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Page 107 - Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, — The seasons...
Page 57 - THE stately Homes of England, How beautiful they stand! Amidst their tall ancestral trees, O'er all the pleasant land. The deer across their greensward bound, Through shade and sunny gleam, And the swan glides past them with the sound Of some rejoicing stream.
Page 136 - O Woman ! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!
Page 81 - But happy they, the happiest of their kind, Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend ! 'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws, Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind, That binds their peace, but harmony itself, Attuning all their passions into love ; Where friendship...
Page 7 - The merry homes of England ! Around their hearths by night, What gladsome looks of household love Meet in the ruddy light ! There woman's voice flows forth in song, Or childhood's tale is told, Or lips move tunefully along Some glorious page of old.
Page 42 - There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell...
Page 74 - The morn is up again, the dewy morn, With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And living as if earth contained no tomb, — And glowing into day...
Page 162 - I AM not One who much or oft delight To season my fireside with personal talk, — Of friends, who live within an easy walk, Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight : And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright, Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk, These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night. Better than such discourse doth silence long, Long, barren silence...
Page 12 - While her laugh, full of life, without any control But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul ; And where it most sparkled no glance could discover, In lip, cheek, or eyes, for she brighten'd all over, — Like any fair lake that the breeze is upon, When it breaks into dimples, and laughs in the sun.
Page 149 - 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.

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