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Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler,
And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.
Topic: Absence
Source: Don Juan (canto III, st. 22)
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Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime.
In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time;
Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best,
And turn'd some very serious things to jest.
Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers,
Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers;
"Alas, poor Yorick!" now forever mute!
Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.
We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes
Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens,
When "Chrononhotonthelogos must die,"
And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.
Topic: Acting
Source: Hints from Horace (l. 329)
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As good as a play.
Topic: Acting
Source: Hints from Horace (l. 329)
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"Not to admire, is all the art I know
(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs few flowers of speech)
To make men happy, or to keep them so."
(So take it in the very words of Creech)
Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago;
And thus Pope quotes the precept to re-teach
From his translation; but had none admired,
Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired?
Topic: Admiration
Source: Don Juan (canto V, 100)
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And these vicissitudes come best in youth;
For when they happen at a riper age,
People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth,
And wonder Providence is not more sage.
Adversity is the first path to truth:
He who hath proved war, storm, or woman's rage,
Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,
Has won experience which is deem'd so weighty.
Topic: Adversity
Source: Don Juan (canto XII, st. 50)
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She had a good opinion of advice,
Like all who give and eke receive it gratis,
For which small thanks are still the market price,
Even where the article at highest rate is.
Topic: Advice
Source: Don Juan (canto XV, st. 29)
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Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.
Topic: Age
Source: Childe Harold (canto II, st. 88)
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What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each love one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now.
Topic: Age
Source: Childe Harold (canto II, st. 98)
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He has grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life.
So that no wonder waits him.
Topic: Age
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 5)
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. . . Years steal
Fire from the mind, as vigor from the limb;
And life's enchanted cut but sparkles near the brim.
Topic: Age
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 8)
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Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo,
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!
Topic: Age
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 12)
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Just as old age is creeping on space,
And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day,
They kindly leave us, though not quite alone,
But in good company--the gout or stone.
Topic: Age
Source: Don Juan (canto III, st. 59)
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My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
- Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron),
Topic: Age
Source: On this day I complete my Thirty-sixth Year
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Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred.
Topic: Ancestry
Source: A Sketch (l. 1)
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Around his form his loose long robe was thrown,
And wrapt a breast bestowed on heaven alone.
Topic: Apparel
Source: Corsair (canto II, st. 3)
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Think not I am what I appear.
Topic: Appearance
Source: Bride of Abydos (canto I, sc. 12)
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And gazed around them to the left and right
With the prophetic eye of appetite.
Topic: Appetite
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 50)
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Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore,
All ashes to the taste.
Topic: Apples
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 34)
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'Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch,
For one would not retreat, nor t'other flinch.
Topic: Argument
Source: Don Juan (canto VIII, st. 77)
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When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter."
And proved it--'t was no matter what he said.
Topic: Argument
Source: Don Juan (canto XI, st. 1), an allusion to a dissertation by Berkeley on Mind and Matter found in no
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I am bound to furnish my antagonists with arguments, but not with
comprehension.
Topic: Argument
Source: Don Juan (canto XI, st. 1), an allusion to a dissertation by Berkeley on Mind and Matter found in no
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Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
Gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were;
First in the race that led to glory's goal,
They won, and pass'd away--Is this the whole?
Topic: Athens
Source: Childe Harold (canto II, st. 2)
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But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.
Topic: Authorship
Source: Don Juan (canto III, st. 88)
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But every fool describes, in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise,--
Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport.
Topic: Authorship
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 52)
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And hold up to the sun my little taper.
Topic: Authorship
Source: Don Juan (canto XII, st. 21)
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Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your lad, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
Topic: Authorship
Source: Hints from Horace (l. 59)
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The mellow autumn came, and with it came
The promised party, to enjoy its sweets.
The corn is cut, the manor full of game;
The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats
In russet jacket;--lynx-like is his aim;
Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats.
An, nutbrown partridges! An, brilliant pheasants!
And ah, ye poachers!--'Tis no sport for peasants.
Topic: Autumn
Source: Don Juan (canto XIII, st. 75)
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Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,
To hail his father; while his little form
Flutters as winged with joy. Talk not of pain!
The childless cherubs well might envy thee
The pleasures of a parent.
Topic: Babyhood
Source: Cain (act III, sc. I, l. 171)
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He smiles, and sleeps!--sleep on
And smile, thou little, young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on and smile!
Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering
And innocent!
Topic: Babyhood
Source: Cain (act III, sc. I, l. 24)
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How lovely he appears! his little cheeks
In their pure incarnation, vying with
The rose leaves strewn beneath them.
And his lips, too,
How beautifully parted! No; you shall not
Kiss him; at least not now; he will wake soon--
His hour of midday rest is nearly over.
Topic: Babyhood
Source: Cain (act III, sc. I. l. 24)
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The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the Music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,
And, oh! the eye was in itself a Soul!
Topic: Beauty
Source: Bride of Abydos (canto I, st. 6)
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Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess,
The might--the majesty of Loveliness?
Topic: Beauty
Source: Bride of Abydos (canto I, st. 6)
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Thou who hast
The fatal gist of beauty.
Topic: Beauty
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 42)
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Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning.
Topic: Beauty
Source: Don Juan (canto I, st. 61)
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A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.
Topic: Beauty
Source: Don Juan (canto XV, st. 43)
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She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless chimes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Topic: Beauty
Source: She Walks in Beauty
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That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul--the dinner bell.
Topic: Bells
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 49)
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So sweet the blush of bashfulness,
E'en pity scarce can wish it less!
Topic: Blushes
Source: Bride of Abydos (canto 1, st. 8)
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Blushed like the waves of hell.
Topic: Blushes
Source: Devil's Drive (st. 5)
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'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so
fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.
Topic: Blushes
Source: Stanzas for Music
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Pure friendship's well-feigned blush.
Topic: Blushes
Source: Stanzas to Her who can Best Understand Them (st. 12)
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On the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar.
Topic: Boating
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 86)
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Brave men were living before Agamemnon.
Topic: Bravery
Source: Don Juan (canto I, st. 5)
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The truly brave,
When they behold the brave oppressed with odds,
Are touched with a desire to shield and save:--
A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods
Are they--now furious as the sweeping wave,
Now moved with pity; even as sometimes nods
The rugged tree unto the summer wind,
Compassion breathes along the savage mind.
Topic: Bravery
Source: Don Juan (canto VIII, st. 106)
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Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the
surface and their toughness in the middle.
Topic: Bravery
Source: Don Juan (canto VIII, st. 106)
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'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;
And all are to be sold, if you consider
Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features
Are brought up, others by a warlike leader;
Some by a place--as tend their years or natures;
The most by ready cash--but all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.
Topic: Bribery
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 27)
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I am not now
That which I have been.
Topic: Change
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 185)
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And one by one in turn, some grand mistake
Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.
Topic: Change
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 21)
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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
Topic: Change
Source: Dream (st. 3)
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Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Topic: Change
Source: Giaour (l. 106)
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