The Republic of Letters: A Selection, in Poetry and Prose, from the Works of the Most Eminent Writers, with Many Original Pieces, Volume 1

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Alexander Whitelaw
Blackie & Son, 1835 - English literature

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Page 349 - Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Page 346 - My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky : So was it when my life began ; So is it now I am a man ; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die ! " The child is father of the man ; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.
Page 102 - HAPPY is England ! I could be content To see no other verdure than its own; To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent : Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment For skies Italian, and an inward groan To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Page 320 - Blessings be with them — and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares, The Poets, who on earth have made us Heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays ! Oh ! might my name be numbered among theirs, Then gladly would I end my mortal days.
Page 417 - They are the only persons who, in one sense, retain it always, and they furnish their neighbours with the same idea. The other children grow up to manhood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of mortality. This one alone is rendered an immortal child. Death has arrested it with his kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of youth and innocence.
Page 343 - I instantly distended the lower part of the flower, and, placing it in a full light, could discover troops of little insects frisking and capering with wild jollity among the narrow pedestals that supported its leaves, and the little threads that occupied its centre.
Page 16 - He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever Can be between the cradle and the grave Crowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour! If on his own high will, a willing slave, He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor.
Page 243 - I've touched the fellow's life ! it must be more than two foot of blubber that stops my iron from reaching the life of any whale that ever sculled the ocean !" " I believe you have saved yourself the trouble of using the bayonet you have rigged for a lance...
Page 343 - On the polished bottoms of these, brighter than Parian marble, walked in pairs, alone, or in larger companies, the winged inhabitants : these, from little dusky flies, for such only the nake'd eye would have shown them, were raised to glorious glittering animals, stained with living purple, and with a glossy gold, that would have made all the labors of the loom contemptible in the comparison.
Page 418 - Wherever there is a province of that benevolent and all-accessible empire, whether on earth or elsewhere, such are the gentle spirits that must inhabit it. To such simplicity, or the resemblance of it, must they come. Such must be the ready confidence of their hearts, and creativeness of their fancy. And so ignorant must they be of the " knowledge of good and evil...

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