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Tender handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
Topic: Courage
Source: Verses Written on a Window
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When Christ at Cana's feast by pow'r divine,
Inspir'd cold water, with the warmth of wine,
See! cry'd they while, in red'ning tide, it gush'd,
The bashful stream hath seen its God and blush'd.
Topic: Miracles
Source: Translation of Crashaw's Latin lines--Works (vol. III, o. 241), (ed. 1754)
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Letters, from absent friends, extinguish fear,
Unite division, and draw distance near;
Their magic force each silent wish conveys,
And wafts embodied though, a thousand ways:
Could souls to bodies write, death's pow'r were mean,
For minds could then meet minds with heav'n between.
Topic: Post
Source: Verses Written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
'Tis the same with common natures,
Use 'em kindly, they rebel;
But, be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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A man may cry, Church! Church! at ev'ry word,
With no pore piety than other people--
A daw's not reckoned a religious bird
Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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A name, it has more than nominal worth,
And belongs to good or bad luck at birth.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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At night, to his own sharp fancies a prey,
He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way,
Tormenting himself with his prickles.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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Behold him in conceited circles sail,
Strutting and dancing and now planted stiff,
In all his pomp of pageantry, as if
He felt the eyes of Europe on his tail.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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But, oh! the love that gold must crown!
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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For man may pious texts repeat,
And yet religion have no inward seat.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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He comes to the world, as a gentleman comes
To a lodging ready furnished.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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Hundreds of men were turned into beasts,
Like the guests at Circe's horrible feasts,
By the magic of ale and cider.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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Just as the felon condemn'd to die--
With a very natural loathing--
Leaving the sheriff to dream of ropes,
From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes,
To caper on sunny greens and slopes,
Instead of the dance upon nothing.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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Look here, he cries (to give him words):
Thou feathered clay, thou scum of birds!
Look here, thou vile, predestined sinner,
Doomed to be roasted for a dinner.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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Mere verbiage,--it is not worth a carrot!
Why Socrates or Plato--where's the odds?--
Once taught a jay to supplicate the Gods,
And made a Polly-theist of a Parrot!
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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"Rogue that I am," he whispers to himself,
"I lie, I cheat--do anything for pelf,
But who on earth can say I am not pious?"
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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She was one of those who by fortune's boon
Are born, as they say, with a silver spoon
In her mouth, not a wooden ladle.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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The doctors gave her over--to an ass.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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The mind flies back with a grand recoil
From debts not due till to-morrow.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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The more the eggs, the worse the hatch,
The more the fish, the worse the catch.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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There's not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells
Ring Sabbath knells;
The sod's a cushion for his pious want,
And, consecrated by the heaven within it,
The sky-blue pool a font.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak,
Against the wicked remnant of the week."
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Verses written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland
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The man who pauses on the paths of treason,
Halts on a quicksand, the first step engulfs him.
Topic: Treason
Source: Henry V (act I, sc. 1)
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