SERIOUS FRAGMENTS.

1.

Misery lays stronger bonds of love than Nature; and they are more one,

whom the same misfortune joined together, than whom the same womb gave

life.

_H. Killigrew._

2.

_Dying Person._

---------- my soul

The warm embraces of her flesh is now,

Ev’n now forsaking; this frail body must

Like a lost feather fall from off the wing

Of Vanity--

_W. Chamberlain._

3.

------------- eternity:

Within whose everlasting springs we shall

Meet with those joys, whose blasted embryos were

Here made abortive--

_W. Chamberlain._

4.

_Crown declined by a Spiritual person._

I know no more the way to temporal rule,

Than he that’s born, and has his years come to him,

On a rough desart--

_Middleton._

5.

_To a Votaress._

Keep still that holy and immaculate fire,

You chaste lamp of eternity; ’tis a treasure

Too precious for death’s moment to partake,

The twinkling of short life.--

_Middleton._

6.

The fame that a man wins himself is best;

That he may call his own: honours put to him

Make him no more a man than his clothes do,

Which are as soon ta’en off; for in the warmth

The heat comes from the body, not the weeds;

So man’s true fame must strike from his own deeds.

_Middleton._

7.

_Adventurers._

The sons of Fortune, she has sent us forth

To thrive by the red sweat of our own merits.--

_Middleton._

8.

_New made Honour._

------------- forgetfulness

Is the most pleasing virtue they can have.

That do spring up from nothing; for by the same.

Forgetting all, they forget whence they came.

_Middleton._

9.

_Œnone forsaken._

Beguil’d, disdain’d, and out of love, live long, thou Poplar tree,

And let thy letters grow in length to witness this with me.

Ah Venus, but for reverence unto thy sacred name,

To steal a silly maiden’s love I might account it blame.--

And if the tales I hear be true, and blush for to recite,

Thou dost me wrong to leave the plains, and dally out of sight,

False Paris! this was not thy vow, when thou and I were one,

To range and change old love for new; but now those days be gone.

_Peel._

10.

_Epilepsy._

--your [Cæsar’s] disease the Gods ne’er gave to man,

But such a one as had a spirit too great

For all his body’s passages to serve it;

Which notes the excess of your ambition.

_Chapman._

11.

We are not tried but in our misery. He is a cunning coachman, that can

turn well in a narrow room.

_Anon._

12.

_Gray hairs._

---- upon whose reverend head

The milk-white pledge of wisdom sweetly spreads.--

_Lodge._

13.

_Ladies Dancing._

---- a fine sweet earthquake, gently moved

By the soft wind of whispering silks.--

_Decker._

14.

---- sharp witted Poets; whose sweet verse

Makes heav’nly Gods break off their nectar draughts.

And lay their ears down to the lowly earth--

_Anon._

15.

_Grandsires’ Love._

Old men do never truly doat, untill

Their children bring them babies.

_Shirley._

16.

_To a false Mistress._

------ thy name,

sweeten’d once the name of him that spake it.--

_Shirley._

17.

_Herod, jealous, to Mariamne._

Hast thou beheld thyself, and could’st thou stain

So rare perfection?--ev’n for love of thee

I do profoundly hate thee.

_Lady Elizabeth Carew._

18.

_Cleopatra._

The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac · 第 1708 / 1847 题