Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum: Containing Brief Characters of the English Poets, Down to the Year 1675

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From the Press of Bonnant, 1824 - English poetry - 205 pages

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Page 137 - Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are ; I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear...
Page xxvi - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. 'But not the praise...
Page 136 - The city's voice itself is soft like solitude's. 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 ; I sit upon the sands alone, The lightning of the noontide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet ! did any heart now share in my emotion. Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around...
Page 137 - And weep away the life of care Which I have borne , and yet must bear , Till death like sleep might steal on me, And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold , and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
Page xxvi - Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.
Page xxvii - Alas ! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair...
Page 38 - Seasons" wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shews him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses.
Page 133 - Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, A phantom among men; companionless As the last cloud of an expiring storm Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess, Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.
Page 133 - Midst others of less note, came one frail form, — A phantom among men ; companionless As the last cloud of an expiring storm Whose thunder is its knell...
Page xliv - I love snow, and all the forms Of the radiant frost: I love waves, and winds, and storms, Everything almost Which is Nature's, and may be Untainted by man's misery.

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