The English Poets: Ben Jonson to Dryden

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Macmillan, 1880
 

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Página 324 - 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...
Página 458 - A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long ; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Página 315 - And bring all heaven before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew, Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain.
Página 218 - The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things ; There is no armour against fate ; Death lays his icy hand on kings : Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Página 455 - A daring pilot in extremity, Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Página 312 - Gently o'er the accustomed oak : •Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy ! Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song ; And, missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way ; And oft, as if her head she bow'd, Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Página 301 - I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite ; nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame Memory and her siren daughters ; but by devout prayer to that eternal spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases...
Página 274 - Go, lovely Rose! Tell her, that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts, where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died.
Página 319 - Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment ? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence.
Página 479 - Flushed with a purple grace He shows his honest face: Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes. Bacchus ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain; Bacchus...

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