Lyrical Ballads,: With Other Poems. In Two Volumes, Volume 1

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T.N. Longman and O. Rees, Paternoster-Row, 1800

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Page 203 - For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all. — I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, 80 That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
Page 53 - Sisters and brothers, little maid, How many may you be ? " " How many ? Seven in all," she said, And wondering looked at me. "And where are they? I pray you tell." She answered, " Seven are we ; And two of us at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea. " Two of us In the churchyard lie, My sister and my brother ; And, in the churchyard cottage, I " Dwell near them with my mother.
Page 204 - For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue.
Page 182 - But tell me, tell me! speak again, Thy soft response renewing — What makes that ship drive on so fast? What is the ocean doing?" SECOND VOICE "Still as a slave before his lord, The ocean hath no blast; His great bright eye most silently Up to the Moon is cast — If he may know which way to go; For she guides him smooth or grim. See, brother, see! how graciously She looketh down on him.
Page 55 - Jane; In bed she moaning lay, Till God released her of her pain ; And then she went away. So in the church-yard she was laid ; And when the grass was dry, Together round her grave we played, My brother John and I.
Page 202 - In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft. In darkness, and amid the many shapes Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee O sylvan Wye!
Page xlviii - Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress ; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness. Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking ! — Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, Conversing as I may, I sit upon this old grey stone, And dream my time away.
Page 207 - Into a sober pleasure ; when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies...
Page 89 - The tears into his eyes were brought. And thanks and praises seemed to run So fast out of his heart, I thought They never would have done. — I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning.
Page xiv - For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: and though this be true, poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings...

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