Her soul abhorring avarice,
Hot, envious, proud, the scribbling fry
Burn, hiss, and bounce, waste paper, ink, and die. Bounteous; but almost bounteous to a vice.
No spring or summer's beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
When bounteous Autumn rears his head,
He joys to pull the ripen'd pear.
Autumnal heat declines, Ere heat is quite decay'd, or cold begun.
Autumn succeeds, a sober, tepid age,
Nor froze with fear, nor boiling into rage;
Last, Winter creeps along with tardy pace,
Sour is his front, and furrow'd is his face.
DRYDEN.
But see the fading many-colour'd woods,
Shade deep'ning over shade, the country round
Imbrown; crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark.
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove,
Oft starting such as, studious, walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air.
O cursed love of gold; when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds,
First starved in this, then damn'd in that to
The more we have, the meaner is our store;
The unenjoying craving wretch is poor.
But more have been by avarice opprest,
And heaps of money crowded in the chest.
DRYDEN.
Young men to imitate all ills are prone,
But are compell'd to avarice alone;
For then in virtue's shape they follow vice.
DRYDEN.
Nor love his peace of mind destroys,
Nor wicked avarice of wealth.
Go, miser! go: for lucre sell thy soul;
Truck wares for wares, and trudge from pole to
pole,
That men may say, when thou art dead and gone,
See what a vast estate he left his son!
For he who covets gain in such excess
Does by dumb signs himself as much express
As if in words at length he show'd his mind.
DRYDEN.
The base wretch who hoards up all he can
Is praised and call'd a careful thrifty man.
DRYDEN.
For should you to extortion be inclined,
Your cruel guilt will little booty find.
Like a miser 'midst his store,
Who grasps and grasps till he can hold no more.
DRYDEN.
As thy strutting bags with money rise,
The love of gain is of an equal size.
From hence the greatest part of ills descend,
When lust of getting more will have no end.
DRYDEN.
But the base miser starves amidst his store,
Broods o'er his gold, and, griping still at more,
Sits sadly pining, and believes he's poor.
Why lose we life in anxious cares
To lay in hoards for future years?
Up, up, says Avarice! thou snor'st again,
Can these, when tortured by disease,
Stretchest thy limbs, and yawn'st, but all in vain : Cheer our sick hearts, or purchase ease?
The tyrant Lucre no denial takes;
At his command th' unwilling sluggard wakes.
Then, in plain prose, were made two sorts of
Be thrifty, but not covetous; therefore give
Thy need, thine honour, and thy friend, his due:
Never was scraper brave man. Get to live;
Then live, and use it; else it is not true
That thou hast gotten: surely, use alone
Makes money not a contemptible stone.
He turns with anxious heart and crippled hands
His bonds of debt and mortgages of lands;
Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes,
Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies.
DR. JOHNSON.
The love of gold, that meanest rage
And latest folly of man's sinking age,
Which, rarely venturing in the van of life,
While nobler passions wage their heated strife,
Comes skulking last, with selfishness and fear,
And dies collecting lumber in the rear.
MOORE.
Thoughtful of gain, I all the live-long day
Consume in meditation deep.
JOHN PHILIPS.
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.
'Tis strange the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;
Is it less strange the prodigal should waste
His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir, to keep and spare,;
The next, a fountain spouting through his heir. Regard of worldly muck doth foully blend
Their congress in the field great Jove with Duel'd their armies rank'd in proud array;
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason wills our hearts should be as good.
He which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made.
SHAKSPEARE.
O noble English! that could entertain,
With half their forces, the full pride of France,
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action.
To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword; despair, and die.
SHAKSPEARE.
He proved the best man i' th' field; and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the oak.
Hath not that honour in't it had; for
I thought to crush him in an equal force,
True sword to sword.
SHAKSPEARE.
The interruption of their churlish drums
Cuts off more circumstance; they are at hand
To parley, or to fight.
In this kind to come, in braving arms,
Be his own carver, and cut out his way,
To find out right with wrong, it may not be.
SHAKSPEARE.
Against whose fury, and th' unmatched force,
The aweless lion could not wage the fight.
SHAKSPEARE.
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.
Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath, That they may crush down, with a heavy fall, Th' usurping helmets of our adversaries!
Themselves at discord fell, And cruel combat join'd in middle space, With horrible assault and fury fell. SPENSER.
Loveliest of women! heaven is in thy soul; Beauty and virtue shine forever round thee, Bright'ning each other! thou art all divine. ADDISON.
She moves! life wanders up and down
Through all her face, and lights up every charm.
ADDISON.
In praising Chloris, moon, and stars, and skies,
Are quickly made to match her face and eyes;
And gold and rubies, with as little care,
To fit the colours of her lips and hair;
And mixing suns, and flowers, and pearls, and
Make them seem all complexions at once.
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,
And oh! that eye was in itself a soul.
BYRON: Bride of Abydos.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
BYRON: Hebrew Melodies.
She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turn'd my eye,
The morning star of memory.
Like pensive beauty smiling in her tears.
It is not beauty I demand,
A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair.
She by whose lines proportion should be Examined, measure of all symmetry;
Few admired the native red and white
Till poets dress'd them up to charm the sight.
DRYDEN.
Her who fairest does appear,
Whom had that ancient seen, who thought souls Crown her queen of all the year.
No mortal tongue can half the beauty tell;
For none but hands divine could work so well.
DRYDEN.
And sprightly hope, and short-enduring joy. DRYDEN.
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