Class-book of English Poetry

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T. Nelson and Sons, 1866 - 155 pages

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Page 153 - And nothing can we call our own but death ; And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
Page 132 - I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams ; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.
Page 38 - THE shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior ! His brow was sad ; his eye beneath, Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, And like a silver clarion rung The accents of that unknown tongue, Excelsior!
Page 153 - All murder'd : for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp...
Page 132 - The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast ; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Page 154 - It must be so ; Plato, thou reasonest well; Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us ; 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man.
Page 121 - O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ; And save his good broad-sword he weapon had none, He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
Page 95 - The spirits of your fathers Shall start from every wave ! — For the deck it was their field of fame, And Ocean was their grave...
Page 132 - I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
Page 39 - The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands ; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. His hair is crisp, and black, and long, His face is like the tan ; His brow is wet with honest sweat, He earns whate'er he can, And looks the whole world in the face, For he owes not any man.

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