English Lyrics: Chaucer to Poe, 1340-1809

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Methuen and Company, 1897 - English poetry - 412 pages

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Page 265 - SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love. A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye ! — Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me...
Page 184 - Go, lovely Rose ! Tell her, that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts, where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired: Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die ! that she The common...
Page 121 - Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of...
Page 333 - Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.
Page 121 - 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. Who doth ambition shun And loves to live i...
Page 299 - And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent ! THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL SWEPT.
Page 268 - Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make ; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all. Oh evil day ! if I were sullen While earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, And the children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm, And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm...
Page 31 - Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place ? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart : who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
Page 334 - Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn ! The very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu ! The fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu ! Adieu ! Thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music. . . . Do I wake or sleep?
Page 121 - 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, Tu-whit, tu-who...

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