Page images
PDF
EPUB

86.

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,

87.

88.

39.

40.

41.

The snake slipt under a spray,

The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, with his foot on the prey,

And the nightingale thought, I have sung many songs,
'But never a one so gay,

'For he sings of what the world will be
'When the years have died away.'

Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze

Bow themselves, when he did sing;

To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.

We leave the well-beloved place
Where first we gazed upon the sky;
The roofs, that heard our earliest cry,
Will shelter one of stranger race.

We go, but ere we go from home,
As down the garden walks I move,
Two spirits of a diverse love
Contend for loving masterdom.

If this great world of joy and pain
Revolve in one sure track;

If freedom set will rise again,
And virtue flown come back;
Woe to the purblind crew who fill

The heart with each day's care;
Nor gain, from past or future, skill
To bear and to forbear.

In such a place as this, at such an hour,
If ancestry in aught can be believed,
Descending spirits have conversed with man,
And told the secrets of the world unknown.

42.

Those who reason in this manner do not observe that they are setting up a general rule, of all the least to be endured; namely, that secrecy, whenever secrecy is practicable, will justify any action. 43. To thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

44. Being angry with one who controverts an opinion which you value, is a necessary consequence of the uneasiness which you feel.

45.

46.

47.

48.

This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do.

Wide through the landscape of his dream
The lordly Niger flowed;

Beneath the palm-trees on the plain

Once more a king he strode,
And heard the tinkling caravans

Descend the mountain road.

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed, that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.,
Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries and prayers,
They thrust him from the hall and down the stairs;
A group of tittering pages ran before,

And, as they opened wide the folding-door,

His heart failed, for he heard, with strange alarms,
The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms,
And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring,
With the mock plaudits of 'Long live the king.'

49. But when the sun was sinking in the sea

50.

He seized his harp, which he at times could string
And strike, albeit with untaught melody,
When deem'd he no strange ear was listening:
And now his fingers o'er it he did fling,
And tuned his farewell in the dim twilight.

They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung,
Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

So cheered he his fair spouse, and she was cheer'd;
But silently a gentle tear let fall

From either eye, and wip'd them with her hair;
Two other precious drops that ready stood,
Each in their crystal sluice, he ere they fell
Kiss'd, as the gracious signs of sweet remorse
And pious awe, that feared to have offended.

Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause,
When I spake darkly what I purposed;

Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,

As bid me tell my tale in express words;

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.

Long time in even scale

The battle hung; till Satan, who that day

Prodigious power had shown, and met in arms
No equal, ranging through the dire attack
Of fighting seraphim confused, at length

Saw where the sword of Michael smote, and felled
Squadrons at once.

Long time they thus together traveiled,

Till, weary of their way, they came at last,

Where grew two goodly trees, that faire did spred
Their armes abroad, with gray mosse overcast;
And their greene leaves trembling with every blast,
Made a calme shadow far in compasse round.

While some on earnest business bent
Their murmuring labours ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty,

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign

And unknown regions dare descry:

Still as they run they look behind,

They hear a voice in every wind
And snatch a fearful joy.

56. Though a scholar must have faith in his master, yet a man well instructed must judge for himself; for learners owe to their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they are fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual captivity.

57.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,
That last infirmity of noble mind,

To scorn delights and live laborious days,

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find

And think to burst out into sudden blaze

Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears

And slits the thin-spun life.

58. Since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as are necessary to express the particular business they are to discourse on.

59.

Bless'd are those

Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him

In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

60. Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him.

[blocks in formation]

Abstract nouns, 76

Accent, 51

Accidence, definition of, 66
Address, nominative of, 97, 231
Adjectives, definition of, 103; compared
with verbs, 104; classified, 104; used
as nouns, 106; inflexion of, 112; not
admitting comparison, 113; comparison
of, 114; suffixes forming, 202; followed
by objective, 238, 245; used attribu-
tively and predicatively, 104, 241;
factitive use of, 241; agreement of,
241; order of, 246
Adjective clauses, 194

Adjunct, attributive, 212; adverbial, 215
Adverbs, definition of, 179; classification
of, 180; formation of, 181; used as
adjectives, 183; as nouns, 190; show-
ing case-endings, 182; simple and con-
junctive, 180; yes and no, 181; com-
parison of, 182, 280; from he, who, the,
182; compound, 182; modify certain
parts of speech, 179; syntax of, 269;
distinguished from prepositions, 189;
distinguished from conjunctions, 270;
meaning affected by position, 271
Adverbial adjuncts, 215; clauses, 195;
object, 238

After, different parts of speech, 64
Agency, suffixes marking, 202
Alms, 89

Alphabet, the English, 55; deficient, re-
dundant, inconsistent, 55; origin of,
59; requirements of a perfect, 55;
phonetic, 56

Alternative conjunctions, syntax of, 254
An, a, origin of, 107; uses of, 108; syn-
tax of, 244

Anacoluthon, 266

Analysis, directions for, 216
Analytic languages, 66

And, redundant use of, 274; colloquially
for to, 281

Angles, original home of, 4
Anglo-Saxon, meaning of, 5

Anomaly, in number of nouns, 80

Antecedent to relative, 125; suppressed,

126

Any, 129

Apostrophe in possessive, 98

Apposition, 233; possessive of nouns in,
98

Archaic plural forms, 88

Are, 172

Articles, 107; not a separate part of
speech, 108; chief uses of, 109; syntax
of, 244

Articulate sounds, 62

Aryan race, original home of, 24; family
of languages, 24; its divisions, 26;
European languages outside, 27

As, relative pronoun, 129; adverb, syn-
tax of, 272, 276

'As follow' or 'As follows,' 273
Aspirates, 53

Asyndeton, 276

Attraction, 248, 251, 255

Attribute, 104; misuse of term, 251
Attributive use of adjectives, 104, 241
Aught, 129.

Augmentatives, 202

Auxiliary verbs, 138, 171

Aye, sound of diphthong in, 46

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »