The Book of Pleasures: Containing The Pleasures of Hope

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Clark & Austin, 1851 - Hope - 187 pages

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Page 9 - AT summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye, Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky ? Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear More sweet than all the landscape smiling near ?'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Page 58 - Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be, The tears of Love were hopeless, but for thee! If in that frame no deathless spirit dwell, If that faint murmur be the last farewell, If Fate unite the faithful but to part, Why is their memory sacred to the heart ? Why does the brother of my childhood seem Restored a while in every pleasing dream?
Page 50 - Unfading Hope ; when life's last embers burn, When soul to soul, and dust to dust return ! Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour ! Oh ! then, thy kingdom comes ! Immortal Power ! What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey The morning dream of life's eternal day...
Page 119 - Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth Of mortal man, the Sovereign Maker said, That not in humble nor in brief delight, Not in the fading echoes of renown, Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap, The soul should find enjoyment : but from these Turning disdainful to an equal good, Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view...
Page 20 - Piled on the steep, her blazing faggots burn To hail the bark that never can return; And still she waits, but scarce forbears to weep That constant love can linger on the deep. And, mark the wretch, whose wanderings never knew The world's regard, that soothes, though half untrue ; Whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore, But found not pity when it err'd no more. Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye Th...
Page 113 - From Heaven my strains begin; from Heaven descends The flame of genius to the human breast, And love and beauty, and poetic joy And inspiration. Ere the radiant Sun Sprang from the east, or 'mid the vault of night The Moon suspended her serener lamp ; Ere mountains, woods, or streams...
Page 117 - Who but rather turns To Heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view, Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame ? Who that, from Alpine heights, his labouring eye Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave Through mountains; plains, through empires black with shade And continents of sand ; will turn his gaze To mark the windings of a scanty rill That murmurs at his feet ? The high-born soul Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing Beneath its native quarry.
Page 18 - No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine; No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine ; Bright as his manly sire the son shall be In form and soul; but, ah ! more blest than he ! Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love at last, Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past— "With many a smile my solitude repay, And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.
Page 184 - Reveals the charms of Nature. Ask the swain Who journeys homeward from a summer day's Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils And due repose, he loiters to behold The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds. O'er all the western sky ; full soon, I ween, His rude expression and untutor'd airs, Beyond the power of language, will unfold The form of beauty smiling at his heart, How lovely!
Page 185 - Of envied life ; though only few possess Patrician treasures or imperial state ; Yet nature's care, to all her children just, With richer treasures and an ampler state, Endows, at large, whatever happy man Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp, The rural honors his.

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