Jog on, jog, on the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
The Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
Expostulatory Odes, XV. DR. J. WOLCOTT (Peter Pindar).
And yet, methinks, the older that one grows,
Inclines us more to laugh than scold, tho' laughter
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after.
Beppo. LORD BYRON.
There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.
Ode to Melancholy. T. HOOD.
Low gurgling laughter, as sweet
As the swallow's song i' the South,
And a ripple of dimples that, dancing, meet
By the curves of a perfect mouth.
Ariel. P.H. HAYNE.
Fight Virtue's cause, stand up in Wit's defence,
Win us from vice and laugh us into sense.
On the Prospect of Peace. T. TICKELL.
Let me play the fool;
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish?
Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
MIND.
We had not walked
But for Tradition; we walk evermore
To higher paths by brightening Reason's lamp.
Spanish Gypsy, Bk. II. GEORGE ELIOT.
He that of such a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolvèd powers; nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same;
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey?