From Chaucer to Tennyson: English Literature in Eight Chapters

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Chautauqua Press, 1890 - 302 pages

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Page 252 - For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still, While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.
Page 162 - Love had he found in huts where poor Men lie : His daily Teachers had been Woods and Rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
Page 260 - Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised...
Page 230 - Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested...
Page 254 - A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu ! But was it such ? — It was.— Where thou art gone, Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown: May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting word shall pass my lips no more ! Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, Oft gave me promise of thy quick return.
Page 227 - With a bare bodkin ? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of ? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...
Page 272 - There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! XXII.
Page 251 - At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
Page 239 - Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine...
Page 286 - Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going ! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

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