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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

J. G. Saxe

  • At Learning’s fountain it is sweet to drink,
  • But ’tis a nobler privilege to think.
  • Give me kisses! Nay, ’tis true
  • I am just as rich as you;
  • And for every kiss I owe,
  • I can pay you back, you know.
  • Kiss me, then,
  • Every moment—and again.
  • “God bless the man who first invented sleep!”
  • So Sancho Panza said and so say I;
  • And bless him, also, that he didn’t keep
  • His great discovery to himself, nor try
  • To make it,—as the lucky fellow might—
  • A close monopoly by patent right.
  • Golden hair, like sunlight streaming
  • On the marble of her shoulder.
  • He says a thousand pleasant things—
  • But never says “Adieu.”
  • I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt,
  • If one be better with them or without—
  • Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,
  • Knows the high art of what and how to read.
  • I will touch
  • My mouth unto the leaves, caressingly;
  • And so wilt thou. Thus, from these lips of mine
  • My message will go kissingly to thine,
  • With more than Fancy’s load of luxury,
  • And prove a true love-letter.
  • Say, what is life? ’Tis to be born
  • A helpless babe, to greet the light
  • With a sharp wail, as if the morn
  • Foretold a cloudy noon and night;
  • To weep, to sleep, and weep again,
  • With sunny smiles between; and then?
  • Alas! poor human nature, pity, if hard pressed, degenerates into contempt.

    Beauty intoxicates the eye, as wine does the body; both are morally fatal if indulged.

    Order is the primary regulation of the celestial regions.