The British poets, including translations, Volume 17

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Page 212 - YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more, Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due ; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Page 215 - But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove. As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.
Page 219 - Haste thee Nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful Jollity, Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek ; 30 Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides.
Page 231 - Or call up him that left half told The story of Cambuscan bold, Of Camball, and of Algarsife, And who had Canace to wife, That owned the virtuous ring and glass, And of the wondrous horse of brass, On which the Tartar king did ride; And if aught else, great bards beside, In sage and solemn tunes have sung, Of tourneys and of trophies hung; Of forests, and enchantments drear, Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Page 216 - Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells and flowrets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint...
Page 127 - There is, said Michael, if thou well observe The rule of not too much, by temperance taught In what thou eat'st and drink'st, seeking from thence Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight, Till many years over thy head return : So mayst thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd, for death mature. This is old age...
Page 216 - That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said: But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Page 57 - Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, Forth issuing, on a summer's morn, to breathe Among the pleasant villages and farms Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight, The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine, Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound...
Page 232 - Or the unseen Genius of the wood. But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antic pillars massy proof, And storied windows, richly dight, Casting a dim religious light.
Page 200 - And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades ; See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long ; There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees...

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