Essays and Reviews, Volume 2

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Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1861

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Page 31 - What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one (from whence they came) Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life...
Page 124 - Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me, Thou noteless blot on a remembered name! But be thyself, and know thyself to be!
Page 35 - I shall raise the despised head of poetry again, and stripping her out of those rotten and base rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be embraced and kist of all the great and master-spirits of our world.
Page 65 - Or painful to his slumbers: easy, light, And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, Pass by his troubled senses: sing his pain Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain. Into this prince, gently, oh gently slide; And kiss him into slumbers, like a bride.
Page 38 - Here she was wont to go ! and here ! and here ! Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow : The world may find the spring by following her, For other print her airy steps ne'er left. Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, Or shake the downy blowball from his stalk ! But like the soft west wind she shot along, And where she went the flowers took thickest root, As she had sowed them with her odorous foot.
Page 331 - ... off a great-coat, his only garment, at the same time swearing a great oath (for which he was rebuked by the passengers), " That he would rather ride in his shirt all his life than suffer a fellow-creature to lie in so miserable a condition.
Page 20 - Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, And every sweetness that inspir'd their hearts, Their minds, and muses on admired themes; If all the heavenly quintessence they still From their immortal flowers of poesy, Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit; If these had made one poem's period, And all combin'd in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, Which into words no virtue can digest.
Page 365 - And inland rests the green, warm dell ; The brook comes tinkling down its side ; From out the trees the Sabbath bell Rings cheerful, far and wide, Mingling its sound with bleatings of the flocks That feed about the vale among the rocks.
Page 24 - Tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide," supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you ; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country.
Page 56 - ... without flattery, the greatest monument of the scene that time and humanity have produced, and must live, not only the crown and sole reputation of our own, but the stain of all other nations and languages...

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