Wolfert's roost: and other sketches, Volume 78

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Page 68 - 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 215 - Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe And terror on my aching sight ; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a dullness to my trembling heart. Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice ; Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear Thy voice — my own affrights me with its echoes.
Page 17 - 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 60 - 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 19 - The trees, under which they have been born, and have played in infancy, flourish undisturbed ; though, by cutting them down, they might open new streets, and put money in their pockets. In a word, the almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land...
Page 68 - All things in common, nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour : 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 16 - 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 15 - 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.
Page 60 - Nor is our simple pleasure mixed with pains. Our sports begin with the beginning year ; In calms, to pull the leaping fish to land. In roughs, to sing and dance along the ; along the yellow sand.
Page 46 - It was passing strange. I felt that if she were an old woman, I should be quite at my ease; if she were even an ugly woman, I should make out very well; it was her beauty that overpowered me. How little do lovely women know what awful beings they are, in the eyes of inexperienced youth! Young men brought up in the fashionable circles of our cities will smile at all this. Accustomed to mingle incessantly in female society, and to have the romance of the heart deadened by a thousand frivolous flirtations,...

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