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How chang'd since last her speaking eye
Glanc'd gladness round the glitt'ring room,
Where high-born men were proud to wait--
Where Beauty watched to imitate.
Topic: Change
Source: Parisina (st. 10)
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Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious,
Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.
Topic: Character
Source: Don Juan (canto VI, st. 7)
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So well she acted all and every part
By turns--with that vivacious versatility,
Which many people take for want of heart.
They err--'tis merely what is call'd mobility,
A thing of temperament and not of art,
Though seeming so, from its supposed facility;
And false--though true; for surely they're sincerest
Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest.
Topic: Character
Source: Don Juan (canto XVI, st. 97)
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With more capacity for love than earth
Bestows on most of mortal mould and birth,
His early dreams of good out-stripp'd the truth,
And troubled manhood follow'd baffled youth.
Topic: Character
Source: Lara (canto I, st. 18)
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Besides, they always smell of bread and butter.
Topic: Childhood
Source: Beppo
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A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,
And mischief-making monkey from his birth.
Topic: Childhood
Source: Don Juan (canto I, st. 25)
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Better to sink beneath the shock
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock!
Topic: Choice
Source: The Giaour (l. 969)
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Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded.
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Topic: Christianity
Source: Don Juan (canto I, st. 83)
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And circumstance, that unspiritual god,
And miscreator, makes and helps along
Our coming evils, with a critch-like rod,
Whose touch turns hope to dust--the dust we all have trod.
Topic: Circumstance
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 125)
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Men are the sport of circumstances, when
The circumstances seem the sport of men.
Topic: Circumstance
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 17)
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I am the very slave of circumstance
And impulse--borne away with every breath.
Topic: Circumstance
Source: Sardanapalus (act IV, sc. 1)
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I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture.
Topic: Cities
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 72)
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But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much, as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the accounts of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.
Topic: Conscience
Source: Don Juan (canto I, st. 167)
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A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Topic: Conscience
Source: Don Juan (canto I, st. 83)
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Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din;
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God.
Topic: Conscience
Source: The Island (canto I, st. 6)
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There is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self condemn'd
He deals on his own soul.
Topic: Conscience
Source: Manfred (act III, sc. 1)
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Yet smelt roast meat, beheld a huge fire shine,
And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared.
Topic: Cookery
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 50)
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And nearer as they came, a genial savour
Of certain stews, and roast-meats, and pilaus.
Things which in hungry mortals' eyes find favour.
Topic: Cookery
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 57)
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Like a lovely tree
She grew to womanhood, and between whiles
Rejected several suitors, just to learn
How to accept a better in his turn.
Topic: Coquetry
Source: Don Juan (canto II, st. 128)
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Such is your cold coquette, who can't say "No,"
And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing
On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow,
Then sees your heart wreck'd, with an inward scoffing.
Topic: Coquetry
Source: Don Juan (canto XII, st. 63)
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A mere court butterfly,
That flutters in the pageant of a monarch.
Topic: Courtiers
Source: Sardanapalus (act V, sc. 1)
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Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay,
Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme,
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.
Topic: Crime
Source: Childe Harold (canto I, st. 3)
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A man must serve his time to every trade
Save censure--critics all are ready made.
Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault;
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet;
Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling--pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.
Topic: Criticism
Source: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (l. 63)
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As soon
Seek roses in December--ice in June,
Hope, constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics.
Topic: Criticism
Source: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (l. 75)
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A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell.
Topic: Dancing
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 21)
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On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet.
Topic: Dancing
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 22)
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And then he danced;--all foreigners excel
The serious Angles in the eloquence
Of pantomime;--he danced, I say right well,
With emphasis, and also with good sense--
A thing in footing indispensable:
He danced without theatrical pretence,
Not like a ballet-master in the van
Of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.
Topic: Dancing
Source: Don Juan (canto XIV, st. 38)
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Endearing Waltz--to thy more melting tune
Bow Irish jig, and ancient rigadoon.
Scotch reels, avaunt! and country-dance forego
Your future claims to each fantastic toe!
Waltz--Waltz alone--both legs and arms demands,
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands.
Topic: Dancing
Source: The Waltz (l. 109)
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Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side.
Topic: Dancing
Source: The Waltz (l. 234)
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Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine
(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine),
Long be thine import from all duty free,
And hock itself be less esteem'd than thee.
Topic: Dancing
Source: The Waltz (l. 29)
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No Sane man will dance.
Topic: Dancing
Source: The Waltz (l. 29)
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The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their Mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; darkness had no need
Of aid from them--she was the Universe.
Topic: Darkness
Source: Darkness
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And wrinkles, the d--d democrats, won't flatter.
Topic: Democracy
Source: Don Juan (canto X, st. XXIV)
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The nympholepsy of some fond despair.
Topic: Despair
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 115)
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For I am a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail,
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.
Topic: Destiny
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 2)
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That each pull'd different ways with many an oath,
"Arcades ambo," id est--blackguards both.
Topic: Dissension
Source: Don Juan (canto IV, st. 93)
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And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt thine and thee.
Topic: Dissension
Source: The Prophecy of Dante (canto II, l. 140)
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I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
Topic: Dreams
Source: Darkness
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And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They have a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being.
Topic: Dreams
Source: The Dream (st. 1)
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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
Topic: Dreams
Source: Dream (st. 3)
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So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quivered in his heart.
Topic: Eagles
Source: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (l. 826)
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That famish'd people must be slowly nurst,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
Topic: Eating
Source: Don Juan (canto II, st. 158)
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Man is a carnivorous production,
And must have meals, at least one meal a day;
He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction,
But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey;
Although his anatomical construction
Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way,
Your laboring people think beyond all question,
Beef, veal, and mutton better for digestion.
Topic: Eating
Source: Don Juan (canto II, st. 67)
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All human history attests
That happiness for man,--the hungry sinner!--
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.
Topic: Eating
Source: Don Juan (canto XIII, st. 99)
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Hark! to the hurried question of Despair
"Where is my child?"--An echo answers--
"Where?"
Topic: Echo
Source: The Bride of Abydos (canto II, st. 27)
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And be the Spartan's epitaph on me--
"Sparta hath many a worthier son than he."
Topic: Epitaphs
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 10)
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Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Topic: Epitaphs
Source: Giaour (l. 106)
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Kind reader! take your choice to cry or laugh;
Here Harod lies--but where's his Epitaph?
If such you seek, try Westminister, and view
Ten thousand, just as fit for him as you.
Topic: Epitaphs
Source: Substitute for an Epitaph
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Eternity forbids thee to forget.
Topic: Eternity
Source: Lara (canto I, st. 23)
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It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whispered word;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure.
Which follows the decline of day,
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
Topic: Evening
Source: Parisina (st. 1)
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