Gems from the English Poets: Chaucer to Tennyson ; with Biographical Notices of the Authors

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American News Company, 1889 - 503 pages
 

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Page 241 - Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the Poor.
Page 264 - Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild ; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place.
Page 265 - Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay — There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view ; I knew him well, and every truant knew...
Page 368 - The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect Woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light.
Page 89 - Some men with swords may reap the field, And plant fresh laurels where they kill : But their strong nerves at last must yield ; They tame but one another still : Early or late They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath When they, pale captives, creep to death.
Page 148 - A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 105 - Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad ; Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale, She all night long her amorous descant sung ; Silence was pleased : now glowed the firmament With living sapphires : Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length, Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, And o'er the...
Page 264 - More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. His house was known to all the vagrant train...
Page 240 - THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds...
Page 95 - The hooked chariot stood Unstained with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.

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