The English Poets: Chaucer to Donne

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Thomas Humphry Ward
Macmillan and Company, 1880 - English poetry

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Page 459 - Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid ; Fly away, fly away, breath ; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it ! My part of death, no one so true Did share it.
Page 449 - Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.
Page xxxix - Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, To step aside is human : One point must still be greatly dark, The moving Why they do it ; And just as lamely can ye mark, How far perhaps they rue it. Who made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us, He knows each chord its various tone, Each spring its various bias : Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it ; What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted.
Page xxxviii - For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that ; The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are higher rank than a that. Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that ; That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, and a' that. For a
Page 347 - With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies : How silently ; and with how wan a face ! What ! may it be, that even in heavenly place That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries?
Page 485 - IF all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love.
Page 461 - Tu-whit, tu-who - a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl...
Page 456 - tis true, I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view, Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new.
Page xiii - The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve.
Page 461 - Under the greenwood tree * Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither : Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather.* JAQ.