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

Pollok

A temple of the Holy Ghost, and yet

Of lodging fiends.

All are friends in heaven, all faithful friends,

And many friendships in the days of Time

Begun, are lasting there and growing still.

But the unfaithful priest, what tongue

Enough shall execrate?

He sat amid his bags, and, with a look

Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor

Away unalmsed; and midst abundance died—

Sorest of evils!—died of utter want.

He was the freeman whom the truth made free;

Who first of all, the bands of Satan broke;

Who broke the bands of sin, and for his soul,

In spite of fools consulted seriously.

Maternal love! thou word that sums all bliss,

Gives and receives all bliss,—fullest when most

Thou givest! spring-head of all felicity,

Deepest when most is drawn! emblem of God!

Overflowing most when greatest numbers drink!

Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord!

Star of Eternity! The only star

By which the bark of man could navigate

The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss

Securely.

Of all the phantoms fleeting in the mist

Of time, though meagre all and ghostly thin;

Most unsubstantial, unessential shade

Was earthly fame.

Of lunacy,

Innumerous were the causes; humbled pride,

Ambition disappointed, riches lost,

And bodily disease, and sorrow, oft

By man inflicted on his brother man;

Sorrow, that made the reason drunk, and yet

Left much untasted. So the cup was fill’d.

Rumour was the messenger

Of defamation, and so swift, that none

Could be the first to tell an evil tale.

She weaves the winding-sheets of souls, and lays

Them in the urn of everlasting death.

The Book, this Holy Book, on every line,

Mark’d with the seal of high divinity,

On every leaf bedew’d with drops of love

Divine, and with the eternal heraldry

And signature of God Almighty stamp’d

From first to last; this ray of sacred light,

This lamp, from off the everlasting throne,

Mercy took down, and in the night of time

Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow;

And evermore beseeching men with tears

And earnest sighs, to read, believe and live.

The place thou saw’st was hell, the groans thou heard’st

The wailings of the damn’d, of those who would

Not be redeem’d.

The song

Of Heaven is ever new; for daily thus,

And nightly, new discoveries are made

Of God’s unbounded wisdom, power, and love,

Which give the understanding larger room,

And swell the hymn with ever-growing praise.

’Twas slander filled her mouth with lying words;

Slander, the foulest whelp of Sin.

With one hand he put

A penny in the urn of poverty,

And with the other took a shilling out.

Who born so poor,

Of intellect so mean, as not to know

What seem’d the best; and knowing not to do?

As not to know what God and conscience bade,

And what they bade not able to obey?

A man who stole the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.

As living jewels dropped unstained from heaven.

Enjoyment stops where indolence begins.

Highest when it stoops.

Living jewels, dropped unstained from heaven.

Maternal love! thou word that sums all bliss.

Sin is dark and loves the dark, still hides from itself in gloom, and in the darkest hell is still itself the darkest hell and the severest woe.

Sorrows remembered sweeten present joy.

Sweet tears! the awful language eloquent of infinite affection, far too big for words.

The bitter word which closed all earthly friendships, and finished every feast of love,—farewell.

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