The Seasons: And The Castle of Indolence

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Clarendon Press, 1891 - Seasons - 436 pages
 

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Page 274 - And, when the Sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, Of Pine, or monumental Oak, Where the rude Axe with heaved stroke Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt, Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
Page 214 - I care not, Fortune, what you me deny : You cannot rob me of free nature's grace ; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face ; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living stream at eve : Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave : Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
Page 377 - THREE Poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed; The next in majesty •, In both the last. The force of Nature could no further go ; To make a third, she joined the former two.
Page 186 - tis nought to me: Since GOD is ever present, ever felt, In the void waste as in the city full; And where he vital breathes there must be joy.
Page 249 - Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine, Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound...
Page 260 - Stand, never overlooked, our favourite elms, That screen the herdsman's solitary hut ; While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, The sloping land recedes into the clouds ; Displaying on its varied side the grace Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower, Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells Just undulates upon the listening ear ; Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote.
Page 183 - THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these, Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; And every sense, and every heart, is joy.
Page 329 - Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast ; Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face; That makes simplicity a grace ; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free : Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Than all the adulteries of art ; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Page 62 - Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot, To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, To breathe the' enlivening spirit, and to fix The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Page 185 - As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams; Ye constellations, while your angels strike, Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. Great source of day ! best image here below Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide, From world to world, the vital ocean round, On nature write with every beam his praise.

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