Being all fashioned of the self-same dust,
Let us be merciful as well as just.
The corn that makes the holy bread
By which the soul of man is fed,
The holy bread, the food unpriced,
Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.
Mercy stood in the cloud, with eye that wept
Essential love.
To hide the fault I see:
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.
'Tis vain to flee; till gentle Mercy show
Her better eye, the farther off we go,
The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow.
Think not the good,
The gentle deeds of mercy thou hast done,
Shall die forgotten all; the poor, the prisoner,
The fatherless, the friendless, and the widow,
Who daily owe the bounty of thy hand,
Shall cry to Heaven, and pull a blessing on thee.
Mortem misericors saepe pro vita dabit.
Mercy often inflicts death.
Whereto serves mercy,
But to confront the visage of offence?
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God!
My soul flies through these wounds to seek out thee.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
Who will not mercie unto others show,
How can he mercie ever hope to have?</poem>
Pulchrum est vitam donare minori.
It is noble to grant life to the vanquished.
Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven
This Minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavour,
And memory of earth's bitter leaven
Effaced forever.
MERIT
(See also Worth)
Thy father's merit sets thee up to view,
And shows thee in the fairest point of light,
To make thy virtues, or thy faults, conspicuous.
View the whole scene, with critic judgment scan,
And then deny him merit if you can.
Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone
Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own.
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exists.
The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool.
The world rewards the appearance of merit oftener than merit itself.
