Converse familiar with th' illustrious dead;
With great examples of old Greece or Rome
Enlarge thy free-born heart, and bless kind Heaven
That Britain yet enjoys dear Liberty,
That balm of life, that sweetest blessing, cheap
Tho' purchas'd with our blood.
Parent of happiness, celestial-born;
When the first man became a living soul,
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free,
They touch our country and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing.
Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from heav'n
Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
Whose freedom is by suff'rance, and at will
Of a superior, he is never free.
Who lives, and is not weary of a life
Exposed to manacles, deserves them well.
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts,
The surest presage of the good they seek.
'Tis liberty alone that gives the flow'r Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume, And we are weeds without it.
To hurl the rooted mountain from its base,
Than force the yoke of slavery upon men
Determined to be free.
Men are not still the same; our appetites
Are various, and inconstant as the moon,
That never shines with the same face again :
'Tis nature's curse never to be resolv'd;
Busy to-day in the pursuit of what
To-morrow's eldest judgment may despise.
Southern's Disappointment.
Allotted to the race of man below,
Is, in proportion, doom'd to taste some sorrow.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey, a. 3, s. 1.
The days of life are sisters; all alike;
None just the same; which serve to fool us on
Through blasted hopes, with change of fallacy;
While joy is, like to-morrow, still to come:
Nor ends the fruitless chase but in the grave.
Young's Brothers, a. 1.
Vain man! to be so fond of breathing long,
And spinning out a thread of misery:
The longer life the greater choice of evil;
The happiest man is but a wretched thing,
That steals poor comfort from comparison.
Ah! what is human life?
How, like the dial's tardy-moving shade,
Day after day slides from us unperceiv'd!
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth;
Too subtle is the movement to be seen;
Yet soon the hour is up-and we are gone.
To be, is better far than not to be,
Else Nature cheated us in our formation.
And when we are, the sweet delusion wears
Such various charms and prospects of delight;
That what we cou'd not will, we make our choice,
Desirous to prolong the life she gave.
Sewell's Sir Walter Raleigh,
I've try'd this world in all its changes,
States, and conditions; have been great, and happy,
Wretched, and low, and past thro' all its stages.
And oh ! believe me, who have known it best,
It is not worth the bustle that it costs;
'Tis but a medley, all of idle hopes,
And abject childish fears.
Misfortune does not always wait on vice;
Nor is success the constant guest of virtue.
What art thou, Life, so dearly lov'd by all?
What are thy charms that thus the great desire thee,
And to retain thee part with pomp and titles?
To buy thy presence, the gold-watching miser
Will pour his mouldy bags of treasure out,
And grow at once a prodigal. The wretch
Clad with disease and poverty's thin coat,
Yet holds thee fast, tho' painful company.
Havard's King Charles I.
O Life! thou universal wish; what art thou?
Thou'rt but a day-a few uneasy hours:
Thy morn is greeted by the flocks and herds,
And every bird that flatters with its note,
Salutes thy rising sun: Thy noon approaching,
Then haste the flies and every creeping insect,
To bask in thy meridian; that declining,
As quickly they depart, and leave thy evening
To mourn the absent ray: Night at hand,
Then croaks the raven conscience, time misspent,
The owl despair seems hideous, and the bat
.Confusion flutters up and down-
Life's but a lengthen'd day not worth the waking for.
Havard's King Charles I.
Human life is checquered at the best,
And joy and grief alternately preside,
The good and evil demon of mankind.
How sudden do our prospects vary here!
And how uncertain ev'ry good we boast!
Hope oft deceives us; and our very joys
Shrink with fruition ;-pall, and rust away.
How wise are we in thought! How weak in practice!
Our very virtue, like our will is-nothing.
Reflect that life and death, affecting sounds,
Are only varied modes of endless being,
Reflect that life, like every other blessing,
Derives its value from its use alone,
Not for itself but for a nobler end
Th' Eternal gave it, and that end is virtue.
When inconsistent with a greater good,
Reason commands to cast the less away;
Thus life, with loss of wealth, is well preserv'd,
And virtue cheaply say'd with loss of life.
Dr. Johnson's Irene.
By day or night,
In florid youth, or mellow age, scarce fleets
One hour without its care! Not sleep itself
Is ever balmy; for the shadowy dream
Oft bears substantial woe.
The dust we tread upon was once alive,
And wretched.
Byron's Sardanapalus, a. 4, s. 1.
We are fools of time and terror: days
Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.
In all the days of this detested yoke-
This vital weight upon the struggling heart,
Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain,
Or joy that ends in agony or faintness-
In all the days of past and future, for
In life there is no present, we can number
How few, how less than few-wherein the soul
Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back
As from a stream in winter, though the chill
Be but a moment's.
Byron's Manfred, a. 2, s. 2.
When we cry out against fate, 'twere well
We should remember fortune can take nought
Save what she gave-the rest was nakedness,
And lusts, and appetites, and vanities,
The universal heritage, to battle
With as we may, and least in humblest stations,
Where hunger swallows all in one low want,
And the original ordinance, that man
Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps all passions
Aloof, save fear of famine! All is low,
And false, and hollow-clay from first to last,
The prince's urn no less than potter's vessel.
Byron's Two Foscari, a. 2, s. 1.
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st
Live well, how long or short permit to Heav'n.
Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 11.
Better end here unborn. Why is life given
To be thus wrested from us? rather why
Obtruded on us thus ? who if we knew
What we receive, would either not accept
Life offer'd, or soon beg to lay it down,
Glad to be so dismiss'd in peace.
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