Imagination and Fancy: Or, Selections from the English Poets, Illustrative of Those First Requisites of Their Art; with Markings of the Best Passages, Critical Notices of the Writers, and an Essay in Answer to the Question, "What is Poetry?"

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Wiley and Putnam, 1845 - English poetry - 255 pages
 

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Page 221 - Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear: If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, • Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
Page 195 - Through the dear might of Him that wallfd the waves : Where, other groves and other streams along, With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, And hears the unexpressive nuptial song In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. There entertain him all the saints above, In solemn troops and sweet societies, That sing, and, singing, in their glory move, And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Page 188 - Hermes, or unsphere The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds or what vast regions hold The immortal mind, that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook: And of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground, Whose power hath a true consent With planet, or with element. Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In scepter'd pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine ; Or what (though rare) of later age Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.
Page 220 - What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields or waves or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be; Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee; Thou lovest — but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Page 123 - That very time I saw (but thou couldst not), Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd : a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts : But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Page 254 - 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...
Page 178 - The other shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either: black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell, And shook a dreadful dart ; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Page 252 - MY HEART aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk...
Page 243 - They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall; Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide; Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl, With a huge empty flagon by his side: The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide, But his sagacious eye an inmate owns: By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:— The chains lie silent on the footworn stones ;— The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans. XLII. And they are gone: ay, ages long ago These lovers fled away into the storm.
Page 193 - Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old bards, the famous druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream-- Ay me! I fondly dream, Had ye been there; for what could that have done?

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