The Poets and Poetry of England: In the Nineteenth Century

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Rufus Wilmot Griswold
Carey, 1845 - 504 pages
 

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Page 51 - I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
Page 188 - What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle, Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile; In vain with lavish kindness The gifts of God are strown ; The heathen in his blindness Bows down to wood and stone.
Page 58 - MILTON ! thou should'st be living at this hour : England hath need of thee : she is a fen Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart : Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea : Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou...
Page 228 - There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more...
Page 308 - And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel ; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease ; For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Page 91 - Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company! — To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends, And youths and maidens gay!
Page 68 - She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand ere her mother could bar, " Now tread we a measure,
Page 304 - Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She seem'da splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven: — Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
Page 57 - O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction : not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest — Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: — Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us,...
Page 235 - And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent ! THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL SWEPT.

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