The Debt of Civilization to Literature: An Address Delivered at the Annual Commencement of the University of Michigan, Thursday, June 28, 1883

Front Cover
Board of regents, 1883 - Baccalaureate addresses - 29 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 10 - Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific— and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Page 24 - Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
Page 23 - Yea, every thing that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.
Page 28 - The word of the Lord by night To the watching Pilgrims came, As they sat by the seaside, And filled their hearts with flame. God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor. Think ye I made this ball A field of havoc and war, Where tyrants great and tyrants small Might harry the weak and poor?
Page 29 - ... shame; Nevada! coin thy golden crags With Freedom's image and name. Up! and the dusky race That sat in darkness long,-- Be swift their feet as antelopes. And as behemoth strong. Come, East and West and North, By races, as snow-flakes, And carry my purpose forth, Which neither halts nor shakes. My will fulfilled shall be, For, in daylight or in dark, My thunderbolt has eyes to see His way home to the mark.
Page 23 - Woods ! that listen to the night-birds' singing, Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging, Have made a solemn music of the wind ! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod...
Page 29 - Pay ransom to the owner And fill the bag to the brim. Who is the owner ? The slave is owner, And ever was. Pay him.
Page 15 - The general end therefore of all the book is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline...
Page 25 - Are higher rank than a' that. Then let us pray that come it may — As come it will for a' that — That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, and a' that ; For a
Page 20 - ... the first predecessors of the pamphlets of Milton and of Burke. Rough as they are, they express clearly enough the mingled passions which met in the revolt of the peasants ; their longing for a right rule, for plain and simple justice; their scorn of the immorality of the nobles and the infamy of the court ; their resentment at the perversion of the law to the cause of oppression.

Bibliographic information