A Compendium of English Literature: Chronologically Arranged from Sir John Mandeville to William Cowper : Consisting of Biographical Sketches of the Authors, Selections from Their Works, with Notes, Explanatory, Illustrative, and Directing to the Best Editions and to Various Criticisms : Designed as a Text-book for the Highest Classes in Schools and for Junior Classes in Colleges, as Well as for Private Reading

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E.C. & J. Biddle, 1858 - 762 páginas
 

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Página 268 - Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam...
Página 255 - Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Página 318 - Go, lovely Rose ! Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young, And shuns to have her graces spied, That had'st thou sprung In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired : Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die ! that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee, —...
Página 599 - Th' applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes...
Página 598 - The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades' the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds ; Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient...
Página 457 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Página 255 - Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine...
Página 143 - With a bare bodkin ? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of ? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...
Página 145 - Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad, Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds, Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their ( emperor; Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold, The civil...
Página 723 - It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy.

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