* * * * *
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song.
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Essay on Criticism, Part II. A. POPE.
Abstruse and mystic thought you must express
With painful care, but seeming easiness;
For truth shines brightest thro' the plainest dress.
Essay on Translated Verse. W. DILLON.
It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century.
Incident in a Railroad Car. J.R. LOWELL.
E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art—the art to blot.
Horace, Bk. II. Epistle I. A. POPE.
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again;
The unwritten only still belongs to thee:
Take heed, and ponder well, what that shall be.
Morituri Salutamus. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
BABY.
A sweet, new blossom of Humanity,
Fresh fallen from God's own home to flower on earth.
Wooed and Won. G. MASSEY.
The hair she means to have is gold,
Her eyes are blue, she's twelve weeks old,
Plump are her fists and pinky.
She fluttered down in lucky hour
From some blue deep in yon sky bower—
I call her "Little Dinky."
Little Dinky. F. LOCKER-LAMPSON.
As living jewels dropped unstained from heaven.
Course of Time, Bk. V. R. POLLOK.