Laconics: Or Instructive Miscellanies, Selected from the Best Authors, Ancient and Modern ...

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Page 42 - In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs - and God has given my share I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting by repose. I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I felt and all I saw...
Page 135 - Autumn, — and sunshine arose on the way to the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. I flew to the pleasant fields traversed...
Page 39 - Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad ; Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ; She all night long her amorous descant sung...
Page 34 - Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me...
Page 156 - I CANNOT call riches better than the baggage of virtue ; the Roman word is better, " impedimenta ; " for as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue ; it cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march ; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory. Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution ; the rest is but conceit.
Page 35 - You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are : And yet, for aught I see, they are as sick, that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing...
Page 159 - O'er a' the ills o' life victorious. But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; Or like the snow-falls in the river, A moment white — then melts for ever ; Or like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place ; Or like the rainbow's lovely form Evanishing amid the storm.
Page 34 - Thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovran vital lamp ; but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled.
Page 43 - That tinkle in the withered leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart May give a useful lesson to the head, And Learning wiser grow without his books.

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