Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad Ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow,
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.
While the pent Ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.
The Traveller. O. GOLDSMITH.
ITALY.
Italia! O Italia! thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.
Childe Harold, Canto IV. LORD BYRON.
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary's saying serves for me
(When fortune's malice
Lost her Calais):
Open my heart, and you will see
Graved inside of it, "Italy."
De Gustibus. R. BROWNING.
COURAGE.
Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend
To mean devices for a sordid end.
Courage—an independent spark from Heaven's bright throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone.
Great in itself, not praises of the crowd,
Above all vice, it stoops not to be proud.
Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above,
By which those great in war, are great in love.
The spring of all brave acts is seated here,
As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.
Love and a Bottle: Dedication. G. FARQUHAR.
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere—"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die.
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
Morituri Salutamus. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
MACBETH. If we should fail,—
LADY MACBETH. We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we'll not fail.
Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7. SHAKESPEARE.
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.
Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.