Men, Women, and Books: A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs, from His Uncollected Prose Writings, Volume 2

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Smith, Elder and Company, 1847 - Beauty, Personal

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Page 56 - JENNY kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.
Page 135 - A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn, To scorn to owe a duty overlong ; To scorn to be for benefits forborne, To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong. To scorn to bear an injury in mind, To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind.
Page 145 - Seasons" does not contain a single new image of external nature; and scarcely presents a familiar one from which it can be .inferred that the eye of the Poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination.
Page 159 - Anemouies, that spangled every grove, The primrose wan, and hare-bell mildly blue. No more shall violets linger in the dell, Or purple orchis variegate the plain. Till Spring again shall call forth every bell, And dress with humid hands her wreaths again. — Ah ! poor humanity ! so frail, so fair, Are the fond visions of thy early day, Till tyrant passion and corrosive care Bid all thy fairy colours fade away ! Another May new buds and flowers shall bring; Ah! why has happiness — no second Spring?
Page 290 - I called a white staff a stick of wood, a gold key gilded brass, and the ensigns of illustrious orders coloured strings, this may be philosophically true^ but would be very ill received. We have all our playthings; happy are they that can be contented with those they can obtain : those hours are spent in the wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least productive of ill consequences. I think my time better employed in. reading...
Page 169 - Seiz'd in thought, On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail From the green borders of the peopled earth, And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant ; From solitary Mars ; from the vast orb Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk Dances in ether like the lightest leaf...
Page 12 - I shall raise the despised head of poetry again, and stripping her out of those rotten and base rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be embraced and kist of all the great and master-spirits of our world.
Page 173 - Gray for her lover ; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow within the four lines, poor thing ! Help me to one." — ' Steal the cow, sister Anne,
Page 175 - I'm no like to dee ; For O, I am but young to cry out, Woe is me ! I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin ; I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin.
Page 138 - Love, how thou art tired out with rhyme ! Thou art a tree whereon all poets climb ; And from thy branches every one takes some Of thy sweet fruit, which Fancy feeds upon.

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