Familiar Quotations, - [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗
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Gayly the troubadour
Touched his guitar.
Welcome me Home.
Why don't the men propose, Mamma?
Why don't the men propose?
Why don't the Men propose?
She wore a wreath of roses
The night that first we met.
She wore a Wreath.
Friends depart, and memory takes them
To her caverns, pure and deep.
Teach me to forget.
Tell me the tales that to me were so dear,
Long, long ago, long, long ago.
Long, long ago.
The rose that all are praising
Is not the rose for me.
The Rose that all are praising.
Oh pilot, 't is a fearful night!
There 's danger on the deep.
The Pilot.
Fear not, but trust in Providence,
Wherever thou may'st be.
The Pilot.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder:[581:1]
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!
Isle of Beauty.
[582]
The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,
The holly-branch shone on the old oak wall.
The Mistletoe Bough.
Oh, I have roamed o'er many lands,
And many friends I 've met;
Not one fair scene or kindly smile
Can this fond heart forget.
Oh, steer my Bark to Erin's Isle.
[581:1] I find that absence still increases love.—Charles Hopkins: To C. C.
Distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it.—Howell: Familiar Letters, book i. sect. i. No. 6.
THOMAS DRUMMOND.[582:1] 1797-1840.Property has its duties as well as its rights.[582:2]
Letter to the Landlords of Tipperary.
[582:1] Captain Drummond was the inventor of the Drummond light.
[582:2] Disraeli: Sybil, book i. chap. xi.
McDONALD CLARKE. 1798-1842.Whilst twilight's curtain spreading far,
Was pinned with a single star.[582:3]
Death in Disguise. Line 227. (Boston edition, 1833.)
[582:3] Mrs. Child says:
"He thus describes the closing day":—
Now twilight lets her curtain down,
And pins it with a star.
SAMUEL LOVER. 1797-1868.A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.
The Angel's Whisper.
Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eye.[582:4]
Rory O'More.
For drames always go by conthraries, my dear.[582:5]
Rory O'More.
[583]
"Then here goes another," says he, "to make sure,
For there 's luck in odd numbers,"[583:1] says Rory O'More.
Rory O'More.
There was a place in childhood that I remember well,
And there a voice of sweetest tone bright fairy tales did tell.
My Mother dear.
Sure the shovel and tongs
To each other belongs.
Widow Machree.
[582:4] See Scott, page 482.
[582:5] See Middleton, page 172.
[583:1] See Shakespeare, page 46.
THOMAS HOOD. 1798-1845.There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,—
In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,
Or in the wide desert where no life is found.
Sonnet. Silence.
We watch'd her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
The Death-Bed.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
The Death-Bed.
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky;
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 't is little joy
To know I 'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
I remember, I remember.
[584]
She stood breast-high amid the corn
Clasp'd by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
Ruth.
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks.
Ruth.
When he is forsaken,
Wither'd and shaken,
What can an old man do but die?
Spring it is cheery.
And there is even a happiness
That makes the heart afraid.
Ode to Melancholy.
There 's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.[584:1]
Ode to Melancholy.
But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.
The Lady's Dream.
Oh would I were dead now,
Or up in my bed now,
To cover my head now,
And have a good cry!
A Table of Errata.
Straight down the crooked lane,
And all round the square.
A Plain Direction.
For my part, getting up seems not so easy
By half as lying.
Morning Meditations.
A man that 's fond precociously of stirring
Must be a spoon.
Morning Meditations.
Seem'd washing his hands with invisible soap
In imperceptible water.
Miss Kilmansegg. Her Christening.
O bed! O bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head!
Her Dream.
He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way,
Tormenting himself with his prickles.
Her Dream.
[585]
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold.
Her Moral.
Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould.
Her Moral.
How widely its agencies vary,—
To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,—
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary.
Her Moral.
Another tumble! That 's his precious nose!
Parental Ode to my Infant Son.
Boughs are daily rifled
By the gusty thieves,
And the book of Nature
Getteth short of leaves.
The Season.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags
Plying her needle and thread,—
Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!
The Song of the Shirt.
O men with sisters dear,
O men with mothers and wives,
It is not linen you 're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives![585:1]
The Song of the Shirt.
Sewing at once a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.
The Song of the Shirt.
O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!
The Song of the Shirt.
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief.
The Song of the Shirt.
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread.
The Song of the Shirt.
[586]
One more unfortunate
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death.
The Bridge of Sighs.
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
The Bridge of Sighs.
Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
The Bridge of Sighs.
Even God's providence
Seeming estrang'd.
The Bridge of Sighs.
No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon,
No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day,
. . . . .
No road, no street, no t' other side the way,
. . . . .
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no buds.
November.
No solemn sanctimonious face I pull,
Nor think I 'm pious when I 'm only bilious;
Nor study in my sanctum supercilious,
To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull.
Ode to Rae Wilson.
The Quaker loves an ample brim,
A hat that bows to no salaam;
And dear the beaver is to him
As if it never made a dam.
All round my Hat.
[584:1] See Burton, page 185.
[585:1] See Scott, page 493.
GEORGE LINLEY. 1798-1865.Ever of thee I 'm fondly dreaming,
Thy gentle voice my spirit can cheer.
Ever of Thee.
[587]
Thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream,
And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream.
Thou art gone.
Tho' lost to sight, to mem'ry dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,—
The hope to meet again.
Oh fondly on the past I dwell,
And oft recall those hours
When, wand'ring down the shady dell,
We gathered the wild-flowers.
Yes, life then seem'd one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To mem'ry thou art dear.
Oft in the tranquil hour of night,
When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,
And wish that thou wert by.
I think upon that happy time,
That time so fondly lov'd,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime,
As thro' the fields we rov'd.
Yes, life then seem'd one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To mem'ry thou art dear.
Song.[587:1]
[587:1] This song—written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him—is given entire, as so much inquiry has been made for the source of "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear." It is not known when the song was written,—probably about 1830.
Another song, entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been "written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703." It is said to have been published in the "Magazine for Mariners." No such magazine, however, ever existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, to have copied the song from an American newspaper. There is no other authority for the origin of this song, and the reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under the name of C——, in California in 1882.
[588]
COLONEL BLACKER.Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry.[588:1]
Oliver's Advice. 1834.
[588:1] There is a well-authenticated anecdote of Cromwell. On a certain occasion, when his troops were about crossing a river to attack the enemy, he concluded an address, couched in the usual fanatic terms in use among them, with these words: "Put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry!"—Hayes: Ballads of Ireland, vol. i. p. 191.
ROBERT POLLOK. 1799-1827.Sorrows remember'd sweeten present joy.
The Course of Time. Book i. Line 464.
He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"
And played familiar with his hoary locks.[588:2]
The Course of Time. Book iv. Line 389.
He was a man
Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven
To serve the Devil in.
The Course of Time. Book viii. Line 616.
With one hand he put
A penny in the urn of poverty,
And with the other took a shilling out.
The Course of Time. Book viii. Line 632.
[588:2] See Byron, page 548.
RUFUS CHOATE. 1799-1859.There was a state without king or nobles; there
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