Wordsworth to Dobell

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Thomas Humphry Ward
Macmillan and Company, 1880 - English poetry

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Page 15 - Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains ; and of all that we behold From this green earth ; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear, — both what they half create, And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.
Page 369 - Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : What if my leaves are falling like its own The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! Be through my lips to unawakened earth...
Page 78 - Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Page 449 - And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel ; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease ; For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Page 316 - O'er the grave where our hero we buried. We buried him darkly at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning ; By the struggling moonbeam's misty light And the lantern dimly burning.
Page 277 - Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed, — in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving; — boundless, endless, and sublime, — The image of Eternity, — the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
Page 13 - To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime ; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened : — that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, • — Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul : While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and...
Page 445 - As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side ; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades : Was it a vision, or a waking dream ? Fled is that music : — do I wake or sleep ? ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.
Page 445 - Darkling I listen ; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — To thy high requiem become a sod.
Page 449 - Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.