Essays and Reviews, Volume 2

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Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1851 - American literature
 

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Page 38 - Here she was wont to go ! and here ! and here ! Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow . The world may find the spring by following her, For other print her airy steps ne'er left. Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk ! But like the soft west wind she shot along, And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sowed them with her odorous foot.
Page 65 - Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince. Fall like a cloud In gentle showers: give nothing that is loud Or painful to his slumbers: easy, sweet, And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain: Into this prince, gently, oh gently slide, And kiss him into slumbers, like a bride.
Page 31 - What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one (from whence they came) Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life...
Page 124 - Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me, Thou noteless blot on a remembered name! But be thyself, and know thyself to be!
Page 20 - Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, And every sweetness that inspir'd their hearts, Their minds, and muses on admired themes; If all the heavenly quintessence they still From their immortal flowers of poesy, Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit; If these had made one poem's period, And all combin'd in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, Which into words no virtue can digest.
Page 24 - Tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide," supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you ; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country.
Page 56 - ... without flattery, the greatest monument of the scene that time and humanity have produced, and must live, not only the crown and sole reputation of our own, but the stain of all other nations and languages...
Page 63 - Do my face (If thou had'st ever feeling of a sorrow) Thus, thus, Antiphila : strive to make me look Like Sorrow's monument ; and the trees about me, Let them be dry and leafless ; let the rocks Groan with continual surges ; and behind me, Make all a desolation.
Page 274 - I've bought the best champagne from Brooks. From liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit, and a distant bill. Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid.
Page 43 - On pain of death, let no man name death to me: It is a word infinitely terrible.

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