Familiar Quotations, - [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗
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[468:1] The original edition (London, 1819, 8vo) had the following as the fourth stanza from the end of Part i., which was omitted in all subsequent editions:—
Is it a party in a parlour?
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,—
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent and all damned.
[469:1] See Milton, page 241.
[471:1] See Gray, page 382.
[474:1] It was on this occasion [the failure in energy of Lord Mar at the battle of Sheriffmuir] that Gordon of Glenbucket made the celebrated exclamation, "Oh for an hour of Dundee!"—Mahon: History of England, vol. i. p. 184.
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo,
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!
Byron: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 12.
[475:1] See Milton, page 239.
[476:1] See Milton, page 235.
[477:1] See Shakespeare, page 57.
[477:2] See Collins, page 390.
[478:1] This line is from Sir John Beaumont's "Battle of Bosworth Field."
[479:1] Heaven gives its favourites—early death.—Byron: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 102. Also Don Juan, canto iv. stanza 12.
Quem Di diligunt
Adolescens moritur
(He whom the gods favor dies in youth).
Plautus: Bacchides, act iv. sc. 7.
[480:1] See page 465.
[480:2]
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue;
. . . . .
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
Landor: Gebir, book v.
[481:1] An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars.—Coleridge: The Friend, No. 14.
[481:2] See Milton, page 249.
[481:3] Another and the same.—Darwin: The Botanic Garden.
[483:1] In obedience to the order of the Council of Constance (1415), the remains of Wickliffe were exhumed and burned to ashes, and these cast into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by; and "thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."—Fuller: Church history, sect. ii. book iv. paragraph 53.
What Heraclitus would not laugh, or what Democritus would not weep? . . . For though they digged up his body, burned his bones, and drowned his ashes, yet the word of God and truth of his doctrine, with the fruit and success thereof, they could not burn.—Fox: Book of Martyrs, vol. i. p. 606 (edition, 1641).
"Some prophet of that day said,—
"'The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad
Wide as the waters be.'"
Daniel Webster: Address before the Sons of New Hampshire, 1849.
These lines are similarly quoted by the Rev. John Cumming in the "Voices of the Dead."
[484:1]
The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly sing
Made of a quill from an angel's wing.
Henry Constable: Sonnet.
Whose noble praise
Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel's wing.
Dorothy Berry: Sonnet.
[485:1]
With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
Browning: House.
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 1771-1832.Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto i. Stanza 7.
If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 1.
O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 10.
I was not always a man of woe.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 12.
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 't was said to me.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 22.
In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iii. Stanza 1.
Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
For lovers love the western star.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iii. Stanza 24.
Along thy wild and willow'd shore.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iv. Stanza 1.
Ne'er
Was flattery lost on poet's ear;
A simple race! they waste their toil
For the vain tribute of a smile.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iv. Stanza 35.
[488]
Call it not vain: they do not err
Who say that when the poet dies
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto v. Stanza 1.
True love 's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven:
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes soon as granted fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto v. Stanza 13.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd[488:1]
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,—
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.[488:2]
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1.
[489]
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood;
Land of the mountain and the flood!
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 2.
Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.
Marmion. Introduction to Canto i.
Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
Marmion. Introduction to Canto ii.
When, musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone.
Marmion. Introduction to Canto ii.
'T is an old tale and often told;
But did my fate and wish agree,
Ne'er had been read, in story old,
Of maiden true betray'd for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like me.
Marmion. Canto ii. Stanza 27.
When Prussia hurried to the field,
And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield.[489:1]
Marmion. Introduction to Canto iii.
In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle
With groans of the dying.
Marmion. Canto iii. Stanza 11.
Where 's the coward that would not dare
To fight for such a land?
Marmion. Canto iv. Stanza 30.
Lightly from fair to fair he flew,
And loved to plead, lament, and sue;
Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain,
For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.
Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 9.
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.[489:2]
Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 12.
But woe awaits a country when
She sees the tears of bearded men.
Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 16.
[490]
And dar'st thou then
To beard the lion in his den,
The Douglas in his hall?
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 14.
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 17.
O woman! in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou![490:1]
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 30.
"Charge, Chester, charge! on, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 32.
Oh for a blast of that dread horn[490:2]
On Fontarabian echoes borne!
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 33.
To all, to each, a fair good-night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.
L' Envoy. To the Reader.
In listening mood she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 17.
And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace
Of finer form or lovelier face.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 18.
[491]
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 18.
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly press'd its signet sage,
Yet had not quench'd the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth:
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 21.
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil nor night of waking.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 31.
Hail to the chief who in triumph advances!
Lady of the Lake. Canto ii. Stanza 19.
Some feelings are to mortals given
With less of earth in them than heaven.
Lady of the Lake. Canto ii. Stanza 22.
Time rolls his ceaseless course.
Lady of the Lake. Canto iii. Stanza 1.
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever!
Lady of the Lake. Canto iii. Stanza 16.
The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew,
And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.
Lady of the Lake. Canto iv. Stanza 1.
Art thou a friend to Roderick?
Lady of the Lake. Canto iv. Stanza 30.
Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.
Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 10.
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 10.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
[492]Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood.
Thou many-headed monster[492:1] thing,
Oh who would wish to be thy king!
Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 30.
Where, where was Roderick then?
One blast upon his bugle horn
Were worth a thousand men.
Lady of the Lake. Canto vi. Stanza 18.
In man's most dark extremity
Oft succour dawns from Heaven.
Lord of the Isles. Canto i. Stanza 20.
Spangling the wave with lights as vain
As pleasures in the vale of
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