WHAT GRATIFIES YOUR TASTE OR YOUR AFFECTIONS?
"We like not most what most is twin to self,
"But that which best supplies the void within."
WHAT GRATIFIES YOUR TASTE, OR YOUR AFFECTIONS?
To walk in choice gardens,
And from variety of curious flowers
Contemplate nature's workmanship and wonders.
Massinger.
2. You love to wander by old ocean's side,
And hold communion with its sullen tide,
To climb the mountain's everlasting wall,
And linger where the thunder-waters fall.
Sprague.
3. Happy children at their play,
Whose hearts run over into song.
J. R. Lowell.
4. Dogs of grave demeanor,
All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb.
Rogers—Italy.
5. Old legends of the monkish page,
Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime of age
And character of eld.
Longfellow.
6. Gentleman.— A lock, a leaf,
That some dear girl has given;
Frail record of an hour, as brief
As sunset clouds in heaven,
But spreading purple twilight still
High over memory's shadow'd hill.
O. W. Holmes.
6. Lady.—There's little that you care for now,
Except a simple wedding ring.
Thomas Miller.
7. Fruits that have just begun
To flush on the side that is next the sun.
H. F. Gould.
8. Gentleman.—You do wish that you could be
A sailor, on the rolling sea;
In the shadow of the sails
You would ride and rock all day,
Going whither blow the gales,
As you've heard the seamen say.
L. S. Noble.
8. Lady.—By the low cradle thou delight'st to sit
Of sleeping infants, watching their soft breath.
Charlotte Smith.
9. You like a ring, an ancient ring,
Of massive form, and virgin gold;
As firm, as free from base alloy
As were the sterling hearts of old.
G. W. Doane.
10. There's a room you love dearly, the sanctum of bliss,
That holds all the comforts you least like to miss;
Where, like ants in a hillock, you run in and out,
Where sticks grace the corner, and hats lie about,
With book-shelves, where tomes of all sizes are spread,
Not placed to be look'd at, but meant to be read.
Eliza Cook.
11. Gentleman.—Ah, how glorious to be free,
Your good dog by your side,
With rifle hanging on your arm,
To range the forest wide.
E. Peabody.
11. Lady.—To look into the smooth
Clear glass,
Where as you bend to look, just opposite,
A shape within the polish'd frame appears
Bending to look on you.
Milton, modified.
12. Your sociable piazza,—you prize its quiet talk,
When arm in arm with one you love you tread the accustom'd walk,
Or loll within your rocking-chair, not over nice or wise,
And yield the careless confidence where heart to heart replies.
Mrs. Gilman.
13. An eye that will mark
Your coming, and look brighter when you come.
Byron.
14. Give you a slight flirtation,
By the light of a chandelier,
With music to fill up the pauses
And nobody very near.
N. P. Willis.
15. Give all things else their honor due,
But gooseberry-pie is best.
Southey.
16. An ever drizzling raine upon the lofte,
Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sownde
Of murmuring bees.
Spenser—Fairy Queen.
17. Oh, sweeter than the marriage feast,
'Tis sweeter far to thee,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company.
Coleridge—Ancient Mariner.
18. The world below hath not for thee
Such a fair and glorious sight,
As a noble ship on a rippling sea
In the clear and full moonlight.
Eliza Cook.
19. Gentleman.— A noble horse,
With flowing back, firm chest, and fetlocks clean,
The branching veins ridging the glossy lean,
The mane hung sleekly, the projecting eye
That to the stander near looks awfully,
The finish'd head in its compactness free,
Small, and o'er-arching to the bended knee,
The start and snatch, as if he felt the comb,
With mouth that flings about the creamy foam,
The snorting turbulence, the nod, the champing,
The shift, the tossing, and the fiery tramping.
Leigh Hunt—Rimini.
19. Lady.— Your witless puss;
While many a stroke of fondness glides
Along her back and tabby sides,
Dilated swells her glossy fur,
And softly sings her busy pur;
As timing well the equal sound,
Her clutching feet bepat the ground,
And all their harmless claws disclose
Like prickles of an early rose,
While softly from her whisker'd cheek
The half-closed eyes peer mild and meek.
Joanna Baillie.
20. The tall larch sighing in the burial place,
Or willow trailing low its boughs, to hide
The gleaming marble.
W. C. Bryant.
21. The dance,
Pleasant with graceful flatteries.
Miss Landon.
22. You rather look on smiling faces,
And linger round a cheerful hearth,
Than mark the stars' bright hiding-places,
As they peep out upon the earth.
Mrs. Welby.
23. Wreathy shells, with lips of red,
On a beach of whiten'd sand.
Hosmer.
24. When to the startled eye the sudden glance
Appears far south, eruptive, through the cloud,
And following slower, in explosion vast,
The thunder raises his tremendous voice.
Thomson—Seasons.
25. Gentleman.—"'Tis heaven to lounge upon a couch," said Gray,
"And read new novels through a rainy day."
Add but the Spanish weed, the bard was right.
Sprague.
25. Lady.—Your moralizing knitting-work, whose threads most aptly show
How evenly around life's span our busy threads should go;
And if a stitch perchance should drop, as life's frail stitches will,
How, if we patient take it up, the work will prosper still.
Mrs. Gilman.
26. 'Tis pleasant, by the cheerful hearth, to hear
Of tempests, and the dangers of the deep,
And pause at times, and feel that we are safe,
Then listen to the perilous tale again,
And with an eager and suspended soul
Woo terror to delight us.
Southey—Madoc.
27. The moon,
Which kisseth every where, with silver lip,
Dead things to life.
Keats.
28. The insect, that when evening comes,
Small though he be, and scarce distinguishable,
Unsheaths his wings, and through the woods and glades
Scatters a marvellous splendor.
Rogers—Italy.
29. When down the green lane come heart-peals of laughter,
For school has sent its eldest inmates forth,
And when a smaller band comes dancing after,
Filling the air with shouts of infant mirth.
Mrs. Scott.
30. A couch near to a curtaining,
Whose airy texture, from a golden string
Floating, into the room permits appear
Unveil'd, the summer heaven, blue and clear.
Keats.
31. Dear to your heart are the scenes of your childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view,
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot which your infancy knew.
Woodworth.
32. To seek the patient fisher's silent stand,
Intent, your angle trembling in your hand;
With looks unmoved to lure the scaly breed,
And eye the dancing cork and bending reed.
Pope.
33. Converse, which qualifies for solitude,
As exercise for salutary rest.
Young—Night Thoughts.
34. Gentleman.—To follow, fleetest of the fleet,
The red deer, driven along its native plains,
With cry of hound and horn.
Wordsworth.
34. Lady.—One wild-flower from the path of love,
All lowly though it lie,
Is dearer than the wreath that waves
To stern ambition's eye.
H. T. Tuckerman.
35. The laugh-provoking pun; absurd
Though it be, far-fetched, hard to be discern'd,
It serves the purpose if it shake our sides.
Grahame.
36. You have a wish, and it is this—that in some uncouth glen,
It were your lot to find a spot, unknown by selfish men,
Where you might be securely free, like eremite of old,
From worldly guile, from woman's wile, and friendships brief and cold.
Motherwell.
37. You love the fields, the woods, the streams,
The wild-flowers fresh and sweet,
And yet you love no less than these
The crowded city street;
For haunts of men, where'er they be,
Awake your deepest sympathy.
Mary Howitt.
38. Sleep,—soft closer of our eyes,
Low murmurer of tender lullabies.
Keats.
39. You love the sweet Sabbath, that bids in repose
The plough in its mid-furrow stand.
Dr. Gilman.
40. Pleasant it is when woods are green,
And winds are soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go.
Longfellow.
41. Gentleman.—To beat the surges under you,
And ride upon their backs; to tread the water
Whose enmity you flung aside, and breast
The surge most swollen, that meets you; your bold head
'Bove the contentious waves keeping, and oar
Yourself with your good arms, in lusty stroke
To the shore.
Tempest.
41. Lady.—Beside the dimness of the glimmering sea,
with a dear friend to linger,
Beneath the gleams of the silver stars.
Shelley.
42. To pluck some way-side flower,
And press it in the choicest nook
Of a much-loved and oft-read book.
J. R. Lowell.
43. A wheel-footed studying-chair,
Contrived both for toil and repose,
Wide-elbow'd, and wadded with care,
In which you both scribble and doze.
Cowper.
44. Gentleman.—Hurrah for you! the wind is up, it bloweth fresh and free,
And every chord, instinct with life, pipes out its fearless glee;
Big swell the bosom'd sails with joy, and they madly kiss the spray,
As proudly through the foaming surge the sea-king bears away.
Motherwell.
44. Lady.—To place your lips to a spiral shell,
And breathe through every fold;
Or look for the depth of its pearly cell,
As a miser would look for gold.
Miss H. F. Gould.
45. Gentleman.— The soil to tread
Where man hath nobly striven,
And life like incense hath been shed
An offering unto heaven.
Mrs. Hemans.
45. Lady.—The old study-corner by a nook,
Crowded with volumes of the old romance.
N. P. Willis.
46. Ay, 'tis to you a glorious sight
To gaze on ocean's ample face;
An awful joy, a deep delight,
To see his laughing waves embrace
Each other, in their frolic race.
George Lunt.
47. You love the pictures that you see
At times in some old gallery;
You love them, although art may deem
Such pictures of but light esteem.
Mary Howitt.
48. Gentleman.— A brown cigar,
A special, smooth-skinn'd, real Havanna.
Motherwell.
48. Lady.—Your quiet, pleasant chamber, with the rose-vine
Woven round the casement.
Miss Mitford.
49. Old books to read!
Ay, bring those nodes of wit,
The brazen-clasp'd, the vellum writ,
Time-honor'd tomes.
Henry Carey.
50. A youthful mother to her infant smiling,
Who with spread arms, and dancing feet,
And cooing voice, returns an answer sweet.
Joanna Baillie.
51. Gentleman.—To be toss'd on the waves alone, or mid the crew
Of joyous comrades, now the reedy marge
Clearing, with strenuous arm dipping the oar.
Wordsworth.
51. Lady.—When the sail is slack, the course is slow,
That at your leisure, as you coast along,
You may contemplate, and from every scene
Receive its influence.
Rogers.
52. An antique chair,
Cushion'd with cunning luxury.
N. P. Willis.
53. You love a hand that meets your own
With grasp that causes some sensation;
You love a voice whose varying tone
From truth has learn'd its modulation.
Mrs. Osgood.
54. When each and all come crowding round to share
A cordial greeting, the beloved sight;
When welcomings of hand and lip are there,
And when these overflowings of delight
Subside into a sense of quiet bliss,
Life hath no purer, deeper happiness.
Southey.
55. Oh yes, the poor man's garden!
It is great joy to thee,
This little, precious piece of ground,
Beside his door to see.
For in the poor man's garden grow
Far more than herbs and flowers,
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
And joy for weary hours.
Mary Howitt.
56. To be sad, and say nothing.
As You Like It.
57. Sweet poetry, the alchymy
Which turneth all it toucheth into gold.
Mrs. Dana.
58. Gentleman.— With a swimmer's stroke
To fling the billows back from your drench'd hair,
And laughing from your lip the audacious brine;
——rising o'er
The waves as they arise, and prouder still
The loftier they uplift thee; then, exulting,
With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep
The long suspended breath, again to spurn
The foam which breaks around thee, and pursue
Thy track like a sea-bird.
Byron—The Two Foscari.
58. Lady.—A needle, which though it be small and tender,
Yet it is both a maker and a mender,
A grave reformer of old rents decay'd,
Stops holes, and seams, and desperate cuts display'd;
And for your country's quiet, you would like
That womankind should use no other pike.
It will increase their peace, enlarge their store,
To use their tongues less, and their needles more.
The needle's sharpness profit yields and pleasure,
But sharpness of the tongue bites out of measure.
John Taylor—Needle's Excellency.
59. Infant charms,
Unconscious fascination, undesign'd;
The orison repeated in your arms,
The book, the bosom on your knee reclined,
The low sweet fairy lore to con.
Campbell—Gertrude of Wyoming.
60. With Shakspeare's self to speak and smile alone,
And no intruding visitation fear
To shame the unconscious laugh, or stop your sweetest tear.
Campbell—Gertrude of Wyoming.