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

Thomson

  • A boding silence reigns,
  • Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound
  • That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
  • Rolls o’er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
  • And shakes the forest leaf without a breath.
  • Prone, to the lowest vale, aerial tribes
  • Descend: the tempest-loving raven scarce
  • Dares wing the dubious dusk. In awful gaze
  • The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens
  • Cast a deploring eye; by man forsook,
  • Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
  • Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.
  • A fresher Gale
  • Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,
  • Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;
  • While the Quail clamors for his running mate.
  • Absence, with all its pains,
  • Is by this charming moment wip’d away.
  • Ah! whither now are fled
  • Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes
  • Of happiness? those longings after fame?
  • Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?
  • Those gay-spent, festive nights? those veering thoughts,
  • Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life?
  • All now are vanished! Virtue sole survives,
  • Immortal never-failing friend of man,
  • His guide to happiness on high.
  • All nature feels the renovating force
  • Of winter, only to the thoughtless eye
  • In ruin seen. The frost-contracted glebe
  • Draws in abundant vegetable soul,
  • And gathers vigor for the coming year.
  • A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek
  • Of ruddy fire; and luculent along
  • The purer rivers flow: their sullen deeps,
  • Transparent, open to the shepherd’s gaze
  • And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.
  • All-conquering Heat, O, intermit thy wrath!
  • And on my throbbing temples, potent thus,
  • Beam not so fierce! incessant still you flow,
  • And still another fervent flood succeeds,
  • Pour’d on the head profuse. In vain I sigh,
  • And restless turn, and look around for night;
  • Night is far off; and hotter Hours approach.
  • Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
  • Sighs the sad genius of the coming storm;
  • And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,
  • And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook
  • And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan,
  • Resounding long in listening fancy’s ear.
  • Among the changing months, May stands confessed
  • The sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed.
  • An elegant Sufficiency, Content,
  • Retirement, rural Quiet, Friendship, Books,
  • Ease and alternate Labor, useful Life,
  • Progressive Virtue, and approving Heaven!
  • And let th’ aspiring Youth beware of Love,
  • Of the smooth glance beware; for ’tis too late,
  • When on his heart the torrent-softness pours,
  • Then Wisdom prostrate lies, and fading Fame
  • Dissolves in air away.
  • And see the country, far diffused around,
  • One boundless blush, one white impurpled shower
  • Of mingled blossoms! where the raptured eye
  • Hurries from joy to joy.
  • And sometimes too a burst of rain,
  • Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends
  • In one continuous flood. Still over head
  • The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still
  • The deluge deepens; till the fields around
  • Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave.
  • Sudden the ditches swell; the meadows swim.
  • Red, from the hills, innumerable streams
  • Tumultuous roar; and high above its banks
  • The river lift; before whose rushing tide,
  • Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains,
  • Roll mingled down; all that the winds had spar’d
  • In one wild moment ruined; the big hopes
  • And well-earned treasures of the painful year.
  • At first, heard solemn o’er the verge of heaven,
  • The Tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,
  • And rolls its awful burden on the wind,
  • The Lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
  • The Noise astounds; till overhead a sheet
  • Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts,
  • And opens wider; shuts and opens still
  • Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.
  • Follows the loose’d aggravated Roar,
  • Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal,
  • Crush’d, horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.
  • At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,
  • And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more
  • Th’ expansive atmosphere is cramp’d with cold;
  • But, full of life and vivifying soul,
  • Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin,
  • Fleecy and white, o’er all surrounding heaven.
  • At the throng’d levee bends the venal tribe:
  • With fair but faithless smiles each varnish’d o’er,
  • Each smooth as those that mutually deceive.
  • Base Envy withers at another’s joy,
  • And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
  • Believe the muse, the wintry blast of death
  • Kills not the buds of virtue; no, they spread,
  • Beneath the heavenly beams of brighter suns,
  • Thro’ endless ages, into higher powers.
  • But happy they! the happiest of their kind!
  • Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
  • Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend
  • ’T is not the coarser tie of human laws,
  • Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
  • That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
  • Attuning all their passions into love
  • Where friendship full exerts her softest power
  • Perfect esteem enlivened by desire
  • Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;
  • Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will
  • With boundless confidence: for nought but love
  • Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
  • But see the fading many-colored Woods,
  • Shade deep’ning over shade, the country round
  • Imbrown; crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
  • Of every hue from wan declining green
  • To sooty dark.
  • But should you lure
  • From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots
  • Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,
  • Behooves you then to ply your finest art.
  • But through the heart
  • Should jealousy its venom once diffuse
  • ’Tis then delightful misery no more
  • But agony unmix’d, incessant gall
  • Corroding every thought, and blasting all
  • Love’s paradise.
  • But who can count the stars of heaven?
  • Who sing their influence on this lower world?
  • But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
  • Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
  • The kindling azure, and the mountain’s brow,
  • Illum’d with fluid gold, his near approach
  • Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,
  • Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colour’d air,
  • He looks in boundless majesty abroad;
  • And sheds the shining day, that burnish’d plays
  • On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wand’ring streams,
  • High gleaming from afar.
  • Convulsive anger storms at large; or pale
  • And silent, settles into full revenge.
  • Crown’d with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
  • While Autumn, nodding o’er the yellow plain,
  • Comes jovial on.
  • Custom, ’tis true, a venerable tyrant
  • O’er servile man extends her blind dominion.
  • Defeating oft the labors of the year,
  • The sultry South collects a potent blast.
  • At first the groves are scarcely seen to stir
  • Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs
  • Along the soft-inclining fields of corn;
  • But as the aërial tempest fuller swells,
  • And in one mighty stream, invisible,
  • Immense, the whole excited atmosphere
  • Impetuous rushes o’er the sounding world.
  • Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
  • To teach the young idea how to shoot,
  • To pour the fresh instruction o’er the mind,
  • To breathe the enlivening spirit and to fix
  • The generous purpose in the glowing breast!
  • Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full,
  • Weak and unmanly, loosens ev’ry power.
  • Ev’n not all these, in one rich lot combined,
  • Can make the happy man, without the mind,
  • Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys
  • The chain of reason with unerring gaze.
  • Even from the body’s purity, the mind
  • Receives a secret, sympathetic aid.
  • Father of Light and Life! Thou Good Supreme!
  • O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself!
  • Save me from folly, vanity and vice,
  • From every low pursuit: and feed my soul
  • With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
  • Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss.
  • For of old time, since first the rushing flood,
  • Urg’d by Almighty Pow’r, this favour’d isle
  • Turn’d flashing from the continent aside,
  • Indented shore to shore responsive still,
  • Its guardian she.
  • For, firm within, and while at heart untouch’d,
  • Ne’er yet by force was freedom overcome.
  • But soon as independence stoops the head,
  • To vice-enslaved, and vice-created wants,
  • Then to some foul corrupting-hand, whose waste
  • Their craving lusts with fatal bounty feeds,
  • They fall a willing, undefended prize;
  • From man to man th’ infectious softness runs,
  • Till the whole state unnerved in slavery sinks.
  • From brightening fields of ether fair-disclosed,
  • Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
  • In pride of youth, and felt through Nature’s depth;
  • He comes, attended by the sultry Hours,
  • And ever-fanning breezes, on his way.
  • From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage;
  • Till, in the furious elemental war
  • Dissolv’d, the whole precipitated mass
  • Unbroken floods and solid torrents pour.
  • From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,
  • Anemones, auriculas, enriched
  • With shining meal o’er all their velvet leaves.
  • Gradual sinks the breeze,
  • Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
  • I heard to quiver thro’ the closing woods,
  • Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves,
  • Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods diffus’d
  • In glassy breadth, seen through delusive lapse
  • Forgetful of their course. ’Tis silence all,
  • And pleasing expectation.
  • Hail! Independence, hail! Heaven’s next best gift,
  • To that of life and an immortal soul!
  • Health is the vital principle of bliss,
  • And exercise of health.
  • Heavens! what a goodly prospect spreads around,
  • Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires,
  • And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all
  • The stretching landscape into smoke decays.
  • Her form was fresher than the morning rose
  • When the dew wets its leaves; unstained and pure
  • As is the lily, or the mountain snow.
  • Her polish’d limbs,
  • Veil’d in a simple robe, their best attire,
  • Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
  • Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
  • But is, when unadorn’d, adorn’d the most.
  • Here too dwells simple truth; plain innocence;
  • Unsullied beauty; sound unbroken youth,
  • Patient of labour, with a little pleas’d;
  • Health ever blooming; unambitious toil,
  • Calm contemplation; and poetic ease.
  • His folded flock secure, the shepherd home
  • Hies merry-hearted; and by turns relieves
  • The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail;
  • The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart,
  • Unknowing what the joy-mix’d anguish means,
  • Sincerely loves, by that best language shown
  • Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds.
  • Home is the resort
  • Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
  • Supporting and supported, polish’d friends
  • And dear relations mingle into bliss.
  • How slow the time
  • To the warm soul, that in the very instant
  • It forms, would execute a great design.
  • Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace,
  • Whate’er the humanizing muses teach;
  • The godlike wisdom of the tempered breast;
  • Progressive truth, the patient force of thought;
  • Investigation calm, whose silent powers
  • Command the world; the light that leads to heaven;
  • Kind equal rule, the government of laws,
  • And all-protecting freedom, which alone
  • Sustains the name and dignity of man:
  • These are not theirs.
  • In ancient times, the sacred Plough employ’d
  • The Kings and awful Fathers of mankind:
  • And some, with whom compared your insect-tribes
  • Are but the beings of a summer’s day,
  • Have held the Scale of Empire, ruled the Storm
  • Of mighty War; then, with victorious hand,
  • Disdaining little delicacies, seized
  • The Plough, and, greatly independent, scorned
  • All the vile stores corruption can bestow.
  • Inconstant, blind,
  • Deserting friends at need, and duped by foes;
  • Loud and seditious, when a chief inspired
  • Their headlong fury, but, of him deprived,
  • Already slaves that lick’d the scourging hand.
  • Is there aught in sleep can charm the wise,
  • To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
  • The fleeting moments of too short a life;
  • Total extinction of the enlighten’d soul?
  • Wilder’d and tossing thro’ distemper’d dreams?
  • Who would in such a gloomy state remain
  • Longer than nature craves; when ev’ry muse
  • And every blooming pleasure wait without,
  • To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
  • Island of bliss! amid the subject seas,
  • That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,
  • At once the wonder, terror and delight
  • Of distant nations: whose remotest shores
  • Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm;
  • Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults
  • Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.
  • Let no presuming impious railer tax
  • Creative wisdom as if aught was form’d
  • In vain, or not for admirable ends.
  • Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
  • His works unwise of which the smallest part
  • Exceeds the narrow vision of his mind?
  • Lo! from the dread immensity of space
  • Returning, with accelerated course,
  • The rushing comet to the sun descends:
  • And as he sinks below the shading earth,
  • With awful train projected o’er the heavens,
  • The guilty nations tremble.
  • Loveliness
  • Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
  • But is when unadorn’d adorn’d the most.
  • Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
  • Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
  • Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds,
  • In fair proportion, running from the red
  • To where the violet fades into the sky.
  • Miserable they!
  • Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
  • Take their last look of the descending sun,
  • While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost,
  • The long, long night, incumbent o’er their heads,
  • Falls horrible.
  • Now from the world,
  • Sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal,
  • And pour their souls in transport.
  • Now the soft hour
  • Of walking comes; for him who lonely loves
  • To seek the distant hills, and there converse
  • With Nature, there to harmonize his heart,
  • And in pathetic Song to breathe around
  • The harmony to others.
  • Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
  • Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.
  • Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
  • O’er the sky’d mountain to the shadowy vale,
  • While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam
  • The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
  • Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.
  • Now, when the cheerless empire of the sky
  • To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
  • And fierce Aquarius stains th’ inverted year;
  • Hung o’er the farthest verge of heaven, the sun
  • Scarce spreads o’er ether the dejected day;
  • Faint are his gleams and ineffectual shoot
  • His struggling rays, in horizontal lines.
  • O grievous folly to heap up estate,
  • Losing the days you see beneath the sun,
  • When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting Fate,
  • And gives th’ untasted portion you have won
  • With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone,
  • To those who mock you, gone to Pluto’s reign.
  • O Peace! thou source and soul of social life;
  • Beneath whose calm inspiring influence,
  • Science his views enlarges, Art refines,
  • And swelling Commerce opens all her ports;
  • Blessed be the man divine, who gives us thee!
  • Oft, what seems
  • A trifle, a mere nothing, by itself,
  • In some nice situation, turns the scale
  • Of fate, and rules the most important actions.
  • Oh first of human blessings! and supreme,
  • Fair peace! how lovely, how delightful thou!
  • By whose wide tie, the kindred sons of men
  • Live brothers like, in amity combin’d,
  • And unsuspicious faith; while honest toil
  • Gives every joy, and to those joys a right,
  • Which idle, barbarous rapine but usurps.
  • Oh knew he but his happiness, of men
  • The happiest he! who far from public rage,
  • Deep in the vale, with a choice few retir’d
  • Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life.
  • Oh! thou gentle scene
  • Of sweet repose; where by th’ oblivious draught
  • Of each sad toilsome day to peace restor’d.
  • Unhappy mortals lose their woes awhile.
  • Patient of thirst and toil,
  • Son of the desert, e’en the camel feels,
  • Shot through his wither’d heart, the fiery blast.
  • Prime cheerer, light!
  • Of all material beings first and best!
  • Efflux divine! Nature’s resplendent robe!
  • Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
  • In unessential gloom; and thou, O sun!
  • Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen
  • Shines out thy Maker!
  • Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
  • Britons never will be slaves.
  • See where surly Winter passes off,
  • Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:
  • His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
  • The shattered forest and the ravished vale;
  • While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
  • Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,
  • The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
  • See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,
  • Sullen and sad, with all his rising train,
  • Vapors, and clouds, and storms.
  • Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames;
  • Fair winding up to where the Muses haunt
  • In Twit’nham bowers, and for their Pope implore.
  • Smooth to the shelving brink, a copious flood
  • Rolls fair and placid, where collected all
  • In one impetuous torrent, down the steep
  • It thund’ring shoots, and shakes the country round.
  • At first an azure sheet it rushes broad,
  • Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls,
  • And from the loud resounding rocks below,
  • Dash’d in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
  • A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.
  • Nor even the torrid wave here finds repose,
  • But raging still amid the shaggy rocks,
  • Now flashes o’er the scatter’d fragments now
  • Aslant the hollow’d channel rapid darts,
  • And falling fast from gradual slope to slope,
  • With wild infracted course and lessen’d roar
  • It gains a safer bed, and steals at last
  • Along the mazes of the quiet vale.
  • So stands the statue that enchants the world,
  • So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
  • The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
  • Soft-buzzing Slander; silly moths that eat
  • An honest name.
  • Some to the holly hedge
  • Nestling repair; and to the thicket some;
  • Some to the rude protection of the thorn.
  • Studious let me sit,
  • And hold high converse with the mighty Dead.
  • Sweet source of virtue,
  • O sacred sorrow! he who knows not thee,
  • Knows not the best emotions of the heart,
  • Those tender tears that harmonize the soul,
  • The sigh that charms, the pang that gives delight.
  • The best of men have ever loved repose;
  • They hate to mingle in the filthy fray;
  • Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows,
  • Imbitter’d more from peevish day to day.
  • The big round tears run down his dappled face;
  • He groans in anguish.
  • The clouds consign their treasure to the fields,
  • And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
  • Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
  • In large effusion o’er a freshen’d world.
  • The fall of kings,
  • The rage of nations, and the crush of states,
  • Move not the man, who, from the world escap’d,
  • In still retreats, and flowery solitudes,
  • To Nature’s voice attends, from month to month,
  • And day to day, through the revolving year;
  • Admiring, sees her in her every shape;
  • Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart;
  • Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more.
  • The generous pride of virtue,
  • Disdains to weigh too nicely the returns
  • Her bounty meets with—like the liberal gods,
  • From her own gracious nature she bestows,
  • Nor stops to ask reward.
  • The harvest treasures all
  • Now gather’d in, beyond the rage of storms,
  • Sure to the swain; the circling fence shut up;
  • And instant winter’s utmost rage defy’d.
  • While loose to festive joy, the country round
  • Laughs with the loud sincerity of mirth,
  • Shook to the wind their cares.
  • The lively Diamond drinks thy purest rays,
  • Collected light, compact.
  • The lofty follower of the sun,
  • Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,
  • Drooping all night; and when he warm returns,
  • Points her enamor’d bosom to his ray.
  • The stately-sailing swan
  • Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;
  • And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet
  • Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier isle,
  • Protective of his young.
  • The whisper’d tale,
  • That, like the fabling Nile, no fountain knows;
  • Fair-faced Deceit, whose wily conscious eye
  • Ne’er looks direct; the tongue that licks the dust,
  • But, when it safely dares, as prompt to sting.
  • These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
  • Are but the varied God. The rolling year
  • Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
  • Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
  • *****
  • Then comes Thy glory in the Summer months,
  • With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
  • Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
  • *****
  • Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
  • And spreads a common feast for all that live.
  • In Winter awful Thou! with clouds and storms
  • Around Thee thrown, tempest o’er tempest roll’d,
  • Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind’s wing,
  • Riding sublime.
  • Think, oh, grateful, think!
  • How good the God of Harvest is to you;
  • Who pours abundance o’er your flowing fields.
  • ’Tis easier for the generous to forgive,
  • Than for offence to ask it.
  • To pour the fresh instruction o’er the mind,
  • To breathe the enliv’ning spirit, and to fix
  • The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
  • True happiness (if understood)
  • Consists alone in doing good.
  • True valor
  • Lies in the mind, the never-yielding purpose,
  • Nor owns the blind award of giddy fortune.
  • Tutored by thee, hence Poetry exalts
  • Her voice to ages; and informs the page
  • With music, image, sentiment, and thought,
  • Never to die! the treasure of mankind!
  • Their highest honor, and their truest joy!
  • Without thee, what were unenlighten’d Man?
  • Unhappy he! who from the first of joys,
  • Society, cut off, is left alone
  • Amid this world of death. Day after day,
  • Sad on the jutting eminence he sits,
  • And views the main that ever toils below;
  • Still fondly forming in the farthest verge,
  • Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
  • Ships, dim-discovered, dropping from the clouds;
  • At evening, to the setting sun he turns
  • A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
  • Sinks helpless.
  • Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery Thickets hail!
  • Ye lofty Pines! ye venerable Oaks!
  • Ye Ashes wild, resounding o’er the steep!
  • Delicious is your shelter to the soul.
  • What, what is virtue, but repose of mind,
  • A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm;
  • Above the reach of wild ambition’s wind,
  • Above those passions that this world deform
  • And torture man.
  • When Autumn scatters his departing gleams,
  • Warned of approaching Winter, gathered, play
  • The swallow-people; and tossed wide around
  • O’er the calm sky, in convolution swift,
  • The feathered eddy floats; rejoicing once,
  • Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire.
  • When from the opening chambers of the east
  • The morning springs in thousand liveries drest,
  • The early larks their morning tribute pay,
  • And, in shrill notes, salute the blooming day.
  • While Reason drew the plan, the Heart inform’d
  • The moral page and Fancy lent it grace.
  • Whoe’er amidst the sons
  • Of reason, valor, liberty and virtue,
  • Displays distinguished merit, is a noble
  • Of Nature’s own creating.
  • Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
  • Beneath life’s pressure, yet bear up awhile,
  • And what your bounded view, which only saw
  • A little part, deemed evil, is no more:
  • The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
  • And one unbounded Spring encircle all.
  • Age too, shines out, and garrulous recounts the feats of youth.

    And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice.

    But yonder comes the powerful king of day rejoicing in the east.

    Child of sun, refulgent summer, comes.

    Come then, expressive Silence.

    Come, gentle Spring; ethereal Mildness, come!

    Cruel as death and hungry as the grave.

    Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, to teach the young idea how to shoot, to pour the fresh instruction over the mind, to breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix the generous purpose in the glowing breast.

    Dependants, friends, relations, love himself, ravaged by woe, forget the tender tie.

    Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace.

    First of human blessings! and supreme.

    From seeming evil still educing good.

    Health is the vital principle of bliss.

    Her lips blush deeper sweets.

    Him who lonely loves to seek the distant hills, and there converse with nature.

    How slow the time to the warm soul, that, in the very instant it forms, would execute a great design!

    If misfortune comes, she brings along the bravest virtues.

    In ancient times, the sacred plough employed the kings, and awful fathers of mankind.

    In waking whispers and repeated dreams, to hint pure thoughts and warn the favored soul.

    Ingratitude is treason to mankind.

    It is late before the brave despair.

    It is success that colors all in life: success makes fools admired, makes villains honest; all the proud virtue of this vaunting world fawns on success and power, however acquired.

    Its pomp, its pleasures, and its nonsense all.

    Looked unutterable things.

    Love, Gratitude, and Pity wept at once.

    Loveliness needs not the foreign aid of ornament, but is, when unadorned, adorned the most.

    No noise, no care, no vanity, no strife; men, woods and fields, all breathe untroubled life.

    Now black and deep the night begins to fall, a shade immense; sunk in the quenching gloom, magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.

    O virtue! virtue! as thy joys excel, so are thy woes transcendent; the gross world knows not the bliss or misery of either.

    O winter, ruler of the inverted year!

    Of all evils to the generous, shame is the most deadly pang.

    Of evening tinct the purple, streaming amethyst is thine.

    Oh, fair undress, best dress! It checks no vein, but every flowing limb pleasure drowns, and heightens ease with grace.

    Peace is the happy, natural state of man; war his corruption, his disgrace.

    Philosophy consists not in airy schemes or idle speculations; the rule and conduct of all social life is her great province.

    Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow in large effusion o’er the freshened world.

    Prime cheerer, light! of all material beings first and best! Efflux divine.

    Real glory springs from the quiet conquest of ourselves; and without that the conqueror is nought but the first slave.

    She felt his flame; but deep within her breast, in bashful coyness or in maiden pride, the soft return concealed.

    Ships, dim discovered, dropping from the clouds.

    Sober Evening takes her wonted station in the middle air, a thousand shadows at her beck.

    That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.

    The clouds consign their treasures to the fields, and, softly shaking on the dimpled pool prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow in large effusion o’er the freshening world.

    The downward sun looks out effulgent from amid the flash of broken clouds.

    The feeling heart, simplicity of life and elegance and taste.

    The kind refresher of the summer heats.

    The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews.

    The pale descending year, yet pleasing still, a gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf incessant rustles from the mournful grove, oft startling such as, studious, walk below, and slowly circles through the waving air.

    The rolling year is full of Thee.

    The rude reproaches of the rascal herd for the selfsame actions, if successful, would be as grossly lavish in their praise.

    The very dead creation from thy touch assumes a mimic life.

    They who are pleased themselves must always please.

    Those tender tears that humanize the soul.

    Through the lightened air a higher lustre and a clearer calm, diffusive, trembles.

    ’Tis done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms, and reigns tremendous o’er the conquered year.

    ’Tis late before the brave despair.

    To die, I own, is a dread passage—terrible to nature, chiefly to those who have, like me, been happy.

    True valor lies in the mind, the never-yielding purpose, nor owns the blind award of giddy fortune.

    Truth, justice, and reason lose all their force, and all their lustre, when they are not accompanied with agreeable manners.

    Unblemished honor is the flower of virtue! the vivifying soul! and he who slights it will leave the other dull and lifeless dross.

    Unstained and pure as is the lily, or the mountain snow.

    Vulgar minds refuse or crouch beneath their load; the brave bear theirs without repining.

    War is the corruption and disgrace of man.

    What were unenlightened man? A savage, roaming through the woods and wilds in quest of prey.

    Winter binds our strengthened bodies in a cold embrace constringent.