A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, from the Norman Conquest: with Numerous Specimens, Volume 2

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Page 460 - All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay, Beside the ruined tower.
Page 77 - Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases...
Page 502 - We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Page 463 - For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can ; And haply by abstruse research to steal From my own nature all the natural man— This was my sole resource, my only plan : Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almoit grown the habit of my soul.
Page 463 - Heaven lies about us in our infancy. Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy; But he beholds the light and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy. The youth who daily farther from the East Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And, by the vision splendid, Is on his way attended. At length the man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day.
Page 505 - I cannot see what flowers are at my feet Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet...
Page 505 - Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd 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 90 - To his Coy Mistress Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way To walk and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Huraber would complain.
Page 208 - Truth may, perhaps, come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ^ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
Page 360 - With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine — thy own sweet smile I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, " Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!

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