The Fine Arts and Their Uses: Essays on the Essential Principles and Limits of Expression of the Various Arts, with Especial Reference to Their Popular Influence

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Smith, Elder, & Company, 1876 - Art - 381 pages

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Page 307 - Sometimes with secure delight The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth and many a maid, Dancing in the chequered shade...
Page 315 - The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; They have ears, but they hear not; neither is there any breath in their mouths. They that make them are like unto them: so is every one that trusteth in them.
Page 35 - What thou art we know not ; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Page 303 - Beyond the shadow of the ship I watched the water-snakes ; They moved in tracks of shining white ; And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire — Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam ; and every track Was a flash of golden fire.
Page 36 - We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Page 38 - It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale; look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops: I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Page 35 - Like a poet hidden in the light of thought, singing hymns unbidden till the world is wrought to sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. Like a highborn maiden in a palace tower, soothing her love-laden soul in secret hour with music sweet as love, which overflows her bower.
Page 37 - A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet ; A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food : For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
Page 37 - Sweet records, promises as sweet; A Creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine...
Page 77 - Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits.

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