Biographia Literaria; Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, Volume 2

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W. Pickering, 1847 - Criticism - 804 pages
 

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Page 588 - 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 490 - At her feet he bowed he fell, he lay down at her feet he bowed, he fell where he bowed, there he fell down dead...
Page 587 - Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise...
Page 451 - What is poetry? — is so nearly the same question with, what is a poet? — that the answer to the one is involved in the solution of the other.
Page 576 - The blackbird in the summer trees, The lark upon the hill, Let loose their carols when they please, Are quiet when they will. "With Nature never do they wage A foolish strife : they see A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free...
Page 524 - Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night ; For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye : Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box, where sweets compacted lie : My music shows, ye have your closes, And all must die.
Page 586 - Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially — beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked With unrejoicing berries — ghostly Shapes May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton And Time the Shadow ; — there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered o'er With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, United worship ; or in mute repose To lie, and listen to the mountain flood...
Page 481 - He had so often climbed ; which had impressed So many incidents upon his mind Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear ; Which, like a book, preserved the memory Of the dumb animals, whom he had saved, Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts The certainty of honourable gain ; Those fields, those hills, what could they less?
Page 451 - The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power, to which I would exclusively appropriate the name of imagination.
Page 578 - O lyric song, there will be few, think I, Who may thy import understand aright : Thou art for them so arduous and so high ! ' But the Ode was intended for such readers only as had been accustomed to watch the flux and reflux of their inmost nature, to venture at times into the twilight realms of consciousness, and to feel a deep interest in modes of inmost being, to which they know that the attributes of time and space are inapplicable and alien, but which yet cannot be conveyed, save in symbols...

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