Page:Thoreau the Poet-naturalist.djvu/13

 Si tibi pulchra domus, si splendida mensa, quid inde? Si species auri, argenti quoque massa, quid inde? Si tibi sponsa decens, si sit generosa, quid inde? Si tibi sunt nati, si prædia magna, quid inde? Si fueris pulcher, fortis, dives ve, quid inde? Si doceas alios in quolibet arte, quid inde? Si longus servorum inserviat ordo, quid inde? Si fayeat mundus, si prospera cuncta, quid inde? Si prior, aut abbas, si dux, si papa, quid inde? Si felix annos regnes per mille, quid inde? Si rota fortunæ se tollit ad astra, quid inde? Tam cito, tamque cito fugiunt hæc ut nihil, inde? Sola manet virtus: nos glorificabimur, inde. Ergo Deo pare, bene nam provenit tibi inde." author:Laura Bassi's Sonnet on the gate of the Specola at Bologna.

From sea and mountain, city and wilderness, Earth lifts its solemn voice; but thou art fled, Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee Been purest ministers, who are, alas! Now thou art not. Art and eloquence, And all the shows of the world, are frail and vain To weep a loss that turns their light to shade! It is a woe too deep for tears when all Is reft at once, when some surpassing spirit Whose light adorned the world around it leaves Those who remain behind nor sobs nor groans, But pale despair and cold tranquillity, Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, Birth and the grave, that are not as they were." author:Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The memory, like a cloudless sky, The conscience, like a sea at rest.' author:Alfred Tennyson

"Espérer ou craindre pour un autre est la seulo chose qui donne à l'homme le sentiment complet de sa propre existence." author:Eugénie de Guérin