=Play.=

The play ’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
1341
SHAKS.:  Hamlet, Act ii., Sc. 2.

=Pleasure.=

Pleasure, and revenge,
Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice
Of any true decision.
1342
SHAKS.:  Troil. and Cress., Act ii., Sc. 2.

But not e’en pleasure to excess is good:  What most elates, then sinks the soul as low. 1343 THOMSON:  Castle of Indolence, Canto i., St. 63.

Pleasure must succeed to pleasure, else past pleasure turns to pain. 1344 ROBERT BROWNING:  La Saisiaz, Line 170.

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed.
1345
BURNS:  Tam o’ Shanter.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth’d his soul to pleasures.
1346
DRYDEN:  Alex.  Feast, Line 97.

=Poetry—­Poets.=

It is not poetry that makes men poor;
For few do write that were not so before.
1347
BUTLER:  Misc.  Thoughts, Line 441.

A verse may find him who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice.
1348
HERBERT:  Temple, Church Porch, St. 1.

Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is love. 1349 BAILEY:  Festus, Sc. Another and a Better World.

The poor poet
Worships without reward, nor hopes to find
A heaven save in his worship.
1350
GEORGE ELIOT:  Spanish Gypsy, Bk. i.

God is the PERFECT POET,
Who in creation acts his own conceptions.
1351
ROBERT BROWNING:  Paracelsus, Sc. 2.

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong, And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song. 1352 KEATS:  Epis. to George Felton Mathews.

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares.—­ The poets who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight, by heavenly lays. 1353 WORDSWORTH:  Personal Talk.

=Pole.=

True as the needle to the pole,
Or as the dial to the sun.
1354
BARTON BOOTH:  Song.

=Pomp.=

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time,
  So “Bonnie Doon” but tarry;
Blot out the epic’s stately rhyme,
  But spare his “Highland Mary”!
1355
WHITTIER:  Lines on Burns

=Poppies.=

As full-blown poppies, overcharg’d with rain,
Decline the head, and drooping kiss the plain,—­
So sinks the youth.
1356
POPE:  Iliad, Bk. viii., Line 371.

=Popularity.=

O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts: 
And that, which would appear offence in us,
His countenance, like richest alchymy,
Will change to virtue and to worthiness.
1357
SHAKS.:  Jul.  Caesar, Act i., Sc. 3.

Bareheaded, popularly low he bow’d,
And paid the salutations of the crowd.
1358
DRYDEN:  Palamon and Arcite, Bk. iii., Line 689.