| C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. | | | | Somerville |
| | | | Adversity, sage useful guest, |
| Severe instructor, but the best, |
| It is from thee alone we know |
| Justly to value things below. |
| 1 |
| | At length the sun began to peep, |
| And glid the surface of the deep. |
| 2 |
| | Each animal, |
| By natural instinct taught, spares his own kind, |
| But man, the tyrant man! revels at large. |
| Freebooter unrestrain’d, destroys at will |
| The whole creation; men and beasts his prey; |
| These for his pleasure, for his glory those. |
| 3 |
| | Frail empire of a day! |
| That with the setting sun extinct is lost. |
| 4 |
| | Let cavillers deny |
| That brutes have reason; sure ’tis something more, |
| ’Tis heaven directs, and stratagems inspires |
| Beyond the short extent of human thought. |
| 5 |
| | O happy if ye knew your happy state, |
| Ye rangers of the fields! whom nature’s boon |
| Cheers with her smiles, and ev’ry element |
| Conspires to bless. |
| 6 |
| | O mercy, heav’ly born! Sweet attribute. |
| Thou great, thou best prerogative of power! |
| Justice may guard the throne, but join’d with thee, |
| On rocks of adamant, it stands secure, |
| And braves the storm beneath. |
| 7 |
| | See there he comes, th’ exalted idol comes! |
| The circle’s form’d, and all his fawning slaves |
| Devoutly bow to earth; from every mouth |
| The nauseous flattery flows, which he returns |
| With promises which die as soon as born. |
| Vile intercourse, where virtue has no place! |
| Frown but the monarch, all his glories fade; |
| He mingles with the throng, outcast, undone, |
| The pageant of a day; without one friend |
| To soothe his tortur’d mind; all, all are fled, |
| For though they bask’d in his meridian ray, |
| The insects vanish as his beams decline. |
| 8 | | |
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