The Giant's Causeway: A Poem

Front Cover
J. Smith, 1811 - English poetry - 204 pages
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 150 - ... in their natural colours and proper actions, passing rapidly in succession along the surface of the sea during the whole of the short period of time while the above-mentioned causes remain.
Page 123 - But the labours of the Irish clergy were not confined to their own country. Their missionaries were sent to the continent. They converted heathens, they confirmed believers, they erected convents, they established schools of learning ; they taught the use of letters to the Saxons and Normans, they converted the Picts by the preaching of...
Page 190 - It affords no presumption against the reality of this process, that in respect of man, it is too slow to be immediately perceived. The utmost portion of it to which our experience can extend, is evanescent in comparison with the whole, and must be regarded as the momentary increment of a vast progression, circumscribed by no other limits than the duration of the world. TIME performs the office of integrating the infinitesimal parts of which this progression is made up ; it collects them into one...
Page 123 - The testimony of Bede is unquestionable, that about the middle of the seventh century, in the days of the venerable prelates, Finian and Colman, many nobles and other orders of, the Anglo-Saxons, retired from their own country into Ireland, either for instruction, or for an opportunity of living in monasteries of stricter discipline : and that the Scots (as he styles the Irish) maintained them, taught them, and furnished them with books, without fee or reward : " A most honourable testimony...
Page 163 - Tis lawful for the youth, derived from gods, To view the secrets of our deep abodes." At once she waved her hand on either side ; At once the ranks of swelling streams divide. Two rising heaps of liquid crystal stand, And leave a space betwixt of empty sand. Thus safe received, the downward track he treads, Which to his mother's watery palace leads.
Page 166 - With shouts the Trojans, rushing from afar, Proclaim their motions, and provoke the war: So when inclement winters vex the plain With piercing frosts, or thick-descending rain, To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly, With noise, and order, through the midway sky; To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring, And all the war descends upon the wing.
Page 188 - Swift as a swallow sweeps the liquid way, The winged pinnace shot along the sea. The god arrests her with a sudden stroke, And roots her down an everlasting rock.
Page 149 - ... on the sea of Reggio, and the bright surface of the water in the bay is not disturbed either by the wind or...
Page 8 - Dark o'er the foam-white waves The Giant's Pier the war of tempests braves, A far-projecting, firm basaltic way Of clustering columns wedged in dense array ; With skill so like, yet so surpassing art, With such design, so just in every part, That reason pauses, doubtful if it stand The work of mortal, or immortal, hand.
Page 131 - Three long pieces of rock set upright serve as a basis to a great flat stone, which forms the table of the altar. There is commonly a pretty large cavity under this altar, which might be intended to receive the blood of the victims; and they never fail to find stones for striking fire scattered round it i for no other fire, but such as was struck forth with a flint, was pure enough for so holy a purpose.

Bibliographic information