ILLNESS.
As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death,
The young disease, that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.
Essay on Man, Epistle II. A. POPE.
Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.
Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
So when a raging fever burns,
We shift from side to side by turns,
And 'tis a poor relief we gain
To change the place, but keep the pain.
Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Bk. II. Hymn 146. DR. I. WATTS.
Long pains are light ones,
Cruel ones are brief!
Compensation. J.G. SAXE.
Then with no throbs of fiery pain,
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.
Verses on Robert Levet. DR. S. JOHNSON.
IMAGINATION.
Within the soul a faculty abides,
That with interpositions, which would hide
And darken, so can deal that they become
Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt
Her native brightness. As the ample moon,
In the deep stillness of a summer even
Rising behind a thick and lofty grove,
Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light,
In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides
Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil
Into a substance glorious as her own.
The Excursion, Bk. IV. W. WORDSWORTH.
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
King Henry V., Chorus. SHAKESPEARE.
Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.
Progress of Poesy. T. GRAY.