Manhood at last!—and, with its consciousness,
Are strength and freedom; freedom to pursue
The purposes of hope the godlike bliss
Born in the struggle for the great and true!
And every energy that should be mine,
This day I dedicate to its object,― Life!
So help me Heaven, that never I resign
The duty which devotes me to the strife.
W. G. Simms.
Createth its own destiny of power;
And as the trial is intenser here,
His being hath a nobler strength in Heaven.
Willis's Poems.
Many a man, still young, though wisely sad,
Paces the sweet old shadows with a sigh,
The spirits are so mute to manhood's ear
That tranc'd the boy with music.
Thou hast the secret strange
To read that hidden book, the human heart;
Thou hast the ready writer's practis'd art;
Thou hast the thought to range
The broadest circle intellect hath ran-
And thou art God's best work-
- an honest man.
But earlier happy is the rose distillid,
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids.
Shaks. Winter's Tale.
Mistress, know yourself; down on your knees
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love.
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.
Shaks. As you like it.
Her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
For know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumspection, and confine
For the sca's worth.
"T is not to make me jealous,
Willis's Poems. To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
Nor from my own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear.
From that day forth, in peace and joyous bliss
They liv'd together long without debate;
Nor private jars, nor spite of enemies,
Could shake the safe assurance of their states.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Nothing shall assuage
Your love but marriage: for such is
The tying of two in wedlock, as is
The tuning of two lutes in one key for
Striking the strings of the one, straws will stir
Upon the strings of the other; and in
Two minds link'd in love, one cannot be
Delighted, but the other rejoiceth.
Ay, by gogs-wouns, quoth he; and swore so loud
That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book;
And, as he stoop'd again to take it up,
Lilly's Sappho and Phaon. This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff,
That down fell priest and book, and book and
priest;
Marriage is a matter of more worth,
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I. Now take them up, quoth he, if any list.
What is wedlock forced but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife?
Whereas the contrary bringeth forth bliss,
And is a pattern of celestial peace.
Neglected beauty now is priz'd by gold;
And sacred love is basely bought and sold:
Wives are grown traffic, marriage is a trade,
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I. And when a nuptial of two hearts is made,
There must of moneys too a wedding be,
That coin, as well as men, may multiply.
The instances, that second marriage move,
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
The joys of marriage are the heaven on earth,
Life's paradise, great princess, the soul's quiet,
Sinews of concord, earthly immortality,
Eternity of pleasures.
John Ford's Broken Heart.
Take thus much of my counsel. Marry not
In haste; for she that takes the best of husbands,
Puts on a golden fetter: for husbands
In this our age more marriages completes
Than virtue, merit, or the force of love.
"Tis not th' external sweetness of the face,
The inward excellence of a virtuous mind,
The just behaviour and the graceful mien,
With all th' endowment nature can bestow,
Can please the wretch whose riches are his god;
Who'd rather ransack Indian mines for gold,
Than revel in some matchless beauty's arms:
For which may he never taste the joy it yields;
But as a Midas wallowing in his store,
Let him curs'd be amid his heaps of wealth.
Wandesford.
Or serenade, which the starv'd lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.
Are like to painted fruit, which promise much,
But still deceive us, when we come to touch them.
Cupid's Whirligig.
How many shepherds' daughters, who in duty
To gripling fathers have enthrall'd their beauty,
To wait upon the gout, to walk when pleases
Old January halt! O that diseases
Should link with youth! she that hath such a mate, Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Is like two twins, born both incorporate;
Th' one living, th' other dead: the living twin
Must needs be slain through noisomeness of him
He carries with him: such are their estates,
Who merely marry wealth, and not their mates.
Brown's Pastorals.
The hour of marriage ends the female reign!
And we give all we have to buy a chain;
Hire men to be our lords, who were our slaves;
And bribe our lovers to be perjur'd knaves.
O, how they swear to heaven and the bride,
They will be kind to her, and none beside;
And to themselves, the while in secret swear,
They will be kind to ev'ry one but her!
How near am I to happiness
That earth excceds not? not another like it.
The treasures of the deep are not so precious,
As are the conceal'd comforts of a man
Lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air
Of blessings, when I come but near the house;
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth!
The violet-bed 's not sweeter. Honest wedlock
Is like a banqueting-house built in a garden,
On which the spring's chaste flowers take delight
To cast their modest odours.
Middleton's Women beware Women.
For any man to match above his rank
Is but to sell his liberty.
What do you think of marriage?
I take 't, as those that deny purgatory:
It locally contains or heaven or hell;
'There's no third place in it.
Here love his golden shafts employs, here lights
Uis constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
Reigns here and revels.
Rowley's Two Noble Kinsmen.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Our Maker bids increase; who bids abstain
But our destroyer, foe to God and man.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In paradise of all things common else!
Milton's Paradise Lost
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charitics
Of father, son, and brother first were known.
Milton's Paradise Lest
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,
Whose bed is undefil'd and chaste pronoune'd,
Present or past, as saints and patriarchs us'd.
Milton's Paradise L
Whom thus the angel interrupted mild:
Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign
What justly thou hast lost; nor set thy heart,
Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine
Thy going is not lonely; with thee goes
Thy husband; him to follow thou art bound;
Where he abides, think there thy native soil.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
For wedlock without love, some say,
Is but a lock without a key;
It is a kind of rape to marry
One that neglects, nor cares not for ye;
For what does make it ravishment,
But being against the mind's consent?
Butler's Hudibras.
O horror! horror! after this alliance,
Let tigers match with hinds, and wolves with
sheep;
And every creature couple with its foe.
Dryden's Spanish Frar.
All of a tenour was their after-life,
No day discolour'd with domestic strife;
No jealousy, but mutual truth believ'd,
Secure repose, and kindness undeceiv'd.
Are we not one? are we not join'd by heav'n? Each interwoven with the other's fate? Are we not mix'd like streams of meeting rivers, Whose blended waters are no more distinguish'd, Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. But roll into the sea one common flood? Rowe's Fair Penitent.
This is the way all parents prove,
In managing their children's love;
That force 'em t'intermarry and wed,
As if th' were bur'ing of the dead;
Cast earth to earth, as in the grave,
To join in wedlock all they have.
Butler's Hudibras.
When you would give all worldly plagues a name,
Worse than they have already, call 'em Wife!
But a new married wife's a teeming mischief,
Full of herself: Why what a deal of horror
Has that poor wretch to come, that married yes.
terday.
Otway's Orphan.
Marriage to maids is like a war to men;
The battle causes fear, but the sweet hopes
Of winning at the last, still draws 'em in.
Lee's Mithridates.
And now your matrimonial Cupid,
Lash'd on by time, grows tir'd and stupid.
For story and experience tell us
That man grows old and woman jealous.
Both would their little ends secure;
He sighs for freedom, she for power:
His wishes tend abroad to roam,
And hers to domineer at home.
Thy rise of fortune did I only wed,
C From its decline determin'd to recede?
Did I but purpose to embark with thee
On the smooth surface of a summer's sea,
While gentle zephyrs play in prosperous gales,
And fortune's favour fills the swelling sails;
But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,
When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?
No, Henry, no one sacred oath has tied
Our loves; one destiny our life shall guide,
Nor wild, nor deep, our common way divide!
'Prior's Henry and Emma.
Though fools spurn Hymen s gentle powers,
We, who improve his golden hours,
I've heard my honest uncle often say,
That lads should a' for wives that's virtuous pray
For the maist thrifty man could never get
A weel-stor'd room, unless his wife wad let.
Allan Ramsay.
O marriage! marriage! what a curse is thine,
Where hands alone consent and hearts abhor.
Hill's Alzira.
Wedded love is founded on esteem,
Which the fair merits of the mind engage,
For those are charms which never can decay;
But time which gives new whiteness to the swan,
Improves their lustre.
Oh speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, when you look around,
And nothing strikes the eye but sights of bliss,
All various nature pressing on the heart,
And elegant sufficiency, content;
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly.
But happy they! the happiest of their kind!
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
"Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love.
Where friendship full exerts her softest power
Perfect esteem enlivened by desire
Southern's Disappointment.
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will, With boundless confidence: for nought but love Can answer love, and render bliss secure. Thomson's Seasons
What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all?
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish,
Or in the mind, or mind-illumin'd face;
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent heaven.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises !
Ev'n in the happiest choice, where fav'ring heaven
Has equal love and easy fortune given,-
Think not, the husband gain'd, that all is done;
The prize of happiness must still be won:
And, oft, the careless find it to their cost,
The lover in the husband may be lost;
The graces might, alone, his heart allure;
They and the virtues, meeting must secure
Oh friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural leisure pass'd!
Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets,
Though many boast thy favours, and affect
To understand and choose thee for their own.
Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of paradise that has survived the fall!
Wedlock's a saucy, sad, familiar state,
Where folks are very apt to scold and hate:
Love keeps a modest distance, is divine,
Obliging, and says ev'ry thing that's fine.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Across the threshold led,
And every tear kiss'd off as soon as shed,
His house she enters, there to be a light
Shining within, when all without is night;
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasure, and his cares dividing!
Rogers's Human Life.
O we do all offend-
Count at its close the little, bitter sum
There's not a day of wedded life, if we
Of thoughts, and words, and looks unkind and
froward,
Silence that chides and woundings of the eye-
But prostrate at each other's feet, we should
Each night forgiveness ask.
Maturin's Bertran
Full well we know that many a favourite air,
That charms a party, fails to charm a pair.
And as Augusta play'd, she look'd around,
To see if one was dying at the sound.
But all were gone
-a husband, wrapt in gloom,
Stalk'd careless, listless, up and down the room.
A something, light as air -a look,
A word unkind or wrongly taken —
Oh! love, that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this has shaken.
And ruder winds will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds, or like the stream,
That smiling left the mountain's brow,
As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Cowper's Task. Yet ere it reach'd the plain below,
Breaks into floods, and parts for ever.
Thou art the nurse of virtue. In thine arms
She smiles, appearing as in truth she is,
Heav'n-born and destined to the skies again.
Thou art not known where pleasure is adored.
That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist
And wand'ring eye, still leaning on the arm
Of novelty, her fickle frail support;
For thou art meek and constant, hating change,
And finding in the calm of truth-tied love
Joy that her stormy raptures never yield.
No jealousy their dawn of love o'ercast,
Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife;
Fach season look'd delightful as it past,
To the fond husband, and the faithful wife.
Beyond the lowly vale of shepherd life
They never roam'd! secure beneath the storm,
Which in ambition's lofty land is rife,
Where peace and love are canker'd by the worm
O pride each bud of joy industrious to deform.
Beattie's Minstrel.
Moore's Lalla Ros
Although my heart, in earlier youth,
Might kindle with more wild desire,
Believe me, it has gain'd in truth
Much more than it has lost in fire;
The flame now warms my inmost core,
That then but sparkled on thy brow:
And though I seem'd to love thee more,
Yet oh, I love thee better now.
The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something, ev'ry day they live,
To pity, and perhaps forgive.
Cowper's Mutual Forbearance.
On thee, blest youth, a father's hand confers
The maid thy earliest, fondest wishes knew;
Each soft enchantment of the soul is hers;
Thine be the joys to firm attachment due.
Thy lamp with heaven's own splendour bright. Langhorne.
But if no radiant star of love,
Oh, Hymen, smile upon thy rite, Thy chain a wretched weight shall prove, Thy lamp a sad sepulchral light.
Then come the wild weather-come sleet or come
We will stand by each other, however it blow; Say, shall I love the fading beauty less, Oppression and sickness, and sorrow and pain, Whose spring-tide radiance has been wholly Shall be to our true love as links to the chain.
No-come what will, thy steadfast truth I'll bless;
In youth, in age, thine own- - for ever thine.
A. A. Watts.
I bless thee for kind looks and words
Shower'd on my path like dew,
For all the love in those deep eyes,
A gladness ever new!
For the voice which ne'er to mine replied,
But in kindly tones of cheer;
For every spring of happiness
My soul hath tasted here!
Longfellow. From the German. While other doublets deviate here and there, What secret handcuff binds that pretty pair? Compactest couple! pressing side to side, Ah! the white bonnet- - that reveals the bride! O. W. Holmes. Together should our prayers ascend; Together would we humbly bend,
To praise the Almighty name; And when I saw her kindling eye Beam upward in her native sky, My soul should catch the flame.
She turn'd—and her mother's gaze brought back I saw her, and I lov'd her
Each hue of her childhood's faded track.
Oh! hush the song, and let her tears
Flow to the dream of her early years!
Holy and pure are the drops that fall,
When the young bride goes from her father's hall;
She
unto love yet untried and new-
She parts from love which hath still been true.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems.
I sought her, and I won;
A dozen pleasant summers,
And more, since then have run⚫ And half as many voices
Now prattling by her side, Remind me of the autumn When she became my bride.
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