Oh, cruel heart! ere these posthumous papers
Have met thine eyes, I shall be out of breath;
Those cruel eyes, like two funereal tapers,
Have only lighted me the way to death.
Perchance thou wilt extinguish them in vapours,
When I am gone, and green grass covereth
Thy lover, lost; but it will be in vain—
It will not bring the vital spark again.
venerable arch flamen of Hymen. * * * Like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar.
Apollo has peeped through the shutter,
And awaken'd the witty and fair;
The boarding-school belle's in a flutter,
The twopenny post's in despair;
The breath of the morning is flinging
A magic on blossom and spray,
And cockneys and sparrows are singing
In chorus on Valentine's day.
All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine.</poem>
Saint Valentine is past;
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
VALOR
(See also Bravery, Courage)
Valor consists in the power of self-recovery.
A valiant man
Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger,
But worthily, and by selected ways,
He undertakes with reason, not by chance.
His valor is the salt t' his other virtues,
They're all unseason'd without it.
Stimulos dedit smula virtus.
He was spurred on by rival valor.
In vain doth valour bleed,
While Avarice and Rapine share the land.
When valour preys on reason,
It eats the sword it fights with.
What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,
For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his foot, away?
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard.
'Tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety.
He's truly valiant that can suffer wisely
The worst that man can breathe and make his wrongs
His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly;
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart.
To bring it into danger.
My valor is certainly going!—it is sneaking
off!—I feel it oozing out, as it were, at the palms
of my hands.
Exigui numero, sed bello vivida virtus.
Of small number, but their valour quick for
war.
VALUE
(See also Worth)
That ye might learn in us not to think of men
above that which is written.
We ought not to treat living creatures like
shoes or household belongings, which when worn
with use we throw away.
A cynic, a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because
the town where it is kept is "lighter than vanity."
Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.
