BLAME.

BLASPHEMY.

119

BLAME.

OUR power

Shall do a court'sy to our wrath, which men

May blame, but not controul.

In me you've hallowed a pagan muse,

And denizened a stranger, who, mistaught

Virtue in corners.

Shakspere.

By blamers of the times they marred, hath sought

Each finding, like a friend,

Donne.

Something to blame, and something to commend.

Fond man, the vision of a moment made!

Pope.

Dream of a dream, and shadow of a shade!
What worlds hast thou produced, what creatures

framed,

What insects cherished, that thy God is blamed?

Young.

BLASPHEMY.

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself. Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them; But, in the less, soul profanation.

That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. --Shakspere.
O man, take heed how thou the Gods do move,
To cause full wrath, which thou canst not resist;
Blasphemous words the speaker vain do prove.

Sir P. Sidney.

And dar'st thou to the Son of God propound
To worship thee accurst; now more accurst
For this attempt, bolder than that on Eve,
And more blasphemous.

Should each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
Because the insult's not to man, but God?

Milton.

Pope.

Deny the curst blasphemer's tongue to rage,
And turn God's fury from an impious age.-Tickell.

120

BLASPHEMY. BLESSING. BLINDNESS.

They would defy

That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with minced pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,

And blaspheme custard thro' their nose.

BLESSING.

Butler.

THE quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed—
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Shakspere.

Blessed be that great power that hath us blessed
With longer life than earth or heaven can have.

He that neglects a blessing, though he want
A present knowledge how to use it,
Neglects himself.

Davies.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

Man never is, but always to be blest.

Pope.

O, tell him I have sat these three long hours,
Counting the weary beatings of the clock,
Which slowly portion'd 'd out the promised time
That brought him not to bless me with his sight.

Joanna Baillie.

BLINDNESS.

THESE eyes, though clear, To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?

The conscience friend, to have lost them overplied
In liberty's defence, my noble task,
Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
This might lead me through the world's vain mask
Content, though blind, had I no better guide.

Thus with the year

Milton.

Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But clouds instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with an universal blank

Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon;
Irrevocably dark! total eclipse,

Without all hope of day.

Milton.

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeons, or beggary, or decrepid age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me's extinct,

And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd which might in part my grief have eased.

Milton.

When Milton's eye ethereal light first drew,
Earth's gross and cumbrous objects checked his view,
Quick to remove these barriers from his mind,
Nature threw ope the expanse and struck him blind;
To him a nobler vision then was given-
He closed his eyes on earth to look on heaven.

Where am I now?

Bromby.

I thought the way to death had been so broad,
Tho' I were blind, I could not miss the road.
Death's lodgings such perpetual darkness have,
And I seem nothing but a walking grave.

Sir Robert Howard.

For oh, while others gaze on Nature's face,
The verdant vale, the mountains, woods, and streams;
Or with ineffable delight survey

The sun-bright image of his parent God;
While others view Heaven's all-involving arch,
Bright with unnumbered worlds, and lost in joy,
Fair order and utility behold;
For me those fair vicissitudes are lost,

And grace and beauty blotted from my view.

Dr. Blacklock.

O happiness of blindness! now no beauty
Inflames my lust; no other's good my envy;
Or misery, my pity; no man's wealth
Draws my respect; nor poverty my scorn;
Yet still I see enough! man to himself
Is a large prospect, raised above the level
Of his low creeping thoughts; if then I have
A world within myself, that world shall be
My empire; there I'll reign commanding freely,
And willingly obeyed, secure from fear
Of foreign forces, or domestic treason,
And hold a monarchy more free, more absolute,
Than in my father's seat; and looking down
With scorn or pity on the slippery state
Of kings, will tread upon the neck of fate.

Denham.

Ye have a world of light, Where love in the loved rejoices; But the blind man's home is the house of night, And its beings are empty voices.

Thine eyes so bright
Bereft my sight,

When first I viewed thy face;

So now my light

Is turned to night,

I stray from place to place.
Then guide me of thy kindness,
So shall I bless my blindness.

Bulwer.

Thomas Watson.

BLINDNESS.

BLISS. BLOT.

123

I ken the day and night,
For all ye may believe,
And often in my spirit lies

A clear light as of mid-day skies;
And splendours on my vision rise,

Like gorgeous hues of eve.

BLISS.

Mary Howitt.

But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss
I never felt till now.

Condition, circumstance, is not the thing,

Milton.

Bliss is the same in subject or in king.-Pope.

The spider's most attenuated web

Is cord is cable, to man's tender tie

Of earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.

Young.

Ah! well may we hope, when this short life is gone, To meet in a world of more permanent bliss,

For a smile, or the grasp of the hand hast'ning on,
Is all we enjoy of each other in this.

Alas! the heart that inly bleeds,
Has nought to fear from outward blows;
Who falls from all he knows of bliss,

Cares little into what abyss.

Moore.

Byron.

BLOT.

UNKNIT that threat'ning unkind brow,
It blots thy beauty, as frost bites the meads.

Shakspere.

My guilt thy growing virtues did defame,
My blackness blotted thy unblemished name,

Dryden, from Virgil.

For mercy sake restrain thy hand,
Blot not thy innocence with guiltless blood.-Rowe.