Paradise Regain'd: A Poem, in Four Books. To which is Added Samson Agonistes: and Poems Upon Several Occasions, Volume 2

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J. and R. Tonson, 1753 - 335 pages
 

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Page 72 - As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew, Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain.
Page 71 - Softly on my eyelids laid; And, as I wake, sweet music breathe Above, about, or underneath, Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, Or the unseen Genius of the wood. But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light.
Page 58 - And ever against eating cares Lap me in soft Lydian airs Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus...
Page 237 - When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not ; in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks.
Page 70 - And when the Sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown that Sylvan loves Of Pine, or monumental Oak, Where the rude Axe with heaved stroke, Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt, Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
Page 188 - Ay me ! I fondly dream ! Had ye been there — for what could that have done ? What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, The Muse herself for her enchanting son...
Page 59 - Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, Or likest hovering dreams, The fickle pensioners of Morpheus
Page 15 - Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
Page 260 - I am the Lord thy God, which brought Thee out of Egypt land ; Ask large enough, and I, besought, Will grant thy full demand.
Page 63 - But, first and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song...

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