From Chaucer to Tennyson: With Twenty-nine Portraits and Selections from Thirty Authors

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Flood and Vincent, 1894 - 313 pages

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Page 272 - For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?
Page 270 - Heaven lies about us in our infancy. Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy; But he beholds the light and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy. The youth who daily farther from the East Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And, by the vision splendid, Is on his way attended. At length the man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day.
Page 253 - Peace to all such ! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne...
Page 259 - 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 247 - Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine...
Page 259 - His house was known to all the vagrant train, He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast...
Page 238 - Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty ; the mathematics subtile ; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Page 275 - Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand ? If such there breathe, go mark him well...
Page 260 - It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy.
Page 282 - And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war...

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