Sketches in Italy and GreeceSmith, Elder, & Company, 1879 - 316 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Ajaccio Alberti Alps angels architecture artists Athenian Athens Baglioni beauty beneath blue cathedral Catherine century chapel charm Christ Christian church clouds colour Correggio Corsican Crown 8vo dead death earth Etna eyes fancy feet flowers frescoes genius Girgenti Greek green Grifonetto Gylippus hand heart heaven hills house of Hauteville island Italian Italy landscape light living marble Matarazzo Monte mosaics mountain nature night noble Norman Orvieto painted palace palæstra Palermo passion Perugia Petrarch picture pines plain poetry poets Pope princes race Ravenna Renaissance Rimini rise Robert Guiscard rock Roman Rome round ruins saints Saracens scarcely scene sculptured seems Sicily side Siena Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta Signorelli singing snow song soul spirit splendour stand stone strange sweet Syracuse temple Theocritus thou thought Thucydides tion town valley vast Vaucluse villages walls whole wind
Popular passages
Page 202 - How charming is divine Philosophy ! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Page 221 - And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Page 176 - What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these ossuaries entered the famous nations of the dead, and slept with princes and counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a question above antiquarism; not to be resolved by man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except we consult the provincial...
Page 106 - Will no one tell me what she sings? — Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?
Page 176 - O eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised ; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hie jaeet ! Lastly, whereas this book, by the title it hath, calls itself The First Part of tlie General History of the World...
Page 161 - Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it ; Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have...
Page 233 - Cantando, ricevièno intra le foglie, Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime; Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi, Quand'Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie. Già m'avean trasportato i lenti passi Dentro alla selva antica, tanto ch'io Non potea rivedere ond...
Page 17 - There, too, in those long, solitary vigils, the Spirit of God came upon him, and the spirit of Nature was even as God's Spirit, and he sang : ' Laudato sia Dio mio Signore, con tutte le creature, specialmente messer lo frate sole ; per suor luna, e per le stelle ; per frate vento e per 1'aire, e nuvolo, e sereno e ogni tempo.
Page 190 - Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount, Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold, Where on the ^Egean shore a city stands, Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil; Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts 240 And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
Page 159 - Nomine Fergus, aquae ; non illo plura Caystros Carmina cygnorum labentibus audit in undis ; Silva coronat aquas, cingens latus omne, suisque Frondibus, ut velo, Phoebeos submovet ignes ; Frigora dant rami, varies humus humida floras ; 390 Perpetuum ver est.