TEARS
We look through gloom and storm-drift
Beyond the years:
The soul would have no rainbow
Had the eyes no tears.
Nihil enim lacryma citius arescit.
Nothing dries sooner than a tear.
Words that weep and tears that speak.
And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.
Cowter—The Hose.
No radiant pearl, which crested Fortune wears,
No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's ears,
Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch
adorn,
Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn,
Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows
Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.
Erasmus Darwin—The Botanic Garden. Pt. II. Canto III. L. 459.
a What precious drops are those,
Which silently each other's track pursue,
Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?
Dryden—The Conquest of Grenada. Pt. II.
Act III. Sc. 1.
Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that's gone:
Violets plucked the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.
John Fletcher—Queen of Corinth. Act IV.
Sc. 1. Not in original folio. Said to be
spurious.
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.
Gray—Eton College. St. 5.
Ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.
Gray—Progress of Poesy. III. 1. L. 12.
And weep the more, because I weep in vain.
Gray—Sonnet. On the Death of Mr. West.
Never a tear bedims the eye
That time and patience will not dry.
Bret Harte—Lost Galleon.
Accept these grateful tears! for thee they flow,
For thee, that ever felt another's woe!
Homer—Iliad. Bk. XIX. L. 319
| note = Pope's trans.
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread.
Hood—Song of the Shirt.
Oh! would I were dead now,
Or up in my bed now,
To cover my head now
And have a good cry!
Hood—A Table of Errata.
TEARS
Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi.
If you wish me to weep, you yourself must
first feel grief.
Horace—Ars Poetica. V. 102.
Hinc ilia? lacrymse.
Hence these tears.
Horace—Epistles. I. 19. 41. Terence—
Andria. I. 1. 99.
If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.
Samuel Johnson. Ridiculing Lope de
Vega's lines, "Se acquien los leones vence,"
etc.
On parent knees, a naked new-born child
Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled;
So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep
Calm thou may'st smile, while all around thee
weep.
Sir William Jones. Taken from Enchanted
Fruit. Six Hymns to Hindu Deities. See
sketch prefixed to his Poetical Works.
(1847) Also in his Ufe. P. 110.
| seealso = (See also Wesley)
| topic = Tears
| page = 781
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.
Keats—To One Who Has Been Long in City
Pent.
All kin' o' smily round the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.
Lowelii—Biglow Papers. Second Series. The
Courtin'. St. 21.
Tell me, ye winged winds
That round my pathway roar,
Know ye not some spot
Where mortals weep no more?
Charles Mackay—Tell Me Ye
Winds. The Inquiry.
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
| author = Milton
| work = Lycidas. L. 14.
Thrice he assay'd, and, thrice in spite of scorn,
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.
| author = Milton
| work = Paradise Lost.
| place = Bk. I. L. 619.
The glorious Angel, who was keeping
The gates of Light, beheld her weeping;
And, as he nearer drew and listen'd
To her sad song, a tear-drop glisten'd
Within his eyelids, like the spray
From Eden's fountain, where it lies
On the blue flow'r, which—Bramins say—
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. Paradise and the Peri.
O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,
The thochts o' bygane years
Still fling their shadows ower my path,
And blind my een wi' tears.
Wm. Motherwell—Jeanie Morrison.
