Wolfert's Roost, and Other Papers

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G.P. Putnam, 1865 - 431 pages
 

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Page 35 - Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear ; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year...
Page 37 - Does he take warning and reform? Alas ! not he. Incorrigible epicure ! again he wings his flight. The rice swamps of the south invite him. He gorges himself among them almost to bursting; he can scarcely fly for corpulency. He has once more changed his name, and is now the famous rice-bird of the Carolinas. Last stage of his career: behold him spitted, with dozens of his corpulent companions, and served up, a vaunted dish, on the table of some southern gastronome.
Page 124 - I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things ; for no kind of traffic Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty, And use of service, none ; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none ; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; No occupation ; all men idle, all ; And women too, — but innocent and pure ; No sovereignty, — Seb.
Page 9 - Cabin, and gave them so much wine and aqua vitae that they were all merrie; and one of them had his wife with him, which sate so modestly, as any of our Countrey women would do in a strange place.
Page 111 - 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 124 - Treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine Would I not have ; but nature should bring forth Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance, To feed my innocent people.
Page 36 - Reed-bird now, the much sought-for titbit of Pennsylvania epicures ; the rival in unlucky fame of the ortolan ! Wherever he goes, pop ! pop ! pop ! every rusty firelock in the country is blazing away. He sees his companions falling by thousands around him. Does he take warning and reform ? Alas, not he ! Incorrigible epicure ! again he wings his flight. The rice-swamps of the South vite him.
Page 32 - When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing, When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing, O then comes the blue-bird, the herald of spring, And hails with his warblings the charms of the season.
Page 35 - ... the sweetest season of the year, when all nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed in every bosom; but when I, luckless urchin! was doomed to be mewed up, during the livelong day, in that purgatory of boyhood, a school-room.
Page 34 - Nature is in all her freshness and fragrance: "the rains are over and gone, the flowers appear upon the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.

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