Poems, Longer and ShorterW. Pickering, 1838 - 356 pages |
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ÆNEID beauty birds bliss blue boughs break the waves breast breath breathless song breeze bright brow buds calm CHARLES JOHN VAUGHAN cheek clouds cold crown cut plant dark dear deep doth dwell earth face faint fair fancy fear fling flowers fond gentle glad gleam glory glow golden grace grass green hath heart heaven hour iron guard kiss light lips look love's loved thee lute Marco mood moon nature's night o'er pain peace PHILIP Gell pure quiet rest rosy round sate scent sere serene shade shadow shine sight silent sleep smile soft song SONNETS sorrow sorrowful dream soul spirit spring starry stars stirred strong subtle music sunny sweet tender thine things thou art thought thousand skies throng trees Twas twere twill twine unshelved unto voice waves ween wild wind words
Popular passages
Page 352 - The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes. With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles, Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs Uniting their close union ; the woven leaves Make...
Page 309 - But our path is not backwards but onwards."—This thought is expressed very beautifully in lines as wise and true as they are poetical: " Grieve not for these: nor dare lament That thus from childhood's thoughts we roam: Not backward are our glances bent, But forward to our Father's home. Eternal growth has no such fears, But freshening still with seasons past, The old man clogs its earlier years, And simple childhood comes the last.
Page 347 - ... spirits, who discern and own that secret language, of which the privacy is not violated, though spoken in hearing of the uninitiated, — because it is not understood. There is an unobserved beauty that smiles on us alone; and the more beautiful to us, because we feel as if chosen out from a crowd of lovers. Something analogous to this is felt in the grandest scenes of Nature and of Art. Let a hundred persons look from a hill-top over some transcendent landscape. Each will select from the wide-spread...
Page 353 - You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry 'Hold, hold!
Page 272 - MOTHER'S LOVE. HE sang so wildly did the Boy, That you could never tell, If 'twas a madman's voice you heard, Or if the spirit of a bird Within his heart did dwell. A bird that dallies with his voice Among the matted branches ; Or on the free blue air his note To pierce, and fall, and rise, and float, With bolder utterance launches ; None ever was so sweet as he, The boy that wildly sang to me, Though toilsome was the way and long, He led me not to lose the song. But when again we stood below The...
Page 346 - Rousseau or Byron, it is otherwise. Each of us must have been aware in himself of a singular illusion, by which these disclosures, when read with that tender or high interest which attaches to poetry, seem to have something of the nature of private and confidential communications. They are not felt, while we read, as declaration* published to the world, — but almost as secrets whispered to chosen ears.
Page 272 - Within his heart did dwell : A bird that dallies with his voice Among the matted branches ; Or on the free blue air his note To pierce, and fall, and rise, and float, With bolder utterance launches, None ever was so sweet as he, The boy that wildly sang to me ; Though toilsome was the way and long, He led me not to lose the song. But when again we stood below The unhidden sky, his feet Grew slacker, and his note more slow, But more than doubly sweet. He led me then a little way Athwart the barren...
Page 347 - ... from a crowd of lovers. Something analogous to this is felt in the grandest scenes of Nature and of Art. Let a hundred persons look from a hilltop over some transcendent landscape. Each will select from the wide-spread glory at his feet, for his more special love and delight, some different glimpse of sunshine, — or solemn grove, — or embowered spire, — or brown-mouldering ruin, — or castellated cloud. During their contemplation, the soul of each man is amidst its own creations, and in...
Page 348 - A great poet may address the whole world in the language of intensest passion, concerning objects of which, rather than speak, face to face, with any one human being on earth, he would perish in his misery. For it is in solitude that he utters what is to be wafted by all the winds of heaven. There are, during his inspiration, present with him only the shadows of men. He is not daunted, or perplexed, or disturbed, or repelled by real living breathing features. He can updraw just as much as he chuses...
Page 348 - ... ought, it might seem, to shock and revolt our sympathy. A great poet may address the whole world in the language of intensest passion, concerning objects of which, rather than speak, face to face, with any one human being on earth, he would perish in his misery. For it is in solitude that he utters what is to be wafted by all the winds of heaven. There are, during his inspiration, present with him only the shadows of men. He is not daunted, or perplexed, or disturbed, or repelled by real living...