History of English Literature, Volume 3

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Henry Holt, 1876 - 502 pages

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Page 110 - STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand : I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand : A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me.
Page 394 - Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ; And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. A land of streams ! some, like a downward smoke, Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go ; And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
Page 14 - This day, black Omens threat the brightest Fair, That e'er deserv'da watchful spirit's care; Some dire disaster, or by force, or slight; But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night. Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or some frail China jar receive a flaw; Or stain her honour or her new brocade; Forget her pray'rs, or miss a masquerade; Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball; Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall.
Page 397 - As the husband is, the wife is : thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
Page 364 - If an instance in which the phenomenon under investigation occurs, and an instance in which it does not occur, have every circumstance in common save one, that one occurring only in the former; the circumstance in which alone the two instances differ is the effect, or the cause, or an indispensable part of the cause, of the phenomenon.
Page 22 - Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great ; With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between ; in doubt to act or rest ; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast...
Page 409 - But now farewell. I am going a long way With these thou seest — if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — To the island-valley of Avilion ; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
Page 408 - The great brand Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. So...
Page 93 - Then the pied windflowers and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, Till they die of their own dear loveliness...
Page 109 - Yet must I think less wildly: I have thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, My springs of life were poison'd.

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