ONE thinks the soul is air; another, fire;
Another, blood diffus'd about the heart;
Another saith the elements conspire,

And to her essence each doth give a part.
But, as the sharpest eye discerneth nought,
Except the sunbeam in the air do shine,
So the best soul with her reflecting thought,
Sees not herself without some light divine.

Davies.

The soul of man, a native of the skies,
High-born and free, her freedom should maintain
Unsold, unmortgag'd for earth's little bribes

Young.

Let earth dissolve-yon ponderous orb descend,
And grind us into dust-the soul is safe!
The man emerges-mounts above the wreck,
As towering flame from nature's funeral pyre!

Young.

Let fortune empty all her quiver in me,
I have a soul that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.

Dryden.

The soul that desires not release from the clay,
Is no bird in a cage, but a corpse in the tomb.
Anware, from the Persian.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives,

But when the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

G. Herbert.

The soul on earth is an immortal guest,
Compelled to starve at an unreal feast:
A spark that upward tends by nature's force,
A stream diverted from its parent source;
A drop dissevered from the boundless sea,
A moment parted from eternity;

A pilgrim panting for a rest to come,
An exile anxious for his native home.

Hannah More.

SOVEREIGNTY.

JOVE's own tree,

That holds the woods in awful sovereignty,
Requires a depth of lodging in the ground;
High as his topmost boughs to heaven ascend,
So low his roots to hell's dominions tend.

A sovereign's great example forms a people;
The public breast is noble, or is vile,
As he inspires it.

SOUND.

Dryden

Mallet.

I HATE those potent madmen who keep all
Mankind awake while they, by their great deeds,
Are drumming hard upon this hollow world,
Only to make a sound to last for ages,

Etherege.

Well-sounding verses are the charms we use,
Heroic thoughts and virtue to infuse:
Things of deep sense we may in prose unfold,
But they move more in lofty numbers told.
By the loud trumpet which our courage aids,
We learn that sound, as well as sense, persuades.

SOURCE.

Or himself is none;

But that eternal Infinite, and One,

Who never did begin, and ne'er can end,

Waller.

On him all beings as their source depend.-Dryden.

But were not nature still endow'd at large

With all which life requires, though unadorn'd
With such enchantment? Wherefore then her form
So exquisitely fair? her breath perfum'd

With such etherial sweetness? whence her voice
Inform'd at will to raise or to depress

The impassioned soul? whence the robes of light
Which thus invest her with more lovely pomp
Than fancy can describe? whence but from Thee,
O Source Divine of overflowing love? Akenside.

598

SPECTRE. SPECTACLE.

SPECTRE.

SPECULATION.

THE ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend,
With bold fantastic spectres to rejoice.

A horrid spectre rises to my sight,
Close by my side, and plain and palpable,
In all good seeming and close circumstance,
As man meets man.

Dryden.

Joanna Baillie.

SPECTACLE-SPECTATOR.

FORTH riding underneath the castle wall,
A dunghill of dead carcasses he spied,

The dreadful spectacle of that sad house of pride.

Spenser.

AVAUNT! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes,

Which thou dost glare with!

Shakspere.

They who have, or who have not, whom their great

stars

Throne and set high! servants

Which are to France the spies and speculations,
Intelligent of our state.

Thenceforth to speculations high and deep

Shakspere.

I turned my thoughts, and with capricious mind
Considered all things visible.

Milton.

SPEECH.

AND when she spake,

Sweet words, like dropping honey, she did shed;
And 'twixt the pearls and rubies softly brake
A silver sound that heavenly music seemed to make.
Spenser.

When he speaks,

The air, a chartered libertine, is still,

And mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,

To steal his voice and honied sentences.-Shakspere.

When the fowler blows his whistle,

To ensnare the birds with his mimic cry,

The bird hears, as it were, the song of his companion,
And flies down from the air and enters the net;
So, too, the dervishes, by their human speech, catch men,
That they may call them by that spell to salvation.
Jelaleddin, from the Persian.

Speech is the vestibule of the palace of love;
Speech is the new wine of the garden of love;
There is no work for the intellect like speech;
There is no memorial in the world like speech;
All that is born in the world, whether old or new,
The wise man saith, is born of speech.

Jami, from the Persian.

Oh! speak that again!

Sweet as the syren's tongue those accents fall,

And charm me to my ruin.

Southern.

Speech is the golden harvest that followeth the flowering of thought;

Yet oftentimes runneth it to husk, and the grains be withered and scanty:

Speech is reason's brother, and a kindly prerogative

of man,

That likeneth him to his Maker, who spake and it was done:

Spirit may mingle with spirit, but sense requireth a symbol;

And speech is the body of a thought, without which Martin F. Tupper.

it were not seen.

600

SPIRIT. SPLEEN.

SPIRIT.

THAT a mighty man, of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit.

Shakspere.

I can call up spirits from the vasty deep.-
-Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come, when you do call for them?
Shakspere.
For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease
Assume w hat sexs and what shapes they please.

Pope.

Take thou the poet's counsel to thy heart:
Question thy spirit, make its wisdom thine-
Shut out the world, pride, pomp, and every part;
As these retire, we gaze on worlds divine.
Then spiritual loveliness appears-

God's nature glows through every form we see;
For mind's the prophecy of other spheres,
And is itself its own futurity.

Turn to thy soul, Eternity is there;
The key of the Invisible behold:

Spirit thou art-of spirit-worlds the heir

All other secrets can thy sense unfold.

Charles Swain.

SPLEEN.

THE spleen with sudden vapour clouds the brain,
And binds the spirits in its heavy chain;
Howe'er the cause fantastic may appear,

Th' effect is real and the pain sincere.-Blackmore.

The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns;
The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown,
And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort,
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears;
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair

Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.

Cowper.