The Poems of Allan Ramsay, Volume 1

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A. Strahan, 1800

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Page lxxxiii - The sun had long since in the lap Of Thetis taken out his nap, And like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn."* The Imagination modifies images, and gives unity to variety; it sees all things in one, il piu nell
Page xxi - The Evergreen. Being a Collection of Scots Poems, Wrote by the Ingenious before 1600.
Page xxiii - Tane leif at nature with ane orient blast; And lusty May, that muddir is of flouris, Had maid the birdis to begyn thair houris...
Page 217 - One, and so round till the number of the persons agree with that of the Dice, (which may fall upon himself if the number be within twelve ; ) then he sets the Dice to him, or bids him take them : He on whom they fall is obliged to drink, or pay a small forfeiture in money ; then throws, and so on : but if he forgets to cry Hy-jinks he pays a forfeiture into the Bank.
Page cxlii - O happy love ! where love like this is found ! O heart-felt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! I've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare— ' If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath...
Page cvii - The Monk and the Miller's Wife ' would of itself be his passport to immortality as a comic poet. In this capacity, he might enter the lists with Chaucer, and Boccacio, with no great risk of discomfiture.
Page c - Be sure ye dinna quat the grip Of ilka joy when ye are young, Before auld age your vitals nip, And lay ye twafald o'er a rung. Sweet youth's a...
Page 281 - May boldly deviate from the common track ; Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend, And rise to faults true critics dare not mend. From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part. And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, Which, without passing through the judgment, gains The heart, and all its end at once attains.
Page cxlii - I've paced much this weary mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare 'If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.
Page cxvii - Greater works cannot well be without some inequalities and oversights, and they are in them pardonable; but a song loses all its lustre if it be not polished with the greatest accuracy. The smallest blemish in it, like a flaw in a jewel, takes off the whole value of it A Song is, as it were, a little image in enamel, that requires all the nice touches of the pencil, a gloss and a smoothness, with those delicate finishing strokes, which would be superfluous and thrown away upon larger figures, where...

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