English Poets and the National Ideal: Four Lectures |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ambition Areopagitica attitude battle brave cause character civil conception Convention of Cintra courage dangers destiny discipline doth Duke of Savoy duty earth Elizabethan enemy England English evil eyes faith fear feeling force France freedom French fuller George Meredith glorious glory hand hath heart heaven Henry heroic honour hope human idea ideal independence individual inspired internal liberty Italy justice king labour land living Machiavelli Measure for Measure Meredith Milton mind moral Napoleon nature never noble Paradise Lost passionate past patriotism peace poem poet poetry political present principles Prose realized Revolution Richard Richard II ruler Samson Agonistes says Second Defence selfish sense Shakespeare Shelley song sonnet soul Spain spirit stirred strength struggle Swinburne sympathy Tennyson thee things thou tion to-day Toussaint L'Ouverture true truth tyranny utterances virtue voice weak whilst whole words Wordsworth wrote
Popular passages
Page 71 - Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain; In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature's highest dower; Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives...
Page 71 - Whose powers shed round him in the common strife. Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace ; But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind...
Page 23 - The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows!
Page 75 - O Friend ! I know not which way I must look For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, To think that now our life is 'only drest For show ; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook, Or groom! — We must run glittering like a brook In the open sunshine, or we are unblest: The wealthiest man among us is the best: No grandeur now in nature or in book Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry : and these we adore : Plain living and high thinking are no more: The homely beauty of the good old cause...
Page 76 - In our halls is hung Armoury of the invincible Knights of old : We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.
Page 38 - I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
Page 78 - ANOTHER year ! — another deadly blow ! Another mighty Empire overthrown ! And We are left, or shall be left, alone ; The last that dare to struggle with the Foe. Tis well ! from this day forward we shall know That in ourselves our safety must be sought ; That by our own right hands it must be wrought, That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.
Page 67 - Nor will I quit thy shore A second time; for still I seem To love thee more and more.
Page 47 - Above them all the archangel: but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd; and care Sat on his faded cheek; but under brows .Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride Waiting revenge; cruel his eye, but cast Signs of remorse and passion, to behold The fellows of his crime, the followers rather (Far other once beheld in bliss,) condemn'd For ever now to have their lot in pain...
Page 51 - They err, who count it glorious to subdue By conquest far and wide, to overrun Large countries, and in field great battles win, Great cities by assault: what do these worthies, But rob, and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave Peaceable nations...