Familiar Talks on English Literature: A Manual Embracing the Great Epochs of English Literature, from the English Conquest of Britain, 449, to the Death of Walter Scott, 1832

Front Cover
Jansen, McClurg, 1884 - 454 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 148 - This fortress, built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war ; This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands ; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England...
Page 206 - Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song...
Page 199 - Where the great sun begins his state, Robed in flames, and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the ploughman near at hand Whistles o'er the furrowed land, And the milkmaid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Page 339 - Heaven lies about us in our infancy. Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy; But he beholds the light and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy. The youth who daily farther from the East Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And, by the vision splendid, Is on his way attended. At length the man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day.
Page 217 - Now strike the golden lyre again: A louder yet, and yet a louder strain ! Break his bands of sleep asunder And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. Hark, hark ! the horrid sound Has raised up his head : As awaked from the dead, And amazed he stares around. Revenge, revenge...
Page 339 - High instincts, before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised : But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing...
Page 188 - 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 338 - Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men. Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Page 201 - And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus...
Page 362 - And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Bibliographic information