Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/711

 With heads declin'd, ye cedars, homage pay; Be smooth, ye rocks; ye rapid floods, give way."--Pope.

"Amid the forms which this full world presents   Like rivals to his choice, what human breast    E'er doubts, before the transient and minute,    To prize the vast, the stable, and sublime?"--Akenside.

"Now fears in dire vicissitude invade;   The rustling brake alarms, and quiv'ring shade:    Nor light nor darkness brings his pain relief;    One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief."--Johnson.

"If Merab's choice could have complied with mine,   Merab, my elder comfort, had been thine:    And hers, at last, should have with mine complied,    Had I not thine and Michael's heart descried."--Cowley.

"The people have as much a negative voice   To hinder making war without their choice,    As kings of making laws in parliament:    No money' is as good as No assent.'"--Butler.

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene   The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;    Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,    And waste its sweetness on the desert air."--Gray.

"Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,   The lover and the love of human kind,    Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,    Because he wants a thousand pounds a year."--Pope.

"O Freedom! sovereign boon of Heav'n,   Great charter, with our being given;    For which the patriot and the sage    Have plann'd, have bled thro' ev'ry age!"--Mallet.

LESSON VI.--VERSE. "Am I to set my life upon a throw,   Because a bear is rude and surly? No."--Cowper.

"Poor, guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,   When every coxcomb knows me by my style?"--Pope.

"Remote from man, with God he pass'd his days,   Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise."--Parnell.

"These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power;   Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain."--Thomson.

"What ho! thou genius of the clime, what ho!   Liest thou asleep beneath these hills of snow?"--Dryden.

"What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?   Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself."--Shak.

"Then palaces and lofty domes arose;   These for devotion, and for pleasure those."--Blackmore.

"'Tis very dangerous, tampering with a muse;   The profit's small, and you have much to lose."--Roscommon.

"Lucretius English'd! 't was a work might shake   The power of English verse to undertake."--Otway.

"The best may slip, and the most cautious fall;   He's more than mortal, that ne'er err'd at all."--Pomfret.

"Poets large souls heaven's noblest stamps do bear,   Poets, the watchful angels' darling care."--Stepney.

"Sorrow breaks reasons, and reposing hours;   Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night."--Shak.

"Nor then the solemn nightingale ceas'd warbling."--Milton.