Go, virtuous dame, to thy most happy lord, And Bertram's image taint your kiss with poison. Maturin's Bertram. Blast, blast her charms, some bloom-destroying air! And turn his love to loathing; but let her's Know no decrease, that disappointment, Lover's worst hell, may meet her warmest wishes, And make her curse the hour in which she wedded. Elizabeth Haywood's Duke of Brunswick. May the swords
And wings of fiery cherubim pursue him,
Custom in ills that do affect the sense, Make reason useless when it should direct The ills reforming: men habituate In any evil, 't is their greatest curse: Advice doth seldom mend, but makes them worse. Nabb's Microcosmus.
And argues a low spirit, to be taught By custom, and to let the vulgar grow To our example.
Mead's Combat of Love and Friendship
By day and night-snakes spring up in his path-That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Earth's fruit be ashes in his mouth-the leaves On which he lays his head to sleep be strew'd With scorpions! may his dreams be of his victim, His waking a continual dread of death!
Byron's Cain. May the grass wither from thy feet! the woods Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust A grave! the sun his light! and heaven her God. Byron's Cain.
By thy cold breast and serpent smile, By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile, By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By that shut soul's hypocrisy, By the perfection of thine art
Which pass'd for human thine own heart, By the delight in others' pain, And by thy brotherhood of Cain, I call upon thee and compel Thyself to be thy proper hell.
Cursed be the social wants
Of habits evil, is angel yet in this; That to the use of actions fair and good, He likewise gives a frock, or livery, That aptly is put on: refrain to-night; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next, more easy; For use can almost change the stamp of nature, And master ev'n the devil, or throw him out, With wondrous potency.
But to my mind; - though I am native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom More honour'd in the breach, than the observance. Shaks. Hamlet.
The tyrant custom, most grave senators, Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war My thrice-driven bed of down.
Byron's Manfred. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound; wherefore should I Stand to the plague of custom.
That sin against the strength of youth, Cursed be the social lies
That warp us from the living truth! Cursed be the sickly forms
That err from honest nature's rule! And cursed be the gold that gilds The straighten'd forehead of a fool!
Dear creature! you'd swear,
When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round,
Danced on the joyous hours;
And fairest bosoms
Heav'd happily beneath the winter roses' blossoms:
And it is well;
Youth hath its time,
Merry hearts will merrily chime.
That her steps are of light, that her home is the air, I saw her at a country ball;
There when the sound of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet in that old hall,
Of hands across and down the middle. Hers was the subtlest spell by far
Of all that sets young hearts romancing; She was our queen, our rose, our star;
And when she danced-oh, heaven, her dancing! Praed.
He danced without theatrical pretence, Not like a ballet-master in the van
Of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.
Byron. Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound, And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure; Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground, And rather held in than put forth his vigour. And then he had an ear for music's sound, Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigour. Such classic pas· sans flaws-set off our hero, He glanced like a personified Bolero.
This fellow put himself upon the rack, With putting on 's apparel, and manfully Endures his taylor, when he screws and wrests His body into the fashion of His doublet.
Shirley's Bird in a Cage. The boot pinched hard - the suffering dandy
Jane fondly thought the sigh her beauty's due; "Bootless your passion, Sir !" she proudly cried,
Byron's Childe Harold."Ah!" sighed the fop, "would I were bootless
Oh! save me, ye powers, from these pinks of the
These tea-table heroes! these lords of creation. Salmagundi
The absent danger greater still appears; Less fears he, who is near the thing he fears. Daniel's Cleopatra. Speak, speak, let terror strike slaves mute, Much danger makes great hearts most resolute. Marston's Sophonisba. What is danger
More than the weakness of our apprehensions? A poor cold part o' th' blood; who takes it hold of? Cowards and wicked livers: valiant minds Were made the masters of it.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Chances.
Our dangers and delights are near allies; From the same stem the rose and prickle rise. Alyen's Poictiers. Danger knows full well,
That Cæsar is more dangerous than he: We are two lions litter'd in one day, And I the elder and more terrible.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
Now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents I'll read you matter deep and dangerous; As full of peril, and advent'rous spirit, As to o'erwalk a current, roaring loud, On the unsteadfast footing of a spear!
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
He that stands upon a slippery place, Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up. Shaks. King John. Thus have I shunn'd the fire, for fear of burning; And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd. Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it, She 'll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth.
And after all came life, and lastly death; Death with most grim and griesley visage seeno, Yet he is nought but parting of the breath, Ne ought to see, but like a shake to weene, Unbodied, unsoul'd, unheard, unseene.
Spenser's Fairy Queen. Come then, come soon; come, sweetest death to me And take away this long lent loathed light. Sharpe be thy wounds, but sweete the medicines be That long captived soules from weary thraldome Spenser's Fairy Queen
Our lives, cut off In our young prime of years, are like green herbs, With which we strew the hearses of our friends: For as their virtue gather'd, when they're green, Before they wither, or corrupt, is best; So we in virtue are the best for death, While yet we have not liv'd to such an age, That the increasing canker of our sins Hath spread too far upon us.
Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy. He could no longer death's expectance bear, For death is less than death's continual fear. Aleyn's Henry VII. O death! why art thou fear'd? why do we think 'Tis such a horrid terror not to be? Why, not to be, is not to be a wretch, Why, not to be, is to be like the heav'ns, Not to be subject to the pow'r of fate: O there's no happiness but not to be. Gomersall's Lodovick Sforza.
I buried sorrow for his death, In the grave with him. I did never think He was immortal, though, I vow, I grieve, And see no reason why the vicious, Virtuous, valiant, and unworthy men Should die alike.
Massinger and Field's Fatal Dowry. Fond, foolish man! with fear of death surpris'd, Which either should be wish'd for, or despis'd: This, if our souls with bodies death destroy; That, if our souls a second life enjoy : What else is to be fear'd? when we shall gain Eternal life, or have no sense of pain.
The bad man's death is horror; but the just Keeps something of his glory in his dust. Habbington's Castare
The wisest men are glad to die; no fear Of death can touch a true philosopher. Death sets the soul at liberty to fly, Which, whilst imprison'd in the body here, She cannot learn: a true philosopher Makes death his common practice, while he lives, And every day, by contemplation, strives To separate the soul, far as he can, From off the body.
May's Continuation of Lucan 'Tis mere fondness in our nature,
A certain clownish cowardice, that still Would stay at home, and dares not venture Into foreign countries, though better than Its own-ha-what countries? for we receive Descriptions of the other world from our divines, As blind men take relation of this from us. Suckling's Brennorath
Death is honourable, advantageous, And necessary: honourable in Old men to make room for younger; Advantageous to those that get legacies By it; and necessary for married People, that have no other gaol-delivery. Fane's Love in the Dark. Oh death! death! death! thou art not half so cruel In thy destructions of the prosperous As in not killing wretches that would die. Fountain's Rewards of Virtue. The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dics.
That life is better life, past fearing death, Than that which lives to fear.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea. To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts Imagine howling!-'t is too horrible!
Shaks. Mea. for Mea. The weariest and most loathed worldly life, That age, ache, penury, imprisonment, Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death.
I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death a necessary end, Will come, when it will come.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar. Why he that cuts off twenty years of life, Cuts off so many years of fearing death.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar. O mighty Cæsar! dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure?
But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Herein fortune shows herself more kind Than is her custom: it is still her use, To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, To view with hollow eyes and wrinkled brow An age of poverty; from which lingering penance Of such misery doth she cut me off. Shaks. Merchant of Venice. I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Have stood against the world: now lies he there, Mutest for death; the weakest kind of fruit And none so poor to do him reverence.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar. Fates! we will know your pleasures: That we shall die, we know; 't is but the time, And drawing days out, that men stand upon. Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
O, our lives' sweetness! That with the pain of death we'd hourly die Rather than die at once.
This world I do renounce; and in your sight, Shake patiently my great affliction off.
Shaks. King Lear. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant, There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys; renown and grace is dead: The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of.
Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me. Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
The tongues of dying men Enforce attention, like deep harmony;
Where words are scarce, they 're seldom spent ir
For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain. Shaks. Richard II
All comfort go with thee!
For none abides with me: my joy is—death; Death, at whose name I oft have been a fear'd, Because I wish'd this world's eternity.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part II. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, When death's approach is seen so terrible! Shaks. Henry VI. Part II.
Ah, who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe, And tell me who is victor, York, or Warwick? Why ask I that? my mangled body shows, Shaks. Macbeth. My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows That I must yield my body to the earth, And by my fall, the conquest to the foe. Shaks. Henry VI. Part III Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge, Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death.
After life's fitful fever he siccps well:
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Under whose shade the ramping lion slept;
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree, And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. Shaks. Henry VI. Port II
« PreviousContinue » |