English Poems, Volume 1

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Clarendon Press, 1872

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Page 100 - What though the field be lost? All is not lost — the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield: And what is else not to be overcome?
Page 150 - And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much the rather thou, celestial Light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate ; there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.
Page 79 - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days : But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise...
Page 78 - Lycidas ? For neither were ye playing on the steep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: Ay me! I fondly dream — Had ye been there — for what could that have done?
Page 202 - Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run Perpetual circle, multiform ; and mix And nourish all things ; let your ceaseless change Vary to our Great Maker still new praise.
Page 77 - Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compels me to disturb your season due : For Lycidas* is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer : Who would not sing for Lycidas ? He knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Page 202 - Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere, While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Page 98 - Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all temples th' upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread, Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss, And mad'st it pregnant...
Page 149 - Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song...
Page 201 - These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty, thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair ; thyself how wondrous then ! Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens, To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.

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