Childe Alarique: A Poet's Reverie

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M. Carey, 1815 - 88 pages
 

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Page 80 - To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd.
Page 59 - 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 67 - O smile accurst to hide the worst designs ! Now with blithe eye she wooes him to be blest, While round her arm unseen a serpent twines — And lo, she hurls it hissing at his breast! And, instant, lo, his dizzy eye-ball swims Ghastly, and, reddening, darts a...
Page 3 - Tis not, as heads that never ache suppose, Forgery of fancy, and a dream of woes ; Man is a harp whose chords elude the sight, Each yielding harmony, disposed aright ; The screws reversed (a task which if He please God in a moment executes with ease) Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose, Lost, till He tune them, all their power and use.
Page 60 - Bright as the roseate clouds of summer's eve, The dreams which hold my soul in willing thrall, And half my visionary days deceive, Communicable shape might then receive, And other hearts be ravished with the strain: But scarce I seek the airy threads to weave, When quick confusion mocks the fruitless pain, And all the fairy forms are vanished from my brain.
Page 79 - ... delight from them,— who has a faint recollection, and so faint as to be like an almost forgotten dream, that once he was susceptible of pleasure from such causes. The country that you have had in prospect has been always famed for its beauties; but the wretch who can derive no gratification from a view of Nature, even under the disadvantage of her most ordinary dress, will have no eyes to admire her in any. In one day, in one moment I should rather have said, she became an universal blank to...
Page 60 - Delightful visions of my lonely hours ! Charm of my life and solace of my care ! Oh ! would the muse but lend proportioned powers, And give me language, equal to declare The wonders which she bids my fancy share, "When rapt in her to other worlds I fly, See angel forms unutterably fair, . And hear the inexpressive harmony That seems to float on air and warble through the sky.
Page 66 - Thin gilded clouds float light along the skies, And laughing Loves disport on fluttering wing. How bless'd the youth in yonder valley laid ! Soft smiles in every conscious feature play, While to the gale low-murmuring through the glade He tempers sweet his sprightly warbling lay.
Page 3 - By our own spirits are we deified ; We Poets in our youth begin in gladness ; But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.
Page 60 - And all the fairy forms are vanished from my brain. Fond dreamer! meditate thine idle song! But let thine idle song remain unknown: The verse, which cheers thy solitude, prolong; What, though it charm no moments but thine own, Though thy loved Psyche smile for thee alone, Still shall it yield thee pleasure, if not fame, And when, escaped from tumult, thou hast flown To thy dear silent hearth's enlivening flame, There shall the tranquil muse her happy votary claim!

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