The Poetical Works of John Milton: With a Life of the Author; Preliminary Dissertations on Each Poem; Notes Critical and Explanatory; an Index to the Subjects of Paradise Lost; and a Verbal Index to All the Poems

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A. S. Barnes, 1873 - 688 pages
 

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Page 472 - 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. There let the pealing organ blow To the full-voiced quire below In service high and anthems clear As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
Page 99 - 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...
Page 113 - The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep, Witness if I be silent, morn or even, To hill or valley, fountain, or fresh shade, Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise. Hail, universal Lord, be bounteous still To give us only good ; and if the night Have gathered aught of evil, or concealed, Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark ! " So prayed they innocent, and to their thoughts Firm peace recovered soon, and wonted calm.
Page 507 - WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones The labour of an age in piled stones ? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid ? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
Page 67 - Thus with the year Seasons return ; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair, Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Page 467 - 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 link-ed 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 86 - O thou, that, with surpassing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god Of this new world ; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads ; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, 0 sun ! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state 1 fell, how glorious once above thy sphere...
Page 483 - CROMWELL, our chief of men, who through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed, And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued ; While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued, And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureate wreath: yet much remains To conquer still; Peace hath her victories « No less renowned than War: new foes arise,...
Page 484 - AVENGE, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 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 67 - Orphean lyre, I sung of Chaos and eternal Night ; Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to re-ascend Though hard and rare...

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