North and South

"By the soft green light in the woody glade,
On the banks of moss where thy childhood played
By the household tree, thro' which thine eye
First looked in love to the summer sky."
~Felicia Hemans, The Spells of Home~

"Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely, as for life and death-
With loyal gravity.

Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries."
~Elizabeth Barrett Browining, The Lady's "Yes"~

"I ask Thee for a thoughtful love,
Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And to wipe the weeping eyes;
And a heart at leisure from itself
To soothe and sympathize."
~Anna Letitia Waring~

"Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway,
The tender blossom flutter down;
Unloved that beech will gather brown,
This maple burn itself away;

Unloved, the sunflower, shinning fair,
Ray round with flames her disk of seed,
And many a rose-carnation feed,
Which summer spice the humming air;

Till from the garden and the wild
A fresh association blow,
And year by year the landscape grow
Familiar to the stranger's child;

As year by year the labourer tills,
His wonted glebe, or lops of glades;
And year by year our memory fades;
From all the circle of the hills.
~Tennyson, In Memoriam~

"We are the trees whom shaking fastens more."
~George Herbert, The Temple~

"There's iron, they say, in all our blood,
And a grain or two perhaps is good;
But his, he makes me harshly feel,
Has got a little too much of steel."
~Anon~

"That doubt and trouble, fear and pain,
And anguish, all, are shadows vain,
That death itself shall not remain;

That weary deserts we may tread,
A dreary labyrinth may thread,
Thro' dark ways underground be led;

Yet, if we will one Guide obey,
The dreariest path, the darkest way
Shall issue out in heavenly day;

And we, on divers shores now cast;
Shall meet our perilous voyage past,
All in our Father's house at last!"
~Richard Chevenix Trench, The Kingdom of God~

"Thought fights with thought; out springs a spark of truth
From the collision of the sword and shield."
~Walter Savage Landor, The Last Fruit of an Old Tree~

"Trust in that veiled hand, which leads
None by the path that he would go;
And always be prepared,
For the world's law is ebb and flow."
~From the Arabic~

"There are briars beseeting every path,
Which calls for patient care;
There is a cross in every lot,
And an earnest need for prayer."
~Anna Letitia Waring~

"My heart revolts within me, and two voices
Make themselves audible within my bosom."
~Friedrich Schiller, Wallenstein~

"As angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep."
~Henry Vaugan, Silex Scintillas~

"On earth is known to none
The smile that is not sister to a tear."
~Ebenezer Elliott, The Exile~

"But work grew scarce, while bread grew dear,
And waged lessened, too;
For Irish hordes were bidders here,
Our half-paid work to do."
~Ebenezer Elliott, The Death Feast~

"Which when his mother saw, she in her mind
Was troubled sore, ne wist well what to ween."
~Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (IV)~

"Your beauty was the first that won the place,
And scaled the walls of my undaunted heart,
Which, captivate now, pines in a caitive case,
Unkindly met with rigour for desert;-
Yet not the less your servant shall abide,
In spite of rude repulse or silent pride."
~William Fowler, The Tarantula of Love (IX)~

"Revenge may have her own;
Roused discipline aloud proclaims their cause,
And injured navies urge their broken laws."
~Lord Byron, The Island~

"I have found that holy place of rest
Still changeless."
~Felicia Hemans, The Bride's Farewell~

"For anything can be amiss
When simpleness and duty tender it."
~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream~

"I care for nobody-
Nobody cares for me."
~Thomas Anre, Love in a Village~

"Through cross to crown!-And though thy spirit's life
Trials untold assail with giant strength,
Good cheer! good cheer! Soon ends the bitter strife,
And thous shalt reign in peace with Christ at length."
~Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten, Via Crucis Via Lucis~

"Aye, sooth, we fool too strong in weal, to need Thee on that road;
But woe being come, the soul is dumb, that crieth not on 'God'."
~Elizabeth Barrett Browining, The Lay of the Brown Rosary~

"Some wishes crossed my mind and dimly cheered it,
And one or two poor melancholy pleasures,
Each in the pale unwarming light of hope,
Silvering its flimsy wing, flew silent by-
Moths in the moonbeam!"
~Coleridge, Coleridge's Notebook II (Frag. 34)~

"The saddest birds a season find to sing."
~Robert Southwell, Times Goe by Turnes~

"Never to fold the robe o'er secret pain,
Never, wighted down by memory's clouds again,
To bow thy head! Thou art gone home!"
~Felicia Hemans, The Two Voices~

"Show not that manner, and these features all,
The serpent's cunning, and the sinner's fall?"
~George Crabbe, The Borough~

"What! remain to be
Denounced - dragged, it may be, in chains."
~Lord Byron, Werner~

"Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be dsquieted!
My last Good Night - thou wilt not wake
Till thy fate shall overtake."
~Henry King, An Exequy,

"Truth will fail thee never, never!
Though thy bark be tempest-driver,
Though each plank be rent and river,
Truth will beat thee on for ever!"
~Anon~

"There's naught so finely spun
But it cometh to the sun."

"Of death, and of the heavy lull,
And of the brain that has grown dull."

"E par che de la sua labbia si mova
Uno spirto soave e pien d'amore,
Chi va dicendo a l'anima: sospira!"
~Dante, La Vita Nuova~

"The steps of the bearers, heavy and slow,
The sobs of the mourners, deep and low."
~Shelly, The Sensitive Plant~

"A spade! a rake! a hoe!
A pickaxe or a bill!
A hook to reap or a scythe to mow,
A flail, or what ye will-
And here's a ready hand
To ply the needful tool,
And skill'd enough, by lessons rough,
In Labour's rugged school."
~Thomas Hood, The Lay of the Labourer~

"Then proudly, proudly up she rose,
Tho' the tear was in her e'e,
'Whate'er ye say, think what ye may,
Ye's get nae word frae me!"
~Scotch Ballad~

"Nay, I have done; you get no more of me:
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That this so cleanly I myself can free."
~Michael Drayton~

"I have no wrong, where I can claim no right,
Naught ta'en me fro, where I have nothing had,
Yet of my woe I cannot so be quite;
Namely, since that another may be glad
With that, that thus in sorrow makes me sad."
~Thomas Wyatt~

"I see my way as birds their trackless way-
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send His hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow,
In sometime- His good time-I shall arrive;
He guides me and the bird. In His good time!"
~Robert Browning, Pracelsus~

"When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new-
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense?"
~Mrs Browning,Substitution~

"The meanest thing to which we bid adieu,
Loses its meanness in the parting hour."
~Ebenezer Elliott,The Village Patriarch~

"A dull rotation, never at a stay
Yesterday's face twin image of today."
~William Cowper,Hope~

"Of what each one should be, he sees the form and rule,
And till he reach to that, his joy can ne'er be full."
~Friedrich Ruckert,Panthen~

"Where are the sounds that swan along
The buoyant air when I was young?
The last vibration now is o'er,
And they who listened are no more;
Ah! let me close my eyes and dream."
~W.S.Landor,The Last Fruit of an Old Tree~

"So on those happy days of yore
Oft as I dare dwell once more,
Still must I miss the friends so tired,
Whom Death has served from my side.

But ever when true friendship binds,
Spirit it is that spirit finds
In spirit then our bliss we found,
In spirit yet to them I'm bound."
~Johann Ludwig Uhland, Crossing the Stream~

"Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand;
Whence harmonies we cannot understand,
Of God's will in His worlds, the strain unfolds,
In sad perplexed minors."
~Mrs Browning, Perplexed Music~

"My own, my father's friend!
I cannot part with thee!
I ne'er have shown, thou ne'er hast known,
How dear thou art to me."
~Anon~

"And down the sunny beach she paces slowly,
With many doubtful pauses by the way;
Grief hath an influence so hush'd and holy."
~Thomas Hood,Hero and Leader~

"Here we go up, up, up;
And here we go down, down, downee!"
~Nursery Song~

"Bearing up, brave heart! we will be calm and strong;
Sure, we can master eyes, or cheek, or tongue,
Nor let the smallest tell-tale sign appear
She ever was, and is, and will be dear."
~Rhyming Play~

"For joy or grief, for hope or fear,
For all hereafter, as for here,
In peace or strife, in storm or shine."
~Anon~

" 'I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, "That man" '
'Hush!' said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, "That woman!" ' "

~NORTH AND SOUTH
BY ELIZABETH GASKELL~

Venus and Adonis

"Be brave when backs are turned, but when they're bold, boldness is dangerous."

Η γυναίκα και ο δράκοντας

Και σημείον μέγα ώφθη εν τω ουρανώ, γυνή περιβεβλημένη τον ήλιο, και η σελήνη υποκάπτω των ποδών αυτής, και επι της κεφαλής αυτής στέφανος αστέρων δώδεκα, και εν γαστρί έχουσα έξραζεν ωδίνουσα και βασανιζόμενη τεκείν. και ώφθη άλλο σημέιον εν τω ουρανώ, και ιδού δράκων πυρρός μέγας, έχων κεφαλάς επτά και κέρατα δέκα, και επι τασ κεφαλάς αυτού επτά διαδήματα, και η ουρά αυτού σύρει το τρίτον των αστέρων του ουρανού, και έβαλεν αυτούς εις την γην. και ο δράκων έστηκεν ενώπιον τησ γυναικός της μέλλουσας τεκείν, ινα, όταν τέκη, το τέκνον αυτής καταφάγη. και έτεκεν υιόν αρρένα, ος μέλλει ποιμαίνειν πάντα τα έθνη εν ράβδω σιδηρα. και ηρπάσθη το τέκνον αυτής προς τον Θεόν και προς τον θρόνον αυτού. και η γυνή έφυγεν εις την έρημον, όπου έχει εκεί τόπον ητοιμασμένον απο του Θεού, ινα εκει τρέφωσιν αυτήν ημέρας χίλιας διακόσιας εξήκοντα. Και εγένετο πόλεμος εν τω ουρανώ. ο Μιχαήλ και οι αγγέλοι αυτού - του πολεμήσαι μετά του δράκοντος και ο δράκων επολέμησε και οι αγγέλοι αυτού, και ουκ ίσχυσεν, ούδε τόπος ευρέθη αυτό έτι εν τω ουρανώ. και εβλήθη δράκων, - ο όφις ο μέγας ο αρχαίος, ο καλούμενος Διάβολος και ο Σατανάς, ο πλανών την οικουμένη όλην, εβλήθη εισ την γην, και οι αγγέλοι αυτού μετ' αυτού εβλήθησαν. και ήκουσα φωνή μεγάλην εν τω ουρανώ λέγουσαν΄
άρτι εγένετο η σωτηρία και η δύναμις
και η βασιλεία του Θεού ημών
και η εξουσία του Χριστού αυτού,
οτι εβλήθη ο κατήγορος των αδελφών ημών,
ημέρας και νυκτός.
και αυτοί ενίκησαν αυτόν δια το αίμα του αρνίου
και δια τον λόγον της μαρτυρίας αυτών,
και ουκ ηγάπησαν την ψυχή αυτών άχρι θανάτου.
δια τούτο ευφραίνεσθε ουρανοί
και οι εν τοις αυτοίς σκηνούντες.
ουαι την γην και την θάλασσαν,
ότι κατέβη ο δίαβολος προσ υμάς,
έχων θυμον μέγαν,
ειδώς ότι ολίγον καιρόν έχει.
Και οτε είδε δράκων ότι εβλήθη εις την γην, εδίωξε τν γυναίκα ήτις έτεκε τον αρρένα. και εδόθησαν τη γυναικί δυο πτέρυγες του αετού του μεγάλου, ινα πετήται εις την έρημον εις τον τόπο αυτής, όπως τρέφηται εκεί καιρόν και καιρούς και ήμισυ καιρού απο προσώπου του όφεως. και έβαλεν ο όφις εκ του στόματος αυτού οπίσω της γυναικός ύδωρ ως ποταμόν, ινα αυτή ποταμοφόρητον ποιήση. και εβοήθησεν η γη τη γυναικί, και ηνοιξεν η γή το στόμα αυτής και κατέπιε τον ποταμόν ον έβαλεν ο δράκων εκ του στόματος αυτού. και ωριγισθη ο δράκων επι τη γυναικί, και απήλθε ποιήσαι πόλεμον μετά των λοιπόν του σπέρματος αυτής, των τηρούντων τας εντολάς του Θεού και έχοντων την μαρτυρίαν Ιησού.