The Writings of James Russell Lowell: Literary essaysHoughton, Mifflin and Company, 1891 - American literature |
Common terms and phrases
artist Aurengzebe beauty Ben Jonson better birds blank verse called Canterbury Tales character charm Châteaubriand Chaucer Coleridge conscious criticism Dante delightful doubt Dryden easy English epical poetry expression familiar fancy feeling force French genius give Goethe Greek Hamlet hint humor ideal imagination John Dryden Jonson judgment kind language Latin less literary literature living look Macbeth Marie de France meaning ment metrist Milton mind modern Molière moral nation never numbers once original Ovid passage passion perhaps phrase Piers Ploughman play poem poet poetic poetry Pope Preface prose Provençal rhyme Rutebeuf satire says seems sense sentiment Shake Shakespeare sing snow sometimes soul speak style sure tells thing thou thought tion tragedy Trouvères true truth ture versification Voltaire vulgar whole wholly winter words Wordsworth writing wrote
Popular passages
Page 172 - Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long, E'en wondered at because he dropt no sooner ; Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years ; Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more, Till, like a clock worn out with eating Time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Page 78 - If to do were as easy as to know what were^ good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.
Page 342 - Quell' uno e due e tre che sempre vive, E regna sempre in tre e due ed uno, Non circonscritto e tutto circonscrive, Tre volte era cantato da ciascuno Di quelli spirti con tal melodia, Ch...
Page 302 - 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 108 - Like rose-buds, stuck i' th' lily-skin about. Each little pimple had a tear in it, To wail the fault its rising did commit : eo Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife, Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life. Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, The cabinet of a richer soul within ? No comet need foretell his change drew on, Whose corpse might seem a constellation.
Page 121 - For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds ; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the...
Page 106 - Oxford to him a dearer name shall be, Than his own mother university. Thebes did his green, unknowing youth engage; He chooses Athens in his riper age.
Page 302 - 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. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring...
Page 62 - Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change ! Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange ; They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old, And rather make them born to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past...
Page 43 - When proud-pied April dressed in all his trim Hath put a spirit of youth in everything', That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; Nor did I wonder at the...