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النشر الإلكتروني

124

BLUNTNESS. BLUSH.

BLUNTNESS.

THIS is some fellow,

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A. saucy roughness, and constrains the garb,
Quite from his nature: he can't flatter, he!-
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth;
And they will take it so; if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness,
Harbour more craft, and far corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly ducking observants,
That stretch their duty nicely.

Shakspere.

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.

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I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Nor actions, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on.

Shakspere.

'Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.

Pope.

BLUSH.

The doubtfull mayd, seeing herselfe descryde,
Was all abasht, and her pure yvory
Into a clear carnation suddeine dyde;
As fayre Aurora rysing hastily

Doth by her blushing tell that she did lye

All night in old Tithonus' frozen bed,

Whereof she seems ashamed inwardly.

I have marked

A thousand blushing apparitions

Spenser.

To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames

In angel whiteness bear away these blushes.

Shakspere.

BLUSH.

Pale and bloodless,

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Being all descended to the labouring heart,
Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth

To blush, and beautify the cheek again.

Shakspere.

To-day he puts forth

The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him.

See my Palmyra comes, the frighted blood

Shakspere.

Scarce yet recalled to her pale cheeks;
Like the first streaks of light broke loose from darkness,

And dawning into blushes.

Dryden.

A crimson blush her beauteous face o'erspread,
Varying her cheeks by turns with white and red,
The driving colours, never at a stay,
Run here and there, and flush and fade away.
Delightful change! thus Indian ivory shews,
Which with the bordering paint of purple glows,
Or lilies damasked with the neighbouring rose.

Dryden, from Virgil.

In rising blushes still fresh beauties rose,
The sunny side of fruit such blushes shews,
And such the moon, when all her silver white

Turns in eclipses to a ruddy light.

Addison, from Ovid.

Let me for ever gaze,

And bless the new-born glories that adorn thee:
From every blush that kindles in thy cheeks,
Ten thousand little loves and graces spring,
To revel in the roses.

But here the roses blush so rare,
Here the mornings smile so fair,
As if neither cloud, nor wind,
But would be courteous, would be kind.

Rowe.

Crashaw.

Confusion thrill'd me then, and secret joy,
Fast throbbing, stole its treasures from my heart,
And mantling upward, turn'd my face to crimson.

Brooke.

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Confound me not with shame, nor call up all
The blood that warms my trembling heart,
To fill my cheeks with blushes.

Trap.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.-Pope.

The modest matron, and the blushing maid.

Goldsmith.

Truly his penetrating eye
Hath caught the blush's passing dye-
Like the last beam of evening thrown
On a white cloud-just seen and gone.

The rose, with faint and feeble streak,
So slightly tinged the maiden's cheek,
That you had said her hue was pale;
But if she faced the summer gale,
Or spoke, or sung, or quicker moved,
Or heard the praise of those she loved,
Or when of interest was express'd
Aught that waked feeling in her breast,
The mantling blood in ready play,
Rivall'd the blush of rising day.

Playful blushes, that seemed nought
But luminous escapes of thought.

Scott.

Scott.

Moore.

Look, look! the summer rises in her cheeks;
A blush as hot as June comes flooding o'er
Her too proud paleness. Burning modesty
Warms all her brow, and beauty quite abashed

Droops her twin stars to earthward.

Procter.

Alas! that in our earliest blush
Our danger first we feel,
And tremble when the rising flush
Betrays some angel's seal!
Alas! for care and pallid woe

Sit watchers in their turn,

Where heaven's too faint and transient glow

So soon forgets to burn!

O. W. Holmes.

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The lilies faintly to the roses yield,

As on thy lovely cheek they struggling vie, (Who would not strive upon so sweet a field To win the mastery?)

And thoughts are in thy speaking eyes reveal'd,
Pure as the fount the prophet's rod unseal'd.

On beauty's lids the gem-like tear
Oft sheds its evanescent ray,
But scarce is seen to sparkle, ere

'Tis chased by beaming smiles away: Just so the blush is formed and fliesNor owns reflection's calm control:

It comes, it deepens-fades and dies,

127

Hoffman.

A gush of feeling from the soul. -Mrs. Dinnies.

I know a cheek whose blushes,

As they trembling come and go,
I could gaze upon for ever,
If it did not pain thee so.

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'Twas then the blush suffused her cheek,
Which told what words could never speak,
The answer's written deeply now,
On this warm cheek and glowing brow.

Lucretia M. Davidson.

BOASTING.

SEND danger from the east unto the west,
Let honour cross it from the north to south,
And let 'em grapple: the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare.
By heaven methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
To dive into the bottom of the deep,

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Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks.

Shakspere.

What cracker is this same, that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?

Shakspere.

Here's a large mouth, indeed, That spits forth death, and mountains, rocks, and seas; Talks as familiarly of roaring lions,

As maids of thirteen do of puppy dogs. --Shakspere

For then we wound our modesty, and make
Foul the clearness of our deservings, when
Of ourselves we publish them.

Shakspere.

My arm a nobler victory never gained,
And I am prouder to have passed that stream,
Than when I drove a million o'er the plain,
Can none remember? Yes, I know all must,
When glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood
Perched on my beaver, in the Granick flood;
When fortune's self my standard trembling bore,
And the pale fates stood frighted on the shore.
When all the immortals on the billows rode,

And I myself appeared the leading God.

Lee.

O Jove! let it become

To boast my deeds, when he whom they concern

Shall thus forget them.

He that vaunts

Of a received favour ought to be
Punish'd as sacrilegious persons are.
'Cause he doth violate that sacred thing,
Pure, spotless honour.

Jonson.

Cartwright.

Yet, if thou sin in wine or wantonness,
Boast not thereof, nor make thy shame thy glory;
Frailty gets pardon by submissiveness;
But he that boasts shuts that out of his story;
He makes flat war with God, and doth defy,
With his poor clod of earth the spacious sky.

Herbert.

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