DESIRE—DESIRES.
Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.—Psalm xxxviii. 9.
And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.—Haggai, ii. 7.
For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.—Philippians, i. 23.
But our desires’ tyrannical extortion
Doth force us there to set our chief delightfulness,
When but a baiting-place is all our portion.
Sir P. Sidney.
Thou blind man’s mark; thou fool’s self-chosen snare,
Fond fancy’s scum, and dregs of scatter’d thought;
Band of all evils; cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of ill, whose end is never wrought,
Desire! Desire! I have too dearly bought,
With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware;
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought,
Who should’st my mind to higher things prepare.
Sir P. Sidney.
Desire’s the vast extent of human mind,
It mounts above, and leaves poor hope behind.
Dryden.
How large are our desires! and yet how few
Events are answerable! So the dew,
Which early on the top of mountains stood,
Meaning, at least, to imitate a flood;
When once the sun appears, appears no more,
And leaves that parch’d which was too moist before.
Gomersall.
Sages leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great Desire of nations,
Ye have seen its natal star;
Come and worship,
Worship Christ the new-born King.
J. Montgomery.
The desire of the moth for the star—
Of the night for the morrow—
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
Shelley.