Sketches of English Literature from the Fourteenth to the Present Century

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Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1852 - 404 pages
 

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Page 356 - The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar ; Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
Page 365 - There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth, Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth : Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot Who do thy work, and know it not: Oh!
Page 365 - The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Page 152 - Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky...
Page 127 - This many summers in a sea of glory ; But far beyond my depth ; my high-blown pride At length broke under me ; and now has left me, Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Page 352 - All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As when night is bare From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.
Page 124 - To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery ? O, yes it doth ; a thousand-fold it doth. And to conclude, — the shepherd's homely curds, His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, Is far beyond a prince's delicates, His viands sparkling in a golden cup, • His body couched in a curious bed, When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.
Page 154 - God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
Page 128 - Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee ; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's...
Page 373 - That crazed that bold and lovely knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night ; That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade, — There came and look'd him in the face An angel beautiful and bright ; And that he knew it was a fiend...

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