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See that huge battle moving from the mountains! Their gilt coats shine like dragon's scales, their march Like a rough tumbling storm; see them, and view

them,

And then see Rome no more. Say they fail, look,
Look where the armed cars stand; a new army!
Look, how they hang like falling rocks! as murdering
Death rides in triumph, Drusius, fell destruction
Lashes his fiery horse, and round about him
His many thousand ways to let out souls.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

Hark! the death-denouncing trumpet sounds
The fatal charge, and shouts proclaim the onset-
Destruction rushes dreadful to the field,

And bathes itself in blood: havoc let loose
Now undistinguish'd, rages all around;
While ruin, seated on her dreary throne,

Sees the plain strewed with subjects truly hers,
Breathless and cold.

Here might you see

Barons and peasants on th' embattled field,
Slain or half dead, in one huge ghastly heap,

Promiscuously amassed. With dismal groans,
And ejaculation, in the pangs of death,
Some call for aid, neglected; some o'erturned
In the fierce shock, lie gasping, and expire,
Trampled by fiery coursers.

Havard.

Horror thus,

Phillips.

And wild uproar, and desolation, reigned
Unrespited.

When Greeks join'd Greeks, then was the tug of war; The laboured battle sweat, and conquest bled.

But when all is past, it is humbling to tread
O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead,
And see worms of the earth and fowls of the air,
And beasts of the forest, all gathering there;
All regarding man as their prey,

All rejoicing in his decay.

Lee.

Byron.

BATTLE.

Battle's magnificently stern array.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neighed,
To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then rush'd the steeds to battle driven,
And, louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.

85

Byron.

Campbell.

Empires and kings, how oft have temples rung,
With impious thanksgiving, the Almighty's scorn!
How oft above their altars have been hung,
Trophies that led the good and wise to mourn;
Triumphant wrong, battle of battle born,
And sorrow that to fruitless sorrow clung!

So passes man,

Wordsworth.

An armed spectre, o'er a field of blood,
And vanishes! and other armed shades
Pass by; red battle hurtling as they pass.

Lisle Bowles.

Spirit of light and life! when battle rears
Her fiery brow and her terrific spears;
When red-mouthed cannon to the clouds uproar,
And gasping thousands make their beds in gore;
While in the bellowing bosom of the air
Roll the dead notes of anguish and despair!
Unseen thou walk'st upon the smoking plain,
And hear'st each groan that gurgles from the slain.
R. Montgomery.

Even like an arrow on the wind he rode
His winged courser, and with noble daring
Swept with his chivalrous escort past our front,
Even at the stormy edge of chafing battle.

Sir A. Hunt.

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And when the cannon-mouthings loud,

Heave in wide wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like sheets of flame in midnight pall.

Oh, the bellowing thunders!
The shudders, the shocks!

J. R. Drake.

When thousands 'gainst thousands,
Come clashing like rocks!
When the rain is all scarlet,
The clouds are half fire;
And men's sinews are snapped
Like the threads of a lyre!
When each litter's a hearse,
And each bullet a knell;
When each breath is a curse,
And each bosom a hell!

Procter.

BEAR.

THEY wish to live,

Their pains and poverty desire to bear,

To view the light of heaven, and breathe the common

air.

Cease thy care;

Wise is the soul; but man is born to bear:

Dryden.

Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,
And the good suffers while the bad prevails. Pope.

Where vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.

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Some power invisible supports his soul,
And bears it up in all its wonted greatness.

If this great world of joy and pain
Revolve in one sure track,

If freedom set will rise again,
And virtue flown, come back;

Addison.

BEAR. BEARD.

Woe to the purblind crew who fill
The heart with each day's care,
Nor gain from past and future still
To bear and to forbear.

87

Wordsworth.

Man's best philosophy-life's purest creed-
Christian as Epictetic is:-to bear

Our yoke unmurmuring; balance that we need
With that which we desire; to bound our prayer
To heaven's good pleasure; make the word and deed
Our heart's true mirror; in our breast to wear
Bravely our badge; and if at last we leave

Some trait worth name, what more could man achieve?
Dr. W. Beattie.

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Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them.

Old prophecies foretell our fall at hand,
When bearded men in floating castles land.

Milton.

Dryden.

Some thin remains of chastity appeared,
Even under Jove, but Jove without a beard.

Dryden.

Ere on thy chin the springing beard began
To spread a doubtful down, and promise man.

It has no bush below;

Marry a little wool, as much as an unripe
Peach doth wear:

Prior.

Just enough to speak him drawing towards a man.

Suckling.

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His tawny beard was th' equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face;
In cut and die so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile;
The upper part thereof was whey;
The nether, orange mix'd with grey.

Butler.

His beard is directly brick-colour,
And perfectly fashion'd like the husk
Of a chesnut; he kisses with the driest lip!
Marston.

BEAUTY.

NOUGHT under heaven so strongly doth allure
The sense of man, and all his mind possess,
As beauty's lovely bait, that doth procure
Great warriors oft their rigour to repress;
And mighty hands forget their manliness,
Drawn with the power of an heart-robbing eye,
And wrapt in fetters of a golden tress,
That can with melting pleasaunce mollify
Their harden'd hearts, enur'd to blood and cruelty.

Spenser.

For sure of all that in this mortal frame
Contained is, nought more divine doth seem,
Or that resembleth more th' immortal flame
Of heavenly light, than beauty's glorious beam.
What wonder then if with such rage extreme
Frail men, whose eyes seek heavenly things to see,
At sight thereof so much enravish'd be? Spenser.

For beauty is the bait which, with delight,
Doth man allure, for to enlarge his kind;
Beauty, the burning lamp of heaven's light,
Darting her beams into each feeble mind,
Against whose power nor god nor man can find
Defence, reward the danger of the wound;
But, being hurt, seek to be medicined

Of her that first did stir that mortal stownd.

Spenser.

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