Oh! that some villager, whose carly toil Lifts the pe.urious morsel to his mouth, Had lain'd my birth! ambition had not the Thus step'd 'twixt me and heav'n.
Ambition is at a distance
Like eastern kings, a lazy state they keep, And, close confin'd to their own palace, sleep
The gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa. Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state, And to complete her bliss,-a fool for mate She glares in balls, front boxes, and the ring, A vain, unquiet, glittering, wretched thing!- Pride, pomp, and state, but reach her outward part;
A goodly prospect, tempting to the view; The height delights us, and the mountain top Looks beautiful, because 't is nigh to heaven: But we ne'er think how sandy 's the foundation; What storms will batter, and what tempests shake
Otway's Venice Preserved. She sighs, and is no duchess at her heart.
Why now my golden dream is out- Ambition, like an early friend, throws back My curtains with an eager hand, o’erjoyed To tell me what I dreamt is true-a crown, Thou bright reward of ever-daring minds; Oh! how thy awful glory fills my soul! Nor can the means that got thee dim thy lustre ; For, not men's love, fear pays thee adoration, And fame not more survives from good than evil deeds.
Th' aspiring youth, that fir'd th' Ephesian dome, Outlives, in fame, the pious fool that rais'd it. Cibber's Richard III.
Ambition is an idol, on whose wings Great minds are carried only to extreme; To be sublimely great, or to be nothing.
Southern's Loyal Brother. Tamerlane.-The world!-'t would be too little for thy pride!
Thou wouldst scale heaven
Bajazet. I would:-away! my soul
Disdains thy conference.
By nature half divine, soar to the stars, And hold a near acquaintance with the gods. Rowe's Royal Convert. What is ambition but desire of greatness? And what is greatness but extent of power? But lust of power's a dropsy of the mind, Whose thirst increases, while we drink to quench it, "Till swoln and stretch'd by the repeated draught, We burst and perish.
Higgon's Generous Conqueror. Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes, The glorious fault of angels and of gods; Thence to their images on carth it flows, And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows. Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age, Dull suilen pris'ners in the body's cage; Dum lights of life, that burn a length of years Use.css unset... as lamps in sepulchres
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise, By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies? Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise. Pope's Essay on Man Unnumber'd suppliants crowd preferment's gate Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great, Delusive fortune hears the incessant call, They mount, they shine,-evaporate and fall.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes This sov'reign passion, scornful of restraint, Even from the birth affects supreme command, Swells in the breast, and with resistless force, O'erbears each gentler motion of the mind. Dr. Johnson's Irene Alas! ambition makes my little less: Embitt'ring the possess'd: why wish for more? Wishing, of all employments, is the worst; Philosophy's reverse, and health's decay!
Young's Night Thoughts. Thy bosom burns for power; What station charms thee? I'll install thee there, "Tis thine. And art thou greater than before? Then thou before wast something less than man Has thy new post betray'd thee into pride? That treach'rous pride betrays thy dignity, That pride defames humanity, and calls The being mean, which staffs or strings can raise Young's Night Thought Not kings alone,
Each villager has his ambition too; No sultan prouder than his fetter'd slave : Slaves build their little Babylons of straw, Echo the proud Assyrian in their hearts, And cry-" Behold the wonders of my might!" And why? because immortal as their lord; And souls immortal must for ever heave At something great; the glitter or the gold The praise of mortals or the praise of Heaven. Young's Night Thoughts
Cowper's Task.
On the summit sec,
The seals of office glitter in his eyes;
And all the hireling equipage of virtues, Faith, honour, justice, gratitude, and friendship. Discharg'd at once.
Jeffrey's Edwin
You have deeply ventured,
But all must do so who would greatly win.
Byron's Doge of Venice Ay,-father!—I have had those earthly visions And noble aspirations in my youth, To make my own the mind of other men, The enlightener of nations: and to rise I knew not whither-it might be to fall; But fall, even as the mountain cataract, Which having leapt from its more dazzling helgi Even in the foaming strength of its abyss, Lies low but mighty still.-But this is past, My thoughts mistook themselves.
He climbs,―he pants,-he grasps them. At his He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find
Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends, And with a dext'rous jerk soon twists him down, And wins them, but to lose them in his turn. Cowper's Task.
Is it delusion this? Or wears the mind of man within itself A conscious feeling of its destination? What say these suddenly imposed thoughts, Which mark such deepen'd traces in the brain On vivid real persuasion, as do make My nerved foot tread firmer on the earth, And my dilating form tower on its way? Joanna Baillie's Ethwald. I am as one
Who doth attempt some lofty mountain And having gained what to the upcast eye The summit's point appear'd, astonish'd secs Its cloudy top, majestic and enlarged, Towering aloft, as distant as before.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above, the sun of glory glow, And far bencath, the earth and ocean spread; Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils which to those summits Byron's Childe Horold.
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hel And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire And motion in the soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire, Beyond the fitting medium of desire; And but once kindled, quenchless evermore Of aught but rest; a fever at the core, Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Fatal to him who bears,-to all who ever bore. This makes the madmen, who have made men mad By their contagion, conquerors and kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, bards, statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool; Envied, yet not enviable! what stings Joanna Baillie's Ethwald. Are theirs! one breast laid open were a school Which would unteach mankind, the lust to shine
It ever is the marked propensity Of restless and aspiring minds to look Into the stretch of dark futurity.
To th' expanded and aspiring soul, To be but still the thing it long has been, 's misery, e'en though enthron'd it were Under the cope of high imperial state.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
The cheat, ambition, eager to espouse Dominion, courts it with a lying show, And shines in borrow'd pomp to serve a turn: But the maten made, the farce is at an end;
With its flickering or a sword laid by, Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. Byron's Childe Harold. These quenched a moment her ambitious thirst- So Arab deserts drink in summer's rain In vain!--As fall the dews on quenchless sands, Blood only serves to wash ambitious hands. Byron's Don Juan.
Before I knew thee, Mary, Ambition was my angel: I did hear For ever its witched voices in mine ear; My days were visionary-
My nights were like the slumbers of the mad :And every dream swept o'er me glory clad.
Willis' Poems. What is ambition? 'Tis a glorious cheat! Angels of light walk not so dazzlingly The sapphire walls of Heaven.
Land of the West! though passing brief The record of thine age,
Thou hast a name that darkens all
On History's wide page! Let all the blasts of fame ring out- Thine shall be loudest far: Let others boast their satellites- Thou hast the morning star. Thou hast a name whose characters Of light shall ne'er depart; 'Tis stamped upon the dullest brain, And warms the coldest heart;
A war-cry fit for any land,
Where Freedom's to be won; Land of the West! it stands aloneIt is thy Washington.
Columbia, child of Britain,-noblest child; I praise the growing lustre of thy youth, And fain would see thy great heart reconciled To love the mother of so blest a birth: For we are one Columbia! still the same In lineage, language, laws, and ancient fame, The natural nobil.ty of earth.
Thou noblest scion of an ancient root, Born of the forest-king! spread forth, spread forth,
High to the stars thy tender leaflets shoot, Deep dig thy fibres round the ribs of earth! From sea to sca, from south to icy North,
It must ere long be thine, through good or ill, To stretch thy sinewy boughs: Go,-wondrot? child!
The glories of thy destiny fulfil;— Remember then thy mother in her age,
Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still, Shelter her in the tempest, warring wild :
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow and overflow, than creep Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Dam'd, like the dull canal, with locks and chains, And moving, as a sick man in his sleep, Three paces and then faltering :-better be Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopyla, Than stagnate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep Fly, and one current to the ocean add, Une spirit to the souls our fathers had, One freeman more America, to thee!
Stand thou with us when all the nations rage So furiously together!-we are one:
And, through all time, the calm historic page Shall tell of Britain blest in thee her son. Tupper's Poems
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The queen of the world and the child of the skies, Timothy Dunghi.
Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength? Or curb his swiftness in the forward race
And thou, my Country, thou shalt never fall But with thy children.
For they are strong supporters; but fill then The greatest are but growing gentlemen
Bryant's Poems. It is a wretched thing to trust to recas.
There is no other land like thee,
No dearer shore;
Thou art the shelter of the free, The home, the port of liberty,
Thou hast been, and shalt ever be, Till time is o'er.
Ere I forget to think upon
My land, shall mother curse the son
Land of the forest and the rock, Of dark blue lake and mighty river, Of mountains reared on high to mock The storm's career and lightning's shock, My own green Land for ever! Oh! never may a son of thine, Where'er his wandering feet incline, Forget the sky that bent above
His childhood like a dream of love!
I see the living tide roll on,
It crowns with fiery towers
The icy capes of Labrador,
The Spaniard's "land of flowers!"
It streams beyond the splintered ridge That parts the northern showers, from eastern rock to sunset wave, The Continent is ours.
I have no urns, no dusty monuments; No broken images of ancestors, Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tables Of long descents, to boast false honours from. Jonson's Catiline
'Tis poor and not becoming perfect gentry, To build their glories at their fathers' cost; But at their own expense of blood or virtue, To raise them living monuments; our birth Is not our own act; honour upon trust, Our ill deeds forfeit; and the wealthy sums, Purchas'd by others' fame or sweat, will be Our stain, for we inherit nothing truly But what our actions make us worthy of.
Chapman and Shirley's Ball.
It is, indeed, a blessing, when the virtues Of noble races are hereditary : And do derive themselves from th' imitation
O. W. Holmes. Of virtuous ancestors.
America! the sound is like a sword To smite th' oppressor! like a loving word To cheer the suffering people, while they pray That God would hasten on the promised day, When earth shall be like heaven, and men shall stand,
Like brothers round an altar, hand in hand. O! ever thus, America, be strong,-
He that to ancient wreaths can bring no more From his own worth, dies bankrupt on the score. John Cleveland
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt, instead of their discharge. Young
He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet,
Like cataract's thunder pour the Freeman's song, By heraldry proved valiant or discreet!
Till struggling Europe joins the grand refrain; And startled Asia bursts the despot's chain; And Afric's manumitted sons, from thee To their own Father-land shall bear the song, -Worth all their toils and tears-of Liberty: For these good deeds, America, be strong!
Boast not these titles of your ancestors,
And lineage long, it suits me not to say; Suffice it that, perchance they were of fame, And had been glorious in another day.
Byron's Childe Harold I am one,
Who finds within me a nobility That spurns the idle pratings of the great, And their mean boast of what their fathers wer
Brave youths; they're their possessions, none of While they themselves are fools effeminate,
Thus they in heaven, above the starry sphere, Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent. Milton's Paradise Lost.
Angels, contented with their fame in heaven, Seek not the praise of men.
Madness and anger differ but in this, This is short madness, that long anger is.
Charles Aleyn's Crescey Where there's
Power to punish, 'tis tyranny to rage;
Anger is no attribute of justice;
'Tis true she's painted with a sword, but looks
Milton's Paradise Lost. As if she held it not; though war be in Her hand, yet peace dwells in her face.
Are ye for ever to your skies departed? Oh! will ye visit this dim world no more? Ye whose bright wings a solemn splendour darted Through Eden's fresh and flowery shades of yore? Mrs. Hemans.
White-wing'd angels meet the child On the vestibule of life.
Henry Killegrew's Conspiracy. If I stay, my rage Will hurry me to mischief, better leave her To certain ruin, than betray myself To danger of it.
Times of joy and times of woe, Fach an angel-presence know.
Imprison'd in the caverns of the earth, Break out in hideous earthquakes; passions so Increase by opposition of all scorns.
Full many mischiefs follow cruel wrath: Abhorred bloodshed, and tumultuous strife, Unmanly murder, and unthrifty scath, Bitter despite, with rancour's rusty knife, And fretting grief, the enemy of life; All these, and many evils more, haunt irc. The sweelling spleen, and phrenzy raging rife, The shaking palsy, and saint Francis fire: Such one was wrath, the last of this ungodly tire. Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Is blood, pour'd and perplex'd into a froth; But malice is the wisdom of our wrath.
Sir W. Davenant's Just Italian
In mighty souls, passions, not soon suppress'd, Like wounded whales, do struggle till they die; By their impatience they increase the smart, Provoke their pains, and vex a harmless dart; Tossing the mighty mass till they're on ground, Their rage more fatal than the little wound. Sir Francis Fane's Svcrifice, At this the knight grew high in wrath, And lifting hands and eyes up both, Three times he smote on stomach stout,
A thing that makes a man so deform'd, so beastly, From whence at length these words broke out. As doth intemp'rate anger.
Webster's Dutchess of Malfi.
Your more manly soul I find A full hot horse, who being allow'd his way,
Is capable of wrong, and like a flint Throws forth a fire unto the striker's eyes. You bear about you valour's whetstone, anger: Which sets an edge upon the sword, and makes it Cut with a spirit; you conceive fond patience Is an injustice to ourselves; the suff'ring One injury invites a second, that Calls on a third, till wrongs do multiply And reputation bleed.
Thomas Randolph's Muse's Looking-Glass.
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