The British Poets: Including Translations ...

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C. Whittingham, 1822
 

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Page 128 - fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, Now sighs steal out, and tears, begin to flow. Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, And the world's victor stood subdued by sound. The power of music all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now. CHARACTER OF DRYDEN.
Page 128 - pace. Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er, Scatters from her pictured urn, Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. But, ah! 'tis heard no more— Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit Wakes thee now ! though he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, That the Theban eagle bear, Sailing with supreme dominion Through the azure deep of air: Yet oft before his
Page 111 - has reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be perhaps maintained that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus, may be applied by an easy metaphor to English poetry, embellished by Dryden, 'lateritiam invenit, marmoream
Page 87 - served ; Rewarded faster still than he deserved : Behold him now exalted into trust; His counsels oft convenient, seldom just; Even in the most sincere advice he gave, He had a grudging still to be a knave. The frauds, he learn'd in his fanatic years, Made him uneasy in his lawful gears, At
Page 212 - show, Who sat to bathe her by a river's side; Not answering to her fame, but rude and low, Nor taught the beauteous arts of modern pride. Now, like a maiden queen, she will behold, From her high turrets, hourly suitors come: The East with incense, and the West with gold, Will stand, like suppliants, to receive
Page 20 - so low, That I must stoop, ere I can give the blow. But mine is fixed so far above thy crown, That all thy men, Piled on thy back, can never pull it down.' " Now where that is, Almanzor's fate is fixed, I cannot guess: but, wherever it is, I believe Almanzor, and
Page 111 - writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we were taught
Page 128 - would run Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun : Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the
Page 132 - Nor was he like those stars which only shine When to pale mariners they storms portend ; He had his calmer influence, and his mien Did love and majesty together blend. 'Tis true his countenance did imprint an awe, And naturally all souls to his did bow, As wands of divination downward draw,
Page 204 - lade. The days were all in this lost labour spent; And when the weary King gave place to night, His beams he to his royal brother lent, And so shone still in his reflective light. Night came, but without darkness or repose, A dismal picture of the general doom; "Where souls distracted, when the trumpet blows,

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