Tuesday, March 19, 2024 Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.

James Beattie (1735 – 1803)


Scottish scholar and writer.
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James Beattie
He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.
Beattie quotes
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
Oh when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?
Beattie
What is a law, if those who make it
Become the forwardest to break it?




Beattie James quotes
Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar?
Beattie James
By the glare of false science betray’d,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind.
James Beattie quotes
Ah! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!
James Beattie
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.
Beattie James quotes
Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.
Beattie
Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;
Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.
Beattie James
'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but you woodlands I mourn not for you!
For spring is returning your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance and glittering with dew.
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn,
Kind nature the embryo blossom shall save;
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
James Beattie
Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrewn,
Fast by a brook or fountain’s murmuring wave;
And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!




James Beattie quotes
When squint-eyed Slander plies the unhallow'd tongue,
From poison'd maw when Treason weaves his line,
And Muse apostate (infamy to song!)
Grovels, low muttering, at Sedition's shrine.
James Beattie
Laws, as we read in ancient sages,
Have been like cobwebs in all ages:
Cobwebs for little flies are spread,
And laws for little folks are made;
But if an insect of renown,
Hornet or beetle, wasp or drone,
Be caught in quest of sport or plunder,
The flimsy fetter flies in sunder.
Beattie quotes
At the close of the day when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And naught but the nightingale’s song in the grove.
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