American Literature

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Macmillan, 1897 - 351 pages
 

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Page 263 - I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Page 217 - Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball ; I am nothing ; I see all ; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me ; I am part or parcel of God.
Page 184 - It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee ; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.
Page 11 - I'd divide, And burn in many places ; on the topmast, The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet, and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors O...
Page 116 - Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote: For him her Old- World moulds aside she threw, And choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
Page 17 - And for the season it was winter; and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast.
Page 32 - I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits, A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong, For such despite they cast on female wits: If what I do prove well, it won't advance, They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.
Page 297 - tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years. An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres. Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low...
Page 307 - They have the pale tint of flowers that blossomed in too retired a shade, — the coolness of a meditative habit, which diffuses itself through the feeling and observation of every sketch. Instead of passion there is sentiment ; and, even in what purport to be pictures of actual life, we have allegory, not always so warmly dressed in its habiliments of Jlesh and blood as to be taken into the reader's mind without a shiver.
Page 138 - He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.

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