The Works of the English Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, Volumes 3-5

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Samuel Johnson
C. Bathurst, 1779
 

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Page 67 - With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend.
Page 44 - Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. The stars, with deep amaze, Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their precious influence : And will not take their flight, For all the morning light, Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence ; But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
Page 104 - ... observe His providence; and on Him sole depend, Merciful over all His works, with good Still overcoming evil, and by small Accomplishing great things, by things...
Page 145 - Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer Right onward.
Page 122 - For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill. Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn...
Page 96 - Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude ; Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation, She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd. He that has light within his own clear breast, May sit i...
Page 68 - Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return From me, whom he created what I was In that bright eminence, and with his good Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
Page 123 - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days : But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise...
Page 244 - Thus saying, from her husband's hand her hand Soft she withdrew ; and like a wood-nymph light, Oread or Dryad, or of Delia's train, Betook her to the groves, but Delia's self In gait...
Page 68 - O thou that, with surpassing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion, like the god Of this new world, at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads, to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, 0 sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state 1 fell, how glorious once above thy sphere...

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