A braver choice of dauntless spirits Did never float upon the swelling tide.

SHAKSPEARE.

I do not think a braver gentleman,
More daring, or more bold, is now alive,
To grace this latter age with noble deeds.
SHAKSPEARE.

Fight valiantly to-day;

And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it;
For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour.
SHAKSPEARE.

I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with a braver grace.
SHAKSPEARE.
But while hope lives
Let not the generous die. 'Tis late before
The brave despair.

THOMSON.

From armed foes to bring a royal prize,
Shows your brave heart victorious as your eyes.
WALLER.

BRIDE.

As when a piece of wanton lawn,

A thin aerial veil is drawn

O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide,
More sweetly shows the blushing bride :
A soul whose intellectual beams
No mists do mask, no lazy streams.

CRASHAW.

Up, up, fair bride! and call Thy stars from out their several boxes; take Thy rubies, pearls, and diamonds forth, and make

Thyself a constellation of them all.

JOHN DONNE.

The bride,

Lovely herself, and lovely by her side
A bevy of bright nymphs, with sober grace,
Came glitt'ring like a star, and took her place:
Her heav'nly form beheld, all wish'd her joy;
And little wanted, but in vain, their wishes all
employ.

DRYDEN.

O happy youth! For whom thy fates reserve so fair a bride: He sigh'd, and had no leisure more to say; His honour call'd his eyes another way.

DRYDEN.

By this the brides are waked, their grooms are dress'd;

All Rhodes is summon'd to the nuptial feast. DRYDEN.

Love yields at last, thus combated by pride, And she submits to be the Roman's bride. GRANVILLE. She smiled, array'd With all the charms of sunshine, stream, and glade,

New drest and blooming as a bridal maid. WALTER HARTE.

She turn'd-and her mother's gaze brought back
Each hue of her childhood's faded track:

Oh, hush the song, and let her tears
Flow to the dream of her early years!
Holy and pure are the drops that fall

When the young bride goes from her father's hall;

She goes unto love yet untried and new:
She parts from love which hath still been true.
MRS. HEMANS.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night:
For thou must die!

GEORGE HERbert.
The amorous bird of night
Sung spousal, and bid haste the ev'ning star
On his hill-top to light the bridal lamp.

MILTON.

Your ill-meaning politician lords,
Under pretence of bridal friends and guests,
Appointed to await me thirty spies.

MILTON.

Yet here and there we grant a gentle bride, Whose temper betters by the father's side; Unlike the rest that double human care, Fond to relieve, or resolute to share.

PARNELL.

90

SHAKSPEARE.

You cataracts and hurricanes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples.