Literary Blasphemies |
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Page 33 - NOW, my co-mates, and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court ? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The seasons...
Page 41 - Coral is far more red than her lips' red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound...
Page 50 - 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 36 - tis too horrible ! The weariest and most loathed worldly life, ^ That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death.
Page 71 - Now came still evening on, and twilight gray 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...
Page 34 - Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion ; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, Obedience : for so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
Page 40 - Be not afeard ; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again : and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.
Page 46 - Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation ; we desert our master, and seek for companions.
Page 64 - But know that in the Soul Are many lesser Faculties that serve Reason as chief; among these Fancy next Her office holds ; of all external things, Which the five watchful Senses represent, She forms Imaginations, Aery shapes, Which Reason joining or disjoining, frames All what we affirm or what deny, and call Our knowledge or opinion; then retires Into her private Cell when Nature rests.
Page 32 - O good old man ; how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed...