The works of the English poets. With prefaces, biographical and critical, by S. Johnson, Volume 12

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Page 163 - Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed. And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky...
Page 102 - Sometimes with secure delight The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth and many a maid, Dancing in the chequered shade, And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday, Till the livelong daylight fail...
Page 106 - Swinging slow with sullen roar; Or if the air will not permit, Some still removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom...
Page 181 - 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 160 - The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. It was that fatal and perfidious bark, Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Page 167 - Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May ; Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love ; O if Jove's will Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate...
Page 10 - Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree? The sun to me is dark And silent as the moon. When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Page 106 - But, first and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustomed oak.
Page 159 - 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 308 - But here the main skill and groundwork will be to temper them such lectures and explanations upon every opportunity as may lead and draw them in willing obedience; inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages...

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