Three Americans and Three Englishmen: Lectures Read Before the Students of Trinity College, Hartford

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T. Whittaker, 1886 - 245 pages
 

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Page 225 - The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles...
Page 14 - The floating clouds their state shall lend To her ; for her the willow bend ; Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the Storm Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form By silent sympathy.
Page 32 - They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed— and gazed— but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure...
Page 14 - The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.
Page 110 - It lies in Heaven, across the flood Of ether, as a bridge. Beneath, the tides of day and night With flame and darkness ridge The void, as low as where this earth Spins like a fretful midge.
Page 75 - There are seven notes in the scale; make them fourteen; yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise ! What science brings so much out of so little ? Out of what poor elements does some great master in it create his new world ! Shall we say that all this exuberant inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, 10 like some game or fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning?
Page 75 - Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and ends in itself? It is not so; it cannot be.
Page 240 - Into Hiawatha's wigwam Came two other guests, as silent As the ghosts were, and as gloomy, Waited not to be invited, Did not parley at the doorway, Sat there without word of welcome In the seat of Laughing Water; Looked with haggard eyes and hollow At the face of Laughing Water. And the foremost said: "Behold me! I am Famine, Bukadawin!" And the other said: "Behold me! I am Fever, Ahkosewin!
Page 126 - Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle With their love the breath between them ; And thy smiles before they dwindle Make the cold air fire; then screen them In those looks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Page 108 - I have not seen this production for several years. I doubt not but that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition : and that, in all that concerns moral and political speculation, as well as in the subtler discriminations of metaphysical and religious doctrine, it is still more crude and immature.

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