Essays and Miscellaneous Writings, Volume 1

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Macmillan, 1885

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Page 192 - But peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began; The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist, Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
Page 197 - Calm and still light on yon great plain That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, And crowded farms and lessening towers, To mingle with the bounding main: Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair: Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep. XII. Lo, as a dove when up she springs To bear thro...
Page 168 - These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty ; Thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair ; Thyself how wondrous then ! Unspeakable, who sit'st above these Heavens, To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Page 196 - Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest; And a mother she was, and is to me; For I was born on the open Sea ! The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born...
Page 197 - Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. 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 45 - We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, And wander in the meadows, or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend With lightest winds, to touch their paramour; Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore, Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy...
Page 169 - Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix And nourish all things ; let your ceaseless change Vary to our great Maker still new praise. Ye Mists and Exhalations...
Page 197 - Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze, And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold: Calm and still light on yon great plain That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, And crowded farms and lessening towers, To mingle with the bounding main...
Page 192 - As when to them who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest ; with such delay Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles...
Page 195 - The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free ; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.