And they believe him! oh! the lover may
Distrust that look which steals his soul away;-
The babe may cease to think that it can play
With heaven's rainbow: - alchymists may doubt
The shining gold their crucible gives out;
But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
But thus it is, all sects, we see,
Have watchwords of morality;
Some cry out Venus, others Jove,
Here 't is religion, there 't is love!
I find the doctors and the sages Have differ'd in all climes and ages,
And two in fifty scarce agree
On what is pure morality.
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Shaks. Macbeth. Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake. Shaks. Romeo and Juliet. She sent him rosemary, to the intent that he should hold her in rememberance.
Thou wert with those who bore the truth of old She plac'd it sad, with needless fear,
Lest time should shake my wavering soulUnconscious that her image there
Held every sense in fast control.
Let us fill urns with rose-leaves in our May,
And hive the thrifty sweetness for December!
Bulwer's Poems.
Oh! these are the words that eternally utter
The spell that is seldom cast o'er us in vain;
With the wings and the wand of a fairy they
flutter,
And draw a charm'd circle about us again. We return to the spot where our infancy gamboll'd;
We linger once more in the haunts of our youth; We re-tread where young Passion first stealthily
And whispers are heard full of Nature and
Truth,
Saying, "Don't you remember?"
Remember me, I pray - but not
In ashes and sackcloth he did array
His dainty course, proud humours to abate;
And dieted with fasting every day,
The swellings of his wounds to mitigate;
And ever as superfluous flesh did rot,
And made him pray both early and eke late:
Amendment ready still at hand did wait
To pluck it out with pincers fiery hot,
That soon in him was left no one corrupted spot.
Who by repentance is not satisfied,
Spenser's Fairy Queen
Is nor of heaven, nor earth.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
If hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
Eliza Cook. I tender it here; I do as truly suffer,
Let me tell the world,
If he out-live the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part 1.
Yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banish'd honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
To tell you what I was, since my conversion
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
Man should do nothing that he should repent;
But if he have, and say that he is sorry;
It is a worse fault, if he be not truly.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
Before
We end our pilgrimage, 't is fit that we
Should leave corruption, and foul sin, behind us.
But with wash'd feet and hands, the heathens dar'd
Enter their profane temples; and for me
To hope my passage to eternity
Can be made easy, till I have shook off
Shaks. As you like it. The burthen of my sins in free confession,
Aided with sorrow, and repentance for them,
Is against reason.
The prince will, in the perfectness of time,
Cast off his followers: and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
By which his grace must mete the life of others;
Turning past evils to advantage.
Massinger's Emperor of the East.
Sorrow for past ills, doth restore frail man
To his first innocence.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II. 'Tis not, to cry God mercy, or to sit
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots, -
Till then I banish thee.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ;
Presume not, that I am the thing I was:
For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
Like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
What is done cannot be now amended:
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after hours give leisure to repent.
And droop, or to confess that thou hast fail'd:
'Tis to bewail the sins thou didst commit;
And not commit those sins thou hast bewail'd.
He that bewails and not forsakes them too;
Confesses rather what he means to do.
'Tis not too late to recant all this;
And there is oft more glory in repenting
Us of some errors, than never to have err'd:
Because we find there are more folks have judg
Fountain's Rewards of Virtue
As carnal scamen in a storm
Turn pious converts and reform.
Butler's Hudibras
Habitual evils change not on a sudden,
But many days must pass, and many sorrows;
Conscious remorse, and anguish must be felt,
Shaks. Richard III. To curb desire, to break the stubborn will,
And work a second nature in the soul,
Ere virtue can resume the place she lost.
Rowe's Ulysses
The drunkard, after all his lavish cups,
Is dry, and then is sober; so at length,
When you awake from this lascivious dream,
Repentance then will follow, like the sting
Plac'd in the adder's tail.
Webster's White Devil.
Heaven and angels
Take great delight in a converted sinner:
Why should you then, a servant and professor,
Differ so much from them? if every woman,
That commits evil, should be therefore kept
Back in desires of goodness, how should virtue
Be known and honour'd?
Middleton's Women beware Women.
Come, fair repentance, daughter of the skies!
Soft harbinger of soon returning virtue!
The weeping messenger of grace from heav'n!
Brown's Athelstan
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt by fire;
So writhes the mind remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death.
Clapthorne's Albertus Wallenstein,
Reprove not in his wrath incensed man;
Good counsel comes clean out of season then:
But when his fury is appeas'd, and pass'd,
He will conceive his fault, and mend at last.
Randolph
I will not let thee sleep, nor eat, nor drink;
But I will ring thee such a piece of chiding,
That thunder with less violence cleaves the air:
The mockery of the hollow shrine at which my Thou shalt confess the troubled sea more calm; spirit knelt. Mine is the requiem of years in reckless folly The ravens, screech-owls, and the mandrake's pass'd,
The wail above departed hopes on a frail venture Shall be thy constant music.
The vain regret that steals above the wreck of squander'd hours,
Like the sighing of the autumn wind over the Whittier's Poems.
Forbear sharp speeches to her. She's a lady
So tender of rebukes, that words are strokes,
And strokes death to her.
Shaks. Cymbeline.
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.
If any here chance to behold himself,
Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong;
For, if he shame to have his follies known,
First he should shame to act them. My strict hand
Was made to seize on vice; and, with a gripe,
Squeeze out the humour of such spongy natures,
As lick up ev ry idle vanity.
Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour.
Randolph's Jealous Lovers. Thou discord in this choral harmony! That dost profane the loveliest light and air God ever gave: be still, and look, and listen! Mrs. Osgood's Poems. How dare you bring your inharmonious heart To such a scene? How dare you let your voice Talk out of tune so with the voice of God In earth and sky?
Mrs. Osgood's Poems Take back your cold, inane, and carping mind Into the world you came from and belong toThe world of common cares and sordid aims. Mrs. Osgood's Poems
Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy feet;
My life thou shalt command, but not my shame;
The one my duty owes; but my fair name,
(Despite of death, that lives upon my grave)
To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
Shaks. Richard II.
The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
Hang out our banners; on the outward walls The cry is still, they come our castle's strength Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie, Shaks. Richard II. Till famine, and the ague, eat them up:
Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home.
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
Yet will I try the last: before my body
I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
And damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough.
Shaks. Macbeth
Be great in act, as you have been in thought:
Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time: be fire with fire;
Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviour from the great,
Grow great by your example; and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away, and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field;
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
What! shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there? and make him tremble
there?
O, let it not be said! forage, and run
To meet displeasure further from the doors;
And grapple with him, ere he come too nigh.
Shaks. King John,
Let them pull all about mine ears; present me
Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels;
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight, yet will I still
Be thus to them.
Shaks. Coriolanus
Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
That you resolv'd to effect.
All the soul
Of man is resolution; which expires
Never from valiant men, till their last breath;
And then with it, like a flame extinguish'd
For want of matter; it does not die, but
Rather ceases to live.
Chapman's Revenge for Woman
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