The dances ended, all the fairy train
For pinks and daisies search'd the flow'ry plain.
This is the fairy-land; O spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls and sprites.
Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night.
They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
Set your heart at rest :
The fairyland buys not the child of me.
In silence sad,
Trip we after night's shade:
We the globe can compass soon.
Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the forefinger of an alderman.
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly.
Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew
And her conception of the joyous prime.
But light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir,
The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose,
And turned to look at her.
FAITH
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again, and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, if the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.
Faith is a higher faculty than reason.
There is one inevitable criterion of judgment touching religious faith in doctrinal matters. Can you reduce it to practice? If not, have none of it.
An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
'Take courage, soul!
Hold not thy strength in vain!
With faith o'ercome the steeps
Thy God hath set for thee.
Beyond the Alpine summits of great pain
Lieth thine Italy."
We walk by faith, not by sight.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.
Faith is a fine invention
For gentlemen who see;
But Microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.
To take up half on trust, and half to try,
Name it not faith but bungling bigotry.
We lean on Faith; and some less wise have cried,
"Behold the butterfly, the seed that's cast!"
Vain hopes that fall like flowers before the blast!
What man can look on Death unterrified?
Die Botschaft hor* ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube;
Das Wunder ist des Glaubens liebstes Kind.
Your messages I hear, but faith has not been given;
The dearest child of Faith is Miracle.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Mirror of constant faith, revered and mourn'd!
The German is the discipline of fear; ours is the discipline of faith—and faith will triumph.
