Select Poems of Thomas GrayHarper & brothers, 1880 - 143 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Æneid Æolian amain appear Bard beauties beneath Berkeley Castle breath buxom Cæsar called Cambridge churchway Comus Country Churchyard Cowley critical death Dodsley Dodsley's Dryden edition Edward Elegy English Epitaph Eton College eyes fate favourite feeling flowers genius golden Grand Magazine Gray quotes Gray's Hales remarks Hamlet heart holy Homer Horace Idalium Julius Cæsar king Latin Lucretius Lycidas lyre Magazine of Magazines Mason Milton Mitford quotes Mitford remarks morn Muse night North American Review notes o'er Ovid Pembroke Petrarch Pindar Plinlimmon poem poet poetic poetry Pope printed Progress of Poesy prose published purple quotes Spenser reader Rolfe Rolfe's says shade Shakes Shakespeare smile Snowdon song soul spring stanza Taliessin taste thee THOMAS GRAY Thomson thou thought thro tion trembling tyrant vale verse Virgil virtues Wakefield quotes wind Windsor wings word Wrightson writers
Popular passages
Page 60 - Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.
Page 35 - E'en in our Ashes live their wonted Fires. For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say, 'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
Page 30 - Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood ; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest ; Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes...
Page 38 - THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown; Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send; He gave to Misery all he had, a tear — He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd), a friend.
Page 42 - To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of Man : And they that creep, and they that fly Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro...
Page 22 - Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds : Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the Moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Page 55 - This pencil take' (she said), 'whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year: Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal Boy! This can unlock the gates of joy; Of horror that, and thrilling fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.
Page 135 - It may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.
Page 49 - That every labouring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage: Lo, Poverty, to fill the band, That numbs the soul with icy hand, And slow-consuming Age.
Page 64 - DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad affright, afflict the best ! Bound in thy adamantine chain The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitiet} and alone.