Oracles from the Poets: A Fanciful Diversion for the Drawing Room
General
Oracles from the Poets: A Fanciful Diversion for the Drawing Room
Amusements; Fortune-telling; Quotations, English
38. There is a light around her brow,
A holiness in those dark eyes,
Which show, though wandering earthward now,
Her spirit's home is in the skies.
MOORE.
39. A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face,
And slightly nonchalant,
Which seems to hold a middle place
Between one's love and aunt.
Where childhood's star has left a ray
In woman's summer sky,
As morning's dew and blushing day
On fruit and blossom lie.
O. W. HOLMES.
40. A bright, frank brow, that has not learn'd to blush at gaze of man.
MACAULAY--_Lays of Ancient Rome_.
41. If to her share some female errors fall,
Look in her face, and you'll forget them all.
HAYLEY--_Triumphs of Temper_.
42. Quips, and cranks, and playful wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek.
MILTON--_Comus_.
43. Excellently done, if God did all.
_Twelfth Night._
44. A ruby lip
First dawns; then glows the young cheek's deeper hue,
Yet delicate as roses when they dip
Their odorous blossoms in the morning dew.
Then beam the eyes, twin stars of living blue,
Half shaded by the curls of glossy hair,
That turn to gold in the West's golden glare.
CROLY--_Angel of the World_.
45. Love glower'd[A] when he saw her bonnie dark e'e,
'An swore by heaven's grace,
He ne'er had seen, nor thought to see,
Since e'er he left the Paphian lea,
Mair lovely a dwallin' place.
WILLIAM THOM.
[A] Stared with surprise.
46. An angel-face! its sunny "wealth of hair,"
In radiant ripples, bathes the graceful throat,
And dimpled shoulders; round the rosy curve
Of the sweet mouth, a smile seems wandering ever,
While in the depths of azure fire that gleams
Beneath the drooping lashes, sleeps a world
Of eloquent meaning--passionate, but pure;
Dreamy, subdued, but O, how beautiful!
MRS. OSGOOD.
47. Do but look in her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth:
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that sooth her,
And from her arched brows such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,
As alone there triumphs to the life,
All the gain, all the good, of the elements at strife.
BEN JONSON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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