The poetical works of sir Thomas Wyatt. The text ed. by C.C. Clarke

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Page 10 - Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty man suspects himself a fool ; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves and re-resolves; then dies the same.
Page 27 - That sometime they have put themselves in danger To take bread at my hand; and now they range, Busily seeking with a continual change. Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise Twenty times better; but once...
Page xxvi - Silence and darkness ! solemn sisters! twins From ancient night, who nurse the tender thought! To reason, and on reason build resolve (That column of true majesty in man,) Assist me : I will thank you in the grave ; The grave, your kingdom : there this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.
Page xxvi - Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause, An awful pause ! prophetic of her end.
Page 24 - Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours ; And ask them, what report they bore to heaven ; And how they might have borne more welcome news.
Page 2 - And is it in the flight of threescore years To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust ? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd, At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
Page 10 - Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread : But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where past the shaft no trace is found. As from the wing no scar the sky retains, The parted wave no furrow from the keel, So dies in human hearts the thought of death : E'en with the tender tear which Nature sheds O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
Page xxviii - What can preserve my life ? or what destroy ? An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave ; Legions of angels can't confine me there.
Page 208 - Prayer ardent opens heaven, lets down a stream Of glory on the consecrated hour Of man, in audience with the Deity.
Page 16 - I am of them that furthest come behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer ; but as she fleeth afore, Fainting I follow : I leave off therefore, Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt As well as I, may spend his time in vain : And graven with diamonds in letters plain, There is written her fair neck round about : " Noli me tangere ; for Caesar's I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

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