Elegant Extracts; Or, Useful and Entertaining Pieces of Poetry: Selected for the Improvement of Youth, in Speaking, Reading, Thinking, Composing; and in the Conduct of Life; Being Similar in Design to Elegant Extracts in Prose, Volume 1

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Vicesimus Knox
C. Dilly, 1791

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Page 180 - What though no credit doubting wits may give? The fair and innocent shall still believe. Know then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fly, The light militia of the lower sky: These, though unseen, are ever on the wing, Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.
Page 180 - Now awful beauty puts on all its arms ; The fair each moment rises in her charms, Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, And calls forth all the wonders of her face : Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
Page 62 - At thirty man suspects himself a fool ; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves and re-resolves; then dies the same.
Page 1 - Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere, While day arises, that sweet hour of prime. Thou sun of this great world, both eye and soul, Acknowledge him thy greater, sound his praise In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st, And when high noon hast gain'd, and when thou fall'st.
Page 201 - The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd. " What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl !" I'll tell you, friend ! a wise man and a fool.
Page 186 - Tis she ; — but why that bleeding bosom gor'd, Why dimly gleams the visionary sword ! Oh, ever beauteous, ever friendly ! tell, Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well ? To bear too tender or too firm a heart, To act a lover's or a Roman's part ? Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think, or bravely die...
Page 2 - Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land On each I judge thy foe. If I am right, thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh teach my heart To find that better way...
Page 174 - em, would a hundred tongues require, Or one vain wit's, that might a hundred tire. 45 But you who seek to give and merit fame, And justly bear a Critic's noble name, Be sure yourself and your own reach to know, How far your genius, taste, and learning go; Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet, 50 And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
Page 22 - One morn I missed him on the customed hill, Along the heath and near his favourite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; 'The next with dirges due in sad array Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.
Page 185 - Who would not scorn what Housewife's Cares produce, Or who would learn one earthly Thing of Use ? To patch, nay ogle, might become a Saint, Nor could it sure be such a Sin to paint. But since, alas ! frail Beauty must decay...

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