Imagination and Fancy: Or, Selections from the English Poets, Illustrative of Those First Requisites of Their Art, with Markings of the Best Passages, Critical Notices of the Writers, and an Essay in Answer to the Question "What is Poetry?"

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G.P. Putnam, 1851 - 255 pages
 

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Page 239 - Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for Heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She seem'da splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven: — Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
Page 254 - Homer ruled as his demesne : Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken ; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He...
Page 134 - The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark When neither is attended; and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren.
Page 194 - Herdman's art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw, The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides what the grim Wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said. But that two-handed engine at the door, Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Page 41 - THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of earth A youth to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair science frowned not on his humble birth, And melancholy marked him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, . Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to misery all he had, a tear: He gained from heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.
Page 218 - Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
Page 130 - That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide : And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic ; not a mouse Shall disturb this hallow'd house : I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.
Page 188 - The immortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook: And of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground, Whose power hath a true consent With planet, or with element. Sometime let gorgeous tragedy In scepter'd pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops line, Or the tale of Troy divine.
Page 181 - To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid...
Page 180 - Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore...

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