Introduction to English literature, from Chaucer to Tennyson

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J.F. Shaw, 1857 - 360 pages

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Page 98 - I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no...
Page 176 - Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols : and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.
Page 133 - It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry ; but that it is now, at length, discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment...
Page 160 - Man knoweth not the price thereof ; Neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me: And the sea saith, It is not with me.
Page 154 - I see before me the gladiator lie : He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low ; And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now The arena swims around him ; he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
Page 147 - They parted - ne'er to meet again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs, which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between; But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been.
Page 161 - O Lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live: Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud! And would we aught behold of higher worth, Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
Page 160 - When elements to elements conform, And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all. I see, less dazzling, but more warm? The bodiless thought? the spirit of each spot, Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot ? LXXV.
Page 95 - I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style; which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age, what would it work, trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?
Page 59 - Is the night chilly and dark ? The night is chilly, but not dark. The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky. The moon is behind, and at the full ; And yet she looks both small and dull. The night is chill, the cloud is gray : Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

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