A Complete Dictionary of Poetical Quotations: Comprising the Most Excellent ...

And harmful pity, must be laid aside.
To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?
Not to the beast that would usurp their den,
Whose hand is that the forest bear would lick?
Not his, that spoils her young before her face.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.

See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death,
O, may such purple tears be always shed
From those that wish the downfall of our house!
If any spark of life be yet remaining,
Down, down to hell; and say-I sent thee thither,
I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.

Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.

It is a quarrel most unnatural,
To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.

Shaks. Richard III.

As he does conceive

He is dishonour'd by a man which ever
Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must
In that be made more bitter.

Shaks. Winter's Tall.

And Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Até by his side, come hot from hell,
Shall in the confines, with a monarch's voice,
Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.

Shaks Julius Cæsar.
I'll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak:
I'll have my bond: and therefore speak no more,
I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield,
To Christian intercessors.

But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have,
Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind:
Do we his body from our fury save,
And let our hate prevail against his mind?
What can 'gainst him a greater vengeance be,
Than make his foe more worthy far than he.
Lady Elizabeth Carew's Miriam
Honour hath her degrees: there is excess
In all revenge, that may be done with less.
Lord Brooke's Alaham

The best revenge is to reform our crimes;
Then time crowns sorrows, sorrows sweeten times.
Middleton and Rowley's Spanish Gipsey.
In this

You satisfy your anger, and revenge:
Suppose this, it will not

Repair your loss; and there was never yet
But shame and scandal in a victory,
When, rebels unto reason, passions fought it,
Then for revenge, by great souls it was ever
But cowards, base, and abject spirits; strangers
Contemn'd, though offer'd, entertain'd by none
To moral honesty, and never yet
Acquainted with religion.

Massinger's City Madam.
How just soever

Our reasons are to remedy our wrongs,
We're yet to leave them to their will and pow'r,
That to that purpose have authority.

Massinger and Field's Fatal Dowry.
Rise from thy scorching den, thou soul of mis.

chief!

My blood boils hotter than the poison'd flesh
Of Hercules cloth'd in the Centaur's shirt:
Swell me, revenge! till I become a hill
High as Olympus' cloud-dividing top;
That I might fall, and crush them into air.
Rawlins's Rebellion.
Revenge, impatient Hubert proudly sought,
Revenge, which ev'n when just, the wise deride;
For on past wrongs we spend our time and thought
Which scarce against the future can provide.

Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert
Revenge, weak women's valour, and in men,
The ruffian's cowardice, keep from thy breast:
The factious palace is the serpent's den,
Shaks. Merchant of Venice. Whom cowards there, with secret slaughter feast
Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert
Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accurs'd, and in a cursed hour, he hies.

The fairest action of our human life,
Is scorning to revenge an injury;
For who forgives without a further strife,
His adversary's heart to him doth tie:
And 't is a firmer conquest, truly said,
To win the heart, than overthrow the head.
Lady Elizabeth Carew's Miriam.

Milton's Paradise Lost.
Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.

Milton's Paradise Lost

"Twill be a brave revenge,

To raise my mind to a constancy so high,
That may look down upon his threats; my pa-
tience

Shall mock his fury: Nor shall he be so happy
To make me miserable: And my sufferings shall
Erect a prouder trophy to my name,
Than all my prosp'rous actions.

Graham's Sophy.
Revenge, th' attribute of gods! they stamp'd it
With their great image on our natures.
Otway's Venice Preserved.

Destruction! swift destruction
Fall on my coward head, and make my name
The common scorn of fools, if I forgive him.
Otway's Venice Preserved.
It wounds, indeed,

To bear affronts too great to be forgiven,
And not have power to punish.

Dryden's Spanish Friar. Give me my love, my honour, give 'em back! Give me revenge, while I have breath to ask it. Dryden's Don Sebastian.

My soul is up in arms, my injur'd honour,
Impatient of the wrong, calls for revenge.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey.
Vengeance is still alive; from her dark covert
With all her snakes erect upon her breast,
She stalks in view, and fires me with her charms.
Young's Revenge.
How stands the great account 'twixt me and
vengeance?

Tho' much is paid, yet still it owes me much;
And I will not abate a single groan.

Young's Revenge.
What do they think me such a milky boy,
To pay my vengeance with a few soft words!
Thomson's Coriolanus.

How rash, how inconsiderate is rage!
How wretched, oh! how fatal is our error,
When to revenge precipitate we run!
Revenge, that still with double force recoils
Back on itself, and is its own revenge,
While to the short-liv'd, momentary joy,
Succeeds a train of woes, an age of torments.
Frowde's Philotas.

Patience! my soul disdains its stoic maxim,
The coward's virtue, and the knave's disguise:
( vengeance, take me all, I'm wholly thine!
Beckingham's Henry IV. of France.

I would consort with mine eternal enemy,
To be revengea on him.

Maturin's Bertram.

Revenge impatient rose,

He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down,
And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sound so full of woe.
And ever and anon, he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat;

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied;

Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien,
While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting
from his head.
Collins's Passions.
Vengeance to God alone belongs;
But, when I think on all my wrongs,
My blood is liquid flame.

Scott's Marmion.

O'er him and all he lov'd that ruinous blast.
For this he still lives on, careless of all
The wreaths that glory on his path lets fall;
For this alone exists-like lightning fire
To speed one bolt of vengeance, and expire!
Moore's Lalla Rockh
Ay, think upon the cause-
Forget it not when you lie down to rest,
Let it be black among your dreams; and when
The morn returns, so let it stand between
The sun and you, as an ill-omen'd cloud
Upon a summer day of festival.

Byron's Doge of Venice.

Vengeance, leaning on his lance!

Man spurns the worm, but pauses ere he wake
The slumbering venom of the folded snake:
The first may turn but not avenge the blow;
The last expires- but leaves no living foe;
Fast to the doom'd offender's form it clings,
And he may crush-not conquer-still it stings!
Byron's Corsair.
Sprague's Shakspeare Ode.
Away with private wrongs! We'll not go forth
To fight for these but for the rights of man.
Shout freedom! and the talismanic word
Will open all the treasures of the soul-
And war for these is just, and wise, and holy :
But cry revenge! and a dark host of passions,
Fell as the fierce hyena, sweeps along,
And makes e'en victory a sound of terror,-
For what is gain'd that we can turn to good?
Mrs. Hale's Ormond Grosvenor.

Away! away! I will not hear
Of aught save death or vengeance now;
By the eternal skies I swear

My knee shall never learn to bow!

I will not hear a word of peace,

Nor grasp in friendly grasp a hand Link'd to the pale-brow'd stranger race That work the ruin of our land.

RICHES.

John O. Sargent.

(See also GOLD and
WEALTH.)

Extol not riches then, the toil of fools,
The wise man's cumbrance, if not snare, more apt
To slacken virtue, and abate her edge,
Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise.
Milton's Paradise Regained.
Therefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive,
Get riches first, get wealth.

Milton's Paradise Regained.
Happy the man, who, void of cares and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A splendid shilling.

Philips's Splendid Shilling. Much learning shows how little mortals know; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy: At best, it babies us with endless toys, And keeps us children till we drop to dust. As monkeys at a mirror stand amaz'd, They fail to find what they so plainly see; Thus men, in shining riches, see the face Of happiness, nor know it as a shade; But gaze, and touch, and peep, and peep again, And wish, and wonder it is absent still.

Young's Night Thoughts.

| High-built abundance, heap on heap! for what?
To breed new wants, and beggar us the more;
Then, make a richer scramble for the throng.
Young's Night Thoughts

Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd;
Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave,
Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
But for one end, one much-neglected use,
Are riches worth your care; (for nature's wants
Are few, and without opulence supplied ;)
This noble end is, to produce the soul;
To show the virtues in their fairest light;
To make humanity the minister

Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast
The generous luxury the gods enjoy.

Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.

Vers'd in the woes and vanities of life,
He pitied man: and much he pitied those
Whom falsely-smiling fate has curs'd with means
To dissipate their days in quest of joy.

Armstrong's Art-of Preserving Health.

Then let us get money, like bees lay up honey; We'll build us new hives and store each cell; The sight of our treasure shall yield us great pleasure,

We'll count it, and chink it, and jingle it well. Dr. Franklin-Drinking Song.

The rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,
And he inherits soft white hands,

And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old :
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
James Russell Lowell

The rich man's son inherits cares;
The bank may break, the factory burn,
A breath may burst his bubble-shares,
And soft white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn.

James Russell Lowell.
The rich scarce know the sweetest thought
That gives to gold its worth:
'Tis in the dwelling of the poor

This thankful thought has birth, When, for a time, the wolf of want Is driven from the hearth.

Mrs. Hale's Harry Gu

Oh, rich man's son! there is a toil,

That with all others level stands, Large charity doth never soil,

But only whiten, soft white hands.

James Russell Lowell.

RIVERS.

And see the rivers how they run

Through woods and meads, in shade and sun,
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life, to endless sleep!

Sweet Teviot! on thy silver tide

And as I view'd the hurrying pace

With which he ran his turbid race,

Rushing, alike untir'd and wild,

Through shades that frown'd and flowers that

smil'd,

Flying by every green recess

That woo'd him to its calm caress,

Yet sometimes turning with the wind,
As if to leave one look behind!

Oh! I have thought, and thinking sigh'd-
How like to thee, thou restless tide!
May be the lot, the life of him,

Who roams along thy water's brim!
Through what alternate shades of woe,
Dyer's Gronger Hill. And flowers of joy my path may go!
How many an humble, still retreat,
May rise to court my weary feet,
While still pursuing, still unblest,
I wander on, nor dare to rest!
But, urgent as the doom that calls
Thy water to its destin'd falls,

The glaring bale-fires blaze no more; No longer steel-clad warriors ride

Along thy wild and willow'd shore; Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill, All, all is peaceful, all is still,

As if thy waves, since time was born, Since first they roll'd upon the Tweed, Had only heard the shepherd's reed,

Nor started at the bugle-horn. Unlike the tide of human time,

Which, though it change in ceaseless flow,
Retains each grief, retains cach crime,

Its earliest course was doom'd to know;
And darker as it downward bears,
Is stain'd with past and present years.

Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.

A little stream came tumbling from the height,
And straggling unto ocean as it might,
Its bounding crystal frolick'd in the ray,
And gush'd from cleft to crag with saltless spray.
Byron's Island.
Who may trace the ways that ye have taken,
Ye streams and drops? who separate ye all,
And find the many places ye 've forsaken,
To come and rush together down the fall?
Miss Hannah F. Gould.

Fair River! not unknown to classic song;·
Which still in varying beauty rolls along,
Where first thy infant fount is faintly seen,
A line of silver 'mid a fringe of green;
Or where, near towering rocks thy bolder tide,
To win the giant guarded pass doth glide;
Or where in azure mantie pure and free
Thou giv'st thy cool hand to the waiting sea.

Mrs. Sigourney's Connecticut River.
The brook,

That with its silvery gleam, comes leaping down Where, waiting till the west wind blows,
From the hill-side, has, too, a tale to tell.

The freighted clouds at anchor lie.

Mrs. Ellet's Poems.

Longfellow's Poems.

When breezes are soft and skies are fair
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green;
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink;
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,
Had nam'd the stream from its own fair hue.
Bryant's Poems.

Ay, gather Europe's royal Rivers all
The snow-swell'd Neva, with an empire's weight
On her broad breast, she yet may overwhelm;
Dark Danube, hurrying, as by foe pursu'd,
Through shaggy forests and by palace walls,
To hide its terrors in a sea of gloom;

RUINS.

I do love these ancient ruins:

We never tread upon them, but we set
Our foot upon some rev'rend history;
And questionless, here in this open court,
Which now lies naked to the injuries
Of stormy weather, some lie interr'd, who
Lov'd the church so well, and gave so largely to't,
They thought it should have canopy'd their bones
Till doomsday: but all things have their end;
Churches and cities, which have diseases like to
men,

Must have like death that we have.

Webster's Duchess of Malfy.

The castled Rhine, whose vine-crown'd waters All things decay with time; the forest sees

flow,

But bid him climb the Catskill to behold
Thy flood, O Hudson! marching to the deep,
And tell what strain of any bard of old
Might paint thy grace and imitate thy sweep.
Thomas W. Parsons.

River! O, river! thou roamest free,
From the mountain height to the fresh blue sea!
Free thyself, but with silver chain,
Linking each charm of land and main.
Hoffman's Poems.

River! O, river! upon thy tide
Full many a freighted bark doth ride;
Would that thou thus couldst bear away
The thoughts that burden my weary day!
Hoffman's Poems.

The growth and downfall of her aged trees:
That timber tall, which threescore lustres stood
The proud dictator of the state-like wood
I mean the sov'reign of all plants, the oak,
Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke.
Herrick.

How rev'rend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof!
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable.
And terror to my aching sight! The tombs
Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe

And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.

Congreve's Mourning Bride.

'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
"Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, moss and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet time has seen, which lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has seen the broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state;
But transient is the smile of fate!
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

Dyer's Gronger Hill.
Ye glorious Gothic scenes! how much ye strike
All phantasies, not even excepting mine:
A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike,
Make my soul pass the equinoctial line

Between the present and past worlds, and hover Upon their airy confine, half-seas over.

Byron

« Previous Continue »

Books