SOCIETY.

I AM ill; but your being by me

Cannot amend me: society is no comfort

To one not sociable.

Among unequals what society Can sort? what harmony or true delight?

Shakspere.

Milton.

Hail, social life! into thy pleasing bounds
Again I come, to pay the common stock
My share of service, and, in glad return,
To taste thy comforts, thy protected joys.-Thomson.

Man in society is like a flower

Blown in its native bed; 't is there alone
His faculties, expanded in full bloom,

Shine out; there only reach their proper use.

Cowper.

SOFTNESS.

You may as well go stand upon a beach,
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
You may as well go bid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise,
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven;
You may as well do anything most hard,

As seek to soften that (than which what's harder?)——
His Jewish heart.

Shakspere.

Nature has cast me in so soft a mould,

That, but to hear a story, feign'd for pleasure,
Of some sad lover's death, moistens my eyes
And robs me of my manhood.

I've gazed on many a brighter face,
But ne'er on one, for years,

Where beauty left so soft a trace

Dryden.

As it had left on hers. Mrs. A. B. Welby.

592

SOLACE. SOLDIER.

SOLACE.

IN midst of plenty only to embrace

Calm patience, is not worthy of your praise,
But he that can look sorrow in the face,
And not be daunted, he deserves the bays.
This is prosperity, where'er we find

A heavenly solace in an earthly mind.

Oh, never is the path we tread,
So drear, but if we upward gaze,

Hugh Compton.

The favouring smiles of heaven will shed

Some solace for our darkest days. W. J. Brock.

SOLDIER.

A SOLDIER;

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation,

Even in the cannon's mouth.

Dost thou know the fate of soldiers?

Shakspere.

They're but ambition's tools, to cut a way
To her unlawful ends; and when they 're worn,
Hack'd, hewn with constant service, thrown aside
To rust in peace, and rot in hospitals.

'Tis universal soldiership has stabbed
The heart of merit in the meaner class.

Southern.

To swear, to game, to drink, to show at home,
By lewdness, idleness, and sabbath-breach,
The great proficiency he made abroad;

To astonish and to grieve his gazing friends,

To break some maiden's and his mother's heart,

To be a pest where he was useful once,

Are his sole aim, and all his glory now.

Cowper.

A mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind

Of human sword in a fiend's hand; the other
Is master-mover of this warlike puppet.

Byron.

SOLEMNITY.

THEN 'gan he loudly through the house to call,
But no one came to answer to his cry,
There reigned a solemn silence over all.

The moon like a silver bow,

Now bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

Spenser.

Shakspere.

SOLITUDE.

WISDOM'S self

Oft seeks for sweet retired solitude,

Where with her best nurse contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings.

O sacred solitude! divine retreat!

Choice of the prudent! envy of the great!

Milton.

By thy pure stream, or in thy waving shade,
We court fair Wisdom, that celestial maid.— Young.

Oh, solitude! first state of human kind!
Which bless'd remain'd till man did find
Ev'n his own helper's company:

As soon as two, alas! together join'd,
The serpent made up three.

Cowper.

For solitude, however some may rave,
Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave-
A sepulchre in which the living lie,
Where all good qualities grow sick and die.

Cowper.
Amidst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,

With none who bless us,-none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less,
Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued:
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude.

Byron.

AND then will canker sorrow eat her bud,

And chase the native beauty from her cheek.

Shakspere.

Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
I tender it here; I do as truly suffer
As e'er I did offend.

Shakspere,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
Shakspere,

I wonder whence that tear came, when I smiled
In the production in't! Sorrow's a thief,
That can, when joy looks on, steal forth a grief.
Massinger.

Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,
Which, like growing fountains, rise,
To drown their banks: grief's sullen brooks
Would better flow in furrow'd looks;
Thy lovely face was never meant
To be the slave of discontent.

Then clear those waterish stars again,
Which else portend a lasting rain;
Lest the clouds which settle there,
Prolong thy winter all the year,
And thy example others make
In love with sorrow for thy sake.

Dr H. King.

Man is a child of sorrow, and this world

In which we breathe, hath cares enough to plague us; But it hath means withal to soothe these cares;

And he who meditates on others' woes,

Shall in that meditation lose his own.- -Cumberland.

And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought
The intersected lines of thought;

Those furrows, which the burning share
Of sorrow ploughs untimely there:
Scars of the lacerated mind,

Which the soul's war doth leave behind.

Byron.

The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the grave, where sorrow is unknown;
No traveller ever reached that blest abode,
But found out thorns and briars on the road,

Cowper.

Oh sacred sorrow, by whom souls are tried,
Sent not to punish mortals, but to guide;
If thou art mine, (and who shall proudly dare
To tell his Maker he has had his share?)
Still let me feel for what thy pangs are sent,
And be my guide, and not my punishment.-Crabbe.

The sweetest flower in pleasure's path,
Will bloom on sorrow's grave.

For sorrow is the messenger between
The poet and men's bosoms:-Genius can
Fill with unsympathizing gods the scene,
But grief alone can teach us what is man.

Clare.

Sir E. L. Bulwer.

Hear me for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gathered shape; for it may be
That while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

A fairy shield your genius made,
And gave you on your natal day;
Your sorrow only sorrow's shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.

Tennyson.

Tennyson.

He who has most of heart, knows most of sorrow.

Bailey.

You've seen the lightning's flash at night
Play brightly o'er a cloudy pile;
The moonshine tremble on the height,
When winter glances cold and bright;-
And like that flash, and like that light,
Is sorrow's vain and heartless smile.

J. G. Whittier.