A History of English Poetry, Volume 5

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Macmillan and Company, 1905 - English poetry

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Page 215 - In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs — and God has given my share — I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting by repose...
Page 352 - No poet wept him ; but the page Of narrative sincere, That tells his name, his worth, his age, Is wet with Anson's tear: And tears by bards or heroes shed Alike immortalize the dead. I therefore purpose not, or dream, Descanting on his fate, To give the melancholy theme A more enduring date: But misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case. No voice divine the storm allayed, No light propitious shone, When, snatched from all effectual aid, We perished, each alone: But I beneath...
Page 283 - Man's imperial race from the green myriads in the peopled grass : what modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, the mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam ; of smell, the headlong lioness between, and hound sagacious on the tainted green ; of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, to that which warbles through the vernal wood; the spider's touch how exquisitely fine ! feels at each thread, and lives along the line...
Page 352 - And the scene where his melody charm'd me before Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more. My fugitive years are all hasting away, And I must ere long lie as lowly as they, With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head, Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.
Page 389 - midst its dreary dells, Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams. Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut, That from the mountain's side, Views wilds, and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil.
Page 427 - I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the box, between one of the acts, and presented him with fifty guineas, in acknowledgment, as he expressed it, for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator.
Page 210 - His best companions, innocence and health, And his best riches ignorance of wealth. But times are altered ; trade's unfeeling train Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain...
Page 305 - Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood ; And where this valley winded out, below, The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.
Page 134 - I'll venture for the vole.) Six deans, they say, must bear the pall, (I wish I knew what king to call.; Madam, your husband will attend The funeral of so good a friend.
Page 393 - Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

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