Familiar Quotations Part 53

Act i. Sc. 1.

Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget The pale unripened beauties of the North.

Act ii. Sc. 1.

My voice is still for war.

G.o.ds! can a Roman Senate long debate Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?

Act iv. Sc. 1.

The woman that deliberates is lost.

Act iv. Sc. 2.

When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station.

Act v. Sc. 1.

It must be so.--Plato, thou reasonest well.

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality?

'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates Eternity to man.

Act v. Sc. I.

I'm weary of conjectures.

Act v. Sc. 1.

The soul secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.

Act v. Sc. 1.

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds

_The Campaign_.

And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.[9]

[Note 9: This line has been frequently ascribed to Pope, as it is found in the Dunciad, Book iii., line 261.]

_From the Letter on Italy_.

For wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes, Gay gilded scenes and s.h.i.+ning prospects rise; Poetic fields encompa.s.s me around, And still I seem to tread on cla.s.sic ground.[10]

[Note 10: Malone states that this was the first time the phrase _cla.s.sic ground_, since so common, was ever used.]

_Ode_.

The s.p.a.cious firmament on high, With all the blue, ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a s.h.i.+ning frame, Their great Original proclaim.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth; While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their tarn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

Forever singing, as they s.h.i.+ne, The hand that made us is divine.

JONATHAN SWIFT.

1667-1745.

_Imitation of Horace_. B. ii. Sat. 6.

I've often wished that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year, A handsome house to lodge a friend, A river at my garden's end.

_Poetry, a Rhapsody_.

So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns.