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Quotes about vainglory, page 2

Old Town Types

I can not recall his heyday; for I knew him in the day
When his curly hair had thinned a bit, his waxed moustache grown grey.
That he kept the local fruit shop was a trifle in life's plan;
For our Captain Curly Taplin was a military man.
The details of his uniform grow vague now and remote,
All save a pipeclayed helmet and a gaudy scarlet coat.
'Not the Prooshians nor the Rooshians,' Captain Taplin oft averred,
'Shall take this country from us! Harrumph! My Word!'

Our Captain Curly Taplin was the pride of our old town,
Most especially the ladies; for that military frown,
That piercing eye, the gruff command that rumbled in his throat,
The fiercely spiked and waxed moustache, the glowing scarlet coat
Were ideal in the female eye. When our militiamen
Marched out - ah, what a figure was our gallant captain then -
A figure that, in these dull days, might seem a shade absurd,
But - 'My men are drilled and ready, sir! Harrumph! My Word!'

Then came dread news that sent him straight to don his scarlet coat:
Our cables had been severed, and the Russians were afloat!

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Mates

It boots not to retrace the path
To ages dim and hoar,
When Man, at the domestic hearth,
First learned the art of war,
And - since in battle one must fall -
Held his defeated spouse in thrall,
That she should fight no more;
And thereby doomed to sleep and sloth
Strength that in action strengthened both.

It boots not when the better day
First showed a glint of morn,
Nor whose the eye that, in its ray,
Saw Woman's chains outworn;
Nor which was first and which was last
When savage rivalry was past
And chivalry was born;
Enough for us that, free or pent,
Her primal treasure was misspent.

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Vainglory bears no grain.

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Vainglory blossoms but never bears.

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Vainglory blossoms, and bears no fruit.

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El Harith

Lightly took she her leave of me, Asmá--u,
went no whit as a guest who outstays a welcome;
Went forgetting our trysts, Burkát Shemmá--u,
all the joys of our love, our love's home, Khalsá--u.
Muhayyátu, she thee forgets, Sifáhu,
thee, Fitákon, Aádibon, thee Wafá--u.
Thee, Riád el Katá, thee, vale of Shérbub,
'Anak, thee, Shobatána, and thee, Ablá--u.
Nay, ye lost are to me with my lost glory;
nay, though tears be my meat, weeping wins no woman.
Yet, a snare to my eyes, afar was kindled
fire by night on the hill. It was Hind's love--beacon.
Blindly now do I watch her from Khezáza;
woe, the warmth of it, woe,--though the hilltops redden!
Woe its blaze from Akík, its flame from Shákhseyn!
woe the signal alight for me, Hind's love--incense!

Out on tears and despair! I go free, sundered;
here stand doors of relief. Who hath fled escapeth.
Mount I light on my nága. No hen ostrich

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From 'The Testament of Beauty

'Twas at that hour of beauty when the setting sun
squandereth his cloudy bed with rosy hues, to flood
his lov'd works as in turn he biddeth them Good-night;
and all the towers and temples and mansions of men
face him in bright farewell, ere they creep from their pomp
naked beneath the darkness;- while to mortal eyes
'tis given, ifso they close not of fatigue, nor strain
at lamplit tasks-'tis given, as for a royal boon
to beggarly outcasts in homeless vigil, to watch
where uncurtain's behind the great windows of space
Heav'n's jewel'd company circleth unapproachably-
'Twas at sunset that I, fleeing to hide my soul
in refuge of beauty from a mortal distress,
walk'd alone with the Muse in her garden of thought,
discoursing at liberty with the mazy dreams
that came wavering pertinaciously about me; as when
the small bats, issued from their hangings, flitter o'erhead
thru' the summer twilight, with thin cries to and fro
hunting in muffled flight atween the stars and flowers.
Then fell I in strange delusion, illusion strange to tell;

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Homer

The Odyssey: Book 18

Now there came a certain common tramp who used to go begging all
over the city of Ithaca, and was notorious as an incorrigible
glutton and drunkard. This man had no strength nor stay in him, but he
was a great hulking fellow to look at; his real name, the one his
mother gave him, was Arnaeus, but the young men of the place called
him Irus, because he used to run errands for any one who would send
him. As soon as he came he began to insult Ulysses, and to try and
drive him out of his own house.
"Be off, old man," he cried, "from the doorway, or you shall be
dragged out neck and heels. Do you not see that they are all giving me
the wink, and wanting me to turn you out by force, only I do not
like to do so? Get up then, and go of yourself, or we shall come to
blows."
Ulysses frowned on him and said, "My friend, I do you no manner of
harm; people give you a great deal, but I am not jealous. There is
room enough in this doorway for the pair of us, and you need not
grudge me things that are not yours to give. You seem to be just
such another tramp as myself, but perhaps the gods will give us better
luck by and by. Do not, however, talk too much about fighting or you
will incense me, and old though I am, I shall cover your mouth and

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