace is done thee,
So idle worldlings merely made of voice,
Censure the power above them.

Listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing still.

263

Ben Jonson.

Vain honour! Thou art but disguise,
A cheating voice, a juggling art;
No judge of virtue, whose pure eyes
Court her own image in the heart,
More pleased with her true figure there,
Than her false echo in the ear.

Milton.

Carew.

The rock, like something starting from a sleep,
Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again;
That ancient woman seated on Helm-crag
Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar
And the tall steep of Silverhow sent forth
A noise of laughter; Southern Loughrigg heard,
And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone;
Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky
Carried the Lady's voice; old Skiddaw blew
His speaking trumpet; back out of the clouds
Of Glaramara southward came the voice;
And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head.
Wordsworth.

And ever-wakeful Echo here doth dwell

The nymph of sportive mockery, that still Hides behind every rock, in every dell,

And softly glides, unseen, from hill to hill; No sound doth rise but mimic it she willThe sturgeon's splash repeating from the shore, Aping the boy's voice with a voice as shrill, The bird's low warble, and the thunder's roar, Always she watches there, each murmur telling o'er. Theodore S. Fay.