Browning and Whitman: A Study in Democracy

Front Cover
S. Sonnenschein & Company, 1893 - 145 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 46 - I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER WHEN I heard the learn' d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander' d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
Page 90 - My genial spirits fail; And what can these avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavour, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
Page 134 - ... fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
Page 130 - But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are! And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
Page 101 - How the world is made for each of us ! How all we perceive and know in it Tends to some moment's product thus, When a soul declares itself — to wit, By its fruit, the thing it does...
Page 115 - GROW old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in his hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!
Page 80 - My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; That, after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched ; That what began best, can't end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.
Page 11 - FORGET six counties overhung with smoke, Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke, Forget the spreading of the hideous town ; Think rather of the pack-horse on the down, And dream of London, small, and white, and clean, The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green...
Page 109 - Now understand me well — it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.
Page 108 - Sail forth— steer for the deep waters only, Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me, For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Bibliographic information