Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

The sun rises bright in France,

And fair sets he.

Why this is France ?

Nature is here like a living romance,

Look at its vincs, and streams, and skies, Its glowing feet and dreamy eyes!

Bailey's Festus.

I heard, as in a glorious dream,
A clarion thrill the startled air,
And saw an answering people stream

Through every noisy thoroughfare.
These were the old, whose hairs were few,
Or white with memory of the days
Of Egypt, Moscow, Waterloo,

And now they sang the "Marseillaise!" The Bourbon's throne was trampled down, And France no longer knelt; but now, Struck with a patriot's hand the crown From off the Orleans' dotard brow; Releas'd from slavery and tears

She rose and sang fair Freedom's praise, Till far along the future years

I heard the swelling "Marseillaise!"

T. Buchanan Read

A great voice wakes a foreign land,
And a mighty murmur sweeps the sea,
While nations dumb with wonder stand,
To note what it may be ;-

[ocr errors]

Dr. Johnson's London. The word rolls on like a hurricane's breath"Down with the tyrant · come life or deathFrance, France is free!"

T. Buchanan Read

[blocks in formation]

FREEDOM.

Liberty! Freedom! tyranny is dead!
-Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
And what

Made thee, all-honour'd, honest Roman Brutus,
With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous Free-

dom,

To drench the Capitol; but that they would
Have one man but a man?

Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
Oh give, great God, to Freedom's waves to ride
Sublime o'er Conquest, Avarice, and Pride,
To sweep where Pleasure decks her guilty
bowers,

And dark Oppression builds her thick-ribb'd

towers.

And grant that every sceptred child of clay, Who cries presumptuous, "Here their tides shall stay,"

Swept in their anger from th' affrighted shore, With all his creatures sink-to rise no more! Wordsworth-Descriptive Sketches.

-Slaves who once conceive the glowing thought | Stranger, new flowers in our vales are seen,

[blocks in formation]

What art thou, Freedom? Oh! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand, tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery!
Thou art Justice- ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold,
As laws are in England: thou
Shieldest alike high and low.
Thou art Peace -never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be,
As tyrants wasted them when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul!
Thou art Love: the rich have kist
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Given their substance to be free,
And through the world have follow'd thec.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Oh, joy to the world! the hour is come,
When the nations to freedom awake,
When the royalists stand agape and dumb,

And monarchs with terror shake!
Over the walls of majesty

"UPHARSIN" is writ in words of fire,

And the eyes of the bondsman, wherever they be,
Are lit with wild desire.

Soon shall the thrones that blot the world,
Like the Orleans, into the dust be hurl'd,
And the word roll on like a hurricane's breath,
Till the farthest slave hears what it saith-

Arise, arise, be free!

T. Buchanan Read

Byron's Giaour.

In the long vista of the years to roll,

Let me not see my country's honour fade;

Oh! let me see our land retain its soul!

FREE WILL.

Ingrate, he had of me

Her pride in Freedom, and not Freedom's shade. All he could have: I made him just and right,

Keats.

Sun of the moral world! effulgent source
Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force,
Soul-searching Freedom! here assume thy stand,
And radiate hence to every distant land.

Joel Barlow.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

They therefore as to right belong'd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination over-rul'd
Their will, dispos'd by absolute decree

Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their faults,
Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.
Milton's Paradise Lost.

God made thee perfect, not immutable,
And good he made thee, but to persevere
He left it in thy pow'r; ordain'd thy will
By nature free, not over-rul'd by fate
Inextricable, or strict necessity.

Difference as there is between beauty
And virtue, bodies and shadows, colours
And life, so great odds is there between love
And friendship.

Lilly's Endymion.

When adversities flow,
Then love ebbs: but friendship standeth stiffly
In storms. Time draweth wrinkles in a fair
Face, but addeth fresh colours to a fast
Friend, which neither heat, nor cold, nor mis'ry,
Nor place, nor destiny, can alter or
Diminish. O friendship! of all things the
Most rare, and therefore most rare, because mos
Excellent; whose comforts in misery
Are always sweet, and whose counsels in

Milton's Paradise Lost. Prosperity are ever fortunate.

[blocks in formation]

A golden treasure is the tried friend;
But who may gold from counterfeits defend?
Trust not too soon, nor yet too soon mistrust:
With th' one thyself, with th' other thy friend thou
hurt'st,

Who twines betwixt, and steers the golden mean,
Nor rashly loveth, nor mistrusts in vain.

Shaks. Julius Cæsar. I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions,
Which you deny'd me: Was that done like Cas-

sius?

Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunder-bolts,
Dash him to pieces!

Shaks. Julius Cæsar.

Brutus hath riv'd my heart:
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
Give him all kindness: I had rather have

Mirror for Magistrates. Such men my friends, than enemies.

For all things, friendship excepted,
Are subject to fortune: love is but an
Eye-worm which only tickleth the head with
Hopes and wishes: friendship's the image of
Eternity, in which there is nothing

[ocr errors][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

I count myself in nothing else so happy,
As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;
And, as my fortune ripens with my love,
It shall be still thy true love's recompense.

Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,
The sister's vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us - O, and is all forgot?

Shaks. Richard II. All school-day's friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,
She hath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;
A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks.

Shaks. Hamlet.

So, gentlemen,

With all my love I do commend me to you:
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, to express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack.

Shaks. Hamlet.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple thein by the soul with hooks of steel.

Shaks. Hamlet.
In companions

That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
There needs must be a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best condition'd and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies; and one in whom
The ancient Roman honour more appears,
Than any that draws breath in Italy.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
That we have been familiar,
Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather
Than pity note how much.-Therefore, be gone.
Shaks. Coriolanus.

By heav'n I cannot flatter: I defy
The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love, hath no man than yourself;
Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.

Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem:
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream

And will you rend our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, 't is not maidenly:
Our sex as well as I
for it;
chide
may
Though I alone do feel the injury.

you

Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.

We still have slept together,

Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled, and inseparable.

Shaks. As you like it.

I will take your friendship up at use,
And fear not that your profit shall be small;
Your interest shall exceed your principal.
Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy
True happiness

Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice: nor would I have
Virtue a popular regard pursue :

Let them be good that love me, though but few.
Jonson's Cynthia's Revels.

Turn him, and see his threads: look, if he be
Friend to himself, that would be friend to thee:
For that is first requir'd, a man be his own;
But he that's too much that, is friend to none.
Jonson's Underwood.
Friendship is the cement of two minds,
As of one man the soul and body is;

Shaks. Henry IV. Part 1. Of which one cannot sever but the other
Suffers a needful separation.

As we do turn our backs

From our companion, thrown into his grave:
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away: leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,

Walks, like contempt, alone.

Chapman's Revenge
Friendship's an abstract of love's noble flame,
'Tis love refin'd, and purg'd from all its dross
The next to angel's love, if not the same,
As strong in passion is, though not so gross
It antedates a glad eternity,
And is a heaven in epitome.

Shaks. Timon of Athens.

Catherine Philips

192

Lay this into your breast:

FRIENDSHIP.

Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best
Webster's Duchess of Malfy.
O summer friendship,

Whose flattering leaves, that shadow'd us in
Our prosperity, with the least gust drop off
In th' autumn of adversity!

Massinger's Maid of Honour.

That friendship's rais'd on sand,
Which every sudden gust of discontent,
Or flowing of our passions, can change
As if it ne'er had been.

Massinger.

Essential honour must be in a friend,
Not such as every breath fans to and fro;
But born within, is its own judge and end,
And dares not sin, though sure that none should
know.

Where friendship's spoke, honesty's understood;
For none can be a friend that is not good.

Catherine Philips. A friend is gold, if true, he 'll never leave thee Yet both, without a touchstone, may deceive thee.

Randolph.

A season'd friend! not, tainted with design;
Who made those words grow useless - mine and
thine.
Cartwright.

I do here entertain a friendship with thee,
Shall drown the memory of all patterns past;
We will oblige by turns and that so thick
And fast, that curious studiers of it
Shall not once dare to cast it up, or say,
By way of guess, whether thou or I
Remain debtors when we come to die.
Suckling's Aglaura.
Friendship's an empty name, made to deceive
Those whose good nature tempts them to believe;
There's no such thing on earth, the best that we
Can hope for here is faint neutrality.

Tuke's Adventures.
Ile ought not to pretend to friendship's name,
Who reckons not himself and friend the same.
Tuke's Adventures.
Friendship above all ties docs bind the heart;
And faith in friendship is the noblest part.
Earl of Orrery's Henry V.
Trust is the strongest bond upon the soul;
'That sacred tie has virtue oft begot;
It binds where 'tis, and makes it where 't was not.

Earl of Orrery's Henry V. Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Cowley.

In their nonage, a sympathy
Unusual join'd their loves:
They pair'd like turtles; still together drank,
Together eat, nor quarrell'd for the choice.
Like turning streams both from one fountain
fell,

And as they ran still mingled smiles and tears.
Lee's Casar Borgia,

I had a friend that lov'd me:

I was his soul: he liv'd not but in me:
We were so close within each other's breast,
The rivets were not found that join'd us first.
That does not reach us yet: we were so mix'd,
As meeting streams - both to ourselves were

lost.

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »