Two lives that once part, are as ships that divide
When, moment on moment, there rushes between
The one and the other, a sea;—
Ah, never can fall from the days that have been
A gleam on the years that shall be!
As vessels starting from ports thousands of
miles apart pass close to each other in the naked
breadths of the ocean, nay, sometimes even touch
in the dark.
The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness:
So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
In life there are meetings which seem
Like a fate.
And soon, too soon, we part with pain,
To sail o'er silent seas again.
Some day, some day of days, threading the street
With idle, heedless pace,
Unlooking for such grace,
I shall behold your face!
Some day, some day of days, thus may we meet.
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him.
When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 1.
We twain have met like the ships upon the sea,
Who behold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;
One little hour! and then, away they speed
On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam,
To meet no more.
Alas, by what rude fate
Our lives, like ships at sea, an instant meet,
Then part forever on their courses fleet.
We shall meet but we shall miss her.
MELANCHOLY
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so damn'd as melancholy.
.
AH my joys to this are folly,
Naught so sweet as melancholy.
As melancholy as an unbraced drum.
With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sate retired;
And, from her wild, sequester'd seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul.
Tell us, pray, what devil
This melancholy is, which can transform
Men into monsters.
Melancholy
Is not, as you conceive, indisposition
Of body, but the mind's disease.
John Ford—The Lover's Melancholy. Act III.
Sc. 1. L. 111.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown;
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.
There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.
Employment, sir, and hardships, prevent melancholy.
Moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness.
Go—you may call it madness, folly,
You shall not chase my gloom away.
There's such a charm in melancholy,
I would not, if I could, be gay!
I can suck melancholy out of a song:
O melancholy!
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare
Might easiliest harbour in?
