History of English literature, tr. by H. van Laun, Volume 2

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Page 64 - No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell : Nay if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it : for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe.
Page 274 - ... books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragons teeth, and being sown up and down may chance to spring up armed men.
Page 121 - I have of late, — but wherefore I know not, — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, — why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Page 92 - O then, I see, queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife ; and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep : Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners...
Page 116 - She should have died hereafter ; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.
Page 299 - Created pure. But know, that in the soul Are many lesser faculties, that serve Reason as chief ; among these Fancy next Her office holds ; of all external things, Which the five watchful senses represent, She forms imaginations, aery shapes, Which Reason, joining or disjoining, frames All what we affirm or what deny, and call Our knowledge or opinion ; then retires Into her private cell, when nature rests.
Page 282 - Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine, The white pink and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears : Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
Page 288 - Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence. How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled...
Page 197 - For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven and climb above the clouds ; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant and stay till the storm was over ; and then...
Page 308 - And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw SEVEN GOLDEN CANDLESTICKS and in the midst of the Seven Candlesticks one like unto the SON OF MAN clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps (breast) with a golden girdle.

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