History of English Literature

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Page 280 - REAPER. BEHOLD her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass ! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass ! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen ! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.
Page 329 - The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: . The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Page 147 - O, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The live-long day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome...
Page 258 - Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school.
Page 224 - And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.
Page 145 - The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation, and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy ; Or, in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear ! Hip.
Page 397 - A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy? To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
Page 370 - He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him ; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself.
Page 241 - How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest ! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
Page 326 - Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows: The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west — But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly ! 10 They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the...

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