The Earlier Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1826-1833J. Miller, 1878 - 253 pages |
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ANCIENT ROME AURORA LEIGH bard beauty behold beneath breath bright brow clay Condillac dark dead dear death delight in minstrelsy Descartes doth dream dust earth echo Edinburgh Review ESSAY ON MIND eternal Ev'n eyes face fair FAIRY FAIRY TALES fame feelings flesh forget gaze Genius glorious glory grace grave hand hath heav'n Herodotus hills human immortal JAMES MILLER lift light lips look look'd Lord Lord Bacon lustrums lyre Memory midst Mind's minstrel moral Moschus muse mystic nature Nature's neath NOTE o'er Olorus pale past perchance Plato Poems Poet's poetic poetry Poets praise pride Procrustian bed Prometheus Bound pulse reason sage shade shore Shout sigh sight silent sing smile song soul sound speak spirit strings sublime tears tender thee things Thou art thought Thucydides tongue Truth turn unto voice waves weep wind wings words
Popular passages
Page 114 - I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Page 119 - Pure as the expanse of heaven I thither went With unexperienced thought and laid me down On the green bank to look into the clear Smooth lake that to me seemed another sky. As I bent down to look just opposite A shape within the watery gleam appeared Bending to look on me. I started back It started back but pleased I soon returned Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks Of sympathy and love.
Page 15 - In my mind the highest of all poetry is ethical poetry, as the highest of all earthly objects must be moral truth. Religion does not make a part of my subject ; it is something beyond human powers, and has failed in all human hands except Milton's and Dante's, and even Dante's powers are involved in his delineation of human passions, though in supernatural circumstances. What made Socrates the greatest of men?
Page 120 - And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things.
Page 112 - And therefore that example of oculists and title lawyers doth come nearer my conceit than the other two; for sciences distinguished have a dependence upon universal knowledge to be augmented and rectified by the superior light thereof, as well as the parts and members of a science have upon the Maxims of the same science, and the mutual light and consent which one part receiveth of another.
Page 111 - Must I plunge into metaphysics? Alas, I cannot see in the dark; nature has not furnished me with the optics of a cat. Must I pore upon mathematics? Alas, I cannot see in too much light; I am no eagle.
Page 201 - First glancing round, lest tempests should be nigh And lays close to the ground his ruddy lips, And shapes their beauty into sound, and calls On all the petall'd flowers that sit beneath In hiding-places from the rain and snow, To loosen the hard soil, and leave their cold Sad idlesse, and betake them up to him. They straightway hear his voice A thought did come, And press from out my soul the heathen dream. Mine eyes were purged. Straightway did I bind Round me the garment of my strength, and heard...
Page 107 - I have done something : but the wit and genius of the old authors beguiled me, and as I despaired of raising myself up to their standard upon fair ground, I thought the only chance I had of looking over their heads was to get upon their shoulders.
Page 113 - that a little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth their minds about to religion.
Page 6 - Brama assai, poco spera, e nulla chiede,' and is remarkable principally for the ambition of the young authoress ; who after citing the authority of ' that immortal writer we have just lost,' (Byron), to prove that ' ethical poetry is the highest of all poetry, as the highest of all objects is moral truth,' proceeds at once to grapple with an ethical subject as wide as the universe itself.