Moral and Religious Quotations from the Poets: Topically Arranged ...

MARRIAGE-MARTYRDOM.

There are smiles and tears in that gathering band,

A patriot's blood may earn indeed, And for a time insure to his loved land

Where the heart is pledged with the trembling The sweets of liberty and equal laws;

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But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,
And win it with more pain. Their blood is
shed

In confirmation of the noblest claim,
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,
To walk with God, to be divinely free,
To soar, and to anticipate the skies.

COWPER.

They could not purchase earth with such a price,

Or spare a life too short to reach the skies. From them to thee, conveyed along the tide Their streaming hearts poured freely when they died,

Those truths which neither use nor years impair,

Invite thee, woo thee, to the bliss they share. COWPER.

They lived unknown Till Persecution dragged them into fame, And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew,

No marble tells us whither. With their names

No bard embalms and sanctifies his song;
And history, so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this. She execrates, indeed,
The tyranny that doomed them to the fire,
But gives the glorious suff'rers little praise.
COWPER.

What tongues those joys, O Jesus, can dis

close,

Which for thy martyred saints thou dost

prepare!

MARTYRDOM.

The trump of angels shall proclaim
With tones far sent and sweet,
Which countless hosts repeat,
The generous martyr's never-fading name.
Honor on earth, and bliss in heaven,
Be to your saintly valor given.

JOANNA BAILLIE.

A blameless faith was all the crime the Christian martyr knew;

And where the crimson current flowed upon that barren sand,

Up sprung a tree whose vigorous boughs soon overspread the land;

Sing we the peerless deeds of martyred saints. O'er distant isles its shadow fell, nor knew its

Their glorious merits, and their portion blest; Of all the conquerors the world has seen,

The greatest and the best.

"BREVIARY."

Yes: strive, thou world, in thy rash tyrant Stared in Death's face, and scorned Death

standing by:

In spite of Rome, for England's faith he stood,

And in the flames he sealed it with his

blood.

QUARLES.

Not in vain the martyr's robe of fire
Is worn, nor the sad prisoner's fretting

chain;

Since all who suffer for Thy truth send forth,
Electrical, with every throb of pain,
Unquenchable sparks, Thy own baptismal

rain

For Christ's dear honor thought it joy to bleed; Of fire and spirit over all the earth.
Who watched the garments of their second
birth,

And kept them ever undefiled from earth,
Till up they went, their martyr crowns to wear,
And still to walk in virgin-raiment there.

A. C. COXE.

He came to earth; through life he passed,
A Man of griefs: and, lo,

A noble army following fast

His track of pain and woe!

All decked with palms, and strangely bright,
That suffering host appears;
And stainless are their robes of white,

Though steeped in blood and tears; And sweet their martyr-anthem flows, "Hosanna to the Man of woes!"

J. W. CUNNINGHAM.

WHITTIER.

Where manly hearts were failing, where
The throngful street grew foul with death,
O high-souled martyr! thou wast there,
Inhaling from the loathsome air

Poison with every breath.
Yet shrinking not from offices of dread,
For the wrung dying, and the unconscious
WHITTIER.

dead.

O there are daily martyrdoms that we
Heed not; the sufferers are to us unknown;
But angels from the walls of Eden see
How glorious the laurels they have won!

HEMPSTEAD.

He looked on the lost one; her sins were forgiven,

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All subtle thought, all curious fears,
Borne down by gladness so complete,
She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet
With costly spikenard and with tears.
TENNYSON.

Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted!
The crowds are pointing at the thing forlorn,
In wonder and in scorn!

Thou weepest days of innocence departed;
Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to

move

The Lord to pity and love.

BRYANT.

But think, while falls that shade between
The erring one and heaven,
That he who loved like Magdalene,

Like her may be forgiven.

WHITTIER.

Dishonored lost life's diadem!
Yet mercy, lingering nigh, is seen;
Heaven's coronal can boast no gem
Brighter than griefs of Magdalene.

ΤΑΡΡΑΝ.

Thou who hast slept in error's sleep,
O wouldst thou wake in heaven,
Like Mary kneel, like Mary weep,
"Love much," and be forgiven!

MEMORY.

MOORE.

Sweet memory, wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of time I turn my sail
To view the fairy haunts of long-lost hours,
Blest with far greener shades, far fresher

flowers.

ROGERS.

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, And Mary went forth in the beauty of heaven. Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain;

CALLANAN.

Impassioned, to the cross she clings,
Nor fears beside the tomb to stay;
Of ruffian soldiers naught she recks,
For love has cast all fear away.
"BREVIARY."

Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!
Each, as the various avenues of sense
Delight or sorrow to the soul dispense,
Brightens or fades! yet all, with magic art,
Control the latent fibers of the heart.

ROGERS.

And Memory, pray what art thou?
Art thou of pleasure born?

Does bliss untainted from thee flow?

The rose that gems thy pensive brow,

Is it without a thorn?

With all thy smiles,

And witching wiles,

O Memory! thou fond deceiver,
Still importunate and vain,
To former joys recurring ever,

And turning all the past to pain;
Thou, like the world, the oppressed oppressing,
Thy smiles increase the wretch's woe!
And he who wants each other blessing,
In thee must ever find a foe.

GOLDSMITH.

And slight withal may be the things which bring

Back on the heart the weight which it would

fling

Aside forever; it may be a sound,

A tone of music, summer's eve, or spring,
A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall

wound,

Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.

Yet not unfrequent bitterness thy mournful And how and why we know not, nor can

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