Gray's Poems: Ed. with Introd. & NotesMacmillan & Company, 1891 - 148 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Æneid Bard beautiful Bentley Bonstetten breath called Cambridge churchyard Cobham Comus copy customed hill death Dodsley's Collection Dryden Duke Duke of Grafton Earl edition of Gray's Edward Eirin Elegy English Poets epitaph Eton College expression eyes fate flowers glitt'ring Gosse grace Gray's Poems hand Hauberk honour Horace Walpole Hymn to Adversity Il Penseroso Julius Cæsar King Lady Latin letter lines Long Story Lord lyre Mason Milton Miss Speed Mitford MSS Mitford quotes Morn Muse Music Nicholls numbers o'er Ode on Eton Odin Paradise Lost passage Pembroke Pembroke College Penseroso Pindar pleasure poetical poetry Pope printed Progress of Poesy published purple Queen rapture refers says sewed shade Shakespeare smile song soul Spenser Spring stanza Stoke Stoke-Poges sweet tabby tear thee Thomas Gray thou thro tion verse weep Welsh Wharton words writes written wrote
Popular passages
Page 35 - For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke. How jocund did they drive their team afield ! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke...
Page 37 - There at the foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove, Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
Page 35 - Awaits alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Page 85 - Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song ; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music.
Page 142 - By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment.
Page 129 - Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence. How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled!
Page 7 - A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales, that from ye blow, A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to sooth, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring.
Page 8 - Alas! regardless of their doom The little victims play ! No sense have they of ills to come Nor care beyond to-day: Yet see how all around 'em wait The ministers of human fate And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Page 132 - It may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.
Page 8 - Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty : Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry : Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy.