Manfred: A Dramatic Poem

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John Murray, 1819 - 80 pages
 

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Page 70 - The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. — Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man ; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness, I learn'd the language of another world.
Page 80 - There were giants in the earth in those days ; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Page 63 - This should have been a noble creature: he Hath all the energy which would have made A goodly frame of glorious elements, Had they been wisely mingled; as it is, It is an awful chaos— Light and Darkness— And mind and dust— and passions and pure thoughts Mixed, and contending without end or order,— All dormant or destructive.
Page 30 - It is not noon — the sunbow's rays ' still arch The torrent with the many hues of heaven, And roll the sheeted silver's waving column O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, And fling its lines of foaming light along, And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail, The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, As told in the Apocalypse.
Page 22 - Ye toppling crags of ice ! Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me ! I hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict ; but ye pass, And only fall on things that still would live ; On the young flourishing forest, or the hut And hamlet of the harmless villager.
Page 59 - Old man ! there is no power in holy men, Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast, Nor agony — nor, greater than all these, The innate tortures of that deep despair, Which is remorse without the fear of hell, But all in all sufficient to itself Would make a hell of heaven — can exorcise From out the unbounded spirit the quick dense Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge Upon itself ; there is no future pang Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd...
Page 11 - A wandering mass of shapeless flame, A pathless comet, and a curse, The menace of the universe ; Still rolling on with innate force, Without a sphere, without a course, A bright deformity on high, The monster of the upper sky ! J 1 88 POETRY OF BYRON.
Page 61 - I could not tame my nature down ; for he Must serve who fain would sway ; and soothe, and sue, And watch all time, and pry into all place, And be a living lie, who would become A mighty thing amongst the mean— and such The mass are : I disdain'd to mingle with A herd, though to be leader— and of wolves. The lion is alone, and so am I.
Page 64 - Most glorious orb! that wert a worship, ere The mystery of thy making was reveal'd! 10 Thou earliest minister of the Almighty, Which gladden'd, on their mountain tops, the hearts Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour'd Themselves in orisons! Thou material God! And representative of the Unknown — Who chose thee for his shadow!
Page 6 - The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. Philosophy and science, and the springs Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world, I have essay*d, and in my mind there is A power to make these subject to itself — But they avail not...

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