Lectures on the English Poets and the English Comic Writers

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Bell, 1876 - 232 pages

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Page 14 - Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream : The genius, and the mortal instruments, Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.
Page 133 - The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, And all the dread magnificence of heaven, O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ! X.
Page 84 - What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield: And what is else not to be overcome?
Page 124 - Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door, Pillow and bobbins all her little store: Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads about the livelong day, Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light; She for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding and no wit, Receives no praise; but though her lot be such, (Toilsome and indigent) she renders much; Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true — A truth the brilliant...
Page 152 - tis madness to defer: Next day the fatal precedent will plead ; Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time ; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
Page 103 - ... In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half -hung, The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies — alas ! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim ! Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love ; Or just as gay at council, in a ring...
Page 13 - I have almost forgot the taste of fears. The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek ; and my fell of hair, Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir, As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors : Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.
Page 48 - To th' instruments divine respondence meet The silver sounding instruments did meet With the base murmur of the water's fall ; The water's fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.
Page 222 - What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind ; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be ; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering ; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.
Page 124 - Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light ; She for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding, and no wit, Receives no praise, but (though her lot be such, Toilsome and indigent) she renders much ; Just knows, and knows no more, her bible true, A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew, And in that charter reads, with sparkling eyes, Her title to a treasure in the skies.

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