Familiar Quotations

Chapter 444

Chapter 444326 wordsPublic domain

O many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark, the archer little meant! And many a word at random spoken May soothe, or wound, a heart that's broken!

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_Old Mortality_.

Vol. ii. Chapter xxi.

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name.

_Bob Roy_.

Vol. i. Chapter ii.

O for the voice of that wild horn On Fontarabian echoes borne.

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_The Monastery_.

Vol. i. Chapter ii.

Within that awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries!

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THOMAS MOORE. 1780-1852.

_Lalla Rookh_. _The Fire-Worshippers_.

O, ever thus from childhood's hour I've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower, But 'twas the first to fade away.

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_The Light of the Harem_.

Alas! how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love! Hearts that the world in vain had tried, And sorrow but more closely tied; That stood the storm when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fall off, Like ships that have gone down at sea, When heaven was all tranquillity.

_All that's bright must fade_.

All that's bright must fade-- The brightest still the fleetest; All that's sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest.

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_Farewell! But whenever you welcome the hour_.

You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.

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REGINALD HEBER. 1783-1826.

_Christman Hymn_.

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning! Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.

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_Missionary Hymn_.

From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand.

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_Palestine_.

No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm, the mystic fabric sprung. Majestic silence!

JONATHAN M. SEWALL.

_Epilogue to Cato_.

_Written for the Bow Street Theatre, Portsmouth_, N. H., 1778.

No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, But the whole boundless continent is yours.

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SAMUEL WOODWORTH. 1785-1842.

The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.

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LORD BYRON. 1788-1821.

_Childe Harold_.