394

MATRIMONY - WEDLOCK.

To cheer thy sickness, watch thy health,
Partake, but never waste thy wealth,
Or stand with smile unmurmuring by,
And lighten half thy poverty.

BYRON'S Bride of Abydos

They liv'd together as most people do,
Suffering each other's foibles by accord,

And not exactly either one or two.

BYRON'S Don Juan

Wishing each other, not divorc'd, but dead,
They liv'd respectably as man and wife.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

No power
in death shall tear our names apart,
As none in life could rend thee from my heart.

BYRON'S Lament of Tasso.

There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two, that are link'd in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing, and brow never cold,
Love on thro' all ills, and love on till they die.
One hour of a passion so sacred is worth

Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
And Oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,

To love, to bliss, their blended souls were given,
And each, too happy, ask'd no brighter heaven.

DR. DWIGHT.

And if division come, it soon is past,
Too sharp, too strange an agony to last!
And, like some river's bright, abundant tide,
Which art or accident hath forc'd aside,
The well-springs of affection, gushing o'er,
Back to their natural channels flow once more

MRS. NORTON's Dream.

MECHANIC-MEDICINE-MEEKNESS, &c.

Then come the wild weather

come sleet or come snow,

We will stand by each other, however it blow;
Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow and pain,
Shall be to our true love as links to the chain.

395

LONGFELLOW - From the German.

Oh, pleasant is the welcome kiss

When day's dull round is o'er, And sweet the music of the step

That meets us at the door.

J. R. DRAKE.

Tho' close the link that bound them, yet hath heaven
A closer tie to the true-hearted given.

Though sprightly, gentle; though polite, sincere;

And only of thyself a judge severe.

BEATTIE.

She was a soft landscape of mild earth,

Where all was harmony and calm and quiet,
Luxuriant, budding.

BYRON.

With a spirit as meek as the gentlest of those
Who in life's sunny valley lie shelter'd and warm

MOORE.

396

MEETING.

Her bonnie face it was as meek

As ony lamb upon a lee;

The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet
As was the blink o' Phemie's e'e.

She bore herself

So gently, that the lily on its stalk
Bends not so easily its dewy head.

The one presiding feature in her mind
Was the pure meekness of a will resign'd,
A tender spirit, freed from all pretence
Of wit, and pleas'd in mild benevolence.

BURNS

J. G. PERCIVAL.

MEETING.

Sir, you are very welcome to our house;
It must appear in other ways than words,
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.

SHAKSPEARE.

A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep,

And I could laugh; I'm light and heavy: welcome!

I sware

By the simplicity of Venus' doves!

By that which knitteth souls, and prospers
In the same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

SHAKSPEARE.

loves!

SHAKSPEARE.

The joy of meeting pays the pangs of absence;
Else who could bear it?

Absence, with all its pains,

Rowe's Tamerlane.

Is by this charming moment wiped away.

THOMSON.

MELANCHOLY - MEMORY.

When lovers meet in adverse hour,

"Tis like a sun-glimpse through a shower; A watery ray an instant seen,

Then darkly closing clouds between.

SCOTT's Rokeby.

And does not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I've been wand'ring away·
To see thus around me my youth's early friends,
As smiling and kind as in that happy day?

MELANCHOLY.-(See Care.)

MEMORY.

He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasures of his eyesight left,

Of joys departed, never to return, llow bitter's the remembrance!

Rise to transports past expressing,
Sweeter by remembrance made.

SHAKSPEARE.

BLAIR'S Grave,

GOLDSMITH.

Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my heart, and turns the past to pain.
GOLDSMITH'S Deserted Village.

Had memory been lost with innocence
We had not known the sentence, nor th' offence,
'T was man's chief punishment, to keep in store
'The sad remembrance what he was before.

Thinking wil make me mad; why must think,
When no thought brings me comfort?

DENIAM.

SOUTHERN.

97

398

MEMORY.

And scenes long past, of joy and pain,
Come wildering o'er his aged brain.

SCOTT's Last Minstrel.

It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,

Like some wild melody.

Through the shadowy past,

Like a tomb-searcher, memory ran,

Lifting each shroud that time had cast

O'er buried hopes.

ROGERS' Italy.

MOORE's Loves of the Angels

Long, long be my heart with. such memories fill'd !·
Like the vase in which roses have once been distill'd,
You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.

Let fate do her worst; there are moments of joy,

Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy;
Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care,
And bring back the features that joy used to wear.

My memory now is but the tomb
Of joys long past.

But in that instant, o'er his soul
Winters of memory seem'd to roll,
And gather in their drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime ;-
O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears,
Such moments pour the grief of years.

MOORE.

BYRON'S Giaour.

BYRON'S Giaour.