Lyrical Verse from Elizabeth to Victoria: Selected and Edited with Notes and Index

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Oswald Crawfurd
Chapman & Hall, 1896 - 449 pages

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Page 104 - It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make Man better be ; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere : A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night — It was the plant and flower of Light. In small proportions we just beauties see ; And in short measures life may perfect be.
Page 323 - Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
Page 101 - 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. "Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like season'd timber, never gives ; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then...
Page 356 - 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 : 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, — That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
Page 8 - L7EAR no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o' the great; Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak : The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more the...
Page 280 - REAPER Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass ! Reaping and singing by herself ; Stop here, or gently pass ! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain ; O listen ! for the vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.
Page 161 - Alas ! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse ? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair ? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days...
Page 24 - Who is Silvia ? what is she, That all our swains commend her ? Holy, fair, and wise is she, The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired' be. Is she kind as she is fair ? For beauty lives with kindness : Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness; And, being helped, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling ; She excels each mortal thing, Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring.
Page 150 - I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty, And glories of my King; When I shall voice aloud how good He is, how great should be, Enlarged winds, that curl the flood, Know no such liberty. Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.
Page 18 - Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never : Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny.

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