First flowers, by a literary amateur

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W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1825 - 271 pages

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Page 72 - He has visited all Europe, — not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples ; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art ; not to collect medals, or...
Page 73 - THE poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that exact standard. His «cffusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get (above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant 'water.
Page 71 - God! sing ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice ! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Page 71 - Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! 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 72 - ... temples, not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art, not to collect medals or collate manuscripts, — but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain, to take the...
Page 71 - Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! 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!
Page 67 - Surely everybody is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a winter fireside, — candles at four o'clock, warm hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without...
Page 81 - Let him for succour sue from place to place, Torn from his subjects, and his son's embrace. First let him see his friends in battle slain, And their untimely fate lament in vain ; And when at length the cruel war shall cease, On hard conditions may he buy his peace ; Nor let him then enjoy supreme command, But fall untimely by some hostile hand, And...
Page 248 - Go rule thy will, Bid thy wild passions all be still, Know God — and bring thy heart to know, The joys which from religion flow: Then every Grace shall prove its guest, And I'll be there to crown the rest.
Page 76 - Tis Flora's page: — In every place, In every season, fresh and fair, It opens with perennial grace, And blossoms everywhere. On waste and woodland, rock and plain, Its humble buds unheeded rise; The Rose has but a summer reign, — The Daisy never dies.

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