BEAUTY.

When I forget that the stars shine in air,
When I forget that beauty is in stars-
Shall I forget thy beauty.

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Bailey.

Some souls lose all things but the love of beauty;
And by that love they are redeemable.

For in love and beauty they acknowledge good,
And good is God.

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*

The beautiful are never desolate,
But some one always loves them.

*

*

Bailey.

What right have you, madam, gazing in your shining mirror daily,

Getting so by heart your beauty, which all others must adore;

While you draw the golden ringlets down your fingers, to vow gaily,

You will wed no man that's only good to God—and nothing more.

Miss Barrett.

When through a chink a darkened room

Admits the solar beam,

Down the long light that breaks the gloom,
Millions of atoms stream.

In sparkling agitations bright,

Alternate dies they bear;

Too small for any sense but sight,
Or any sight, but there.

Nature reveals not all her store

To human search or skill;

And when she deigns to shew us more,

She shews us Beauty still.

Let us not like fools despise

Earth, which is a seat of beauty,

But the love light of our eyes,
Turns unto it as a duty.

Beauty here hath done its mission;

When it guides us to death's portal,

For its presence is a vision
Of a beauty all immortal.

Bishop.

E. H. B.

100

BEAUTY.

Men say gold

Does all, engages all, works through all dangers;
But I say beauty can do more. The king's exchequer,
Nor all his wealthy Indies, could not draw me
Through half these miseries, this piece of pleasure
Might make me leap into. We're all like sea-cards,
All our endeavours and our motions,

(As they do to the north) still point at beauty.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

There's beauty all around our paths,
If but our watchful eyes
Can trace it 'midst familiar things,
And through their lowly guise.

Beautiful, yes! but the blush will fade,

Mrs. Hemans.

The light grow dim which the blue eyes wear;
The gloss will vanish from curl and braid,
And the sunbeam die in the waving hair.
Turn from the mirror, and strive to win
Treasures of loveliness still to last;

Gather earth's glory and bloom within,

That the soul may be bright when youth is past.

Mrs. Osgood. Thy glorious beauty was the gift of heaven

As such thou should'st have priz'd it, and have died
Ere thou did'st yield it up to mortal touch,
Unless thy heart went with it, to make pure
And sanctify the offering.

Mrs. Osgood.

The spirit of beauty unfurls her light,
And wheels her course in a joyous flight;
I know her track through the balmy air,
By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there;
She leaves the tops of the mountains green,
And gems the valley with crystal sheen.

She mellows the landscape, and crowds the stream, With shadows that flit like a fairy dream;

Still wheeling her flight through the gladsome air, The spirit of beauty is everywhere.

Rufus Dawes.

BEAUTY.

Though loveliness will pass away

From individual beings, and is oft

More mortal than the human heirs of death,
Yet abstract beauty since at first the will
Of heaven-designed Creation, through the lapse
Of past eternity, has ever been

A living essence, an immortal thing.

Each generation views it fresh and fair,

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As that which went before; and though the hand
Of death will grasp the sweetest flowers on earth,
Others become their likeness; and when sounds
The trumpet through the systems, all shall rise
With deathless being and regenerate form;
And through the future shall undying love
Perfect the soul of beauteousness, and shake
Decay from those she dwells with, to adorn
Through endless years the palaces of heaven.
Dilnot Sladden.

Only the beautiful is real:

All things whereof our life is full,

All mysteries that life enwreathe,
Birth, life, and death,

All that we dread or darkly feel,-
All are but shadows; and the beautiful
Alone is real.

Love, truth, and beauty-all are one:

If life may expiate

The wilderings of its dimness, death be known

But as the mighty ever-living gate

Into the beautiful:

-All things flow on

Into one heart, into one melody,

Eternally.

Is beauty vain because it will fade?

W. J. Linton.

Then are earth's green robe and heaven's light vain; For this shall be lost in evening's shade, And that in winter's sleety rain.

John Pierpont.

Beauty was lent to nature as the type
Of heaven's unspeakable and holy joy,
Where all perfection makes the sum of bliss.

Mrs. Hale.

OH! thou gentle scene

Of sweet repose, where by th' oblivious draught
Of each sad toilsome day to peace restored,
Unhappy mortals lose their woes awhile.

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die;

The near approach a bed may show

Thomson.

Of human bliss and human woe.-Dr. Johnson.

Night is the time for rest;

How sweet when labours close,

To gather round our aching breast
The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head

Down on our own delightful bed.

Oh, bed! Oh, bed! delicious bed!

J. Montgomery.

That heaven upon earth to the weary head,
But a place that to name would be ill-bred,
To the head with a wakeful trouble:
'Tis held by such a different lease,
To one a place of comfort and peace,
And stuffed with the down of stubble geese,
To another with only the stubble.

Thos. Hood.

BEGGAR.

WHILE I am a beggar, I will rail, And say there is no sin but to be rich: And being rich, my virtue then shall be To say there is no vice but beggary.

Shakspere.

The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms,
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,
And with this horrible object from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometimes with lunatic bans, sometimes with prayers,
Enforce their charity.
Shakspere.

BEGGAR.

Art thou a man? And sham'st not thou to beg?
To practise such a servile kind of life?
Why, were thy education ne'er so mean,
Having thy limbs, a thousand fairer courses
Offer themselves to thy election.

When beggars grow thus bold,

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Ben Jonson.

No marvel then though charity grow cold.-Drayton.

Base worldlings, that despise all such as need;
Who to the needy beggar still are dumb,
Not knowing unto what themselves may come.
Heywood.

He makes a beggar first that first relieves him;
Not us'rers make more beggars where they live,
Than charitable men that use to give.

Heywood.

Beggars! the only free men of our commonwealth;
Free above scot-free; that observe no laws,
Obey no governor, use no religion,

But what they draw from their own ancient custom,
Or constitute themselves; yet are no rebels.

What subjects will precarious kings regard?
A beggar speaks too softly to be heard.

Browne.

Dryden.

His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their pain;
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast.
Goldsmith.

The beggar, as he stretched his shrivelled hand,
Raised not his eyes, and those who dropped the mite
Passed on unnoticed.

A beggar through the world am I,
From place to place I wander by;
Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me,
For Christ's sweet sake and charity.

Bailey.

J. R. Lowell.