What hour is this? or morn or weary even?
Do I delight to die, or life desire?

VENUS AND ADONIS.

OUR

UR powers owe much of their energy to our hopes. When success seems attainable, diligence is enhanced; but when it is admitted that the faculties are suppressed by a cross wind, or a cloudy sky, the day is given up without resistance, for who can contend with the course of nature?

DR. JOHNSON.

EARLY he rose, and looked with many a sigh
On the red light that filled the eastern sky;
Oft had he stood before, alert and gay,
To hail the glories of the new-born day;
But now dejected, languid, listless, low,
He saw the wind upon the water blow,
And the cold stream curled onward as the gale
From the pine-hill blew harshly down the dale;
Far to the left he saw the huts of men
Half hid in mist, that hung upon the fen;
Before him swallows, gathering for the sea,
Took their short flights, and twittered on the lea ;
And near the bean-sheaf stood, the harvest done,
And slowly blackened in the sickly sun.

CRABBE.

God shield I should disturb devotion!

ROMEO AND JULIET iv. I.

BEFORE

EFORE leaving the church, I lingered a long time near the door, for it seemed to me I should not soon again enjoy such a feast of chiaroscuro. The opposite end glowed with subdued colour; the middle portion was vague and brown, with two or three scattered worshippers looming through the dusk; and all the way down, the polished pavement, with its uneven slabs glittering dimly in the distracted light, seemed to me the most fascinating thing in the world. It is certainly desirable, if one takes the lower church of Saint Francis to represent the human heart, that one should find a few bright places in it. But if the general effect is gloomy, is the symbol less valid? For the contracted, passionate, prejudiced heart, let it stand!

HENRY JAMES.

I CANNOT Walk the city's sultry streets,
But the wide porch invites to still retreats,
Where passion's thirst is calm'd, and care's
unthankful gloom.

There, on a foreign shore,

The homesick solitary finds a friend ;

Thoughts, prison'd long for lack of speech, outpour Their tears; and doubts in resignation end.

CARDINAL NEWMAN.

IF

Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST iv. 3

F there may be any reasons against children's making Latin Themes at school, I have much more to say, and of more weight, against their making verses-verses of any sort. For if he has no genius to poetry, 'tis the most unreasonable thing in the world to torment a child and waste his time about that which can never succeed; and if he have a poetic vein, 'tis to me the strangest thing in the world that the father should desire or suffer it to be cherished or improved. Methinks

the parents should labour to have it stifled and suppressed as much as may be; and I know not what reason a father can have to wish his son a poet, who does not desire to have him bid defiance to all other callings and business.

LOCKE.

YEARS following years, steal something ev'ry day
At last they steal us from ourselves away;
In one our Frolics, one Amusements end,
In one a Mistress drops, in one a Friend;
This subtle Thief of life, this paltry Time,
What will it leave me, if it snatch my rhyme ?
If ev'ry wheel of that unweary'd Mill,

Which turn'd ten thousand verses, now stand still?

POPE.

I am the man! If it be so (as 'tis),
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.

you

TWELFTH NIGHT ii. 2.

OU are right about 'Antigone'; how sublime a picture of a woman! and what think you of the choruses, and especially of the lyrical complaints of the godlike victim? and the menaces of Tiresias and their rapid fulfilment ? Some of us have, in a prior existence, been in love with an Antigone, and that makes us find no full content in any mortal tie.

SHELLEY.

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden,
Thou needest not fear mine;

My spirit is too deeply laden

Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,
Thou needest not fear mine;

Innocent is the heart's devotion
With which I worship thine.

SHELLEY.

For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near.

SONN. LXI.

'SHE did not care,' she said to herself; as people say they do not care, when they know in

their heart of hearts that they have but to speak to call a welcome answering voice, to put out their hand for another hand to grasp. They do not say so when all is really gone, and there is no answer anywhere.

MISS THACKERAY.

No answer through the moonlit night,
No answer in the cold grey dawn,

No answer when the shaven lawn

Grew green, and all the roses bright.

WILLIAM MORRIS.