The book of celebrated poems

Front Cover
1854 - 448 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 355 - I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach.
Page 194 - 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 341 - The cold sweat melted from their limbs, Nor rot nor reek did they : The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away. An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high ; But oh ! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye ! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die. The moving Moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide : Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside...
Page 42 - Lest the wise world should look into your moan And mock you with me after I am gone.
Page 164 - Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, And Desolation saddens all thy green: One only master grasps the whole domain, And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
Page 170 - 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; Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face...
Page 354 - And now, all in my own countree, I stood on the firm land! The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, And scarcely he could stand. 'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!' The Hermit crossed his brow. 'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say — What manner of man art thou?
Page 165 - Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay : Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade ; A breath can make them as a breath has made ; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Page 171 - Imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlour splendours of that festive place: The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnished clock that clicked behind the door: The chest contrived a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; The pictures placed for ornament and use, The twelve good rules...
Page 44 - Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

Bibliographic information