I rede ye tent it;
A chiel 's amang ye takin' notes,
And, faith, he 'll prent it.
_On Captain Grose's Peregrinations through Scotland._
John Anderson my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonny brow was brent.
_John Anderson._
My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer.[450-1]
_My Heart 's in the Highlands._
She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonny wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.
_My Wife 's a Winsome Wee Thing._
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
_Highland Mary._
But, oh! fell death's untimely frost
That nipt my flower sae early.
_Highland Mary._
It 's guid to be merry and wise,[450-2]
It 's guid to be honest and true,
It 's guid to support Caledonia's cause,
And bide by the buff and the blue.
_Here 's a Health to Them that 's Awa'._
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!
Now 's the day and now 's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour.
_Bannockburn._
Liberty 's in every blow!
Let us do or die.[450-3]
_Bannockburn._
In durance vile[450-4] here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.
_Epistle from Esopus to Maria._
Oh, my luve 's like a red, red rose,
That 's newly sprung in June;
Oh, my luve 's like the melodie
That 's sweetly played in tune.
_A Red, Red Rose._
Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair.
_Contented wi' Little._
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
_Tam o' Shanter._
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet
To think how monie counsels sweet,
How monie lengthened sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises.
_Tam o' Shanter._
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither,--
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
_Tam o' Shanter._
The landlady and Tam grew gracious
Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious.
_Tam o' Shanter._
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus.
_Tam o' Shanter._
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.
_Tam o' Shanter._
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or, like the snow-fall in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever.
_Tam o' Shanter._
Nae man can tether time or tide.[451-1]
_Tam o' Shanter._
That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane.
_Tam o' Shanter._
Inspiring, bold John Barleycorn,
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
_Tam o' Shanter._
As Tammie glow'red, amazed and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.
_Tam o' Shanter._
But to see her was to love her,[452-1]
Love but her, and love forever.
_Ae Fond Kiss._
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted!
_Ae Fond Kiss._
To see her is to love her,
And love but her forever;
For Nature made her what she is,
And never made anither!
_Bonny Lesley._
Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care?
_The Banks of Doon._
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.
_Sweet Sensibility._
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man 's the gowd for a' that.[452-2]
_For a' that and a' that._
A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man 's aboon his might,
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.[452-3]
_For a' that and a' that._
'T is sweeter for thee despairing
Than aught in the world beside,--Jessy!
_Jessy._
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
_Grace before Meat._
It was a' for our rightfu' King
We left fair Scotland's strand.
_A' for our Rightfu' King._[452-4]
Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain.
_A' for our Rightfu' King._
He turn'd him right and round about
Upon the Irish shore,
And gae his bridle reins a shake,
With, "Adieu for evermore, my dear,
And adieu for evermore."[453-1]
_A' for our Rightfu' King._
FOOTNOTES:
[446-2]
Man was made when Nature was
But an apprentice, but woman when she
Was a skilful mistress of her art.
_Cupid's Whirligig_ (1607).
[447-1] See Fletcher, page 183.
[448-1] See Pope, page 325.
[448-2] See Young, page 309.
[448-3] See Burton, page 193.
[448-4] See Shakespeare, page 129.
[449-1] See Beaumont and Fletcher, page 198.
[449-2] See Bickerstaff, page 427.
[450-1] These lines from an old song, entitled "The Strong Walls
of Derry," Burns made a basis for his own beautiful ditty.
[450-2] See Heywood, page 9.
[450-3] See Fletcher, page 183.
[450-4] Durance vile.--W. KENRICK (1766): _Falstaff's Wedding, act
i. sc. 2._ BURKE: _The Present Discontents._
[451-1] See Heywood, page 10.
[452-1] To know her was to love her.--ROGERS: _Jacqueline, stanza
1._
[452-2] I weigh the man, not his title; 't is not the king's stamp
can make the metal better.--WYCHERLEY: _The Plaindealer, act. i.
sc. 1._
[452-3] See Southerne, page 282.
[452-4] This ballad first appeared in Johnson's "Museum," 1796.
Sir Walter Scott was never tired of hearing it sung.
[453-1] Under the impression that this stanza is ancient, Scott
has made very free use of it, first in "Rokeby" (1813), and then
in the "Monastery" (1816). In "Rokeby" he thus introduces the
verse:--
He turn'd his charger as he spake,
Upon the river shore,
He gave his bridle reins a shake,
Said, "Adieu for evermore, my love,
And adieu for evermore."
WILLIAM PITT. 1759-1806.
Necessity is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of
slaves.[453-2]
_Speech on the India Bill, November, 1783._
Prostrate the beauteous ruin lies; and all
That shared its shelter perish in its fall.
_The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. No. xxxvi._
FOOTNOTES:
[453-2] See Milton, page 232.
ANDREW CHERRY. 1762-1812.
Loud roared the dreadful thunder,
The rain a deluge showers.
_The Bay of Biscay._
As she lay, on that day,
In the bay of Biscay, O!
_The Bay of Biscay._
GEORGE COLMAN, THE YOUNGER. 1762-1836.
On their own merits modest men are dumb.
_Epilogue to the Heir at Law._
And what 's impossible can't be,
And never, never comes to pass.
_The Maid of the Moor._
Three stories high, long, dull, and old,
As great lords' stories often are.
_The Maid of the Moor._
Like two single gentlemen rolled into one.
_Lodgings for Single Gentlemen._
But when ill indeed,
E'en dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.
_Lodgings for Single Gentlemen._
When taken,
To be well shaken.
_The Newcastle Apothecary._
Thank you, good sir, I owe you one.
_The Poor Gentleman. Act i. Sc. 2._
O Miss Bailey!
Unfortunate Miss Bailey!
_Love laughs at Locksmiths. Act ii. Song._
'T is a very fine thing to be father-in-law
To a very magnificent three-tailed Bashaw!
_Blue Beard. Act ii. Sc. 5._
I had a soul above buttons.
_Sylvester Daggerwood, or New Hay at the Old Market. Sc. 1._
Mynheer Vandunck, though he never was drunk,
Sipped brandy and water gayly.
_Mynheer Vandunck._
JAMES HURDIS. 1763-1801.
Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed.[454-1]
_The Village Curate._
FOOTNOTES:
[454-1] To rise with the lark, and go to bed with the
lamb.--BRETON: _Court and Country_ (1618; reprint, p. 183).
SAMUEL ROGERS. 1763-1855.
Sweet Memory! wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail.
_The Pleasures of Memory. Part ii. i._
She was good as she was fair,
None--none on earth above her!
As pure in thought as angels are:
To know her was to love her.[455-1]
_Jacqueline. Stanza 1._
The good are better made by ill,
As odours crushed are sweeter still.[455-2]
_Jacqueline. Stanza 3._
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.
_Human Life._
Fireside happiness, to hours of ease
Blest with that charm, the certainty to please.
_Human Life._
The soul of music slumbers in the shell
Till waked and kindled by the master's spell;
And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour
A thousand melodies unheard before!
_Human Life._
Then never less alone than when alone.[455-3]
_Human Life._
Those that he loved so long and sees no more,
Loved and still loves,--not dead, but gone before,[455-4]--
He gathers round him.
_Human Life._
Mine be a cot beside the hill;
A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook that turns a mill,
With many a fall, shall linger near.
_A Wish._
That very law which moulds a tear
And bids it trickle from its source,--
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.
_On a Tear._
Go! you may call it madness, folly;
You shall not chase my gloom away!
There 's such a charm in melancholy
I would not if I could be gay.
_To ----._
To vanish in the chinks that Time has made.[456-1]
_Pæstum._
Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it:
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.
_Epigram._
FOOTNOTES:
[455-1] See Burns, page 452.
None knew thee but to love thee.--HALLECK: _On the Death of
Drake._
[455-2] See Bacon, page 165.
[455-3] See Gibbon, page 430.
Numquam se minus otiosum esse, quam quum otiosus, nec minus solum,
quam quum solus esset (He is never less at leisure than when at
leisure, nor less alone than when he is alone).--CICERO: _De
Officiis, liber iii. c. 1._
[455-4] This is literally from Seneca, _Epistola lxiii. 16._ See
Matthew Henry, page 283.
[456-1] See Waller, page 221.
JOHN FERRIAR. 1764-1815.
The princeps copy, clad in blue and gold.
_Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 6._
Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold.
_Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 65._
Torn from their destined page (unworthy meed
Of knightly counsel and heroic deed).
_Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 121._
How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold
The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!
_Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 137._
ANN RADCLIFFE. 1764-1823.
Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns,
And as the portal opens to receive me,
A voice in hollow murmurs through the courts
Tells of a nameless deed.[456-2]
FOOTNOTES:
[456-2] These lines form the motto to Mrs. Radcliffe's novel, "The
Mysteries of Udolpho," and are presumably of her own composition.
ROBERT HALL. 1764-1831.
His [Burke's] imperial fancy has laid all Nature under tribute,
and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and
every walk of art.
_Apology for the Freedom of the Press._
He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I
know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains
could not move.
_Gregory's Life of Hall._
Call things by their right names. . . . Glass of brandy and
water! That is the current but not the appropriate name: ask for
a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.[457-1]
_Gregory's Life of Hall._
FOOTNOTES:
[457-1] See Tourneur, page 34.
He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin.--DIOGENES
LAERTIUS: _Pythagoras, vi._
THOMAS MORTON. 1764-1838.
What will Mrs. Grundy say?
_Speed the Plough. Act i. Sc. 1._
Push on,--keep moving.
_A Cure for the Heartache. Act ii. Sc. 1._
Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed.
_A Cure for the Heartache. Act v. Sc. 2._
SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 1765-1832.
Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself.
_Vindiciæ Gallicæ._
The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and
masterly inactivity.
_Vindiciæ Gallicæ._
Disciplined inaction.
_Causes of the Revolution of 1688. Chap. vii._
The frivolous work of polished idleness.
_Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy. Remarks on Thomas Brown._
LADY NAIRNE. 1766-1845.
There 's nae sorrow there, John,
There 's neither cauld nor care, John,
The day is aye fair,
In the land o' the leal.
_The Land o' the Leal._
Gude nicht, and joy be wi' you a'.
_Gude Nicht, etc._[458-1]
Oh, we 're a' noddin', nid, nid, noddin';
Oh, we 're a' noddin' at our house at hame.
_We 're a' Noddin'._
A penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree.
_The Laird o' Cockpen._
FOOTNOTES:
[458-1] Sir Alexander Boswell composed a version of this song.
ANDREW JACKSON. 1767-1845.
Our Federal Union: it must be preserved.
_Toast given on the Jefferson Birthday Celebration in 1830._
You are uneasy; you never sailed with _me_ before, I see.[458-2]
_Life of Jackson_ (Parton). _Vol. iii. p. 493._
FOOTNOTES:
[458-2] A remark made to an elderly gentleman who was sailing with
Jackson down Chesapeake Bay in an old steamboat, and who exhibited
a little fear.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 1767-1848.
Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity![458-3]
_Speech at Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1802._
In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill-will to any
human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage
their fellow-men, not knowing what they do.[458-4]
_Letter to A. Bronson. July 30, 1838._
This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,
For Freedom only deals the deadly blow;
Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,
For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.[459-1]
_Written in an Album, 1842._
This is the last of earth! I am content.
_His Last Words, Feb. 21, 1848._
FOOTNOTES:
[458-3] Et majores vestros et posteros cogitate.--TACITUS:
_Agricola, c. 32. 31._
[458-4] With malice towards none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.--ABRAHAM
LINCOLN: _Second Inaugural Address._
[459-1] See Sidney, page 264.
DAVID EVERETT. 1769-1813.
You 'd scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.[459-2]
_Lines written for a School Declamation._
FOOTNOTES:
[459-2] The lofty oak from a small acorn grows.--LEWIS DUNCOMBE
(1711-1730): _De Minimis Maxima_ (translation).
SYDNEY SMITH. 1769-1845.
It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch
understanding.[459-3]
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 15._
That knuckle-end of England,--that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and
sulphur.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 17._
No one minds what Jeffrey says: . . . it is not more than a week
ago that I heard him speak disrespectfully of the equator.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 17._
We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal.[460-1]
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 23._
Truth is its [justice's] handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is
its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its
train; it is the brightest emanation from the Gospel; it is the
attribute of God.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 29._
It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason
for the faith that is within him.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 53._
Avoid shame, but do not seek glory,--nothing so expensive as
glory.[460-2]
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 88._
Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment
of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness
that he has done his best.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 130._
Looked as if she had walked straight out of the ark.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 157._
The Smiths never had any arms, and have invariably sealed their
letters with their thumbs.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 244._
Not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his intellect is
improperly exposed.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 258._
He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into
empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw
them up again.[460-3]
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 259._
You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil
and twopence.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 261._
Ah, you flavour everything; you are the vanilla of society.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 262._
My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was
actually twelve miles from a lemon.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 262._
As the French say, there are three sexes,--men, women, and
clergymen.[461-1]
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 262._
To take Macaulay out of literature and society and put him in the
House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of
London during a pestilence.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 265._
Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine in trousers.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 267._
"Heat, ma'am!" I said; "it was so dreadful here, that I found
there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in
my bones."
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 267._
Macaulay is like a book in breeches. . . . He has occasional
flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly
delightful.
_Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 363._
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
Fate cannot harm me,--I have dined to-day.[461-2]
_Recipe for Salad. P. 374._
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea?--how did
it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
_Recipe for Salad. P. 383._
If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes
upon a table, of different shapes,--some circular, some
triangular, some square, some oblong,--and the persons acting
these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally
find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the
oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed
himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer
and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they
were almost made for each other.[461-3]
_Sketches of Moral Philosophy._
The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages
his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the
dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per
cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself
back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and
expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a
hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death.
_Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States, 1820._
In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book, or
goes to an American play, or looks at an American picture or
statue?
_Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States, 1820._
Magnificent spectacle of human happiness.
_America. Edinburgh Review, July, 1824._
In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm [at Sidmouth],
Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door
of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing
out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic
Ocean. The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partington's spirit was up.
But I need not tell you that the contest was unequal; the
Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington.
_Speech at Taunton, 1813._
Men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure
of taxation, however light.
_On American Debts._
FOOTNOTES:
[459-3] See Walpole, page 389.
[460-1] Mr. Smith, with reference to the "Edinburgh Review," says:
"The motto I proposed for the 'Review' was 'Tenui musam meditamur
avena;' but this was too near the truth to be admitted; so we took
our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom none of us
had, I am sure, read a single line."
[460-2] A favorite motto, which through life Mr. Smith inculcated
on his family.
[460-3] See Cowper, page 419.
[461-1] Lord Wharncliffe says, "The well-known sentence, almost a
proverb, that 'this world consists of men, women, and Herveys,'
was originally Lady Montagu's."--_Montagu Letters, vol. i. p. 64._
[461-2] See Dryden, p. 273.
[461-3] The right man to fill the right place.--LAYARD: _Speech,
Jan. 15, 1855._
J. HOOKHAM FRERE. 1769-1846.
And don't confound the language of the nation
With long-tailed words in _osity_ and _ation_.
_The Monks and the Giants. Canto i. Line 6._
A sudden thought strikes me,--let us swear an eternal
friendship.[462-1]
_The Rovers. Act i. Sc. 1._
FOOTNOTES:
[462-1] See Otway, page 280.
My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship.--MOLIÈRE: _Le
Bourgeois Gentilhomme, act iv. sc. 1._
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 1769-1852.
Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a
battle won.
_Despatch, 1815._
It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's
presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance.
This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very
different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal
to a reinforcement of forty thousand men.
_Mem. by the Duke,_[463-1] _Sept. 18, 1836._
Circumstances over which I have no control.[463-2]
I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.[463-3]
_Upon seeing the first Reformed Parliament._
There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall
be no mistake.[463-4]
_Letter to Mr. Huskisson._
FOOTNOTES:
[463-1] STANHOPE: _Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p.
81._
[463-2] This phrase was first used by the Duke of Wellington in a
letter, about 1839 or 1840.--SALA: _Echoes of the Week, in London
Illustrated News, Aug. 23, 1884._ Greville, _Mem., ch. ii._
(1823), gives an earlier instance.
[463-3] Sir William Fraser, in "Words on Wellington" (1889), p.
12, says this phrase originated with the Duke. Captain Gronow, in
his "Recollections," says it originated with the Duke of York,
second son of George III., about 1817.
[463-4] This gave rise to the slang expression, "And no
mistake."--_Words on Wellington, p. 122._
JOHN TOBIN. 1770-1804.
The man that lays his hand upon a woman,
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom 't were gross flattery to name a coward.
_The Honeymoon. Act ii. Sc. 1._
She 's adorned
Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovely,--
The truest mirror that an honest wife
Can see her beauty in.
_The Honeymoon. Act iii. Sc. 4._
GEORGE CANNING. 1770-1827.
Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir.
_The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder._
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first.
_The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder._
So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides
The Derby dilly, carrying _three_ INSIDES.
_The Loves of the Triangles. Line 178._
And finds, with keen, discriminating sight,
Black 's not so black,--nor white so _very_ white.
_New Morality._
Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet,--perhaps may turn his blow!
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh save me from the _candid friend_![464-1]
_New Morality._
I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of
the Old.
_The King's Message, Dec. 12, 1826._
No, here 's to the pilot that weathered the storm!
_The Pilot that weathered the Storm._
FOOTNOTES:
[464-1] "Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my
enemies." The French _Ana_ assign to Maréchal Villars this
aphorism when taking leave of Louis XIV.
WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER. 1770-1834.
Too late I stayed,--forgive the crime!
Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of time[464-2]
That only treads on flowers.
_Lines to Lady A. Hamilton._
FOOTNOTES:
[464-2] See Shakespeare, page 74.
JOSEPH HOPKINSON. 1770-1842.
Hail, Columbia! happy land!
Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band!
Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone,
Enjoyed the peace your valor won.
Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies!
_Hail, Columbia!_
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[465-1] 1770-1850.
Oh, be wiser thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.
_Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree._
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
_Guilt and Sorrow. Stanza 41._
Action is transitory,--a step, a blow;
The motion of a muscle, this way or that.
_The Borderers. Act iii._
Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.[465-2]
_The Borderers. Act iv. Sc. 2._
A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
_We are Seven._
O Reader! Had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.