Quotes
Quotes about Sin
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow.
Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.
To each his suff'rings; all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,--
The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'T is folly to be wise.
O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear,
He gained from Heav'n ('t was all he wish'd) a friend.
Let others hail the rising sun:
I bow to that whose course is run.
How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes bless'd!
Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound;
She feels no biting pang the while she sings;
Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,
Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.
Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
It has been a thousand times observed, and I must observe it once more, that the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition.
Have you not heard these many years ago
Jeptha was judge of Israel?
He had one only daughter and no mo,
The which he loved passing well;
And as by lott,
God wot,
It so came to pass,
As God's will was.
It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,--glittering like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy.... Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,--in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.
Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.
But, spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel--must feel themselves.
A business with an income at its heels
Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,--
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
Now let us sing, Long live the king!
And Gilpin, Long live he!
And when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!
Doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade.
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.
Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
