B.

Balances.

Jove lifts the golden balances that show

The fates of mortal men, and things below.

136

POPE:

Iliad,

Bk. xxii., Line 271.

Ball.

I saw her at a county ball;

There when the sound of flute and fiddle

Gave signal sweet in that old hall,

Of hands across and down the middle.

137

PRAED:

Belle of the Ball-Room,

St. 2.

Banishment.

Eating the bitter bread of banishment.

138

SHAKS.:

Richard II.,

Act iii., Sc. 1.

Banished?

O friar, the damned use that word in hell;

Howlings attend it: How hast thou the heart,

Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,

A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,

To mangle me with that word—banished?

139

SHAKS.:

Rom. and Jul.,

Act iii., Sc. 3

Banner.

Hang out our banners on the outward walls.

140

SHAKS.:

Macbeth,

Act v., Sc. 5.

A banner with the strange device.

141

LONGFELLOW:

Excelsior.

Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,

And charge with all thy chivalry.

142

CAMPBELL:

Hohenlinden.

Bard.

Be that blind bard who on the Chian strand,

By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,

Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

143

COLERIDGE:

Fancy in Nubibus.

Bars.

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage.

144

LOVELACE:

To Althea from Prison,

iv.

Baseness.

Since Cleopatra died,

I have lived in such dishonor that the gods

Detest my baseness.

145

SHAKS.:

Ant. and Cleo.,

Act iv., Sc. 14.

Bashfulness.

I pity bashful men, who feel the pain

Of fancied scorn, and undeserv'd disdain,

And bear the marks upon a blushing face,

Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.

146

COWPER:

Conversation,

Line 347.

Battle.

Then more fierce

The conflict grew; the din of arms, the yell

Of savage rage, the shriek of agony,

The groan of death, commingled in one sound

Of undistinguish'd horrors.

147

SOUTHEY:

Madoc,

Pt. ii.,

The Battle.

For freedom's battle, once begun,

Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son,

Though baffled oft, is ever won.

148

BYRON:

Giaour,

Line 123.

When the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

149

CAMPBELL:

Ye Mariners of England.

Beads.

The hooded clouds, like friars,

Tell their beads in drops of rain.

150

LONGFELLOW:

Midnight Mass.

Beams.

And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,

Thro' all the circle of the golden year.

151

TENNYSON:

The Golden Year.

Beard.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll.

152

SHAKS.:

Hamlet,

Act iv., Sc. 5.

His tawny beard was th' equal grace

Both of his wisdom and his face;

In cut and die so like a tile,

A sudden view it would beguile;

The upper part thereof was whey;

The nether, orange mix'd with grey.

153

BUTLER:

Hudibras,

Pt. i., Canto i., Line 241.

Beast.

A beast, that wants discourse of reason.

154

SHAKS.;

Hamlet,

Act i., Sc. 2.

Beauty.

My beauty, though but mean,

Needs not the painted flourish of your praise;

Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,

Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues.

155

SHAKS.:

Love's L. Lost,

Act ii., Sc. 1.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;

A shining gloss that fadeth suddenly;

A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud;

A brittle glass that's broken presently;

A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,

Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.

156

SHAKS.:

Pass. Pilgrim,

St. 11

Beauty stands

In the admiration only of weak minds

Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes

Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy,

At every sudden slighting quite abash'd.

157

MILTON:

Par. Regained,

Bk. ii., Line 220.

Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,

The power of beauty I remember yet.

158

DRYDEN:

Cym. and Iph.,

Line 1.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

159

KEATS:

Endymion,

Bk. i., Line 1.

What is this thought or thing

Which I call beauty? is it thought or thing?

Is it a thought accepted for a thing?

Or both? or neither—a pretext?—a word?

160

MRS. BROWNING:

Drama of Ex. Extrem. of Sword-Glare.

If eyes were made for seeing,

Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

161

EMERSON:

The Rhodora.

Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,

And beauty draws us with a single hair.

162

POPE:

R. of the Lock,

Canto ii., Line 27.

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,

Whose veil is unremoved

Till heart with heart in concord beats,

And the lover is beloved.

163

WORDSWORTH:

To ——. Let Other Bards of Angels Sing.

Bed.

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,

And born in bed, in bed we die;

The near approach a bed may show

Of human bliss and human woe.

164

ISAAC DE BENSERADE:

Trans.

by Dr. Johnson.

Bees.

So work the honey-bees;

Creatures, that by a rule in nature, teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

165

SHAKS.:

Henry V.,

Act i., Sc. 2.

The moan of doves in immemorial elms,

And murmuring of innumerable bees.

166

TENNYSON:

The Princess,

Pt. vii., Line 203.

Beggars.

Beggars, mounted, run their horse to death.

167

SHAKS.:

3 Henry VI.,

Act i., Sc. 4.

When beggars die, there are no comets seen;

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

168

SHAKS.:

Jul. Cæsar,

Act ii., Sc. 2.

Behavior.

And puts himself upon his good behavior.

169

BYRON:

Don Juan,

Canto v., St. 47.

Belial.

When night

Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons

Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

170

MILTON:

Par. Lost,

Bk. i., Line 500.

Bells.

Those evening bells! those evening bells!

How many a tale their music tells

Of youth, and home, and that sweet time,

When last I heard their soothing chime!

171

MOORE:

Those Evening Bells.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky!

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

172

TENNYSON:

In Memoriam,

Pt. cv.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

173

EDGAR ALLAN POE:

The Bells.

Benediction.

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction.

174

WORDSWORTH:

Intimations of Immortality,

St. 9.

Bible.

A glory gilds the sacred page,

Majestic like the sun;

It gives a light to every age;

It gives, but borrows none.

175

COWPER:

Olney Hymns,

No. 30.

Bigotry.

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded

That all the Apostles would have done as they did.

176

BYRON:

Don Juan,

Canto i., St. 83.

Birds.

You call them thieves and pillagers; but know

They are the winged wardens of your farms,

Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe,

And from your harvests keep a hundred harms.

177

LONGFELLOW:

Birds of Killingworth,

St. 19.

Birth.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The soul that rises with us our life's star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.

178

WORDSWORTH:

Intimations of Immortality,

St. 5.

While man is growing, life is in decrease;

And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.

Our birth is nothing but our death begun.

179

YOUNG:

Night Thoughts,

Night v., Line 717.

Birthday.

A birthday:—and now a day that rose

With much of hope, with meaning rife—

A thoughtful day from dawn to close:

The middle day of human life.

180

JEAN INGELOW.

A Birthday Walk.

Bivouac.

On Fame's eternal camping-ground

Their silent tents are spread,

And Glory guards with solemn round

The bivouac of the dead.

181

THEODORE O'HARA:

Bivouac of the Dead.

Blasphemy.

Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them;

But, in the less, foul profanation.

That in the captain's but a choleric word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

182

SHAKS.:

M. for M.,

Act ii., Sc. 2.

Bleakness.

A naked house, a naked moor,

A shivering pool before the door,

A garden bare of flowers and fruit,

And poplars at the garden foot:

Such is the place that I live in,

Bleak without and bare within.

183

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON:

The House Beautiful.

Blessings.

How blessings brighten as they take their flight!

184

YOUNG:

Night Thoughts,

Night ii., Line 602.

For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds,

And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.

185

CONGREVE:

Mourning Bride,

Act v., Sc. 12.

Blindness.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon;

Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,

Without all hope of day.

186

MILTON:

Samson Agonistes,

Line 80.

O, loss of sight, of thee I most complain!

Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,

Dungeons, or beggary, or decrepit age!

Light, the prime work of God, to me 's extinct,

And all her various objects of delight

Annul'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd,

187

MILTON:

Samson Agonistes,

Line 67.

Bliss.

Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;

Bliss is the same in subject or in king.

188

POPE:

Essay on Man,

Epis. iv., Line 57.

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find

That bliss which only centres in the mind.

189

GOLDSMITH:

Traveller,

Line 423.

Blood.

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul

Lends the tongue vows.

190

SHAKS.:

Hamlet,

Act i., Sc. 3.

A ruddy drop of manly blood

The surging sea outweighs;

The world uncertain comes and goes,

The lover rooted stays.

191

EMERSON:

Epigraph to Friendship.

Blood is a juice of very special kind.

192

GOETHE:

Faust

(Swanwick's Trans.), Line 1386.

Bloom.

O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move

The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

193

GRAY:

Prog. of Poesy,

Pt. i., St. 1, Line 3.

Blossoms.

Who in life's battle firm doth stand

Shall bear hope's tender blossoms

Into the silent land.

194

J.G. VON SALIS:

The Silent Land.

Bluntness.

I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,

Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,

To stir men's blood: I only speak right on.

195

SHAKS.:

Jul. Cæsar,

Act iii., Sc. 2.

Blushing.

Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,

Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.

The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;

They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,

And flare up boldly, wings and all.

What then?

Who's sorry for a gnat ... or girl?

196

MRS. BROWNING:

Aurora Leigh,

Bk. ii., Line 732.

Boasting.

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.

197

SHAKS.:

King John,

Act ii., Sc. 2.

Boat.

Oh swiftly glides the bonnie boat;

Just parted from the shore,

And to the fisher's chorus-note

Soft moves the dipping oar.

198

BAILLIE:

Oh Swiftly Glides the Bonnie Boat.

Boldness.

In conversation boldness now bears sway,

But know, that nothing can so foolish be

As empty boldness.

199

HERBERT:

Temple, Church Porch,

St. 34.

Bond.

I'll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak;

I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.

200

SHAKS.:

M. of Venice,

Act iii., Sc. 3.

Bones.

Cursed be he that moves my bones.

201

SHAKS.:

Shakespeare's Epitaph.

Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!

202

THOMAS NOEL:

The Pauper's Ride.

Books.

A book! O rare one!

Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment

Nobler than that it covers.

203

SHAKS.:

Cymbeline,

Act v., Sc. 4.

That place that does contain

My books, the best companions, is to me

A glorious court, where hourly I converse

With the old sages and philosophers;

And sometimes, for variety, I confer

With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels.

204

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER:

The Elder Brother,

Act i., Sc. 2.

Books cannot always please, however good;

Minds are not ever craving for their food.

205

CRABBE:

The Borough,

Letter xxiv.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good;

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

206

WORDSWORTH:

Personal Talk.

Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself.

207

MILTON:

Par. Regained,

Bk. iv., Line 327.

Some books are lies frae end to end.

208

BURNS:

Death and Dr. Hornbook.

Bores.

Society is now one polish'd horde,

Formed of two mighty tribes, the

Bores

and

Bored.

209

BYRON:

Don Juan,

Canto xiii., St. 95.

Again I hear that creaking step!—

He's rapping at the door!—

Too well I know the boding sound

That ushers in a bore.

210

J.G. SAXE:

My Familiar.

Borrowing.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend;

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all,—to thine own self be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

211

SHAKS.:

Hamlet,

Act i., Sc. 3.

Boston.

Solid men of Boston, banish long potations!

Solid men of Boston, make no long orations!

212

CHARLES MORRIS:

American Song. From Lyra Urbanica.

Bough.

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,

And burned is Apollo's laurel bough,

That sometime grew within this learned man.

213

MARLOWE:

Faustus.

Bounds.

There's nothing situate under Heaven's eye,

But hath, his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.

214

SHAKS.:

Com. of Errors,

Act ii., Sc. 1

Bounty.

For his bounty,

There was no winter in 't; an autumn 't was,

That grew the more by reaping.

215

SHAKS.:

Ant. and Cleo.,

Act v., Sc. 2

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heaven did a recompense as largely send;

He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear,

He gain'd from Heav'n ('t was all he wish'd) a friend.

216

GRAY:

Elegy, The Epitaph.

Bourn.

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns.

217

SHAKS.:

Hamlet,

Act iii., Sc. 1.

Bower.

I'd be a butterfly born in a bower,

Where roses and lilies and violets meet.

218

THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY:

I'd be a Butterfly.

Bowl.

There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl,

The feast of reason and the flow of soul.

219

POPE: Satire i., Line 6.

Boyhood.

The whining schoolboy, with his satchel,

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school.

220

SHAKS.:

As You Like It,

Act ii., Sc. 7.

The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken.

221

MOORE:

Oft in the Stilly Night.

Braes.

We twa hae run about the braes,

And pu'd the gowans fine.

222

BURNS:

Auld Lang Syne.

Braggart.

I know them, yea,

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple:

Scrambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,

That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander,

Go anticly, and show outward hideousness,

And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,

How they might hurt their enemies if they durst;

And this is all.

223

SHAKS.:

Much Ado,

Act v., Sc. 1.

Brains.

The times have been

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,

And there an end; but now they rise again,

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,

And push us from our stools.

224

SHAKS.:

Macbeth,

Act iii., Sc. 4.

Bravery.

'Tis more brave

To live, than to die.

225

OWEN MEREDITH:

Lucile,

Pt. ii., Canto vi., St. 11.

None but the brave deserves the fair.

226

DRYDEN:

Alex. Feast,

St. 1.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,

By all their country's wishes blest!

227

COLLINS:

Lines in 1764.

Breach.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,

Or close the wall up with our English dead!

228

SHAKS.:

Henry V.,

Act ii., Sc. 4.

Bread.

O God! that bread should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap!

229

HOOD:

The Song of the Shirt.

Breast.

The yielding marble of her snowy breast.

230

WALLER:

On a Lady passing through a Crowd of People.

A word in season spoken

May calm the troubled breast.

231

CHARLES JEFFERYS:

A Word in Season.

Breath.

When the good man yields his breath

(For the good man never dies).

232

JAMES MONTGOMERY:

The Wanderer of Switzerland,

Pt. v.

Breeches.

But the old three-cornered hat,

And the breeches, and all that,

Are so queer!

233

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES:

The Last Leaf.

Breezes.

Breezes of the South!

Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,

And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not—ye have played

Among the palms of Mexico and vines

Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks

That from the fountains of Sonora glide

Into the calm Pacific—have ye fanned

A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

234

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT:

The Prairies.

Brevity.

Since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes—

I will be brief.

235

SHAKS.:

Hamlet,

Act ii., Sc. 2.

For brevity is very good,

When we are, or are not, understood.

236

BUTLER:

Hudibras,

Pt. i., Canto i., Line 669.

Bribes.

What! shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world,

But for supporting robbers;—shall we now

Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?

And sell the mighty space of our large honors

For so much trash as may be grasped thus?

I'd rather be a dog, and bay the moon,

Than such a Roman.

237

SHAKS.:

Jul. Cæsar,

Act iv., Sc. 3.

Bride.

You are just a sweet bride in her bloom,

All sunshine, and snowy, and pure.

238

THOMAS B. ALDRICH:

An Untimely Thought.

Bridge.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattl'd farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

239

EMERSON:

Hymn sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument.

Brooks.

A silvery brook comes stealing

From the shadow of its trees,

Where slender herbs of the forest stoop

Before the entering breeze.

240

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT:

The Unknown Way.

Brotherhood.

I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,

And hurt my brother.

241

SHAKS.:

Hamlet,

Act v., Sc. 2.

Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;

A brother to relieve,—how exquisite the bliss!

242

BURNS:

A Winter Night.

Bubbles.

The earth hath bubbles as the water has,

And these are of them.

243

SHAKS.:

Macbeth,

Act i., Sc. 3.

Bucket.

The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,

The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.

244

WOODWORTH:

The Old Oaken Bucket.

Bud.

The bud is on the bough again.

The leaf is on the tree.

245

CHARLES JEFFERYS:

The Meeting of Spring and Summer

Bugle.

Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying!

And answer, echoes, answer! dying, dying, dying.

246

TENNYSON:

The Princess,

Pt. iii., Line 360.

Building.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew:

The conscious stone to beauty grew.

247

EMERSON:

The Problem.

Burden.

A sacred burden is this life ye bear:

Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,

Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.

248

FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE:

To the Young

Gentlemen leaving Lenox Academy, Mass.

Bush.

For what are they all in their high conceit,

When man in the bush with God may meet?

249

EMERSON:

Good-Bye.

Business.

Let thy mind still be bent, still plotting, where

And when, and how thy business may be done,

Slackness breeds worms; but the sure traveller,

Though he alights sometimes, still goeth on.

250

HERBERT:

Temple, Church Porch,

St. 57.

Buttercups.

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower.

251

ROBERT BROWNING:

Home-Thoughts, From Abroad.