And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Send me no more reviews of any kind. I will read no more of evil or good in that line. Walter Scott has not read a review of himself for thirteen years .
I can't but say it is an awkward sight To see one's native land receding through The growing waters; it unmans one quite, Especially when life is rather new.
What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.
Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires, And decorate the verse herself inspires: This fact, in virtue's name, let Crabbe attest,- Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.