English Sonnets by Poets of the Past

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Samuel Waddington
G. Bell and Sons, 1888 - 238 pages
 

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Page 17 - O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses...
Page 83 - Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies ; While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We Men, who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish ; — be it so ! Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour ; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know.
Page 16 - Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.
Page 73 - Two Voices are there ; one is of the Sea, One of the Mountains ; each a mighty Voice : In both from age to age Thou didst rejoice, They were thy chosen Music, Liberty...
Page 24 - When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme, In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights ; Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you master now.
Page 71 - IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration...
Page 139 - Homer ruled as his demesne ; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken ; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He...
Page 15 - When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste...
Page 121 - To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
Page 25 - Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove : O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth "s unknown, although his height be taken.

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