's dark array,--
Days of absence, I am weary;
She I love is far away.
_Days of Absence_, J.J. ROUSSEAU.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years;
And every little absence is an age.
_Amphictrion_. J. DRYDEN.
What! keep a week away? Seven days and nights?
Eightscore eight hours? And lovers' absent hours
More tedious than the dial eightscore times?
O, weary reckoning!
_Othello. Act_ iii. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Long did his wife,
Suckling her babe, her only one, look out
The way he went at parting,--but he came not!
_Italy_. S. ROGERS.
With what a deep devotedness of woe
I wept thy absence--o'er and o'er again
Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain,
And memory, like a drop that, night and day
Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!
_Lalla Rookh: Veiled Prophet of Khorassan_. T. MOORE.
Condemned whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more.
_Eloise to Abelard_. A. POPE.
ACTION.
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it.
_Macbeth, Act_. iv. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
If our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched,
But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence.
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor--
Both thanks and use.
_Measure for Measure, Act_ i. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
We must not stint
Our necessary actions, in the fear
To cope malicious censurers.
_King Henry VIII., Act_ i. _Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
_Merchant of Venice, Act_ v. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill.
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
_An Honest Man's Fortune_. J. FLETCHER.
ADMIRATION.
She is pretty to walk with,
And witty to talk with,
And pleasant, too, to think on.
_Brennoralt, Act_ ii. SIR J. SUCKLING.
But from the hoop's bewitching round,
Her very shoe has power to wound.
_Fables: The Spider and the Bee_. E. MOORE.
That eagle's fate and mine are one.
Which, on the shaft that made him die,
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.
_To a Lady singing a Son
|