Lord John Russel's Don Carlos. Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave
Wilt thou sit among the ruins,
With all words of cheer unspoken, Till the silver cord is loosen'd,
Till the golden bowl is broken?
He came too late! Neglect had tried Her constancy too long;
Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot:
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave
Shall lift its point to save,
Or show the place where strong despair hath
After long looking o'er the ocean wide
For the expected ebb which cometh not. All shall be void,
Her love had yielded to her pride,
And the deep sense of wrong. She scorn'd the offering of a heart Which linger'd on its way,
Till it would no delight impart,
Nor spread one cheering ray.
Byron's Heaven and Earth.
We, we shall view the deep's salt sources pour'd, I hate dependence on another's will,
Until one element shall do the work
Of all in chaos; until they,
The creatures proud of their poor clay,
Shall perish, and their bleached bones shall lurk
In caves, in dens, in clefts of mountains, where
The deep shall follow to their latest lair;
Where even the brutes, in their despair,
Shall cease to prey on man and on each other,
And the striped tiger shall lie down and die
Beside the lamb, as though he were his brother:
Till all things shall be as they were,
Silent and uncreated, save the sky.
Byron's Heaven and Earth. The heavens and earth are mingling-God! Oh
What have we done? yet spare!
Which changes with the breath of ev'ry whisper,
Just as the sky and weather with the winds:
Nay with the winds, as they blow east or west,
To make his temper pleasant or unpleasant:
So are our wholesome or unwholesome days.
Crown's Ambitious Statesmun.
Hark! even the forest beasts howl forth their pray'r! Elected him our absence to supply;
The dragon crawls from out his den,
To herd in terror innocent with men;
And the birds scream their agony through air! Byron's Heaven and Earth.
Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love,
And given his deputation all the organs
Of our own power.
Pho noole heart, that harbours virtuous thought,
And is with child of glorious great intent,
Can never rest, until it forth have brought
Th' eternal brood of glory excellent.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
He that intends well, yet deprives himself
Of means to put his good thoughts into deed,
Deceives his purpose of the due reward.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
When men's intents are wicked, their guilt haunts
them,
Thou blind man's mark; thou fool's self-chosen
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scatter'd thoughts
Band of all evils; cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of ill, whose end is never wrought
Desire! Desire! I have too dearly bought
With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought
Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare
Sir P. Sidney
Vain are these dreams, and vain these hopes;
And yet 'tis these give birth
To each high purpose, generous deed,
That sanctifies our earth.
But when they are just they're arm'd, and nothing He who hath highest aim in view,
When any great design thou dost intend,
Think on the means, the manner, and the end.
Justly resemble our devotions,
Must dream at first what he will do.
Which we must pay and wait for the reward.
Sir Robert Howard.
I do believe, you think what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break:
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth but poor validity;
And see how full it is of mighty schemes,
Some that shall ripen, some be ever dreams,
And yet, though dreams, shall act a real part.
F. W. Faber
Labour shall be my lot;
My kindred shall be joyful in my praise;
And fame shall twine for me in after days,
A wreath I covet not.
Which now, like fruits unripe, sticks on the tree, Oh, fountains that I have not reach'd,
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
That gush far off even now,
Where shall I quench my spirits' thirs
When your sweet waters flow!
O fierce desire, the spring of sighs and tears,
Reliev'd with want, impoverish'd with store,
Nurst with vain hopes, and fed with doubtful fears,
Whose force withstood, increaseth more and more!
Brandon's Octavia.
"Tis most ignoble, that a mind unshaken
By fear should by a vain desire be broken;
Or that those powers no labour e'er could vanquish,
Should be o'ercome and thrall'd by sordid pleasure.
Chapman.
How large are our desires! and yet how few
Events are answerable! So the dew,
Which early on the top of mountains stood,
Meaning, at least, to imitate a flood;
When once the sun appears, appears no more,
And leaves that parch'd which was too moist
before.
Gomersall.
The desire of the moth for the star
Of the night for the morrow
The devotion to something afar
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act:
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms; that, each heart being sel
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environ'd with a wilderness of sea;
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
In confus'd march forlorn, th' advent'rous bands
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes agnast,
View'd their lamentable lot, and found
No rest.
So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance
To mend it, or be rid on 't.
O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me;
That life, a very rebel to my will,
May hang no longer on me.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:
Fortune and Antony part here; even here
Do we shake hands. All come to this?
That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets On blossoming Cæsar; and this pine is bark'd That overtopp'd them all.
Pond'ring the danger with deep thoughts; and cach In other's count'nance read his own dismay Astonish'd.
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost;
The Evil, be thou my good.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra. There's nothing in this world can make me joy:
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Shaks. King John. Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
Of merey, if thou didst this deed of death,
Art thou damn'd.
Shaks. King John. To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a Now land, now sea, and shores with forests crown' beam Rocks, dens and caves; but I in none of these
To hang thee on; or, would'st thou down thyself, Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Gnashing for anguish, and despite and shame,
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbled by such rebuke.
And prophesy ten thousand thousand horrors;
I could join with her now, and bid 'em come;
They fit the present fury of my soul.
Milton's Paradise Lost. The stings of love and rage are fix'd within,
And drive me on to madness. Earthquakes, whi
Of my reception into grace; what worse,
For where no hope is left, is left no fear.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
Consider how the desperate fight;
Despair strikes wild,—but often fatal too-
And in the mad encounter wins success.
Was there no bolt, no punishment above?-
No, none is equal to despairing love:
Hell loudly owns it, and the damn'd themselves
Smile to behold a wretch more curs'd than they.
Havard's Scanderbeg.
My loss is such as cannot be repair'd;
And to the wretched, life can be no mercy.
Dryden's Marriage à la Mode.
Tell me why, good heaven,
Thou mad'st me what I am, with all the spirit,
Aspiring thoughts and elegant desires,
That fill the happiest man? Ah! rather, why
Did'st thou not form me sordid as my fate,
Base-minded, dull and fit to carry burdens?
Why have I sense to know the curse that's on me?
Is this just dealing, nature?
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Talk not of comfort, 't is for lighter ills;
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way
To all the pangs and fury of despair.
A general wreck of nature now would please me
Rowe's Royal Convert
Whether first nature, or long want of peace,
Has wrought my mind to this, I cannot tell;
But horrors now are not displeasing to me;
I like this rocking of the battlements.
Rage on, ye winds; burst clouds, and waters roar'
You bear a just resemblance of my fortune,
And suit the gloomy habit of my soul!
Why let them come: let in the raging torrent:
I wish the world would rise in arms against me;
For I must die; and I would die in state.
Young's Busiria
Creation sleeps; 't is as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause-
An awful pause! prophetic of her end,
And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd;
Fate drop the curtain; I can lose no more.
Young's Night Thoughts
From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose,
I wake; how happy they that wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infect the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding
thought,
From wave to wave of fancy'd misery,
At random drove, her helm of reason lost. Tho' now restor'd, 't is only change of pain, Addison's Cato. (A bitter change!) severer for severe.
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The day too short for my distress; and night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.
Young's Night Thoughts
With woful measures wan despair-
Low sullen sounds his grief beguil'd;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air!
"T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild.
Collins's Passions
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure,
Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Dr. Johnson's Irene
But dreadful is their doom whom doubt has driver
To censure fate, and pious hope forego:
Like yonder blasted boughs by lightning riven,
Perfection, beauty, life, they never know,
But frown on all that pass, a monument of wo
Beattie's Minsırrı.
Mine after ift! what is mine after-life!
My day is closed! the groom of night is come! A hopeless darkness settles o'er my fate.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
Welcome rough war! with all thy scenes of blood;
Thy roaring thunders, and thy dashing steel!
Welcome once more! what have I now to do
But play the brave man o'er again, and die!
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
Be it what it may, or bliss or torment,
Annihilation, dark, and endless rest,
Or some dread thing, man's wildest range of thought
Hath never yet conceived, that change I'll dare
Which makes me any thing but what I am.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
I would have time turn'd backward in his course,
And what is past ne'er to have been: myself
A thing that no existence ever had.
Canst thou do this for me?
Joanna Baillie's Rayner.
O that I were upon some desert coast!
Where howling tempests and the lashing tide
Would stun me into deep and senseless quiet.
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
Come, madness! come unto me, senseless death!
I cannot suffer this! here, rocky wall,
Scatter these brains, or dull them!
Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
O that I had been form'd
An idiot from the birth! a senseless changeling, Who cats his glutton's meals with greedy haste, Nor knows the hand who feeds him!
Joanna Baillie's De Montford. He hangs upon me like a dead man's grasp On the wreck'd swimmer's neck.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald. Full many a storm on this grey head has beat; And now, on my high station do I stand, Like the tired watchman in his rocked tower, Who looketh for the hour of his release. I'm sick of worldly broils, and fain would rest With those who war no more.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
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O night, when good men rest, and infants sleep!
Thou art to me no season of repose,
But a fear'd time of waking more intense,
Of life more keen, of misery more palpable.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
the fountain of my heart dried up within me,-
With nought that ioved me, and with nought to
love
stood upon ne desert earth alone.
I Thou sayest I am a wretch
And thou sayest true-these weeds do witness itThese wave-worn weeds- these bare and bruised limbs.
What would'st thou more? I shrink not from the question.
I am a wretch, and proud of wretchedness,
'Tis the sole earthly thing that cleaves to ine.
Maturin's Bertram.
The wretched have no country; that dear name
Comprises home, kind kindred, fostering friends,
Protecting laws, all that binds man to man—
But none of these are mine;-I have no country-
And for my race, the last dread trump shall wake
The sheeted relics of mine ancestry,
In the bright blazon of their stainless coats
Ere trump of herald to the armed lists,
Calls their lost child again.
And in that deep and utter agony,
Though then, than ever most unfit to die,
I fell upon my knees and pray'd for death.
The storm for Bertram !—and it hath been with me, Dealt with me branch and bole, bared me to th'
And where the next wave bears my perish'd trunk In its dread lapse, I neither know nor reck of. Maturin's Bertram
Whose shades are dark enough to shelter us;
Or cavern rifted by the perilous lightning,
Where we must grapple with the tenanting wolf
To earn our bloody lair?— there let us bide,
Nor hear the voice of man nor call of heaven.
Maturin's Bertram.
Behold me, earth! what is the life he hunts for?
Come to my cave, thou human hunter, come;
For thou hast left thy prey no other lair,
But the bleak rock, or howling wilderness;
Cheer up thy pack of fanged and fleshed hounds,
Flash all the flames of hell upon its darkness,
Then enter if thou darest.
Lo, there the bruised serpent coils to sting thee,
Yea, spend his life upon the mortal throe.
Grey hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines.
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,
A blighted trunk upon a cursed root
Which but supplies a feeling to decay
And to be thus, eternally but thus,
Having been otherwise! now furrow du'r
Maturin's Bertram. With wrinkles plough'd by moments not by years
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