Essays and Reviews, Volume 2

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Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1853

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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 93 - Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal ' fraction of a Product, produce it in God's name! 'Tis ' the utmost thou hast in thee ; out with it then. Up, ' up ! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with ' thy whole might. Work while it is called To-day, for ' the Night enmeth wherein no man can work.
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 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 20 - If all the pens that ever poets held Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, And every sweetness that inspired 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 combined in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least,...
Page 65 - Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince. Fall like a cloud In gentle showers: give nothing that is loud Or painful to his slumbers: easy, sweet, 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 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 274 - I've bought the best champagne from Brooks. From liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit, and a distant bill. Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid.
Page 43 - On pain of death, let no man name death to me: It is a word infinitely terrible.
Page 53 - Now for a welcome Able to draw men's envies upon man : A kiss now that will hang upon my lip, As sweet as morning dew upon a rose, And full as long...

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