From hateful time if prisons set us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel; years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope is turn’d.
To man's false optics (from his folly false)
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep, decrepit with his age;
Behold him when pass'd by; what then is seen
But his broad pinions, swifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghast! cry out on his career.
O ye Lorenzos of our age! who deem
One moment unamused a misery

Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For every bawble drivell'd o'er by sense;
For rattles and conceits of every cast,
For change of follies and relays of joy,

To drag you patient through the tedious length
Of a short winter's day-say, sages! say,
Wit's oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams!
How will you weather an eternal night
When such expedients fail?--Young.

Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Thomson.

What made the man of envy what he was,
Was worth in others, vileness in himself;
A lust of praise, with undeserving deeds,
And conscious poverty of soul: and still
It was his earnest work and daily toil,
With lying tongue, to make the noble seem
Mean as himself. On Fame's high hill he saw
The laurel spread its everlasting green,

And wish'd to climb; but felt his knees too weak:

And stood below, unhappy, laying hands

Upon the strong, ascending gloriously

The steps of honour, bent to draw them back;
Involving oft the brightness of their path

In mists his breath had raised. Whene'er he heard,

As oft he did, of joy and happiness,

And great prosperity, and rising worth,
'Twas like a wave of wormwood o'er his soul

Rolling its bitterness. His joy was woe:
The woe of others: when, from wealth to want,
From praises to reproach, from peace to strife,
From mirth to tears, he saw a brother fall,
Or virtue make a slip-his dreams were sweet.
Pollok.

1055. ENVY: concealed.

COLD words that hide the envious thoughts. Willis.

1056. ENVY. Cure for

CANST thou discern another's mind?
What is it you envy? Envy's blind.
Tell Envy, when she would annoy,
That thousands want what you enjoy.—Gay.

1057. ENVY: degrading.

ENVY not greatness; for thou mak'st thereby
Thyself the worse; and so the distance greater.
Be not thine own worm: yet such jealousy
As hurts not others but makes thee better,
Is a good spur.-Herbert.

1058. ENVY: destructive.

FOR everything contains within itself
The seeds and sources of its own corruption:
The cankering rust corrodes the brightest steel;
The moth frets out your garment, and the worm
Eats its slow way into the solid oak:
But Envy, of all evil things the worst,
The same to-day, to-morrow, and for ever,
Saps and consumes the heart in which it works.
Cumberland.

1059. ENVY: disclaimed.

I ENVY not their hap

Whom favour doth advance; I take no pleasure in their pain That have less happy chance.

To rise by others' fall

I deem a losing gain;

All states with others' ruin built, To ruin run amain.-Southwell.

1060. ENVY. None exempt from

My heart laments that virtue cannot live Out of the teeth of emulation.-Shakespeare.

For envy doth invade

Works breathing to eternity, and cast

Upon the fairest piece the greatest shade.

1064. EQUALITY. Claim of

I CANNOT coldly pass him by,

Stript, wounded, left by thieves half-dead; Nor see an infant Lazarus lie

At rich men's gates, imploring bread.

A frame as sensitive as mine,
Limbs moulded in a kindred form,
A soul degraded, yet divine,

Endear to me my brother-worm.

He was my equal at his birth,

A naked, helpless, weeping child: And such are born to thrones on earth, On such hath every mother smiled. My equal he will be again,

Down in that cold oblivious gloom, Where all the prostrate ranks of men Crowd, without fellowship, the tomb. My equal in the judgment-day,

He shall stand up before the throne, When every veil is rent away,

And good and evil only known.

And is he not mine equal now?

Am I less fall'n from God and truth, Though Wretch' be written on his brow, And leprosy consume his youth?

Montgomery.

Aleyn.

1065. EQUALITY. Human

1068. EQUANIMITY.

WITH equal mind what happens let us bear;

Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.-Dryden.

He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears,

At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears;
An equal temper in his mind he found

When Fortune flatter'd him, and when she frown'd.
Dryden.

Your steady soul preserves her frame
In good and evil times the same.-Swift.

1069. ERRING. Hope for the

NAY, deem not thus,-no earth-born will
Could ever trace a faultless line;
Our truest steps are human still;

To walk unswerving were divine!

Truants from love, we dream of wrath;
Oh, rather let us trust the more!
Through all the wanderings of the path,

We still can see our Father's door!-Holmes.

1070. ERROR. Avoid

You have already gone too far.
When people once are in the wrong,
Each line they add is much too long.
Who fastest walks, but walks astray,
Is only farthest from his way.—Prior.

1071. ERROR. Flight of

FOR look again on the past years; behold,

How like the nightmare's dreams have flown away Horrible in forms of worship, that, of old, Held o'er the shuddering realms unquestion'd

sway.

See crimes, that fear'd not once the eye of day, Rooted from men, without a name or place: See nations blotted out from earth, to pay The forfeit of deep guilt; with glad embrace The fair disburden'd lands welcome a nobler race.

Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven; They fade, they fly - but Truth survives their flight;

Earth has no shades to quench that beam of heaven;
Each ray that shone in early time, to light
The faltering footstep in the path of right,
Each gleam of clearer brightness shed to aid
In man's maturer days his bolder sight,
All blended, like the rainbow's radiant braid,
Pour yet, and still shall pour, the blaze that cannot
fade.-Bryant.

1072. ERROR: flourishes in every soil.

ERROR is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil; In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish:

For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth:

Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use:

And the just man, enamour'd of the right, is blinded by the speciousness of wrong,

And the prudent, perceiving an advantage, is content to overlook the harm.

On all things created remaineth the half-effaced signature of God,

Somewhat of fair and good, though blotted by the

finger of corruption :

And if error cometh in like a flood, it mixeth with the streams of truth;

And the adversary loveth to have it so, for thereby many are decoy'd.-Tupper.

1073. ERROR. Perversity of

FIRST appetite enlists him, truth-sworn foe;
Then obstinate self-will confirms him so.
Tell him he wanders; that his error leads
To fatal ills; that, though the path he treads
Be flowery, and he sees no cause of fear,
Death and the pains of hell attend him there:
In vain; the slave of arrogance and pride,
He has no hearing on the prudent side.
His still refuted quirks he still repeats;
New raised objections with new quibbles meets,
Till, sinking in the quicksand he defends,
He dies disputing, and the contest ends—
But not the mischiefs; they, still left behind,
Like thistle-seeds, are sown by every wind.
Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill,
Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will ;
And with a clear and shining lamp supplied,
First put it out, then take it for a guide.
Halting on crutches of unequal size,
One leg by truth supported, one by lies,
They sidle to the goal with awkward pace,
Secure of nothing-but to lose the race.— -Cowper.

1074. ERROR. Progress of PLEASURE admitted in undue degree Enslaves the will,-nor leaves the judgment free. 'Tis not alone the grape's enticing juice Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use; Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame, And woman, lovely woman, does the same. The heart, surrender'd to the ruling power Of some ungovern'd passion every hour,

Finds by degrees the truths that once bore sway,
And all their deep impressions, wear away;
So coin grows smooth, in traffic current pass'd;
Till Cæsar's image is effaced at last.

The breach, though small at first, soon opening wide,

In rushes folly with a full-moon tide.
Then welcome errors, of whatever size,
To justify it by a thousand lies.

As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon;
So sophistry cleaves close to and protects
Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.
Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care,
First wish to be imposed on, and then are,
And, lest the fulsome artifice should fail,
Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.
Not more industrious are the just and true
To give to virtue what is virtue's due,
The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth,
And call her charms to public notice forth,—
Than vice's mean and disingenuous race
To hide the shocking features of her face.
Her form with dress and lotion they repair;
Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair.

Cowper.

1075. ERROR. Proneness of man to SWIFTER than feather'd arrow in the wind, Than winged vessel on the yielding tide, Than river shooting down the mountain side, Than foot o'er champaign of the slender hind, To error's flowery vale, the headlong mind

Is prone, without a curb, to fly aside; Neither by dangers of the path untried, Nor roughest road, nor highest Alp confined. But if the way of truth upon the right

It follows, like slow worm, or bird unfledged, At every twig it checks, and stone, and rill. Great Guide! make strong my pinions for the flight! In that true course; be every other hedged, And lift and bring me to Thy holy hill! From the Italian of Tarsia.

1076. ERRORS: should be acknowledged.
SOME positive, persisting fools we know,
Who, if once wrong, will need be always so;
But you with pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critique on the last.-Pope.

1077. ETERNITY. Duration of

ETERNITY! eternity!

How long art thou, eternity! And yet to thee time hastes away, Like as the war-horse to the fray,

Or swift as couriers homeward go,

Or ship to port, or shaft from bow. Ponder, O man, eternity!

Eternity! eternity!

How long art thou, eternity! For even as in a perfect sphere End nor beginning can appear, Even so, eternity, in thee, Entrance nor exit can there be. Ponder, O man, eternity! Eternity! eternity!

How long art thou, eternity!

A circle infinite art thou,
Thy centre an eternal Now :
Never we name thy outward bound,
For never end therein is found.
Ponder, O man, eternity!

Eternity eternity!

How long art thou, eternity As long as God is God, so long Endure the pains of hell and wrong, So long the joys of heaven remain : O lasting joy! O lasting pain! Ponder, O man, eternity!-Wulffer.

1078. ETERNITY: everlasting.
WHAT'S time, when on eternity we think?
A thousand ages in that sea must sink:
Time's nothing but a word; a million
Is full as far from infinite as one.-Denham.

Oh! who can strive
To comprehend the vast, the awful truth,
Of the eternity that hath gone by,
And not recoil from the dismaying sense
Of human impotence? The life of man
Is summ'd in birthdays and in sepulchres:
But the eternal God had no beginning;
He hath no end. Time had been with Him
For everlasting, ere the dædal world
Rose from the gulf in loveliness. Like Him,
It knew no source; like Him, 'twas uncreate.
What is it, then? The past eternity!
We comprehend a future without end;
We feel it possible that even yon sun
May roll for ever: but we shrink amazed-
We stand aghast, when we reflect that time
Knew no commencement-that, heap age on age
And million upon million, without end,
And we shall never span the void of days
That were and are not but in retrospect.
The Past is an unfathomable depth,
Beyond the span of thought; 'tis an elapse

Which hath no mensuration, but hath been

For ever and for ever.

Now, look on man Myriads of ages hence. Hath time elapsed? Is he not standing in the self-same place Where once he stood? The same eternity Hath gone before him, and is yet to come; His past is not of longer span than ours, Though myriads of ages intervened;

For who can add to what has neither sum,

Nor bound, nor source, nor estimate, nor end?

Oh, who can compass the Almighty mind?

Oh, who unlock the secrets of the High?
In speculations of an altitude

Sublime as this, our reason stands confused,

Foolish, and insignificant, and mean.
Who can apply the futile argument

Of finite beings to infinity?

He might as well compress the universe

Into the hollow compass of a gourd,

Scoop'd out by human art; or bid the whale

Drink up the sea it swims in !-Henry Kirke White.

1079. ETERNITY: feared.

SURE there is none but fears a future state;
And when the most obdurate swear they do not,
Their trembling hearts belie their boasting tongues.
Dryden.

1080. ETERNITY. Hastening to
My soul, amid this stormy world,
Is like some flutter'd dove,

And fain would be as swift of wing

To flee to Him I love.

The cords that bound my heart to earth
Are broken by His hand;
Before His cross I found myself
A stranger in the land.

My heart is with Him on His throne,
And ill can brook delay,
Each moment listening for the voice,
'Rise up, and come away!*
With hope deferr'd, oft sick and faint,
'Why tarries He?' I cry ;
Let not the Saviour chide my haste,
For then would I reply:

'May not an exile, Lord, desire
His own sweet land to see?
May not a captive seek release,

A prisoner, to be free?

A child, when far away, may long

For home and kindred dear;
And she that waits her abseni lord,
May sigh till he appear.

'I would, my Lord and Saviour, know
That which no measure knows!
Would search the mystery of Thy love,
The depths of all Thy woes!

I fain would strike my harp divine,
Before the Father's throne,

There cast my crown of Righteousness,

And sing what grace has done!'
R. C. Chapman.

1081. ETERNITY: incomprehensible.

We strive with earthly imaginings to reach and understand

The wondrous and the fearful things of an eternal land.

We talk of amaranthine bowers and living groves of

palm,

Of starry crowns and fadeless flowers and skies for ever calm.

We talk of wings and raiment white, and pillar'd thrones of gold,

And cities built with jewels bright, far in the heavens, of old.

Are these things more than fancy's play? are they, in very deed,

The free soul's guerdon, far away, its everlasting meed?

Or shall the spirit, in its flight beyond the stars sublime,

See nothing but the radiance white of never-ending time?

Shall things material change again, and wholly be forgot?

And round us only God remain, a universe of thought?

We know not well-we cannot know; our reason's glimmering light

Can nothing but the darkness show of our surrounding night.

But soon the doubt and toil and strife of earth shall all be done,

And knowledge of our endless life be in a moment won.-Curry.