English Literature: With Illustrations from Poetry and Prose |
Common terms and phrases
A. H. BULLEN ballad beautiful Ben Jonson Beowulf birds Blodeuwedd called century cloud colour Connacht Cuchulain Darè dark dear death delight doth drama dreams earth elegy Elizabethan England English Epic essay eyes fair Ferdiad flowers garden gold Grendel grey Gwydion hand hath heart Heaven honour Houyhnhnm Hrothgar human King Kinmont Willie lament land Latin learning light lines literary literature live Lord Scroope Medb melody Milton natural never night o'er passage peace perhaps Pindaric pipe plays poem poet poetry prose Pryderi Queen race rime rose satire scholar seems sestet Shakespeare shepherd silver sing Sir Ector Sir Kay sleep song sonnet sorrow soul sound star story sweet sword tell thee thine things Thomas thou hast thought tree unto verse W. B. YEATS Wigláf wind words writing written wrote youth
Popular passages
Page 98 - REAPER. BEHOLD her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass ! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass ! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen ! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.
Page 89 - In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
Page 78 - O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hie jacet.
Page 62 - Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep> Seated in thy silver chair State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear when day did close: Bless us then with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart And thy crystal-shining quiver; Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever: Thou that mak'st...
Page 61 - When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh ! the doxy over the dale, Why then comes in the sweet o' the year ; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With heigh ! the sweet birds, O, how they sing ! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge ; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. The lark that tirra-lirra...
Page 40 - Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th
Page 60 - With coral clasps and amber studs ; And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love.
Page 283 - I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
Page 282 - And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music,) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.
Page 268 - Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks; Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes, That on the green turf suck the honied showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.