Every-day Characters

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Paul, 1896 - 72 pages

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Page 7 - talk was like a stream, which runs With rapid change from rocks to roses : It slipped from politics to puns, It passed from Mahomet to Moses ; Beginning with the laws which keep The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.
Page 12 - he was kind, and loved to sit In the low hut or garnished cottage. And praise the farmer's homely wit, And share the widow's homelier pottage : At his approach complaint grew mild; And when his hand unbarred the shutter, The clammy lips of fever smiled The welcome which they could not utter.
Page 45 - smiled on many, just for fun,— I knew that there was nothing in it; I was the first—the only one Her heart had thought of for a minute. I knew it, for she told me so, In phrase which was divinely moulded ; She wrote a charming hand,—and oh! How sweetly all her notes were folded!
Page 6 - when he reached his journey's end, And warmed himself in Court or College, He had not gained an honest friend And twenty curious scraps of knowledge,— If he departed as he came, With no new light on love or liquor,— Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar.
Page 8 - was a shrewd and sound Divine, / Of loud Dissent the mortal terror; And when, by dint of page and line, He 'stablished Truth, or startled Error, The Baptist found him far too deep ; The Deist sighed with saving sorrow ; And the lean Levite went to sleep, And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow.
Page 37 - was her hair, her hand was white ; Her voice was exquisitely tender; Her eyes were full of liquid light; I never saw a waist so slender! Her every look, her every smile, Shot right and left a score of arrows; I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, And wondered where she'd left her sparrows.
Page 4 - flew the bolt of lissom lath; Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, Led the lorn traveller up the path, Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle; And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, Upon the parlour steps collected, Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say— " Our master knows you—you're expected.
Page 3 - OME years ago, ere time and taste Had turned our parish topsyturvy, When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, And roads as little known as scurvy, The man who lost his way, between St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, Was always shown across the green, And guided to the Parson's wicket.
Page 15 - in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear The doctrine of a gentle Johnian, Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear, Whose phrase is very Ciceronian. Where is the old man laid ?—look down, And construe on the slab before you, "Hie jacet GVLIELMVS BROWN, Vir nulld non donandus lauru.
Page 42 - sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach, Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading : She botanised ; I envied each Young blossom in her boudoir fading : She warbled Handel ; it was grand ; She made the Catalani jealous : She touched the organ ; I could stand For hours and hours to blow the bellows.

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