Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent, which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide; 'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?' I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, 'God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts; who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.'
Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works, to me expunged and razed, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much the rather Thou, celestial Light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her pow'rs Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.—Milton.
OFT when blind mortals think themselves secure, In height of bliss, they touch the brink of ruin. Thomson.
338. BLISS. Sublunary
THE spider's most attenuated thread Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze. O ye bless'd scenes of permanent delight! Full, above measure! lasting, beyond bound! A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.
Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end; That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy, And quite unparadise the realms of light.
Bliss! sublunary bliss !-proud words and vain; Implicit treason to Divine decree !
A bold invasion of the rights of heaven! I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air. Oh had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace, What darts of agony had miss'd my heart !— Young.
342. BODY. The glorified
'TIS night behold, as if by death opprest, The sun his rays in gloom sepulchral hide! 'Tis day: behold, with renovated pride, In the magnificence of morning drest, The sun, rejoicing, lifts his orient crest;
A bridegroom issuing forth to meet his bride! Thus, like the sun beneath the ocean tide, The Christian seeks the chamber of his rest; Thus, like the sun, to rise !-But not the same Shall rise, as when his mortal course was run: To that unearthly, pure, ethereal flame,
That robe of amaranthine radiance spun, No nearer likeness this vile form may claim, Than glimmering starlight to yon glorious sun.
Majestic and indissolubly firm,
As ranks of veteran warriors in the field; Each by himself alone, and singly seen- A sea of valour, dread! invincible!
Books of this sort, or sacred, or profane, Which virtue help'd, were titled not amiss, The medicine of the mind: who read them, read Wisdom, and was refresh'd; and on his path Of pilgrimage with healthier step advanced.-Pollok.
LEARNING is more profound
When in few solid authors 't may be found. A few good books, digested well, do feed The mind; much cloys, or doth ill humours breed. Heath.
349. BOOKS. Immortal
(Minstrel or Sage), out of their books are clay; But in their books, as from their graves, they rise, Angels, that side by side, upon our way, Walk with and warn us!
We call some books immortal! Do they live? If so, believe me, TIME hath made them pure. In Books, the veriest wicked rest in peace- God wills that nothing evil should endure; The grosser parts fly off and leave the whole, As the dust leaves the disembodied soul!
350. BOOKS: men of higher stature. Books are men of higher stature, And the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear! Mrs Browning.
351. BOOKS. Multiplicity of
PRODUCTIVE was the world In many things, but most in books: like swarms Of locusts which God sent to vex a land Rebellious long, admonish'd long in vain, Their numbers they pour'd annually on man, From heads conceiving still; perpetual birth! Thou wonderest how the world contain'd them all! Thy wonder stay: like men, this was their doom: That dust they were, and should to dust return. And oft their fathers, childless and bereaved, Wept o'er their graves, when they themselves were
And on them fell, as fell on every age,
As on their authors fell, oblivious Night.-Pollok.
352. BOOKS: never-failing friends.
My days among the dead are pass'd; Around me I behold,
Leave to enjoy myself. That place that does Contain my books, the best companions, is To me a glorious court, where hourly I Converse with the old sages and philosophers; And sometimes for variety I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels; Calling their victories, if unjustly got, Unto a strict account; and in my fancy Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I then Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace Uncertain vanities? No: be it your care To augment a heap of wealth: it shall be mine To increase in knowledge.—Fletcher.
354. BOOKS: recall the past.
Who, but for them, upon that inch of ground We call THE PRESENT,' from the cell could see No daylight trembling on the dungeon bar; Turn, as we list, the globe's great axle round, Traverse all space, and number every star, And feel the Near less household than the Far! There is no Past, so long as Books shall live! A disinterr'd Pompeii wakes again For him who seeks you well; lost cities give Up their untarnish'd wonders, and the reign Of Jove revives and Saturn: at our will Rise dome and tower on Delphi's sacred hill; Bloom Cimon's trees in Academe; along Leucadia's headland sighs the Lesbian's song; With Egypt's Queen once more we sail the Nile, And learn how worlds are barter'd for a smile; Rise up, ye walls, with gardens blooming o'er, Ope but that page-lo, Babylon once more!
The past but lives in words: a thousand ages Were blank, if books had not evoked their ghosts, And kept the pale, unbodied shades to warn us From fleshless lips.-Bulwer Lytton.
355 BOOKS: their chief perfections.
'Tis in books the chief
Of all perfections to be plain and brief.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
358. BOOKS: their ministry.
DREAMS, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
We never speak our deepest feelings; Our holiest hopes have no revealings, Save in the gleams that light the face, Or fancies that the pen may trace. And hence to books the heart must turn When with unspoken thoughts we yearn, And gather from the silent page The just reproof, the counsel sage, The consolation kind and true
That soothes and heals the wounded heart. Mrs Hale.
359. BOOKS: treasure-houses.
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies Preserved from age to age; more precious far Than that accumulated store of gold And orient gems which, for a day of need, The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs. These hoards of truth you can unlock at will. Wordsworth.
360. BOOKWORM. The
UNCERTAIN and unsettled he remains, Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself. Milton.
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb, Quite from his nature; he can't flatter, he!- An honest mind and plain, - he must speak truth; An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain. These kind of knaves I know, which in this plain-
Harbour more craft, and far corrupter ends, Than twenty silly ducking observants,
That stretch their duty nicely.-Shakespeare.
363. BRAVE MEN.
No, there is a necessity in fate
Why still the brave bold man is fortunate;
He keeps his object ever full in sight,
And that assurance holds him firm and right:
True, 'tis a narrow path that leads to bliss,
But right before there is no precipice;
So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,
Fear makes men look aside, and so their footing And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympamiss.-Dryden.
Let not the generous die. 'Tis late before The brave despair.—Thomson.
SINCE brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.-Shakespeare.
365. BROODING OVER TROUBLE: forbidden.
IMPRISON not
Within thy breast
Needless germs of sorrow;
In hot teardrops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod,
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod.
For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame
Through its ocean-sunder'd fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.-Lowell.
367. BROTHERHOOD. Disbelief of man's EARLY from heaven it was reveal'd, and oft Repeated in the world, from pulpits preach'd, And penn'd and read in holy books, that God Respected not the persons of mankind. Had this been truly credited and felt,
The king, in purple robe, had own'd, indeed, The beggar for his brother; pride of rank And office thaw'd into paternal love; Oppression fear'd the day of equal rights Predicted; covetous extortion kept
In mind the hour of reck'ning, soon to come; And bribed injustice thought of being judged, When he should stand on equal foot beside The man he wrong'd. And surely-nay, 'tis true, Most true, beyond all whispering of doubt, That he, who lifted up the reeking scourge, Dripping with gore from the slave's back, before He struck again, had paused, and seriously Of that tribunal thought, where God Himself Should look him in the face, and ask in wrath, 'Why didst thou this? Man! was he not thy brother? Bone of thy bone, and flesh and blood of thine?' But ah! this truth, by heaven and reason taught, Was never fully credited on earth.
The titled, flatter'd, lofty men of power,
Whose wealth bought verdicts of applause for deeds Of wickedness, could ne'er believe the time Should truly come, when judgment should proceed Impartially against them, and they, too, Have no good speaker at the Judge's ear, No witnesses to bring them off for gold, No power to turn the sentence from its course; And they of low estate, who saw themselves
Day after day, despised, and wrong'd, and mock'd, Without redress, could scarcely think the day Should e'er arrive, when they in truth should stand On perfect level with the potentates And princes of the earth, and have their cause Examined fairly, and their rights allow'd. But now this truth was felt, believed and felt, That men were really of a common stock; That no man ever had been more than man.
Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh,
Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearer
Than that of all his brethren, low or high;
Who to the Right can feel himself the truer For being gently patient with the wrong, Who sees a brother in the evil-doer,
And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song- This, this is he for whom the world is waiting To sing the beatings of its mighty heart; Too long hath it been patient with the grating Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it mis-named Art. To him the smiling soul of man shall listen, Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside, And once again in every eye shall glisten The glory of a nature satisfied.-Lowell.
Truly shape and fashion these ;
Leave no yawning gaps between ; Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen. In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the gods see everywhere.
Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house, where gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean;
Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time, Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb. Build to-day, then, strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place.
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