The Masters of English Literature

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Macmillan, 1904 - 423 pages

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Page 143 - Changed his hand, and check'd his pride. He chose a mournful muse, Soft pity to infuse: He sung Darius great and good! ~By too severe a fate, Fallen! fallen! fallen! fallen! Fallen from his high estate, And weltering in his blood!
Page 270 - Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: "Pipe a song about a Lamb!' So I piped with merry cheer. 'Piper, pipe that song again;
Page 330 - But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind. With tranquil restoration...
Page 112 - Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine...
Page 100 - Oft, on a plat of rising ground, I hear the far-off curfew sound, Over some wide-watered shore Swinging slow with sullen roar; Or, if the air will not permit, Some still removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, 80 Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman's drowsy charm To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Page 241 - Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, He has not left a wiser or better behind : His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand : His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; Still born to improve us in every part, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart...
Page 117 - O'er other creatures : yet when I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems, And in herself complete, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best...
Page 365 - He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again...
Page 243 - In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs, — and God has given my share, — I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting by repose.
Page 344 - Lyrical Ballads^; in which it was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

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