The birds of Shakespeare: critically examined, explained, and illustrated

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John Van Voorst, 1871 - 321 pages

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Page 3 - What have we here ? a man or a fish ? dead or alive ? A fish : he smells like a fish ; a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor-John.
Page 8 - My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew"d, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; Crook-kneed and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls ; Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly : Judge when you hear.
Page 10 - To-day, my lord of Amiens and myself Did steal behind him, as he lay along Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood...
Page 135 - Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; A privacy of glorious light is thine; Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine; Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home...
Page 143 - The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attended ; and, I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren.
Page 95 - When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall And milk comes frozen home in pail...
Page 168 - Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day ; and at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine : and of the truth herein This present object made probation.
Page 18 - Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ; Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ; Which pillage they with merry march bring...
Page 19 - Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ; Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor : Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold ; The civil citizens kneading up the honey ; The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone.
Page 132 - Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes: With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise: Arise, arise.

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