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RESPICE FINEM

My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on;
Judge not the play before the play is done
Her plot hath many changes; every day
Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns
the play.

1635.

FAME

Francis Quarles.

HER house is all of echo made
Where never dies the sound;

And as her brows the clouds invade,
Her feet do strike the ground.

Ben Jonson.

"HOW NEAR TO GOOD IS WHAT IS FAIR"

How near to good is what is fair!

Which we no sooner see,

But with the lines and outward air
Our senses taken be.

We wish to see it still, and prove

What ways we may deserve;

We court, we praise, we more than love:
We are not grieved to serve.

1616.

A BURNT SHIP

Ben Jonson,

OUT of a fired ship, which by no way
But drowning could be rescued from the flame,
Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came
Near the foes' ships, did by their shot decay;
So all were lost, which in the ship were found.
They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt
ship drowned.

1633.

ON MILTON

John Donne.

THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last:
The force of Nature could no further go;
To make a third, she joined the former two.

| 1688./

John Dryden.

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT

I KNOW a thing that 's most uncommon;

(Envy, be silent and attend!)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend:

Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour; Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly;

An equal mixture of good-humour

And sensible soft melancholy.'

"Has she no faults then (Envy says), Sir?" Yes, she has one, I must aver:

When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.

1727.

Alexander Pope.

12

"WHEN LOVELY WOMAN STOOPS

TO FOLLY"

WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly
And finds too late that men betray,-
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover
And wring his bosom, is-to die.

1766.

Oliver Goldsmith.

LINES WRITTEN ON A BANK

NOTE

WAE worth thy power, thou cursed leaf!
Fell source of a' my woe and grief,

For lack o' thee I 've lost my lass,
For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass!
I see the children of affliction
Unaided, through thy curs'd restriction.
I've seen the oppressor's cruel smile
Amid his hapless victims' spoil;
And for thy potence vainly wish'd
To crush the villain in the dust.

For lack o' thee I leave this much-lov'd shore,
Never, perhaps, to greet old Scotland more.

1814.

Robert Burns.

"MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I

BEHOLD"

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
William Wordsworth.

1802.

1807.

THE GOOD GREAT MAN

"How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits Honour and wealth, with all his worth and

pains!

It seems a story from the world of spirits
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merits that which he obtains.

5

For shame, dear friend, renounce this idle strain!

What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain?

Place, titles, salary, a gilded chain,

Or throne of corses which his sword had slain? Greatness and goodness are not means, but

ends.

10

Hath he not always treasures, always friends,— The good great man?. Three treasures,-love, and light,

And calm thoughts, regular as infant's

breath;

And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,

Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death. 15

1802.

1858.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

HEARTS-EASE

THERE is a flower I wish to wear,
But not until first worn by you..
Hearts-ease. . of all earth's flowers

most rare;

Bring it; and bring enough for two.

Walter Savage Lander

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