A Book of Epigrams

Excerpt

EPIGRAMS

POETRY

She comes like the hushed beauty of the night,

But sees too deep for laughter;

Her touch is a vibration and a light

From worlds before and after.

[Charles E. Markham

Poetry? Can I define it, you inquire?

Yes; by your pleasure,

Poetry is Thought, in princeliest attire,

Treading a measure.

[Duffield Osborne

THE YEAR’S MINSTRELSY

Spring, the low prelude of a lordlier song;

Summer, a music without hint of death:

Autumn, a cadence lingeringly long:

Winter, a pause;—the Minstrel-Year takes breath.

[William Watson

All the World’s bravery that delights our eyes,

Is but thy several liveries;

Thou the rich dye on them bestow’st,

Thy nimble Pencil paints this landscape as thou go’st.

[Abraham Cowley

FAREWELL

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.

Nature I loved, and next to nature, art.

I warm’d both hands before the fire of life:

It sinks; and I am ready to depart.

[Walter Savage Landor

As a shaft that is sped from a bow unseen to an unseen mark,

As a bird that gleams in the firelight, and hurries from dark to dark,

As the face of the stranger who smiled as we passed in the crowded street,—

Our life is a glimmer, a flutter, a memory, fading, yet sweet!

[William Cranston Lawton

EPIGRAM ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES.

Nature, a jealous mistress, laid him low.

He woo’d and won her; and, by love made bold,

She showed him more than mortal man should know,

Then slew him lest her secret should be told.

[Sydney Dobell

No puissant singer he, whose silence grieves

To-day the great West’s tender heart and strong;

No singer vast of voice: yet one who leaves

His native air the sweeter for his song.

[William Watson

DANIEL WEBSTER

We have no high cathedral for his rest,

Dim with proud banners and the dust of years;

All we can give him is New England’s breast

To lay his head on—and his country’s tears.

[Thomas William Parsons

Fades his calm face beyond our mortal ken,

Lost in the light of lovelier realms above;

He left sweet memories in the hearts of men

And climbed to God on little children’s love.

[Frank L. Stanton

THE DEBTOR CHRIST

Quid Mihi Et Tibi

What, woman, is my debt to thee,

That I should not deny

The boon thou dost demand of me?

“I gave thee power to die.”

[John B. Tabb

A spirit above and a spirit below,

A spirit of joy and a spirit of woe;

The spirit above is the spirit divine,

The spirit below is the spirit of wine.

[Anonymous

ON A SUN-DIAL

With warning hand I mark Time’s rapid flight

From life’s glad morning to its solemn night;

Yet, through the dear God’s love, I also show

There’s Light above me by the Shade below.

[John Greenleaf Whittier

From the French

Some of your hurts you have cured,

And the sharpest you still have survived,

But what torments of grief you endured

From evils which never arrived!

[Ralph Waldo Emerson

YOUTH

The Tear, down Childhood’s cheek that flows,

Is like the dew-drop on the Rose;

When next the Summer breeze comes by,

And waves the bush, the Flower is dry....