On the Life, Writings, and Genius of Akenside: With Some Account of His Friends

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J. Cochrane, 1832 - 312 pages
 

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Page 162 - 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 305 - For him, the Spring Distils her dews, and from the silken gem Its lucid leaves unfolds; for him, the hand Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch With blooming gold and blushes like the morn.
Page 212 - As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night! O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene; Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole; O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head.
Page 269 - Look then abroad through Nature, to the range Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, Wheeling unshaken through the void immense ; And speak, O man ! does this capacious scene With half that kindling majesty dilate Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate, Amid the crowd of patriots ; and his arm Aloft extending, like eternal Jove When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel, And bade the father of his...
Page 305 - See the wretch, that long has tost On the thorny bed of pain, At length repair his vigour lost, And breathe and walk again : The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening paradise.
Page 31 - I care not, fortune, what you me deny ; You cannot rob me of free nature's grace ; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face, You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve : Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave : Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
Page 304 - Of envied life ; though only few possess Patrician treasures or imperial state ; Yet nature's care, to all her children just, With richer treasures and an ampler state, Endows, at large, whatever happy man Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp, The rural honours his. Whate'er adorns The princely dome, the column and the arch, The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold, Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim, His tuneful breast enjoys.
Page 310 - Eternal Maker has ordain'd The powers of man : we feel within ourselves His energy divine : he tells the heart, He meant, he made us to behold and love What he beholds and loves, the general orb Of life and being ; to be great like him, Beneficent and active.
Page 235 - Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell ? before the sun, Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite.
Page 116 - But he had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause ; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame ; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

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