Crabbe

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Macmillan, 1903 - 210 pages

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Page 132 - O Lady! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live: Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud! And would we aught behold, of higher worth, Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth...
Page 51 - Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side; But in his duty prompt at every call, He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt, for all.
Page 50 - Where the thin harvest waves its wither'd ears; Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye : There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, And to the ragged infant threaten war...
Page 52 - The holy stranger to these dismal walls ; And doth not he, the pious man, appear, He, "passing rich with forty pounds a year?
Page 82 - But silence ruled the still domain. Upon that boundless plain, below, The setting sun's last rays were shed, And gave a mild and sober glow, Where all were still, asleep, or dead ; Vast ruins in the midst were spread, Pillars and pediments sublime, Where the grey moss had form'da bed, And clothed the crumbling spoils of time.
Page 59 - But when the men beside their station took, The maidens with them, and with these the cook; When one huge wooden bowl before them stood, Fill'd with huge balls of farinaceous food ; With bacon, mass saline, where never lean Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen; When from a single horn the party drew Their copious draughts of heavy ale and new ; When the coarse cloth she saw, with many a stain, Soil'd by rude hinds who cut and came again— She could not breathe; but, with a heavy sigh, Rein'd...
Page 48 - THE Village Life, and every care that reigns O'er youthful peasants and declining swains; What labour yields, and what, that labour past, Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last; What form the real picture of the poor, Demand a song — the Muse can give no more. I Fled are those times when, in harmonious strains, (The rustic poet praised his native plains. No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse, Their country's beauty or their nymphs...
Page 33 - With awe, around these silent walks I tread; These are the lasting mansions of the dead:— " The dead," methinks a thousand tongues reply: " These are the tombs of such as cannot die ! " Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime, " And laugh at all the little strife of time.
Page 51 - He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all: And, as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Page 52 - There children dwell who know no parents' care; Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there! Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed, Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed; Dejected widows with unheeded tears, And crippled age with more than childhood fears; The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they! The moping idiot, and the madman gay.

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