The Friend: A Series of Essays, Volume 1

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Gale and Curtis, 1812 - 448 pages
 

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Page 172 - Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form, Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines How silently ! Around thee and above, Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black — An ebon mass. Methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge ! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity!
Page 131 - And, hark what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Page 55 - Even so doth God protect us if we be Virtuous and wise. Winds blow, and waters roll, Strength to the brave, and power, and deity, Yet in themselves are nothing...
Page 299 - Wisdom and Spirit of the universe ! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul ; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things — With life and nature — purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both...
Page 61 - Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
Page 174 - Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? GOD! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, GOD!
Page 174 - Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile...
Page 130 - Though equal to all things, for all things unfit ; Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit, For a patriot too cool, for a drudge disobedient, And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.
Page 71 - Little prevails, or rather seems a tune Harsh and of dissonant mood from his complaint, Unless he feel within Some source of consolation from above, Secret refreshings, that repair his strength, And fainting spirits uphold.
Page 76 - Truths of all others the most awful and mysterious, yet being at the same time of universal interest, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the life and efficiency of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.

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