C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Wentworth Dillon

Abstruse and mystic thoughts you must express

With painful care, but seeming easiness;

For truth shines brightest thro’ the plainest dress.

Immodest words admit of no defence;

For want of decency is want of sense.

Men still had faults, and men will have them still;

He that hath none, and lives as angels do,

Must be an angel.

My God, my Father, and my Friend,

Do not forsake me in the end.

Praise Him, each savage furious beast

That on His stores do daily feast;

And you tame slaves, of the laborious plough,

Your weary knees to your Creator bow.

The first great work (a task performed by few)

Is that yourself may to yourself be true.

The last loud trumpet’s wondrous sound,

Shall thro’ the rending tombs rebound,

And wake the nations under ground.

The men, who labor and digest things most,

Will be much apter to despond than boast;

For if your author be profoundly good,

’Twill cost you dear before he’s understood.

The press, the pulpit, and the stage,

Conspire to censure and expose our age.

Thou whom avenging pow’rs obey,

Cancel my debt (too great to pay)

Before the sad accounting day.

And choose an author as you choose a friend.

But words once spoke can never be recall’d.

The multitude is always in the wrong.