The Works of Thomas Gray ...: Essay on Gray's poetry [by J. Mitford] Letters

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W. Pickering, 1835

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Page lxxviii - Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear : They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings, Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-colour'd wings.
Page lxxv - While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes ; Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm ; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway 75 That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.
Page 153 - I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them...
Page 71 - I do not remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation, that there was no restraining. Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other argument. One need not have a very fantastic imagination to see spirits there at noonday. You have death perpetually before your eyes ; only so far removed, as to compose the mind without frighting it.
Page lix - There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground.
Page 21 - It is a little chaos of mountains and precipices ; mountains, it is true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, nor are the declivities quite so amazing as Dover cliff; but just such hills as people, who love their necks as well as I do, may venture to climb, and crags that give the eye as much pleasure as if they were more dangerous...
Page cxiv - His supplication to father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself. His epithet buxom health is not elegant; he seems not to understand the word.
Page 3 - When you have seen one of my days, you have seen a whole year of my life ; they go round and round like the blind horse in the mill, only he has the satisfaction of fancying he makes a progress and gets some ground ; my eyes are open enough to see the same dull prospect, and to know that, having made four-and-twenty steps more, I shall be just where I was.
Page viii - Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self, Recluse amid the close-embowering woods. As in the hollow breast of Apennine, Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, A myrtle rises, far from human eye, And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild...
Page 19 - Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; Then, have I reason to be fond of grief ? Fare you well: had you such a loss as I, I could give better comfort than you do.

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