POSSESSION. POSTERITY. POTENTATES. 499

POSSESSION.

THOSE possessions short-lived are,
Into the which we come by war.

Born to himself, by no possession led,
By freedom fostered, and by fortune fed.

Beware what spirit rages in your breast,
For ten inspired, ten thousand are possest.

Herrick.

Savage.

Roscommon.

POSTERITY.

HENCE, lastly, spring cares of posterities,

For things their kind would everlasting make, Hence is it that old men do plant young trees, The fruit whereof another age shall take.-Davies.

Daughter of time, sincere posterity,

Always new-born, yet no man knows thy birth, The arbitress of pure sincerity, Yet changeable (like Proteus) on the earth, Sometime in plenty, sometime join'd with dearth. Always to come, yet always present here, Whom all run after, none come after here. Impartial judge of all, save present state, Truth's idioms of the things are past, But still pursuing present things with hate, And more injurious at the first than last, Preserving others while their own do waste: True treasurer of all antiquity, Whom all desire, yet never one could see.

From England's Parnassus.

POTENTATES.

KINGS and mightiest potentates must die. --Shakspere.

Each potentate as wary fear, or strength,
Or emulation urged, his neighbour's bounds
Invaded.

Phillips.

POOR and content is rich, and rich enough;
But riches endless are as poor as winter,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor. --Shakspere.

To mortal man great loads allotted be,

Herrick.

But of all packs, no pack like poverty.

Be honest poverty thy boasted wealth;

So shall thy friendships be sincere tho' few;
So shall thy sleep be sound, thy waking cheerful.

O, blissful poverty!

Havard.

Nature, too partial, to thy lot assigns
Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace-
Her real goods-and only mocks the great

With empty pageantries.

Fenton.

Many a Prince is worse,

Pope.

Who, proud of pedigree, is poor of purse.

O, the poor,

Are the poor's almoners, else would die crowds
That none know how they live, how life in them
Still feebly lurks from morn to ghastly eve,

From eve to haggard morn.

Anon.

God help the poor, who in lone valleys dwell,
Or by the hills where whin and heather grow!
Theirs is a story sad indeed to tell;

Yet little cares the world, and less 't would know

About the toil and want they undergo.
The wearying loom must have them up at morn;
They wake till worn-out nature will have sleep;
They taste, but are not fed. The snow drifts deep
Around the fireless cot and blocks the door;
The night-storm howls a dirge across the moor-
And shall they perish thus, oppressed and lone?
Shall toil and famine hopeless thus be borne?
No, God will yet arise and help the poor!

Samuel Bamford.

UNMOV'D with all the glittering pomp of power,
He took with joy, but laid it down with more.

Power! 'tis the favourite attribute of gods,
Who look with smiles on men who can aspire
To copy them.

Rowe.

Martyn.

Still she spake on, and still she spake of power,
Which in all action is the end of all;

Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred

And throned of wisdom-from all neighbour crown

Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand

Fail from the sceptre-staff.

Love may die and hatred slumber,
And their mem'ry will decay,
As the watered garden recks not
Of the drought of yesterday.
But the dream of power, once broken,
What shall give repose again?
What shall charm the serpent furies,
Coiled around the maddening brain?

Tennyson.

W. E. Aytoun.

Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals nor forts.
The warrior's name would be a name abhorred,
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Should wear for evermore the curse of Cain.

They tell thee in their dreaming school
Of power from old dominion hurled,
When rich and poor with juster rule,
Shall share the altered world.

Alas! since time itself began,

Longfellow.

This subject hath but fooled the hour;

Each hour that ripens power in man,
But subjects man to power.

Bulwer.

Or who would ever care to do brave deed,
Or strive in virtue others to excel,
If none would yield him his deserved meed,
Due praise, that is the spur of doing well?
For if good were not praised more than ill,
None would choose goodness of his own free will.

Spenser.

They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other:
And what delight to be by such extoll'd,
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise?

The noisy praise

Of giddy crowds is changeable as winds;
Still vehement, and still without a cause;
Servant to change, and blowing in the tide
Of swoln success; but veering with the ebb,
It leaves the channel dry.

Milton.

Dryden.

The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns, more or less, and glows in every heart;
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure,
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.

For praise that's due, does give no more
To worth than what it had before;
But, to commend without desert,
Requires a mastery of art,
That sets a glass on what's amiss,
And says what should be, not what is.

Young.

Butler.

Long, open panegyric drags at best,
And praise is only praise when well addrest.-Gay.

My soul is open to the charms of praise:
There is no joy beyond it, when the mind
Of him who hears it can, with honest pride,
Confess it just, and listen to its music.

Whitehead.

WE, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so we find profit
By losing of our prayers.

Shakspere.

Heaven is the magazine wherein God puts
Both good and evil; prayer's the key that shuts
And opens this great treasure; 'tis a key
Whose words are Faith, and Hope, and Charity.
Would'st thou prevent a judgment due to sin?
Turn but the key, and thou may'st lock it in.
Or would'st thou have a blessing fall upon thee?
Open the door and it will shower on thee.

Quarles.

And if by prayer
Incessant, I could hope to change the will
Of Him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my assiduous cries.

Milton.

I was not born for courts or state affairs;
I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers.

That work which is begun well, is half done,
And without prayer no work is well begun.

Pope.

Fawnshaw, from the Italian of Guarini.

True adoration, what a voice is thine!
For prayer is man's omnipotence below,
A soul's companionship with Christ and God,

Communion with Eternity begun!

R. Montgomery.

Oh! when the heart is full-when bitter thoughts

Come crowding up for utterance,

And the poor common words of courtesy

Are such a very mockery, how much

The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer.

N. P. Willis.

From every place below the skies,
The grateful song, the fervent prayer,
The incense of the heart may rise

To heaven, and find acceptance there.

Pierpont.