Scenes and Impressions in Egypt and in Italy

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1825 - 435 pages

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Page 346 - I see before me the Gladiator lie : He leans upon his hand — his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low — And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now The arena swims aronnd him — he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
Page 346 - He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away; He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday — All this rushed with his blood — shall he expire, And unavenged?
Page 173 - As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. Then what is man ? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush And hang his head, to think himself a man?
Page 435 - For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean...
Page 357 - Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.
Page 225 - Not to-day, O Lord, 0 not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown ! 1 Richard's body have interred new ; And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears, Than from it issued forced drops of blood. Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their...
Page 205 - Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod...
Page 200 - From meaner minds, though smaller fines content The plunder'd palace, or sequester'd rent ; Mark'd out by dangerous parts he meets the shock; And fatal Learning leads him to the block: Around his tomb let Art and Genius weep; But hear his death, ye blockheads, hear and sleep. The festal blazes, the triumphal show, The ravish'd standard, and the captive foe, The senate's thanks, the gazette's pompous tale, With force resistless o'er the brave prevail.
Page 205 - Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply: And many a holy text around she strews That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
Page 57 - A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.

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