Familiar Quotations Part 74

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds; And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touched within us, and the heart replies.

Here the heart May give a useful lesson to the head, And Learning wiser grow without his books.

_Tirocinium_.

s.h.i.+ne by the side of every path we tread With such a l.u.s.tre, he that runs may read.

_Retirement_.

Built G.o.d a church, and laughed His word to scorn.

How sweet, how pa.s.sing sweet is solitude!

But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.

_Conversation_.

A fool must now and then be right, by chance.

_John Gilpin_.

That, though on pleasure she was bent, She had a frugal mind.

To dash through thick and thin.

A hat not much the worse for wear

_Lines to his Mother's Picture_.

O that those lips had language! Life has pa.s.sed With me but roughly since I heard thee last.

_Walking with G.o.d_.

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed?

How sweet their memory still!

But they have left an aching void, The world can never fill.

VERSES, _Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk_.

I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute.

O Solitude! where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face?

But the sound of the church-going bell Those valleys and rocks never heard, Never sighed at the sound of a knell, Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.

How fleet is a glance of the mind!

Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.

W. J. MICKLE.

1734-1788.

_The Mariner's Wife_.

His very foot has music in 't As he comes up the stairs.

JOHN LANGHORNE.

1735-1779.

_The Country Justice_.