Relentless Time! that steals with silent tread, With sighs shall her recording trumpet drop; Bowles. O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) The faint pang stealest unperceived away; On thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, I may look back on every sorrow past, And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile— As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while: Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure, Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure! Bowles. COMMON THISTLE....Misanthropy. Who would seek or prize Delights that end in aching? That every hour are breaking? In utter darkness lying, Than be blest with light, and see But to be lost when sweetest! Moore. I had much rather see A crested dragon or a basilisk, Both are less poison to my eyes and nature. Hate all, curse all: show charity to none; Dryden. But let the famished flesh slide from the bone, Ere thou relieve the beggar: give to dogs What thou deniest to men; let prisons swallow them, Debts wither them to nothing: be men like blasted woods, And may diseases lick up their false bloods. Shakspeare. I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind: Shakspeare. I'll keep my way alone, and burn away— I see thou art implacable, more deaf Proctor. To prayers than winds and seas; yet winds and seas Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore: Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages Eternal tempest never to be calm. Milton. Warped by the world in disappointment's school, Feared, shunned, belied, ere youth had lost her force, And thought the voice of wrath a sacred call, Byron. He has outsoared the shadow of our night; A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. Shelley. They too, who mid the scornful thoughts that dwell On earth of old, and touched them with its beams, Can track a spirit, which, though driven to hate, From Nature's hands came kind, affectionate; And which, even now, struck as it is with blight, Comes out, at times, in love's own native light— How gladly all, who've watched these struggling rays Of a bright, ruined spirit through his lays, Would here inquire, as from his own frank lips, What desolating grief, what wrongs had driven Like some fair orb, that, once a sun in heaven, Moore. DEW PLANT.... Serenade. Inesilla! I am here: Thy own cavalier Is now beneath thy lattice playing: Why art thou delaying? He hath ridden many a mile But to see thy smile: The young light on the flowers is shining, Yet he is repining. What to him is a summer star, If his love's afar? What to him the flowers perfuming, When his heart's consuming? Sweetest girl! why dost thou hide ? Beauty may abide Even before the eye of morning, And want no adorning. Now, upon their paths of light, Starry spirits bright To catch thy brighter glance are staying: Why art thou delaying? Barry Cornwall. |