Essays Biographical and Critical: Chiefly on English Poets

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Macmillan, 1856 - Biography & Autobiography - 475 pages

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Page 395 - The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul...
Page 123 - He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide...
Page 44 - Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate, With head uplift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed ; his other parts besides, Prone on the flood, extended long and large, Lay floating many a rood...
Page 419 - Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.
Page 440 - And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept : and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son...
Page 450 - In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon Eclipses at their charms.
Page 441 - ... boy, That he shouts with his sister at play ! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay ! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill ; But O for the touch of a...
Page 366 - Then up I rose, And dragged to earth, both branch and bough with crash And merciless ravage, and the shady nook Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower, Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up Their quiet being...

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