O life! thou art a galling load,

Along a rough, a weary road,

To wretches such as I!

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Despondency.

Beyond this vale of tears

There is a life above,

Unmeasured by the flight of years;

And all that life is love.

James Montgomery (1771-1854): The Issues of Life and Death.

Ah, why

Should life all labour be?

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Lotus-Eaters. iv.

They sin who tell us love can die;

With life all other passions fly,

All others are but vanity.

.   .   .   .   .

Love is indestructible,

Its holy flame forever burneth;

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.

.   .   .   .   .

It soweth here with toil and care,

But the harvest-time of love is there.

Robert Southey (1774-1843): The Curse of Kehama. Canto x. Stanza 10.

She was a form of life and light

That seen, became a part of sight,

And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,

The morning-star of memory!

Yes, love indeed is light from heaven;

A spark of that immortal fire

With angels shared, by Alla given,

To lift from earth our low desire.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 1127.

  Ham.  His beard was grizzled,—no?

  Hor.  It was, as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silver'd.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use,—

As tho' to breathe were life!

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Ulysses.

I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.

I'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em.

Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,

My bane and antidote, are both before me:

This in a moment brings me to an end;

But this informs me I shall never die.

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles

At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself

Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;

But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,

Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Cato. Act v. Sc. 1.

When all the blandishments of life are gone,

The coward sneaks to death, the brave live on.

George Sewell (—— -1726): The Suicide.

Better trust all, and be deceived,

And weep that trust and that deceiving,

Than doubt one heart, that if believed

Had blessed one's life with true believing.

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884): Faith.

The play's the thing

Wherein I 'll catch the conscience of the king.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Each lonely scene shall thee restore;

For thee the tear be duly shed,

Belov'd till life can charm no more,

And mourn'd till Pity's self be dead.

William Collins (1720-1756): Dirge in Cymbeline.

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things

To low ambition and the pride of kings.

Let us (since life can little more supply

Than just to look about us, and to die)

Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;

A mighty maze! but not without a plan.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 1.

Well, honour is the subject of my story.

I cannot tell what you and other men

Think of this life; but, for my single self,

I had as lief not be as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act i. Sc. 2.

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. lv. Stanza 2.

I am sure care's an enemy to life.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 3.

'T is from high life high characters are drawn;

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 135.

I bear a charmed life.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 8.

The chamber where the good man meets his fate

Is privileg'd beyond the common walk

Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 633.

Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,

Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 344.

Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green,

That creepeth o'er ruins old!

Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,

In his cell so lone and cold.

Creeping where no life is seen,

A rare old plant is the ivy green.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870): Pickwick Papers. Chap. vi.

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.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Old Mortality. Chap. xxxiv.

He hath a daily beauty in his life.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act v. Sc. 1.

The golden hours on angel wings

Flew o'er me and my dearie;

For dear to me as light and life

Was my sweet Highland Mary.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Highland Mary.

I'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em.

Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,

My bane and antidote, are both before me:

This in a moment brings me to an end;

But this informs me I shall never die.

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles

At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself

Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;

But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,

Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Cato. Act v. Sc. 1.

Methought I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!

Macbeth does murder sleep!" the innocent sleep,

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 2.

All service ranks the same with God,—

With God, whose puppets, best and worst,

Are we: there is no last nor first.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Pippa Passes. Part iv.

Have you found your life distasteful?

My life did, and does, smack sweet.

Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?

Mine I saved and hold complete.

Do your joys with age diminish?

When mine fail me, I 'll complain.

Must in death your daylight finish?

My sun sets to rise again.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): At the "Mermaid." Stanza 10.

Have you found your life distasteful?

My life did, and does, smack sweet.

Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?

Mine I saved and hold complete.

Do your joys with age diminish?

When mine fail me, I 'll complain.

Must in death your daylight finish?

My sun sets to rise again.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): At the "Mermaid." Stanza 10.

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

There is no death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Resignation.

The idea of her life shall sweetly creep

Into his study of imagination,

And every lovely organ of her life,

Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,

More moving-delicate and full of life

Into the eye and prospect of his soul.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Gon.  Here is everything advantageous to life.

Ant.  True; save means to live.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame,

The power of grace, the magic of a name?

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 5.

Friend to my life, which did not you prolong,

The world had wanted many an idle song.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 27.

When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

Michael Drayton (1563-1631): Ideas. An Allusion to the Eaglets. lxi.

'T is from high life high characters are drawn;

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 135.

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.

Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;

Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.

To-morrow's falser than the former day;

Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest

With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.

Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,

Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;

And from the dregs of life think to receive

What the first sprightly running could not give.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise

(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights, and live laborious days;

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears

And slits the thin-spun life.

John Milton (1608-1674): Lycidas. Line 70.

That best portion of a good man's life,—

His little, nameless, unremembered acts

Of kindness and of love.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

Thus hand in hand through life we 'll go;

Its checker'd paths of joy and woe

With cautious steps we 'll tread.

Nathaniel Cotton (1707-1788): The Fireside. Stanza 31.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Locksley Hall. Line 33.

Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd

With me but roughly since I heard thee last.

William Cowper (1731-1800): On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture.

O thou child of many prayers!

Life hath quicksands; life hath snares!

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Maidenhood.

Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

William Knox (1789-1825): Mortality.

His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might

Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): On the Death of Crashaw.

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.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Old Mortality. Chap. xxxiv.

How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ

All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Saul. ix.

O Life! how pleasant is thy morning,

Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning!

Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning,

We frisk away,

Like schoolboys at th' expected warning,

To joy and play.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Epistle to James Smith.

The idea of her life shall sweetly creep

Into his study of imagination,

And every lovely organ of her life,

Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,

More moving-delicate and full of life

Into the eye and prospect of his soul.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.

A simple child

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): We are Seven.

In small proportions we just beauties see,

And in short measures life may perfect be.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): Underwoods. To the immortal Memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison. III.

I was promised on a time

To have reason for my rhyme;

From that time unto this season,

I received nor rhyme nor reason.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Lines on his Promised Pension.

All is concentr'd in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,

But hath a part of being.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 89.

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): The Rainy Day.

Whose life is a bubble, and in length a span.

William Browne (1590-1645): Britannia's Pastorals. Book i. Song 2.

Life is a jest, and all things show it;

I thought so once, but now I know it.

John Gay (1688-1732): My own Epitaph.

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;

Improve each moment as it flies!

Life's a short summer, man a flower;

He dies—alas! how soon he dies!

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Winter. An Ode.

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.

Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;

Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.

To-morrow's falser than the former day;

Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest

With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.

Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,

Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;

And from the dregs of life think to receive

What the first sprightly running could not give.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Life's but a means unto an end; that end

Beginning, mean, and end to all things,—God.

Philip James Bailey (1816-1902): Festus. Scene, A Country Town.

Our days begin with trouble here,

Our life is but a span,

And cruel death is always near,

So frail a thing is man.

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 (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

"Life is but an empty dream!"

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): A Psalm of Life.

While man is growing, life is in decrease;

And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.

Our birth is nothing but our death begun.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 717.

For forms of government let fools contest;

Whate'er is best administer'd is best.

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;

His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

In faith and hope the world will disagree,

But all mankind's concern is charity.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iii. Line 303.

Man's life is like unto a winter's day,—

Some break their fast and so depart away;

Others stay dinner, then depart full fed;

The longest age but sups and goes to bed.

O reader, then behold and see!

As we are now, so must you be.

Joseph Henshaw (1608-1679): Horae Sucissive (1631).

My life is like the summer rose

That opens to the morning sky,

But ere the shades of evening close

Is scattered on the ground—to die.

Richard Henry Wilde (1789-1847): My Life is like the Summer Rose.

Beyond this vale of tears

There is a life above,

Unmeasured by the flight of years;

And all that life is love.

James Montgomery (1771-1854): The Issues of Life and Death.

Life is real! life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): A Psalm of Life.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1.

But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet

Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet;

And Death is beautiful as feet of friend

Coming with welcome at our journey's end.

For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied,

A nature sloping to the southern side;

I thank her for it, though when clouds arise

Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): To George William Curtis.

Alas! they had been friends in youth;

But whispering tongues can poison truth,

And constancy lives in realms above;

And life is thorny, and youth is vain,

And to be wroth with one we love

Doth work like madness in the brain.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Christabel. Part ii.

Which makes life itself a lie,

Flattering dust with eternity.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Sardanapalus. Act i. Sc. 2.

Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows,

And the fresh flow'ret pluck ere it close;

Why are we fond of toil and care?

Why choose the rankling thorn to wear?

J M Usteri (1763-1827): Life let us cherish.

To know

That which before us lies in daily life

Is the prime wisdom.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 192.

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,

Stains the white radiance of eternity.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): Adonais. lii.

She walks the waters like a thing of life,

And seems to dare the elements to strife.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 3.

Like following life through creatures you dissect,

You lose it in the moment you detect.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 20.

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.

The tree of deepest root is found

Least willing still to quit the ground:

'T was therefore said by ancient sages,

That love of life increased with years

So much, that in our latter stages,

When pain grows sharp and sickness rages,

The greatest love of life appears.

Mrs Thrale (1739-1821): Three Warnings.

You hear that boy laughing?—you think he's all fun;

But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;

The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,

And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894): The Boys.

Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,

Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.

What is it but a map of busy life,

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 55.

Then marble soften'd into life grew warm,

And yielding, soft metal flow'd to human form.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 147.

The idea of her life shall sweetly creep

Into his study of imagination,

And every lovely organ of her life,

Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,

More moving-delicate and full of life

Into the eye and prospect of his soul.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.

My lovely living boy,

My hope, my hap, my love, my life, my joy.

Du Bartas (1544-1590): Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.

My way of life

Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have; but in their stead

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st

Live well: how long or short permit to heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 553.

Life is not to be bought with heaps of gold:

Not all Apollo's Pythian treasures hold,

Or Troy once held, in peace and pride of sway,

Can bribe the poor possession of a day.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book ix. Line 524.

My lovely living boy,

My hope, my hap, my love, my life, my joy.

Du Bartas (1544-1590): Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.

But there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Love's Young Dream.

Nothing in his life

Became him like the leaving it; he died

As one that had been studied in his death

To throw away the dearest thing he owed,

As 't were a careless trifle.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 4.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death,

And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd

On lips that are for others; deep as love,—

Deep as first love, and wild with all regret.

Oh death in life, the days that are no more!

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Princess. Part iv. Line 36.

I could lie down like a tired child,

And weep away the life of care

Which I have borne, and yet must bear.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples. Stanza 4.

'T is a little thing

To give a cup of water; yet its draught

Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips,

May give a shock of pleasure to the frame

More exquisite than when nectarean juice

Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.

Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854): Ion. Act i. Sc. 2.

The world's a bubble, and the life of man

Less than a span.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The World.

There is no death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Resignation.

There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,

To keep watch for the life of poor Jack.

Charles Dibdin (1745-1814): Poor Jack.

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence

The life o' the building!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.

So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,

That I would set my life on any chance,

To mend it, or be rid on 't.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 1.

A life on the ocean wave!

A home on the rolling deep,

Where the scattered waters rave,

And the winds their revels keep!

Epes Sargent (1813-1881): Life on the Ocean Wave.

'T is not the whole of life to live,

Nor all of death to die.

James Montgomery (1771-1854): The Issues of Life and Death.

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,

May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Knowledge by suffering entereth,

And life is perfected by death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861): A Vision of Poets. Conclusion.

He who grown aged in this world of woe,

In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,

So that no wonder waits him.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 5.

A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,

Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855): Human Life.

Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know

That life protracted is protracted woe.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 257.

Creation sleeps! 'T is as the general pulse

Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,—

An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night thoughts. Night i. Line 23.

'T is not for nothing that we life pursue;

It pays our hopes with something still that's new.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life,

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,

And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Bride of Abydos. Canto ii. Stanza 20.

A sacred burden is this life ye bear:

Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,

Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.

Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,

But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884): Lines addressed to the Young Gentlemen leaving the Lenox Academy, Mass.

Oh would I were a boy again,

When life seemed formed of sunny years,

And all the heart then knew of pain

Was wept away in transient tears!

Mark Lemon (1809-1870): Oh would I were a Boy again.

Tho' lost to sight, to mem'ry dear

Thou ever wilt remain;

One only hope my heart can cheer,—

The hope to meet again.

Oh fondly on the past I dwell,

And oft recall those hours

When, wand'ring down the shady dell,

We gathered the wild-flowers.

Yes, life then seem'd one pure delight,

Tho' now each spot looks drear;

Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,

To mem'ry thou art dear.

Oft in the tranquil hour of night,

When stars illume the sky,

I gaze upon each orb of light,

And wish that thou wert by.

I think upon that happy time,

That time so fondly lov'd,

When last we heard the sweet bells chime,

As thro' the fields we rov'd.

Yes, life then seem'd one pure delight,

Tho' now each spot looks drear;

Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,

To mem'ry thou art dear.

George Linley (1798-1865): Song.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 19.

In sober state,

Through the sequestered vale of rural life,

The venerable patriarch guileless held

The tenor of his way.

Beilby Porteus (1731-1808): Death. Line 108.

The long mechanic pacings to and fro,

The set, gray life, and apathetic end.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Love and Duty.

I have set my life upon a cast,

And I will stand the hazard of the die:

I think there be six Richmonds in the field.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 4.

She was his life,

The ocean to the river of his thoughts,

Which terminated all.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Dream. Stanza 2.

So his life has flowed

From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,

In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure

Alone are mirrored; which, though shapes of ill

May hover round its surface, glides in light,

And takes no shadow from them.

Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854): Ion. Act i. Sc. 1.

So softly death succeeded life in her,

She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Eleonora. Line 315.

'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,

And coming events cast their shadows before.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Lochiel's Warning.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,—'t is a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.

Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,

Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 133.

Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!

Sweetener of life! and solder of society!

Robert Blair (1699-1747): The Grave. Part i. Line 88.

Some must be great. Great offices will have

Great talents. And God gives to every man

The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,

That lifts him into life, and lets him fall

Just in the niche he was ordain'd to fill.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 788.

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale

Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Life that dares send

A challenge to his end,

And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!

Richard Crashaw (Circa 1616-1650): Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.

That life is long which answers life's great end.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 773.

But how carve way i' the life that lies before,

If bent on groaning ever for the past?

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Balaustion's Adventure.

This house is to be let for life or years;

Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears.

Cupid, 't has long stood void; her bills make known,

She must be dearly let, or let alone.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Emblems. Book ii. Emblem 10, Ep. 10.

O life! thou art a galling load,

Along a rough, a weary road,

To wretches such as I!

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Despondency.

For fate has wove the thread of life with pain,

And twins ev'n from the birth are misery and man!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book vii. Line 263.

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.

Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;

Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.

To-morrow's falser than the former day;

Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest

With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.

Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,

Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;

And from the dregs of life think to receive

What the first sprightly running could not give.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:

Man never is, but always to be blest.

The soul, uneasy and confined from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 95.

  Macb.  If we should fail?

  Lady M.        We fail!

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,

And we 'll not fail.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.

'T is not the whole of life to live,

Nor all of death to die.

James Montgomery (1771-1854): The Issues of Life and Death.

And on the Tree of Life,

The middle tree and highest there that grew,

Sat like a cormorant.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 194.

Think naught a trifle, though it small appear;

Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,

And trifles life.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Love of Fame. Satire vi. Line 208.

An elegant sufficiency, content,

Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,

Ease and alternate labour, useful life,

Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Seasons. Spring. Line 1158.

Thus aged men, full loth and slow,

The vanities of life forego,

And count their youthful follies o'er,

Till Memory lends her light no more.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Rokeby. Canto v. Stanza 1.

Variety's the very spice of life.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 606.

Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,

O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Tam o' Shanter.

Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life;

Dear as these eyes, that weep in fondness o'er thee.

Thomas Otway (1651-1685): Venice Preserved. Act v. Sc. 1.

There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act iv. Sc. 3.

I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;

I woke, and found that life was Duty.

Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?

Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;

And thou shalt find thy dream to be

A truth and noonday light to thee.

Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1816-1841): Life a Duty.

I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;

I woke, and found that life was Duty.

Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?

Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;

And thou shalt find thy dream to be

A truth and noonday light to thee.

Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1816-1841): Life a Duty.

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act v. Sc. 5.

His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might

Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): On the Death of Crashaw.

We watch'd her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): The Death-Bed.

My fell of hair

Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir

As life were in 't: I have supp'd full with horrors.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.

Life! we 've been long together

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;

'T is hard to part when friends are dear,—

Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear;

Then steal away, give little warning,

Choose thine own time;

Say not "Good night," but in some brighter clime

Bid me "Good morning."

Mrs Barbauld (1743-1825): Life.

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,

But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,—

Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner.

Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years,

Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;

Till like a clock worn out with eating time,

The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

John Dryden (1631-1701): oedipus. Act iv. Sc. 1.

To labour is the lot of man below;

And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book x. Line 78.

The life which others pay let us bestow,

And give to fame what we to nature owe.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xii. Line 393.

While there is life there's hope, he cried.

John Gay (1688-1732): Fables. Part i. The Sick Man and the Angel.

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees

Is left this vault to brag of.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.

You take my house when you do take the prop

That doth sustain my house; you take my life

When you do take the means whereby I live.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.

So dear a life your arms enfold,

Whose crying is a cry for gold.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Daisy. Stanza 24.

This sickness doth infect

The very life-blood of our enterprise.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1.

As night the life-inclining stars best shows,

So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.

George Chapman (1557-1634): Epilogue to Translations.