Essentials of Poetry

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Houghton Mifflin, 1912 - 282 pages
 

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Page 23 - Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on ; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
Page 123 - Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike...
Page 80 - Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling. analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us...
Page 82 - Among the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings ? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago : Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day ? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again ? Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang As if her song could have no ending...
Page 143 - Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilarate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid Nature. Mighty winds, That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood Of ancient growth, make music not unlike The dash of ocean on his winding shore...
Page 181 - Brimming, and bright, and large : then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents ; that for many a league The shorn and...
Page 259 - If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, 'My dreams presage some joyful news at hand : My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne ; And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
Page 123 - Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and Templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise — Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he? What though my name stood rubric on the walls, Or plaster'd posts, with claps, in capitals? Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers...
Page 185 - St. Agnes' Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold...
Page 262 - Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread empire. CHAOS! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word: Thy hand, great anarch! lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all.

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