Critical and Miscellaneous Writings

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A. Hart, 1846 - 176 pages

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Page 155 - Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure: and in my choice. To reign is worth ambition, though in hell ; Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Page 56 - The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the Storm Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form By silent sympathy.
Page 56 - I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Page 56 - THREE years she grew in sun and shower; Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower On earth was never sown ; This Child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A Lady of my own. "Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse : and with me The Girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain.
Page 12 - The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite ; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
Page 55 - Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence : truths that wake, To perish never ; Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy...
Page 154 - Of depth immeasurable; anon they move In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft recorders; such as raised To height of noblest temper heroes old Arming to battle, and instead of rage, Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved With dread of death to flight or foul retreat...
Page 50 - The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, Was of a mighty city — boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, Far sinking into splendor — without end ! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted...
Page 154 - Others more mild, Retreated in a silent valley, sing With notes angelical to many a harp Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall By doom of battle ; and complain that fate ' Free virtue should enthrall to force or chance.
Page 154 - Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views, At evening, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.

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