The Poetical Works of Robert Southey: With a Memoir of the Author ...

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Little, Brown, 1860 - English poetry
 

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Page 89 - They sin who tell us Love can die: With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity. In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell, Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell; Earthly these passions of the Earth, They perish where they have their birth. But Love is indestructible: Its holy flame for ever burneth ; From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth...
Page 89 - Oh ! when a Mother meets on high The Babe she lost in infancy, Hath she not then, for pains and fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrow, all her tears, An over-payment of delight...
Page 27 - I charm thy life From the weapons of strife, From stone and from wood, From fire and from flood, From the serpent's tooth, And the beasts of blood : From Sickness I charm thee, And Time shall not harm thee...
Page 126 - On Jaga-Naut they call : The ponderous Car rolls on, and crushes all. Through flesh and bones it ploughs its dreadful path. Groans rise unheard ; the dying cry, And death and agony Are trodden under foot by yon mad throng, Who follow close, and thrust the deadly wheels along.
Page 39 - EVENING comes on : arising from the stream, Homeward the tall flamingo wings his flight; And, where he sails athwart the setting beam, His scarlet plumage glows with deeper light. The watchman, at the wished approach of night, Gladly forsakes the field, where he all day, To scare the winged plunderers from their prey, With shout and sling, on yonder clay-built height, Hath borne the sultry ray. Hark ! at the Golden Palaces The Bramin strikes the hour : For leagues and leagues around, the brazen sound...
Page 138 - Had swallowed there, when monuments so brave Bore record of their old magnificence. And on the sandy shore, beside the verge Of Ocean, here and there, a rock-hewn fane Resisted in its strength the surf and surge That on their deep foundations beat in vain. In solitude the Ancient Temples stood, Once resonant with instrument and song, And solemn dance of festive multitude ; Now as the weary ages pass along, Hearing no voice save of the Ocean flood, Which roars for ever on the restless shores ; Or,...
Page 146 - Stretch'd like green anthers many a seeking head. And arborets of jointed stone were there, And plants of fibres fine, as silkworm's thread ; Yea, beautiful as Mermaid's golden hair Upon the waves dispread : Others that, like the broad banana growing, Rais'd their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue, Like streamers wide out-flowing.
Page 87 - Three happy beings are there here, The Sire, the Maid, the Glendoveer. A fourth approaches, . . . who is this That enters in the Bower of Bliss? No form so fair might painter find Among the daughters of mankind ; For death her beauties hath...
Page 145 - Nymphs lie With languid limbs in summer's sultry hours. Here too were living flowers Which, like a bud compacted, Their purple cups contracted, And now in open blossom spread, Stretch'd like green anthers many a seeking head.
Page 6 - I have been favored during a long literary life, none ever gratified me more than that of Henry Kirke White upon this occasion, when he observed, that, if any other known measure had been adopted, the poem would have been deprived of half its beauty, and all its propriety. And when he added, that the author never seemed to inquire how other men would treat a subject, or what might be the fashion of the times, but took that course which his own sense of fitness pointed out, I could not have desired...

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