Comedy of A Midsummer-night's Dream

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American book Company, 1918 - 195 pages
 

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Page 99 - I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was : man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.
Page 62 - Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Page 48 - But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
Page 114 - That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide : And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic ; not a mouse Shall disturb this hallow'd house : I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.
Page 103 - The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation, and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy ; Or, in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear ! Hip.
Page 96 - I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Page 155 - Where then shall hope and fear their objects find ? Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind ? Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate...
Page 50 - Swift as a shadow, short as any dream ; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say ' Behold 1 ' The jaws of darkness do devour it up : So quick bright things come to confusion.
Page 167 - tis his fancy to run, At night he declines on his Thetis's breast. " So, when I am wearied with wandering all day, To thee, my delight, in the evening I come : No matter what beauties I saw in my way ; They were but my visits, but thou art my home...
Page 139 - 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

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