Gleanings from the English poets, Chaucer to Tennyson, with biogr. notices of the authors [by R. Inglis].

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Page 248 - Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made : But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.
Page 425 - There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Page 48 - ALL the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players : They have their exits and their entrances ; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Page 226 - The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds...
Page 46 - Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice...
Page 248 - Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild ; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place.
Page 77 - When they, pale captives, creep to death. The garlands wither on your brow; Then boast no more your mighty deeds! Upon Death's purple altar now See where the victor-victim bleeds. Your heads must come To the cold tomb: Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.
Page 49 - Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee ; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not : Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's ; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr.
Page 54 - I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be; But thou thereon didst only breathe And sent'st it back to me; Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself but thee!
Page 229 - THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth a Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown : fair Science...

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