The English Poets: Ben Jonson to DrydenThomas Humphry Ward Macmillan, 1883 |
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Common terms and phrases
Absalom and Achitophel Æneid beauty Ben Jonson born breast breath bright Carew Castara Catullus Comus conceits Cowley Crashaw death delight divine dost doth Dryden earth EDMUND W English English poetry eternal eyes fair fame fancy fate fear fire flame flowers Giles Fletcher glory grace Habington hand happy hast hath heart heaven hell Herbert Herrick Hesperides hill honour Hudibras Inner Temple Jonson King kiss Lady light live Lord Lycidas Milton mind mistress Muse nature never night o'er Paradise Paradise Lost Paradise Regained passion Perilla pleasure poems poet poetic poetry praise rhyme rose sacred shade shepherds shine sigh sight sing sleep song sonnet soul spirit spring stars sweet tears thee thine things thought tree unto verse Waller wanton weep WILLIAM HABINGTON winds wings Wither write youth
Popular passages
Page 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.
Page 352 - Me miserable ! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair ? Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell ; And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide ; To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
Page 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.
Page 218 - Some men with swords may reap the field, And plant fresh laurels where they kill ; But their strong nerves at last must yield ; They tame but one another still : Early or late They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath, When they, poor captives, creep to death.
Page 337 - He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend Was moving toward the shore ; his ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind him cast. The broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
Page 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.
Page 178 - Why so pale and wan, fond lover? Prithee, why so pale? Will, when looking well can't move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee, why so pale?
Page 324 - 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.
Page 20 - Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. For though the poet's matter nature be, His art doth give the fashion; and, that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat Upon the Muses...
Page 454 - Of these the false Achitophel was first, A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfixed in principles and place, In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; A fiery soul, which working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.