The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! 
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove’s dread clamors counterfeit,
Farewell!  Othello’s occupation’s gone!
Othello, Act iii.  Sc. 3.  SHAKESPEARE.

SOLITUDE.

  All heaven and earth are still,—­though not in sleep,
  But breathless, as we grow when feeling most: 
  And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep;—­
  All heaven and earth are still;

* * * * *

  Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
  In solitude, where we are least alone.
Childe Harold, Canto III.  LORD BYRON.

  When, musing on companions gone,
  We doubly feel ourselves alone.
Marmion, Canto II.  Introduction.  SIR W. SCOTT.

  Alone!—­that worn-out word,
  So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
  Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known,
  Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word—­Alone!
The New Timon, Pt.  II.  E. BULWER-LYTTON.

O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble, sallies of the soul! 
Who think it solitude to be alone.
Night Thoughts, Night IV.  DR. E. YOUNG.

Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,
But God to man doth speak in solitude.
Highland Solitude.  J.S.  BLACKIE.

                     But, if much converse perhaps
  Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield;
  For solitude sometimes is best society,
  And short retirement urges sweet return.
Paradise Lost, Bk.  IX.  MILTON.

Few are the faults we flatter when alone. Night Thoughts, Night V.  DR. E. YOUNG.

’Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers:  vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone—­man with his God must strive.
Childe Harold, Canto II.  LORD BYRON.

  How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude? 
  But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
  Whom I may whisper—­solitude is sweet.
Retirement.  W. COWPER.

SORROW.

  When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
  But in battalions.
Hamlet, Act iv.  Sc. 5.  SHAKESPEARE.

  One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
  So fast they follow.
Hamlet, Act iv.  Sc. 7.  SHAKESPEARE.

Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes;
They love a train, they tread each other’s heel.
Night Thoughts, Night III.  DR. E. YOUNG.

Who ne’er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who ne’er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.
Hyperion, Bk.  I. Motto:  from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister. 
H.W.  LONGFELLOW.