Through Italy with the Poets

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Moffat, Yard & Company, 1908 - British - 429 pages

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Page 238 - No sound of joy or sorrow Was heard from either bank ; But friends and foes in dumb surprise, With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank. And when above the surges They saw his crest appear, All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer.
Page 378 - I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand : I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand...
Page 33 - I go in the rain, and, more than needs, A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, For they fling, whoever has a mind, Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. Thus I entered, and thus I go ! In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. " Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me ? " — God might question ; now instead, 'Tis God shall repay : I am safer so.
Page 227 - Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, The God of life, and poesy, and light — The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight, The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one glance the Deity.
Page 419 - I love all waste And solitary places ; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be...
Page 290 - Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround — Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ; — To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
Page 289 - I see the deep's untrampled floor With green and purple sea-weeds strown ; I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown...
Page 379 - In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone, but beauty still is here. States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy...
Page 239 - quoth false Sextus ; " Will not the villain drown ? But for this stay, ere close of day We should have sacked the town ! " " Heaven help him ! " quoth Lars Porsena, "And bring him safe to shore; For such a gallant feat of arms Was never seen before.
Page 128 - twere a little sky Gulfed in a world below ; A firmament of purple light Which in the dark earth lay, More boundless than the depth of night, And purer than the day — In which the lovely forests grew As in the upper air, More perfect both in shape and hue Than any spreading there.

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