Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who Lived about the Time of Shakespeare: With Notes, Volumes 1-2

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Wiley & Putnam, 1845 - English drama

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Page 219 - Call for the robin-red-breast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. Call unto his funeral dole The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm, But keep the wolf far thence that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
Page 64 - tis the soul of peace : Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven ; It makes men look like gods. The best of men That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer; A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit : The first true gentleman, that ever breathed.
Page 85 - Do you think I fable with you ? I assure you, He that has once the flower of the sun, The perfect ruby, which we call elixir, Not only can do that, but by its virtue, Can confer honour, love, respect, long life ; Give safety, valour, yea, and victory, To whom he will. In eight and twenty days, I'll make an old man of fourscore, a child.
Page 33 - I'll have them read me strange philosophy And tell the secrets of all foreign kings; I'll have them wall all Germany with brass, And make swift Rhine circle fair Wittenberg; I'll have them fill the public schools with silk...
Page 171 - For doating on her beauty, though her death Shall be revenged after no common action. Does the silkworm expend her yellow labours For thee? For thee does she undo herself? Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships For the poor benefit of a bewildering minute? Why does yon...
Page 18 - Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia! What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day, And have so proud a chariot at your heels, And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine, But from Asphaltis, where I conquered you, To Byron here, where thus I honour you?
Page 37 - O, no end is limited to damned souls. Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? Or, why is this immortal that thou hast? Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true, This soul should fly from me, and I be changed Unto some brutish beast.
Page 29 - But now how stands the wind ? Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill ? * Ha! to the east ? yes: see, how stand the vanes ? East and by south: why then I hope my ships I sent for Egypt and the bordering isles Are gotten up by Nilus...
Page 106 - 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 201 - Let me see it: I have so much obedience in my blood, I wish it in their veins to do them good.

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