MELROSE ABBEY

The glory of the English tongue.

That ample speech! That subtle speech!
Apt for the need of all and each:

Strong to endure; yet prompt to bend
Wherever human feelings tend.

Preserve its force- expand its powers;
And through the maze of civic life,
In letters, commerce, even in strife,

Forget not it is yours and ours.

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-LORD HOUGHTON (Richard Monckton Milnes).

MELROSE ABBEY

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,

Go visit it by the pale moonlight;

For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,

And each shafted oriel glimmers white:
When the cold light's uncertain shower

Streams on the ruined central tower;
When the buttress and buttress alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;

When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;

When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,

Then go
Then view St. David's ruined pile;
And home returning, soothly swear
Was never scene so sad and fair!

- but go alone the while

-SIR WALTER SCOTT (The Lay of the Last Minstrel).

BUT pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow-falls in the river,
A moment white — then melts forever;
Or like the borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm.

- ROBERT BURNS (Tam o'Shanter).

"TO GILD REFINED GOLD"

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (King John).

KING HENRY'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOLDIERS

ONCE more into the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead!

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage:

COME, SEELING NIGHT

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect,

Let it pry through the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galléd rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height! On, on, you noble English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! -
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonor not your mothers,

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And teach them how to war! And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here,
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

That you were worth your breeding: which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble luster in your eyes.
I see you stand like grey-hounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot;
Follow your spirit; and upon this charge

Cry "God for Harry, England, and Saint George!"
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Henry V).

COME, SEELING NIGHT

COME, seeling night,

Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;

And with thy bloody and invisible hand

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TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW

Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond

Which keeps me pale! - Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood;

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles night's black agents to their prey do rouse.
Thou marvel'st at my words: but hold thee still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Macbeth).

TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW

TO-MORROW, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Macbeth).

HOW SWEET THE MOONLIGHT

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims,-
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay,
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Merchant of Venice).

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN

ALL the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then the soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide