The gift book of English poetry

Front Cover

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 364 - Oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle. O Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide, That stream'd thro...
Page 215 - One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; "The next with dirges due in sad array Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne — Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.
Page 114 - The world recedes: it disappears! Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears With sounds seraphic ring: Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O Grave! where is thy Victory? O Death! where is thy Sting.
Page 229 - And even the bare-worn common is denied. If to the city sped — what waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share; To see ten thousand baneful arts combined To pamper luxury and thin mankind...
Page 361 - But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; Wi...
Page 214 - Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse, The place of fame and elegy supply : And many a holy text around she strews That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er...
Page 223 - How often have I bless'd the coming day When toil remitting lent its turn to play, And all the village train, from labour free, Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree...
Page 120 - Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs...
Page 363 - Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays; Hope 'springs exulting on triumphant wing,' That thus they all shall meet in future days, There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear, While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Page 206 - WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Throng'd around her magic cell...

Bibliographic information