494

PLODDING.

PLOT.

PLOUGH.

PLODDING. What have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others' books. Shakspere. The unlettered christian who believes in gross, Plods on to heaven, and ne'er is at a loss.-Dryden. Some stupid, plodding, money-loving wight, Who wins their hearts by knowing black from white.

Young.

PLOT. My plots fall short, like darts, which rash hands throw With an ill aim, and have too far to go; Nor can I long discoveries prevent, I deal too much among the innocent.

Sir Robert Howard. He who envies now thy state, Who now is plotting how he may seduce Thee from obedience.

Milton. O think what anxious moments pass between The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods ! O'tis a dreadful interval of time, Made up of horror all, and big with death.

Addison.

PLOUGH.
HERE's no fantastic masque, nor dance,
But of our kids, that frisk and prance.

Nor wars are seen,

Unless upon the green
Two harmless lambs are battling one the other,
Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother;

And wounds are never found,
Save what the plough-share gives the ground.

Sir Walter Raleigh.
He that by the plough would thrive,
Himself must either hold or drive. Franklin.

POET–POETRY. The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.

Shakspere.

It is not poetry that makes men poor;
For few do write, that were not so before,
And those that have writ best, had they been rich,
Had ne'er been seized with a poetic itch;
Had loved their ease too well to take the pains
To undergo that drudgery of brains;
But being for all other trades unfit,
Only t'avoid being idle set up wit.

Butler.

'Tis long disputed, whether poets claim
From art or nature their best right to fame;
But art, if not enrich'd by nature's vein,
And a rude genius of uncultur’d strain,
Are useless both; but when in friendship join'd,
A mutual succour in each other find.

Francis, from Horace. Read, meditate, reflect, grow wise—in vain;

Try, every help, force fire from every spark; Yet shall you ne'er the poet's power attain, If heaven ne'er stamp'd you with the muses' mark.

Aaron Hill. And thou, sweet poetry, thou loveliest maid, Still first to fly where sensual joys invade! Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame, To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame. Dear charming nymph, neglected and decay'd, My shame in crowds, my solitary pride; Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe, That found’st me poor at first, and keep'st me so; Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel, Thou nurse of every virtue, farc thee well!

Goldsmith.

The world is full of poetry—the air
Is living with its spirit; and the waves
Dance to the music of its melodies,
And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is veilid
And mantled with its beauty; and the walls,
That close the universe with crystal in,
Are eloquent with voices, that proclaim
The unseen glories of immensity,
In harmonies too perfect and too high
For aught but beings of celestial mould,
And speak to man in one eternal hymn,
Unfading beauty, and unyielding power. Percival.

Never did poesy appear

So full of heaven to me, as when
I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear

To the lives of coarsest men!
I thought, these men will carry hence

Promptings their former life above,
And something of a finer reverence
For beauty, truth, and love.

James Russell Lowell.
Sit still upon your thrones,

O ye poetic ones!
And if, sooth, the world decry you,
Let it pass, unchalleng‘d by you!

Ye to yourselves suffice,

Without its flatteries,
Self-contentedly approve you
Unto Him who sit above you! Miss Barrett.

Vex not thou the poet's mind

With thy shallow wit:
Vex not the poet's mind;

For thou can’st not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever,
Flowing like a crystal river;

Bright as light, and clear as wind. Tennyson.
With one poor poet's scroll, and with his word,
He shook the world.

Tennyson.

The poet in a golden clime is born,

With golden stars above,
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.

Tennyson.
Take the sweet poetry of life away,
And what remains behind?

Wordsworth.

power:

There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.

Wordsworth
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth, and pure delight, by heavenly lays.

Wordsworth. A drainless renown Of light is poesy: 'Tis the supreme of The might half slumbering on its own right arm.

John Keats. Oh. never had the poet's lute a hope, An aim so glorious as it now may have, In this our social state, where petty cares And mercenary interests only look Upon the present's littleness, and shrink From the bold future, and the stately past.

'Tis the poet's gift To melt these frozen waters.

Miss Landon. I see poets darting in splendour,

Bright birds from the tropic of mind. Why mock at each self-deem'd immortal? To-day he is lord of his kind. Miss Jewsbury.

Poet esteem thy noble part,

Still listen, still record;
Sacred historian of the heart,

And moral nature's lord. R. M. Milnes.
Poetry is itself a thing of God;
He made his prophets poets, and the more
We feel of poesy, do we become
Like God in love and power-under makers.

Bailey.

498

POLEMICS.

POLITICIAN.

PORT.

Pope.

POLEMICS.
Each staunch polemic, stubborn as a rock,
Came whip and spur.

Polemics with religion play

As truant children cast
From hand to hand the flying ball,
But to be lost at last.

C. C. Colton.

POLITICIAN.

Your politicians
Have evermore a taint of vanity;
As hasty still to show and boast a plot,
As they are greedy to contrive it.

Sir W. Davenant.
A politician must like lightning melt
The very marrow, and not taint the skin;
His ways must not be seen.

Chapman. Dull rogues affect the politician's part, And learn to nod, and smile, and shrug with art;Who nothing has to lose, the war bewails; And he, who nothing pays, at taxes rails.-Congreve. A politician, Proteus-like, must alter His face and habit; and, like water, seem Of the same colour that the vessel is That doth contain it, varying his form, With the chameleon, at each object's change.

Mason.

PORT.

.
Long have they voyaged o'er the distant seas;
And what a heart-delight they feel at last-
So many toils, so many dangers past-
To view the port desir'd, he only knows
Who on the stormy deep for many a day
Hath toss’d, aweary of his ocean way,
And watch'd all-anxious every wind that blows.

Southey.