The Lay of the Last Minstrel

Front Cover
Joseph Cushing. William Fry, printer., 1812 - English poetry - 350 pages

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 67 - From wandering on a foreign strand ? If such there breathe, go mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell ; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
Page 67 - Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand...
Page 52 - True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven : It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly ; It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it doth not die ; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind.
Page 68 - Caledonia ! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child ! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires ! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand...
Page 3 - In peace. Love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Page 86 - That day of wrath, that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pass away, What power shall be the sinner's stay ? How shall he meet that dreadful day ? When, shrivelling like a parched scroll, The flaming heavens together roll, When louder yet, and yet more dread, Swells the high trump that wakes the dead...
Page 79 - O listen, listen, ladies gay ! No haughty feat of arms I tell ; Soft is the note, and sad the lay, That mourns the lovely Rosabelle. "Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew ! And, gentle ladye, deign to stay ! Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. "The blackening wave is edged with white ; To inch...
Page 80 - Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. ' The blackening wave is edged with white ; To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.
Page 45 - CALL it not vain :— they do not err, Who say, that when the Poet dies, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies : Who say, tall cliff, and cavern lone For the departed Bard make moan That mountains weep in crystal rill That flowers in tears of balm distil Through his loved groves that breezes sigh, And oaks, in deeper groan, reply; And rivers teach their rushing wave To murmur dirges...

Bibliographic information