The slaves of custom and established mode,
  With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
  Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
  True to the jingling of our leader’s bells.
Tirocinium.  W. COWPER.

  Assume a virtue, if you have it not. 
  That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
  Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
  That to the use of actions fair and good
  He likewise gives a frock or livery,
  That aptly is put on.
Hamlet, Act iii.  Sc. 4.  SHAKESPEARE.

                        Custom calls me to ’t;
  What custom wills, in all things should we do ’t,
  The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
  And mountainous error be too highly heapt
  For truth to o’erpeer.
Coriolanus, Act ii.  Sc. 3.  SHAKESPEARE.

Such is the custom of Branksome Hall. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I.  SIR W. SCOTT.

  The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
  Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
  My thrice-driven bed of down.
Othello, Act i.  Sc. 3.  SHAKESPEARE.

  But to my mind,—­though I am native here,
  And to the manner born,—­it is a custom
  More honored in the breach, than the observance.
Hamlet, Act i.  Sc. 4.  SHAKESPEARE.

DAY.

  Day! 
  Faster and more fast,
  O’er night’s brim, day boils at last;
  Boils, pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim.
Pippa Passes:  Introduction.  R. BROWNING.

  How troublesome is day! 
  It calls us from our sleep away;
  It bids us from our pleasant dreams awake,
  And sends us forth to keep or break
    Our promises to pay. 
  How troublesome is day!
Fly-By-Night.  T.L.  PEACOCK.

  Blest power of sunshine!—­genial day,
  What balm, what life is in thy ray! 
  To feel there is such real bliss,
  That had the world no joy but this,
  To sit in sunshine calm and sweet,—­
  It were a world too exquisite
  For man to leave it for the gloom,
  The deep, cold shadow, of the tomb.
Lalla Rookh:  The Fire Worshippers.  T. MOORE.

DEATH.

Death calls ye to the crowd of common men. Cupid and Death.  J. SHIRLEY.

  A worm is in the bud of youth,
    And at the root of age.
Stanza subjoined to a Bill of Mortality.  W. COWPER.

  The tall, the wise, the reverend head
  Must lie as low as ours.
A Funeral Thought, Bk.  II.  Hymn 63.  DR. I. WATTS.

Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and—­farewell king!
K.  Richard II., Act iii.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There’s a lean fellow beats all conquerors.
Old Fortunatus.  T. DEKKER.