14

ABSENCE.

When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there;
But alas! recollection at hand

Soon hurries me back to despair!

COWPER.

Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home.

THOMSON.

Think'st thou that I could bear to part
From thee, and learn to halve my heart?
Years have not seen, time shall not see

The nour that tears my soul from thee.

BYRON'S Bride of Abydos.

Far I go where fate may lead me,

Far across the troubled deep;

Where no stranger's ear shall heed me,
Where no eye for me shall weep.

Tho' fate, my girl, may bid us part,
The soul it cannot, cannot sever;
The heart will seek its kindred heart,
And cling to it as close as ever.

And canst thou think, because we part
Till some brief months have flown,
That absence e'er can change a heart
Which years have made thine own?

"Tis hard to be parted from those

T. MOORE

With whom we for ever could dwell;
But bitter indeed is the sorrow that flows,
When perhaps we are saying farewell-forever!

MRS. OPIE

When absent from her whom my soul holds most dear,
What a medley of passions invade!

In this bosom what anguish, what hope, and what fear,
I endure for my beautiful maid!

BRAHAM. ACTION.

15

When far from thee I bide,
In dreams still at hy side
I've talk'd to thee;

And when I woke, I sigh'd

Myself alone to see.

From the German - TAYLOR.

We must part awhile;

A few short months-tho' short, they will be long

Without thy dear society: but yet

We must endure it, and our love will be

The fonder after parting-it will grow

Intenser in our absence, and again

Burn with a tender glow when I return.

JAMES G. PERCIVAL.

Oh Absence! by thy stern decree,
How many a heart, once light and free,

Is fill'd with doubts and fears!

Thy days like tedious weeks do seem,
Thy weeks slow-moving months we deem,
Thy months, long-lingering years!

J. T. WATSON.

ACTION.

Whilst timorous knowledge stands considering,
Audacious ignorance hath done the deed;
For who knows most, the most he knows to doubt;
The least discourse is commonly most stout.

DANIKL

Good actions crown themselves with lasting bays;
Who wel. deserves needs not another's praise.

If thou dost ill, the joy fades, not the pains;
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.

HEATH

G. HERBERT

If it were done, when 't is done, then, 't is well
That it were done quickly.

SHAKSPEARE.

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,

But cheerly seek how to redress their harm.

SHAKSPEARE.

Let's take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals, ere we can effect them.

SHAKSPEARE.

How slow the time

To the warm soul, that, in the very instant
It forms, would execute a great design !

The keen spirit

Seizes the prompt occasion, makes the thoughts
Start into instant action, and at once

THOMSON.

Plans and performs, resolves and executes!

HANNAH MORE.

My days, though few, have pass'd below
In much of joy, though much of woe;
Yet still, in hours of love or strife,

I've 'scap'd the weariness of life.

BYRON'S Giaour. ACTORS-DRAMA-THEATRE.

Act! for in action are wisdom and glory;
Fame, immortality-these are its crown;
Would'st thou illumine the tablets of story ?-
Build on achievements thy doom of renown.

From the German.

Seize, mortals, seize the transient hour:
Improve each moment as it flies:
Life's a short summer-man a flower;
He dies-alas! - how soon he dies!

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for every fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

17

ACTORS-DRAMA - THEATRE.

Look to the players; see them well bestow'd:
They are the abstract and brief chroniclers of the times.

They say we live by vice; indeed 'tis true;
As the physicians by diseases do,
Only to cure them.

Boldly I dare say

SHAKSPEARE.

RANDOLPH.

There has been more by us in some one play
Laugh'd into wit and virtue, than hath been
By twenty tedious lectures drawn from sin,
And foppish humours; hence the cause doth rise,
Men are not won by th' ears, so well as eyes.

RANDOLPH.

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ACTORS-DRAMA - THEATRE.

When, with mock majesty and fancied power,
He struts in robes, the monarch of an hour;
Oft wide of nature must he act a part,
Make love in tropes, in bombast break his heart;
In turn and simile resign his breath,
And rhyme and quibble in the pains of death.

Whose every look and gesture was a joke
To clapping theatres, and shouting crowds,
And made even thick-lipp'd, musing melancholy
To gather up her face into a smile
Before she was aware.

What we hear

TICKELL

BLAIR's Grave.

With weaker passion will affect the heart,
Than when the faithful eye beholds the part.

FRANCIS' Horace.

Lo, where the stage, the poor, degraded stage,
Holds its warp'd mirror to a gaping age;
There, where to raise the Drama's moral tone,
Fool Harlequin usurps Apollo's throne.

SPRAGUE'S Curiosity.

Where one base scene shall turn more souls to shame,
Than ten of Channing's Lectures can reclaim.