Who digs hills because they do aspire,
Throws down one mountain to oast up a higher.
The mountain was in labour, and Jove was afraid, but it brought forth a mouse.
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Thro' all the world she followed him.
:To pile Ossa upon Pelion.
MOURNING
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him
wept.
O! sing unto my roundelay,
O! drop thy briny tear with me.
Dance no more at holiday,
Like a running river be;
My love is dead,
Gone to his death bed
All under the willow tree.
Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Belov'd till life can charm no more,
And mourn'd till Pity's self be dead.
It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting.
When I am dead, no pageant train
Shall waste their sorrows at my bier,
Nor worthless pomp of homage vain
Stain it with hypocritic tear.
Forever honour'd, and forever mourn'd.
Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi.
If you wish me to weep, you must mourn
first yourself.
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath.
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly; these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play,
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.
Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure
For life's worst ills to have no time to feel them.
Let us weep in our darkness—but weep not for
him!
Not for him—who, departing, leaves millions in
tears!
Not for him—who has died full of honor and
years!
Not for him—who ascended Fame's ladder so
high.
From the round at the top he has stepped to the
sky.
He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.
MOUSE
I holde a mouses herte nat worth a leek.
That hath but oon hole for to sterte to.
The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken.
It had need to bee
A wylie mouse that should breed in the cat's eare.
"Once on a time there was a mouse," quoth she,
"Who sick of worldly tears and laughter, grew
Enamoured of a sainted privacy;
To all terrestrial things he bade adieu,
And entered, far from mouse, or cat, or man,
A thick-walled cheese, the best of Parmesan."
When a building is about to fall down all the mice desert it.
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.
The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge
From rascals worse than they.
